Azim Premji's lessons learnt

Here are the few lessons learnt by the richest Indian Mr. Azim Premji in his life. I was in Wipro for 6 months from July 2003 to Dec 2003 because of which I have some kind of attachment towards Wipro 'n its chairman.

The lessons :

o Believe and Begin with your strengths
o A rupee earned is of far more value than five found.
o Learn from your failure
o Realise the importance of humility
o Strive for excellence
o Never give up in the face of adversity
o Keep open to changes, but do not compromise on values
o Have faith in your ideas

These are the pearls of wisdom ... coming from such distinguished 'n accomplished gentleman.
As i look at my life .. i feel i have a long way to go before i realise the true value of these lessons....

Source : Premji's lessons

Should companies favour fresh grads or experience people

I came across an article in economic times addressing the issue of experience over a fresher. THe key spokesperson in the article is one Mr.Peter Lorange, president of IMD, one of the world's leading business schools.

Here he talks about pros with experience as "growth sponsors", they are the ones on which the company should bank on future growth instead of the fresh talent with an MBA degree. I don't subscribe to this view entirely and nonetheless i am not contradicting it too. Fresh talent will be "growth sponsors" too, with their new ideas, their passion for work, the drive to do things differently will do a lot good to the company for its future growth.

The experience people do have certain pluses to their credit : their understanding of the market a nd the thing between their ears will be more mature will help the company in a different way.

In conclusion, I feel that depending on the circumstances the company should go for freshers or retain the experience pros. Both have their own pluses 'n minuses, there should be an healthy mix of both of them for the company to see a more 'n more positive slope in its growth curve.

Source : Business guru favours experience over MBA

Silicon Silicon all the way!!!

As I work in a semiconductor industry a posting on Silicon...

Every1 has heard of ICs - those small 'things' in any electronic gadget. Those who are informed know that these ICs are made up of silicon - the semiconductor material.

The company i work for, works on cutting edge technology , striving hard to meet the unproven but globally accepted Moore'slaw - the no. of transistors integrated in a given area will double every eighteen months. Even I play a simple role in achieving the inevitable.

One fine day when i was contemplating about my future, my roadmap in the company , my career I stumbled across this thought :
Since we are actually shrinking the silicon every 18 yrs ( 65 nm as of now), what will happen once we hit the physical limit of silicon.

The IT revolution is not going to come to end just because we have hit the silicon limit, IT has grown beyond that.I checked this with my superviser too who hadnot thought about it. After questioning other ppl i finally found solace in Google. When I googled this is what i found.

There are lots of research happening to find the next bext thing once the limit is reached. The two most important ones are :

o Optical computing.
Using light to process the data, as of now we use light to carry data, using the interference property of light we can build logic circuits. Check the link at the bottom of the page.

o Quantum Computing.
Using atom as the storing element. If an Electron in an atom is in a energised state, it is logic 1 and the stable atom is logic zero. If this materialises it will be a quantum leap in the area of computing since photons are faster than electrons and the volume of storage will be gigantic.

The research is goin on in both the areas, but nothing concrete yet. But things look very bright in the future.

Source : Silicon

Google Google all the way

Wht follows Google ???

Oogle , Gaggle, Moogle, Frugle, Poogle, Smeagle.
and many more..

One of the best links I have seen on the web yet - Very creative !

wikipedia on RD

I have been reading Reader's digest since ages, always felt RD always had something new and useful, till i came across this article published by wikipedia. It tells about a pattern which i had missed all these days and about the narrating style of the few articles. Over all its an interesting read, even if you don't subscribbe to the view expressed.

Despite its old-fashioned image, Reader's Digest is regarded as one of the most professionally made magazines in the world. Articles are edited for authenticity and controlled by an elaborate editorial hierarchy to ensure that the final product is integrated into the Reader's Digest discourse. This discourse is highly homogeneous, and articulates a very specific set of conservative values, some of which are important aspects of the dominant representation of American society.

This political stance is considered so pronounced that the University of Guelph stated publicly that they carry the magazine only as an example of propaganda. Secondly, this model is introduced all over the world, but without being presented as "American". The local Reader's Digest editions quite consistently attempt to create ambiguity about the American, international or local character of the magazine.

Every issue has the same structure. There is, for instance, always one survival story (called "Drama in Real Life"), at least one individual achievement story, a medical article, several moralizing stories on human relations, several articles with practical advice, and some politically inspired stories in which bureaucracy, crime, radical ideologies and other behavior inconsistent with the dominant ideology of the magazine are exposed.

The internal structure of articles also corresponds to an elaborate and fixed model. The survival stories, for instance, have a blurb presenting the drama in medias res, then return in time with an elaborate description of the initial situation. Rescue doesn't come at the very last paragraph: there is always time to restore the initial peace and formulate a lesson. The last sentences often thanks the Lord or mention the medals awarded by the story's heroes.

The Digest features three types of texts. A first group are the articles condensed from other magazines. Both their selection and condensation are done by two independently working editors, checked by a third, and approved or corrected by at least two senior editors. The same goes for articles written exclusively for the Digest: authors are asked to write articles of normal length, which then pass through the same condensation and editing procedures as other articles.

Finally, the Reader's Digest has a policy of what is called "planting" articles. It commissions articles it would like to reprint, donates them for free to other magazines for integral publication, and then publishes a condensed version. This practice of "pseudo-reprint" makes it possible to "innocentize" messages by attributing them to another instance.

Although for decades the condensations from other magazines constitute not more than 30-40 % of the editorial pages, the Digest continues to present itself as a reprint magazine, as an overview of journalistic discourse in the United States and abroad.

[edit]

World view

The following are some of the basic values founding the discourse of the Reader's Digest.

• Individual achievement. Digest characters are always struggling, against bad luck, against systems and regulations, against diseases, and their only weapons are their own courage, cooperation between individuals, and an occasional helping hand of God.

• Optimism. Most Digest stories have happy ends. There is only one other case: the article may acknowledge in the end that there are still many difficulties to overcome, and give advice.

• Moral conservatism. Though the Digest has from the beginning written very openly on sexuality, it has always been emphatically in favor of traditional marriage, loyalty to your country, discipline and charity, and against feminism, free sex, positive discrimination.

• Free market economy. In almost every issue, the magazine fights taxes, government regulations, budget deficits, labor unions, and for many decades the Communist system. All these ideologemes fit into a rather elaborate and consciously reproduced doctrine.

source Wikipedia

The best of 2004

Ever wondered whats the best that happened to you in a period of time.

Well I can't list the best things that happened to you, but here is a list of the best of 2004.

Believe it or not, BLOG is the #1 word of the year.

2004 : The Spirit of Time

This slideshow by GOOGLE on the events of 2004 is simply awesome.

Check it out

Tsunami .......

The word Tsunami will mean different to the people who stay on the coasts of south Asia and East Africa. Tsunami created havoc on the lives of the people both coastal and the terrain denizens.

Walking down my memory lane, I had first come across the word tsunami in my High school geography text, well I believe that neither my friends nor the people who studied that text would have imagined tsunami to be like this, forget the damages and the lives it would have taken. But its very sad that tsunami has made its presence felt with such a high death toll.

May the souls of those perished rest in peace and my heart felt condolences to the bereaved families. My thoughts are with them.

Here is a link to relief agency websites.