quite some time

Moms are the greatest

2012-01-23T20:23:00.001+05:30

Well something which we all know but wanted to share again..... Mom just know what is going wrong with you and have this uncanny ability to find a solution about it!!!! Miss my mom....

Persian carpets

2012-01-23T04:50:00.001+05:30

Glorious and beautiful.... Wish I can own one of them...

आखिरी पड़ाव

2011-07-28T03:07:00.000+05:30

आखिरी पड़ाव

वक़्त का तकाजा हैं, ज़रा गौर करना
उम्र का पड़ाव हैं, ज़रा संभल कर चलना

बचपन के खेल कब यादें बन गए, पता न चला
वोह आदतें, वोह पहनावें कब किस्से बन गए, कुछ पता न चला

पुराने कस्बे और उनकी गलियों की आवाज़
कब शहर के शोर में बदल गयी, पता न चला
वोह काले बाल और चमकीले आखें
कब रंग बदल गयी, कुछ पता न चला

लफ़्ज़ों का तानाबाना कब सिलसिले बन गए, पता न चला
घर में रहते हुए भी हम आज मुसाफिर बन गए, कुछ पता न चला

आज वक़्त नाराज़ हैं, कुछ कहने को बेताब हैं
पर उम्र का आखिरी पड़ाव हैं, शायद संभल कर न चल सके

yaar

2011-07-25T03:03:00.000+05:30

तेज धुप और वोह चमकता सूरज
मई की गर्मी और फर्शी की तपश
स्कूल की छुट्टी और आँगन का खेल
उस कल की याद और यादों का मेल

बहुत सोचा पर याद न आया उसका नाम
वोह मेरा साथी और मेरा यार, आज हो गया बेनाम

छुपम छुपाई हो या हो लगोरी
क्रिकेट की वोह टीम या हो भागमभाग
दाम देने के हो बारी
को कर लेते हम वोह बाँट

बहुत की हमने कैरी की चोरी
पडोसी हो या आंटी, कभी होते हम न सॉरी
पत्थर, डंडा और पेड़ पर चढाई
उस कैरी की लिए हमने की बड़ी लड़ाई

आज सिर्फ वोह यादें ही बाकी हैं
उस यार का नाम तो नहीं
पर शायद यारी बाकी हैं

Untitled

2011-06-21T03:47:00.000+05:30

वक़्त की उस लय पर चल रहीं हूँ, जहाँ खुद की परछाई से डर लगता हैं
आगे बढ तो रहीं हूँ पर, पीछे देखने पर डर लगता हैं

आसमान की उचाईयों से गिरने के दर्द से ज्यादा
आज मुझे उस खूबसूरत ख़ुशी से डर लगता हैं

कहते हैं की हर चीज़ का वक़्त होता हैं, जिसकी किस्मत में हो वही मिलता हैं
आज वही वक़्त और अपनी किस्मत से डर लगता हैं

लय पर तो चल रही हूँ, पर अपनी चाल पर डर लगता हैं.........

My favourite song these days

2011-01-26T00:58:00.001+05:30

natkhat natkhat jamuna ke tatt par,
kuch to churaye haye maiyya
dil churaye neend churaye chain churaye haye maiyya
kaise main jaaun ghar apne sab laaj sharam main chhodi re
kaise kahun kis natkhat ne kiya maakhan chori re..

maiyya yashoda mori gagri se jamuna ke pul par maakhan haan koi, re maakhan chura le gaya
ho maiyya yashoda kaise jaaun ghar jamuna ke pul par maakhan haan koi, re maakhan chura le gaya
mori baanh modi, natkhat re,
kare dil ko jodi, natkhat re,
mori gagri phooti, natkhat re,
main bojh se chhooti, natkhat re,
mori thaame kalai us kinare le gaya

maiya yashoda sach kehta hoon main jamuna ke pul par maakhan ki gagri se maakhan bachane gaya
haan maiya yashoda mori gagri se jamuna ke pul par maakhan haan koi, re maakhan chura le gaya

ho suna tha ik din maine jamuna tat par chalte chalte
kisi gopi ko baith akele rote raina dhalte
maine socha ke meri maiyya se main kya bolunga
kahe na roka us roti goriya ke dil ko jalte
haan maakhan to churaya
par usko bhi sikhaya
ke tu bhi to thoda sa chakh le bhai..

ho maayi hum dono phir jahan baithe us jamuna ke pul par maakhan hum mil ke re maakhan chata ho gaya
ooo.. maiyya yashoda mori gagri se jamuna ke pul par maakhan haan koi, re maakhan chura leyy gaya

mahi mohe laaj aave kaahe main ro-ro karti thi
koi maakhan chori main baith ke bas aahen bharti thi,
phir tere natkhat ne ek din mohe ye raaz bataya
ho phir tere natkhat ne ek din mohe ye raaz bataya
jo maakhan jam ke khaye to kya koi churaye
to chakh le aur chakha le thoda maayi
o maayi tore matkhat ko maine hi jamuna ke pul par maakhan khilaya, re maakhan mera ho gaya
maiyya yashoda sach kehta hoon main jamna ke pul par maakhan haan gori ko maakhan khilane gaya..

natkhat natkhat jamuna ke tatt par,
kuchh to churaye haye maiyya
dil churaye neend churaye chain churaye haye maiyya
kaise main jaaun ghar apne sab laaj sharam main chhodi re
kaise kahun kis natkhat ne kiya maakhan chori re..

ooo mayya yashoda, ho mayya yashoda
hooo mayya yashoda mori mayya yashoda mori
maiyya yashoda sach kehta hoon main jamuna ke pul par maakhan ki gagri se maakhan bachane gaya
natkhat natkhat jamuna ke tatt par, ho maiyya yashoda,
natkhat natkhat jamuna ke tatt par, ho maiyya yashoda,
natkhat natkhat jamuna ke tatt par,
kuch to churaye haye maiyya
dil churaye neend churaye chain churaye haye maiyya
kaise main jaaun ghar apne sab laaj sharam main chhodi re
kaise kahun kis natkhat ne kiya maakhan chori re..

Top trends for Customer Experience 2011

2011-01-19T18:17:00.000+05:30

From

http://experiencematters.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/8-customer-experience-trends-for-2011/

It’s the time of year when prognosticators drag out their crystal balls and divine about next year. Well, I’m not too different. But instead of a crystal ball, I’ll tap into the 8 customer experience megatrends that I outlined earlier this year. They remain the key trends that I think we’ll see in 2011.

Here are the 8 megatrends along with my thoughts about how they’ll play out in 2011:

1. Customer Insight Propagation. Most decisions in companies are made without any real customer insight. Companies will increasingly recognize that they need to integrate a deeper understanding of their customers throughout their company. That’s why Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs represent one of the most popular customer experience efforts. A new cadre of vendors are making it easier to collect, analyze, and share customer information broadly across just about any organization.

2011: I’ve written a lot about VoC programs this year. Companies are beginning to figure out how to better use the insights and an emerging set of vendors have deployedcustomer insight and action (CIA) Platforms that can help considerably. But there’s still a long way to go. In the research report The State Of Voice Of The Customer Programs, we found that only 1% of large companies are “Transformers,” which is the highest level of maturity. In 2011, I expect to see many companies move up on the VoC maturity scale as this continues to be an increasing area of focus next year. Don’t be surprised to see CRM players like Oracle and SAP acquire some of the CIA vendors.

2. Unstructured Data Appreciation. Deep feelings that customers have about a company often get truncated into a 5-point, 7-point, or even 11-point multiple choice scales; making it difficult to understand “why” things are happening. New text analytics applications can quickly process thousands of pieces of unstructured data and discern what’s making customers happy or what’s making them upset; pushing a dramatic rise in companies analyzing rich unstructured data like comments on surveys, call center verbatims, or social media discussions.

2011: As I said in a blog post earlier this year, it’s time for text analytics. I’m working with many companies on strategies for getting deeper customer insights and just about all of them involve a component of text analytics. In 2011, I expect there to be twice as many text analytics pilots as in 2010 and a lot of companies touting success stories at conferences. I expect IBM to make a big push in this area next year with SPSS and I would not be surprised to see Big Blue acquire either Clarabridge or Attensity.

3. Customer Service Rejuvenation As companies do touchpoint analyses and customer journey maps, they often find that customer service is a key “moment of truth” for customers. Unfortunately, the cost-cutting in this area over the last several years has created many poor experiences. Companies are recognizing that poor customer service is creating a very negative perception of their brand and will increasingly make investments to improve these experiences.

2011: During customer service week in October, I discussed how companies sometimes seem to care more about saving $1.50 in transaction costs than they care about $60 worth of business. But, I am seeing some changes. I’ve actually been working with a number of contact centers that are transforming the service they deliver. In 2011, I expect to see more contact centers drop average handle time (AHT) as a core metric and revamp quality measures based on customer feedback.

4. Loyalty Intensification. Over the last several years, many executives have realized that shareholder value is not an objective; it’s actually the outcome of building stronger customer loyalty. As companies starts using measures like Net Promoter Scores (NPS) to track loyalty, more firms will elevate these metrics to their executive dashboard; pushing companies to think and act more strategically about loyalty.

2011: Many companies are developing loyalty metrics and infusing them into their management dashboards. We found that 45% of companies tie compensation to some customer feedback metrics, but don’t push too hard, too early with compensation. We also found that only 25% of respondents think their senior executives are willing to trade-off short-term financial results for longer-term loyalty. In 2011, it will become much more common for companies to balance loyalty metrics with financial ones. And many companies will evolve beyond fixing problems that cause dissatisfaction and start designing experiences that inspire advocates.

5. Interaction iPod-ization. QWERTY keyboards help make PCs so universal. But a keyboard-based QWERTY device is not the ideal interface for the next generation of digital devices. Fortunately, Apple’s iPod (and iPhones, iPads) are doing the same thing that QWERTY did over 100 years ago, teaching myriads of people how to interact with a touch-screen. As a result, a new wave of touch-pad based applications will emerge.

2011: Add Nooks, Android, and Windows Phone to the list of devices that will be teaching people how to touch, drag, shake, pinch, and tap to get what they need. In 2011, Mainstream PCs with a keyboard and mouse will seem even more like relics’ as people increasingly transition to iPad (and iPad-like) devices. I also expect to see more voice interfaces emerge.

6. Social Media Assimilation. Social media is a hot topic. But Social Media is not really a new thing for companies; it represents just another interaction channel with customers. Companies will increasingly fold Social Media activities into the core activities of the company; especially within customer service.

2011: I created a term called “Social Schizophrenia“ which describes companies that provide levels of service in social media that differ significantly from service levels in other channels. That still describes a lot of companies. In 2011, focus on social media will continue to grow but I expect much more mature approaches as the tools and processes are evolving.

7. Digital/Physical Integration. Consumers increasingly go online with their cell phones while they are doing activities like walking through a mall or eating at a restaurant. At the same time, iPhones have introduced consumers to the notion of task-specific application downloads. In this environment, companies can no longer think about online as a separate and distinct channel. They will start designing more experiences that blend together online and offline interactions.

2011: Mobile applications will increasingly take advantage of location-awareness to provide services and capabilities that are specific to the store, restaurant, hotel, ball park, intersection, or wherever you are. In 2011, we’ll also see more adoption of recognition-based services like Shop Savvy that can scan barcodes and Google Goggles that recognizes landmarks, text — pretty much anything you can take a picture of with your phone. Given the capabilities, I think we’ll see a bunch of integrated digital/physical offerings in the second half of the year.

8. Cultural Renovation. Companies are increasingly recognizing that “unengaged employees can’t create engaged customers” which is one of my “6 Laws Of Customer Experience.” That’s why many firms are starting to focus on the culture of their firms; trying to align employees with the vision, mission, and brand of the company. Cultural change takes several years to take hold; so significant changes won’t show up in companies immediately. But when change happens, it will very difficult for competitors to replicate.

2011: It’s great to see many executives ask for help building a customer-centric culture. I often compare customer experience to quality, which is captured in my manifesto: Great Customer Experience Is Free. I also like usurping this quote from the quality movement: “Great customer experience is the result of a carefully constructed cultural environment. It has to be the fabric of the organization, not part of the fabric.” We gauge customer-centric culture with Temkin Group’s Four Customer Experience Core Competencies. Our assessment of 144 large firms showed that only 3% are customer-centric. In 2011, I expect many companies to put in place the foundations for improving their customer-centricity while a few will revert back to their old ways; this stuff is not easy.

Icy cold

2010-12-08T18:57:00.003+05:30

Been facing some really chilly winter this time in UK. The temperature is sizzling at -4 everyday and the sun is a mere bleak of yellow dot above the horizon. I never liked cold and can't bear the low temperatures very well...and this time of the year is a maniac for me. the cold snap started two weeks ago and for full three days I was snow locked inside the house. thank god for the flexibility of working from home otherwise I would have been stuck in cold for hours.

Last week took a bus from Leeds office to home in moortown which usually takes 1 hours 15 minutes door to door. the snow started falling and suddenly infront of my eyes the roads were jammed with vehicles. Everyone wanted to get home that day and everyone had cars...so everyone came on the road and then the snow added the icing on the jam cake.....i was stuck in the bus for three hours from Leeds city centre to Moortown. From my office in Armley to Leeds city centre, it took me 2 hours......I was cold, tired, frustrated and numb....didn't even have the energy to curse someone.

I came across stranded vehicles, bus driver kindness, moaning, snowfall all in one journey. When the snow falls, it has the ability to make everything white and fluffy and snowy...of course snowy because its snow but then its just beautiful....totally breathtaking and serene. We had some days in Leeds when it was snowing and the sun was shining as well....the entire set up looked like that of a film set.....very fairy tale version of things.....

I recently learned how to protect your self from the bitter cold, thanks to one of the colleagues in the offices. She suggested to wrap myself in three layers at least and get some mandatory thermals which I promptly did. Thank god I did....as they really work wonders. I am now eyeing some ski wear which I can get during the Christmas sales which will protect me further from the cold.

On one of the snowy evenings, we had some mandatory shopping to do and we car pooled with our friends and elderly neighbour to go shopping together. It was a fun ride....My neighbour kept us entertained and friends got a ride to the supermarket in the car. They were very sweet to treate us with Gujarati food when we returned from the shopping.

Christmas time is excellent time to do some window shopping. I love the decorations and the festivity around shops and people. The entire country is like a christmas gift. There are new menus in the restaurants, new collection, lovely and colourful gift sets and wrapping papers, beautiful baubles and decorations...totally and completely christmasy...... Though I will be spending the Christmas in Jaipur, India I will definitely miss the charm of Christmas in UK.

Lost my purse

2010-10-30T01:59:00.002+05:30

It happens with everyone and it happens when you don't want it to happen. It was the most embarrassing moments of my life. Not that losing one's purse can be embarrassing but it became one as I was the one who had invited my friend for drinks and after having a bottle of wine with him, when the time came for me to purchase another wine bottle, I discovered my purse was gone.

GONE and wiped away clean from my handbag!!! How sad it can get. When you are already high on a bottle of red wine, senses do play a trick on you. And nevertheless to say it heightened the guilt feeling of not being able to treat friends and on top of it losing all credit cards and cash in one GO!! How can I be sooo irresponsible!!

But it happened, so it happened. I had rushed out of office that evening so as to spend time chit chatting with friends and was too much in my own euphoria to think about practicalities of London city. Being carefree has its own perils and one of them I realized is that you become detached from the mean things in life and you feel the world as a rosy place which is reality is never so rosy as imagined.

Newys...the evening was superbly fine and I was thoroughly enjoying the evening, company and the wine. Only when it came to the realization that the purse has been lost, suddenly all senses came crashing into reality. My credit cards were there in my purse along with some bits and bobs of paper and some bills which I usually treasure for keepsake.

The evening I believe would have taking a very different turn had it not been for my lost purse. In a way I am thankful that I lost the purse in the first go. newys...thought of writing some more stuff...but not now..will continue sometime again...

To my mom

2010-08-24T19:36:00.001+05:30

I have been sick lately...nothing much just a heavy case of Viral which took me spiraling on the thermometer and on the medicine scale. Lying down and thinking into the void, the mind definitely plays tricks on you and sometimes these tricks are worthwhile.

So I was thinking of the times that I was sick and what all happened..I started analyzing the people around me and whom I miss the most in my crisis moment and nevertheless to say its my MOM that keep coming up as the top notch.

My mom: One of the persons I would love to be like. I always considered having slightly skewed and different ambitions. I never followed a straight road and any of the conventions put around me. I remember my mom having a last say in whatever I did and however I fared. She was and still is my constant supporter in whatever I do and even don't do.

Conspiracies are everyone's part of life. It may be a funny and pleasant surprise or it may be some back biting and girlie bitching about things and stuff. I am sure all girls will understand what I am trying to say here. So Mom had always those hearing ears for me..Always. Even though she is a busy women maintaining a Doctor's job in a very busy speciality and then maintaining a huge family but she always heard me and yes I always got a reply or advice on what I had said.

When I was sick she is the one I want to be around me and still its the same case. This time when I am sick she is the one I am missing the most and I have this constant images playing up infront of me. She bringing me medicines and making me take it, she making some lovely soups and hot food which is comforting to my throat, she coaxing me to get out of bed and take a short stroll, she putting me in bed and making sure I had a clove for my sour throat. I had fallen very sick when I was in NID and I remember she called each and every friend of mine and made them get the medicines for me and then checked with me regularly every two hours. She had also booked the train tickets to come to me if I was not able to fly home because of my condition. So thats what a Mom is all about and my mom is just that.

Mom taught me how to be resilient and how to work assiduously for a goal. She is one person who never taught me to say no or It can't be done. I remember that the lows that I had during numerous times of my life, the heartbreaks and those tears, she was and still is the one to comfort me and then make me look at the brighter side of things. Her best thing to say is, Try it once and try it now. If it doesn;t work then there is something else that you can try. She taught me to look into future head on and don't worry about the past.

We all had a way of dealing with things and my mom finds that being funny can have its own advantages. Keeping a lighter moment in the moment of great crisis is irony but it brings the solution and makes you less tense. I am still learning it and learning it the harder way but she makes a nice laughable case of things and suddenly things are rosy and beautiful.

Teaching in every aspects of life has been her passion and with her i learnt the challenges a person, a female faces. The phases which we all go through and how we feel , how we love and how we hate. This too shall pass has been a mantra and there will be light at the end of the tunnel has been installed in me by her.

Her days still go with heavy work load and lots of house work but everyday she makes it a point to call her mom and her sisters up to talk and share some titbits. She also makes it a point to talk to her son and daughter once a day as both of us live away. And here I am sometimes I am busy or forget the time and then I don't call her..how selfish children can be....but Consistency is what she has and she sticks to it.

Thanks for the wonderful things you have been teaching me mom and things that you taught me earlier. Trust me everyday is the day that I miss you and every hour or so I try to think like you.

Isle of SKYE

2010-06-11T12:29:00.006+05:30

pachees saal hue

2010-06-07T20:50:00.001+05:30

someone told me today that I should write again....well I dont know what kept me back but now the chronicles of life and perspective is back....

I was remembering the old times.. I dont know why it happens to me but i keep remembering the fond times and have lost out on minute details. Some of the happennings I remember the highlights but the details are lost... and then during those times I went back to read my own entries...and nevertheless found them detailed and interesting......

Being back is a good thing...Being back in the old form is a better thing but being back with a new twist is the best thing.

Web Strategy Matrix: Google Buzz vs Facebook vs MySpace vs Twitter (Feb 2010)

2010-03-04T19:28:00.000+05:30

Web Strategy Matrix: Google Buzz vs Facebook vs MySpace vs Twitter (Feb 2010) by Jeremiah Owyang

Web Strategy Matrix: Google Buzz vs Facebook vs MySpace vs Twitter (Feb 2010)

	Google Buzz	Facebook	MySpace	Twitter
One-Liner	A dark horse that has big backing and access to existing platforms.	A mainstay platform that needs to grow out of its shell.	The MTV of this generation is at risk during an ugly transformation.	Has opportunity to become utility-like infrastructure, but not a destination.
Vitals (see more stats)	Estimated to sit on a user based of over 100mm active gmail users, they have access to the most popular webpage in the world, google.com. Has access to mainstream users on Google.com and advanced email users on Gmail.	Boasting over 400mm users in just a few short years, they’ve saturated Gen Y in US, and show global expansion at record rates.	Recently reported at 57mm US unique users most of which are heavily engaged with site. Has saturation of coveted youth, working class and small businesses within US.	Although difficult to track, estimates indicate 75mm active users, but doubts are emerging about reduced rate of growth. Usage by tech savvy, media, and celebs.
Strengths	A large talent pool of engineers to pull from, Buzz stands on top of existing Gmail, mobile devices, and dominant search portal. As Buzz grows, they can integrate with all Google apps –and aggregate the entire internet.	Rapid US and international growth over last few years bodes well as quickly evolved feature set of platform and and FB Connect gain traction. Attracts top talent from Google –which are quickly defecting.	Big backing by a media giant, a super engaged audience, and rich history of reaching media starved young consumers.	Has clinched adoption over media elite, celebrities, and tech influencers. Incredible media buzz, and easy-to-use features.
Weaknesses	Late to the party, Google has had a series of social networking misfires from Wave, Dodgeball, Orkut their culture shows signs of becoming corporate –like Microsoft.	Struggles with the conundrum of having promised users a ‘closed’ experience where to be successful requires them to be ‘open’. Historically poor track record in meeting privacy expectations of customers, and overall complex interface.	Complacent: they really let themselves go. In the eyes of the tech world, they are becoming irrelevant or even worse, a niched media play –not even a lifestyle network. This leaderless ship without a captain is undergoing radical internal turmoil and innovation has stalled.	Although features are dead simple, they are now a commodity –status update features are ubiquitous. Mainstream users confused by how to get started. Overhyped, the infrastructure has shown strain. Brands generally confused on how to interact.
Opportunity	The more information users share, tag, or create, the more data is created on Google’s platform to organize, giving them opportunity to monetize.	By integrating Facebook Connect everywhere, the service becomes ubiquitous, and therefore the default identity and default address book for consumer behavior.	A few hours ago, the CEO Van Natta was let go. Now a new chief can step up, and lead the recently formed executive team, fostering innovation and solidarity.	Must develop more features to increase the overall value of this utility of the this simple status messaging tool.
Threats	Mainstay email companies like Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL have already shown social features ‘bolted’ onto their email systems, and could pose threat, although success hasn’t been proven by any. Secondly, Facebook has made notions to develop an email web client “Project Titan” that will threaten tech savvy users competing for Gmail’s attention.	Facebook is a conundrum as they must make experience open –yet this provides Google the opportunity to monetize as an intermediary. Social networks come and go, before MySpace was Friendster, they run the risk of becoming complacent, losing talent to Twitter and failing to innovate over the next few years.	Self-implosion from internal instability causes stalls, forcing media brands to develop their own social networking on their own sites, rendering MySpace a duplicate. Worse yet? Cool kids jump ship, and establish a colony elsewhere, leaving MySpace a wasteland of clueless advertisers.	Overhype from media leaves Twitter at risk for burn-out-syndrome like a Hollywood child star turned skid row. Secondly, the more successful they are, the more strain it put on the already questionable infrastructure.
Marketing Platform	Although not fully developed, expect advertising options to appear for brands who want to promote relevant ads wherever Buzz is located, especially on SERP pages	Confusing and overly complicated, there are too many marketing options perplexing brands. It’s not clear if brands should advertise, interact in pages, create widgets or do a combination of all.	Strong and straight forward. Established team has cut deals with many media companies and has legacy culture of understanding media.	Nascent. Although promises have been made for branded experiences, analytics, and other premium features, for most marketers it’s being treated like a chat room –not a marketing platform.
Future State	Buzz will aggregate the voices of their users –and those of other social networks, aggregate and serve up monetization options.	A communications platform for consumers and brands. Expect Facebook experience to be in many public experiences and mobile devices.	There are two paths: Integrate MySpace into TV and mobile devices or fade into pit of irrelevance like Friendster.	Like gas, water, or power, Twitter is likely to fade into the background and become a utility that’s integrated into everything –someday, even your fridge will Tweet.
What They Don’t Want You To Know	The collective already owns you –you just don’t know it yet.	They’re trying so hard to shift from closed to open, and like a nasty divorce, it’s tearing them apart from users.	Like an internal disease, the insiders are hurting, morale sunk, teams in disarray, yet they don’t want the public to know.	Not sure what they want to be when they grow up.
What They Should Do	Demonstrate success with Buzz, then quickly integrate into other tools like Search and Chrome. Kill off the confusing Wave, and consolidate teams and efforts. Aggregate public content from Twitter and Facebook, intermediate them and monetize their own content.	Get open now. Build a browser to quickly go transcend the web. Reward users to share more information in public like restaurant or media reviews in exchange for other values. Double down efforts on Project Titan email feature.	Quickly establish a chain of command and execute based upon a single vision. Have regular talent turnover to avoid complacency. Develop a white label product that can compete with Cisco EOS, Kyte, Pluck, or Kickapps (Altimeter client).	Develop a vision to become the dominant protocol over SMS, where teens and international cultures are already heavily texting. Continue to build out platform for developers to build on top of, becoming a data play, like a utility.

Sounds of TAK TAK

2010-02-19T20:50:00.001+05:30

Sounds of Tak Tak

Well the sounds of the morning today made me write this blog. I thought I had become adapted to the sounds around me but then I have been trying to consciously register whats going on in my auditory periphery.

Today morning as usual I was in a rush to run and catch the train, to run and catch the next connection and to get into the office. Well I take the train from tooting broadway to Elephant and Castle and then change at Elephant and Castle for the Bakerloo line to come till Lambeth north where I get down and walk to my office. While I was waiting to the train change on Elephant and castle I had a 5 minute wait in which I was observing things and people around me.

One of the things that I noticed was the sound made by shoes. tak tak. You know you can make out the difference between the sound of a boot with pencil heels versus the sound of the boot with a flat heel. the sound of the shoes made with those heavy boots right now in vouige versus the sounds of the boots made by Uggs or hush puppies. Also I could differentiate between the sounds coming from men's boots and men's formal shoes. If there are pointed from the front the chances are that they will make those sharp TAK TAK sound!!1 So much for the five minutes of my wait for the train. then I got into the thought of the sounds people ar emaking or in fact NO SOUND that people are making. There is such a huge difference between cultures. Everytime I am amazed at the loudness levels in a culture and the formality involved in them. You dont hear much more than a mere murmur here on train stations.

Its funny as from where I come from and have been used to there are myriad of things happenning around the station. Someone is shouting on the top of his voice, there is a vendor selling magazines and books, there is the coolie who is rushing everyone in the family to hurry up, there is a disagreement between the coolie and the passenger over money, there is a rush to fill water at the water stand, there is a mom shouting at her teenage son to get in the train, all sorts of things happening. There is this poha wala selling his yummy poha, there is this chai wala who has a particular tone in which he calls out to sell his chai, there is this train guard surrounded by group of people trying to get his attention and he calmly taking his sweet time to take out his pen, look around, say a thing or two to the passing by railway police officer. Lots of interesting things happenning around on a train station. People hustling and bustling when the train arrives, trying to get into the train first and not even letting people get down... In a nutshell lots of noises which are an amalgamation of noises of man and machine and sometimes animals. In these voices I had never heard the sound of shoes, of shoes clicking on the platform, of soo many shoes clicking their heels on the platform surface.

I just realized that this morning and I am not sure I am fond of it but then it made me more aware of the silence of the people and the sounds of TAK TAK.

Process / Progress

2010-02-02T22:50:00.002+05:30

News from the past and present

2010-02-01T21:22:00.000+05:30

News from the past and present

I recently saw a cartoon saying that New year is what makes each of us renewed. So it’s a brand new me in this new year then. Some people make resolutions..even I used to make them but then now I am back to basics of not knowing what a resoultion is. New year for me has sprung new definitions. It’s the start of renewed personality or come to think of it…renewed energy. Good thought and I like the way one can brandish onself as new with the new year. Anyways so the 2009 went and 2010 started.

2009 went with a bang and 2010 started with louder bang (in its truest sense). 2009 was the year of achievements and some very pleasant surprises and dreams coming true. We got out house in Leeds after desperate search for it for the past six months. Being so picky definitely has its own perils and for us (me and Mayank) being picky becomes epitome of ifs and buts and calculations and possibilities. Well after deliberation and luck and of course god's grace, we got the property we liked and moved into it in November. I started with my job just around that time which also was a good news for me..finally into the system and making a move in professional life. Recession hit hard on all of us in 2009 but then it was a like a cloud with silver lining. I visited my best friend's wedding in Chennai in 2009 and it was the time that I travelled to India just a single trip in 2009. In 2010 I am sure to go there twice at least!!. Made some great friends in London and in Leeds and had the house full during Diwali and Christmas time. Celebrated Diwali with Mayank in our own house in York for the first time and missed the fun and fanfare of Diwali of India.

2010 started with a banga yes with a bang definitely. We visited Paris which will take another blog entry to explain and then had a lovely time in freezing cold out there in the first week of January. My birthday was celebrated on the London Eye and in the Ping Pong restaurant and had a good time talking to friends and family alike on that day. Rocky start in 2010 with lots of things happenning in personal life like Mayank meeting with an accident and his car damaged, my lapto broken and not working but these are all the minor things come to think of it. Mayank is fine and so is our family and friends and that’s what matters in any year and new year.

Four key principles of mobile user experience design: Dakota Reese Brown

2009-12-02T03:14:00.002+05:30

1. There is an intimate relationship between a user and their mobile device.

a. My phone is I

2. Screen size implies user's state. The user's state infers their commitment to what is on th screen.

a. It is possible to estimate a user's level of commitment to an experience based upon the size of the screen through which they are engaging it.

b. Design of mobile experiences must accommodate the user's varying commitment and distributed attention.

3. Mobile interfaces are truncated. Other interfaces are not.

a. Mobile interfaces are better used for manipulating data rather than entering it.

4. Design for mobile platforms - the real ones

a. Four platforms are VOICE, messaging, internet and Applications.

New house VS New Home

2009-11-18T03:18:00.002+05:30

Will be uploading pictures soon....GOT the home for us..!!!! Super kewl..isn't it?? Well It is..Super great feeling but then secured a place of our own......

New house : well got a place to put up in London as well..at a great area with lots of local eateries catering to asian community and I am loving my stay here. At least I do not have to sleep hungry or eat some cold sandwich for dinner...I eat nice and yummy masala dosa or appams or stew or rava onion dosa every night and feel great and contended.

New Home : Got the place in Leeds,will be posting the link on google earth soon as well as the snaps over here. New home: yes...Got it!!! thats the feeling. Just the start of many things in life I can't believe it still...May be this friday will believe it when will actually step into it and spend my days over there....looking forward to that.

Regarding the house/home: I was apprehensive when I came to London and started with my accommodation of London. There was a mixed feeling of the new job, new place, unknown people, new flat...overall the fear of unknown. I was having the foreign body sensation throughout and I absolutely hate it...I am comfortable with uncertainty but not comfortable with blank unknowing around me. Anyways thankfully people around me cared for me and I am thankful to them and their presence. They helped me to get me till the flat and let me settle here and within three days I was feeling comfortable. But then yes the first night was horrible..i did not have a clue why I am not able to sleep...whats wrong with me.....at every noise I was waking up and looking here and there....twice the boiler was making such aweful noise that I thought its going to burst...heights of worst case scenarios.....;-) Nevertheless the first few days over and now I am kinda settled in here. Weekdays here weekend in the new home.

" Har ghar ke ek awaz hoti hain....kai mukamm dekhe hote hain aur kai misal kayam ki hoti hain

Har ghar ki ek shaksiyat hoti hain, usko pehchanne ke koshish mein hoon....

Awaaz deti hoon par abhi tak uska jawaab sunane ke intezaar mein hoon...

har ghar ki ek aadat hoti hain....uske aadat ko apanane ke koshish mein hoon...""

What a break and what a wait

2009-11-13T02:09:00.002+05:30

Thinking always amuses me...sometime when you wait so much for a thing to happen and then that thing happens suddenly and in a moment its over....you are speechless...ohh that happened already..is it?? and then you sometimes crave for that time when you did not have the thing and sometimes you love to have that thing...Don't know whether I am making some sense or not but then I think I am making some sense here to myself.

Well it was quite a long break I ever took I think...from blog. I always say that I love to blog but then I think I was concentrating on my other loves lately. Whatever..sometimes I think I did not have much things to write on and sometimes I think I did not want to share myself with anyone and had gone into hiding. Was it insecurity or was it just running away or was it contemplating on bigger things in life...I don't know I can't put a finger on it. Just that some day suddenly everything falls into place...and I think it happened today. So kinda thought that I should write...and write with the same old spirit.

Happenings on my front have been numerous and quite a lot but then the major hurdles are now clear...can concentrate to look ahead and progress in some other field....in some other area and to grow....Hell..I dont know what I am writing.....Anyways highlights are:

Started with the new job on 9th November. New place, new people, new abode to live, new area to explore, new challenges and new sights. Feels secure and insecure at the same time what contradictions in Life...!!! Typical day starts at 7:00 in the morning with me on phone with Mayank while he goes to his work and I get up to get ready for my work. Going ahead with a tea and a glass of Milk and getting ready I rush to the tube station to catch train to my office. Last time I used to juggle with a cup of coffee in one hand, a purse, a coat and flying hair...I feel I have become a litter wiser these days..I have started tucking my hair inside my coat...;-) and yes no coffee..I drink it at home and then head to work after that.

After going through swipe cards and security checks and numerous passwords and pin card slots I am onto my work. Good colleagues around who love to work and who are excellent at their areas...its a lot of learning for me and lot of scope of improvement. I am still discovering the differences between working for a private sector company and working for a public sector company.....there are differences and there are perks...and I am looking forward to all of them.

GOT the HOME in Leeds...place which is very dear to me and Mayank. We had a long wait and lot of hardships to get our hands on the house we liked and eventually we can call it our home. Sadly I am not there when Mayank is going to get the keys and when he went there for the first time as the owner....well but the thoughts count..and I am going to see it tomorrow night or saturday night hopefully..I am soo much looking forward to that now....gives me some goosebumps but then its expected I think.

Looking forward to move to the new place and waiting for friends who are coming during Christmas holiday to our Home....hahahaha I like calling it Home ...will try to come up with a name for it soon. Will google it...;-)

I miss google chrome at my workplace...really I never thought I will miss things like this..but then I do. No other browser other than IE is allowed there. I miss CHrome.

Now will be posting pictures soon....and updates as well. Also some area guides and places that I visit when I have time during the weekdays in London.

Long break indeed

2009-09-22T18:19:00.002+05:30

Yes a long long hiatus of over a month. I am not regular and hate it but then there were far more important things to complete and I neglected my blog. Wrong very wrong but then will try to make it up with regular posts now.

In the process of getting the house now. Yes its finalized and now the proceedings are on its way....its a wait but then worthwhile.

Watched lots of movies lately and entertained lots of friends. One of the weekend was full of people and more pouring in and another spent in the lovely company of an archaeologist and orthopod.

Finally the viewings are done with and now concentrating on my own stuff like the job and the starting date.

Planning for diwali on its way though have yet to hear from Glasgow.

Started painting but got disastrous results.

Looking at the camera models now and will purchase one in Christmas sales.

Ate Bhakarwadi's thanks to Kau who came from Pune and it brought back all good memories of Pune.

Attended the Janamashtmi in Glasgow..had lots of fun and good food.

Have realized that I love swimming....and now getting back to it and feeling happy.

HAvent spoken to lots of friends recently and now will have to make up with each one of them.

Films to be watched

2009-08-01T04:35:00.003+05:30

Gandhi:

Relased in 1982 starring Ben Kingsley and directed by Richard Attinborough.

Recently watched this film and marvelled at cinematography, story telling and acting of stars in it. Loved the movie to bits and would recommend it to everyone who needs a refresher course on what we learnt in our history books and how the Indian freedom movement progressed. Sir Ben Kingsley delivered a stunner with this movie with the way he depicted India's hoistorical figure.

Not without my daughter:

Based on a true story.....this movie could have been made more poignant and touching with more sensitivity and dramatization of events and characters but nevertheless worth watching.

Sally fields again delivers one of her best performances. Lovely depiction of Persian-Islamic culture and Iran after the revolution.

Been a while

2009-06-29T05:00:00.002+05:30

been a while to be back from India and then getting back to the gear of UK ways...Summer is here and its absolutely a delight to see the sun shining , the weather bright and sunny....and one can go out in simple jeans and tee.

Planning to go around the east coast soon for holiday. Also have a course in London..looking forward to attend the data visulization course......

UI Web patterns

2009-06-12T14:23:00.002+05:30

Just a repository of UI web patterns

http://www.welie.com/patterns/

http://ui-patterns.com/

http://designinginterfaces.com/

http://www.uidesignpatterns.org/

http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/

http://weblogs.asp.net/fmarguerie/archive/2009/02/15/ui-design-patterns-libraries.aspx

http://www.ui-designpatterns.org/index.html

http://uipatternfactory.com/

Google Wave

2009-06-05T15:15:00.002+05:30

Google WAVE

Google Wave is a new tool for communication and collaboration on the web, coming later this year.

what is wave?

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

House Hunting II

2009-04-21T18:12:00.002+05:30

We have liked a few properties...now researching about them regarding the neighbourhood profile, arranging for second viewing, studying the UK property market graphs....following the falling prices trends and calculating and re calculating the projected price fall before we make offer to those properties.

Buying a House... Part 1

2009-04-14T22:47:00.004+05:30

This post is about how I am going through buying a house process in UK...Well its been a good learning experience so far...Havent finalized a house yet but then have been researching and reading about it.

Some of the key factors / process I have been following

1. Zeroing down the CITY. My husband is a doctor with job tkaing him to different parts within Yorkshire county. So we had the biggest challenge to decide where to buy our first property and think towards settlement. We zeroed down on the LEEDS city because of its connectivity to other places, its multi ethnicity, muti culturalism, big city advantages, good universities and good IT firms. I feel it is important to have connectivity in UK primarily because you could be commuting some 30 miles daily and if the house is in a strategic location with good access to motorways and A roads, it becomes an easier task. About multi ethnicity and culturalism, well its fair and simple. We are foreigeners here and we do not have our own society here. We gradually buid relationships and friends and thereby our own small groups and societies. Leeds has a good number of Asia population with the amenities like asian shops and restaurants.

2. Zeroing down the AREA. Well the excercise I did was to study maps. Studying maps has been one of my hobbies..I like to look at them, poke at them, know the roads and the terrane. So over here I took the Leeds map, studied the area and the connecting roads. One of the takeaway for couples like us is that find areas which are quiet yet in strategic locations. Prefer the areas not close to universities or schools but walkable to schools and drivable to universities. Area where there are good houses , not closer to council buildings or high rise buildings. Check the area with the highest prices, highest house price post codes and then go around the periphery of the area to grab the bargain. See that the areas are connected to arterial roads via a five to ten minute drive. Thats the postcode / area we zeroed down to and are currently looking at for our future house.

3. View as much properties as you can. Well thats the truth. I know its taxing but then view as much properties as you can and with a busy calendar like my husband's I had to manage 10 viewings on a single day..!!!! So view all the properties be it detached, semi detached, terraced, bunglows, flats, apartments, houses...whatever comes to the market and whatever is in the budget and in the post code you have decided on. Given the recession time, its always better to stretch your budget some 15K more so as to get the elasticity and the variety in properties. The current house prices have all fallen by at least 12% in all the postcodes of UK and therefore it is the correct time to start doing the research, go ahead with the viewings and negotiate on the prices.

4. Second VIEW the property if you like it at the first instant. Yes we liked a property and arranged a second viewing for it. You can view the property as many times as you can...with as many people you want. But the second viewing, go with a clear head....try not to be biased.....the first viewing you are awed with the property..with the second viewing the property comes as a lukewarm milk...So view it again and ask questions.

Interactive TV

2009-03-10T17:42:00.004+05:30

iTV

The thing which I heard in India and saw it here. Once I had designed something similar to this during my course in NID but then never knew that it is already the reality here. Well....Its good and its fun..and the experience is enriching in both mind and matter.

As Wiki defines it, the iTV is a continuum from low interactivity (TV on/off, volume, changing channels) to moderate interactivity (simple movies on demand without player controls) and high interactivity in which, for example, an audience member affects the program being watched. The most obvious example of this would be any kind of real-time voting on the screen, in which audience votes create decisions that are reflected in how the show continues. A return path to the program provider is not necessary to have an interactive program experience. Once a movie is downloaded for example, controls may all be local. The link was needed to download the program, but texts and software which can be executed locally at the set-top box or IRD(Integrated Receiver Decoder) may occur automatically, once the viewer enters the channel.

Forms of Interaction

Interactivity with a TV set

The simplest, Interactivity with a TV set is already very common, starting with the use of the remote control to enable channel surfing behaviours, and evolving to include video-on-demand, VCR-like pause, rewind, and fast forward, and DVRs, commercial skipping and the like. It does not change any content or its inherent linearity, only how users control the viewing of that content. DVRs allow users to time shift content in a way that most VCR owners never learned to do. Though this form of interactive TV is not insignificant, critics claim that saying that using a remote control to turn TV sets on and off makes television interactive is like saying turning the pages of a book makes the book interactive.

nteractivity with TV program content

Screenshot of a OpenTV program browser set-top box resident software

Screenshot of a OpenTV email browser set-top box resident software

In its deepest sense, Interactivity with TV program content is the one that is "interactive TV", but it is also the most challenging to produce. This is the idea that the program, itself, might change based on viewer input. Advanced forms, which still have uncertain prospect for becoming mainstream, include dramas where viewers get to choose or influence plot details and endings.

As an example, in Accidental Lovers viewers can send mobile text messages to the broadcast and the plot transforms on the basis of the keywords picked from the messages.
Global Television Network offers a Two-Screen Solutions interactive game for Big Brother 8 (US) "'In The House'" which allows viewers to predict who will win each competition, who's going home, as well as answering trivia questions and instant recall challenges throughout the live show. Viewers login to the Global website to play, with no downloads required.
Another kind of example of interactive content is the Hugo game on Television where viewers called the production studio, and were allowed to control the game character in real time using telephone buttons by studio personnel, similar to The Price is Right.
Another example is the Clickvision Interactive Perception Panel used on news programmes in Britain, a kind of instant clapometer run over the telephone.

Hit Wiki for more information.

Friends

2009-02-27T20:29:00.002+05:30

Random Post

Shake called...its good to hear familiar voices...and the same gallies and mouthful words from old friends. Feel wanted, feel good factor.

Met with Hania for Coffee / Soup and then spent last evening chatting and relaxing in the company of Hania and Osama...our neighbours and beautiful people.

Trying to call gurmesh..but then he is busy...or occupied....could not get through him.

Rahul does not pick up his phone...I won't call him again.

Subodh..meet him often on net..and its good to hear from him..all the time.

Tabita..chat with her almost daily. Been my lifeline.

Tulika...will be calling her today....see whats up with her..

Delhi 6

2009-02-15T21:04:00.004+05:30

Reading these days:

The truth about Innovation by Max MCkeown

Completed Footprints in Sand and Bones to ashes.

Starting with another one on Photoshop.

Got off with Flash yesterday..getting into track.

Reading about Prince2. Waiting to get the books and book the exam and read and then give it and the clear it too....too much to think when it comes to give exams...(am horrible in giving exams...;-) )

Got back the mathematical ability problems...remembered the speed time, work problems those ratio proportions and pic charts and graphs....good old days....

Want to get back to GRE word list..have been forgetful these days...will be getting the word list soon from the York library.

Taking notes from Open university open library on management courses and reading some of them. Will scan and put the pages online so that they are archived.

Love the DELHI6 songs...listening to them these days and getting drunk on them.

Forthcoming weekends booked with some guests visiting us and I will be trying Cheesecake recipe for the first time ever in my life...Thanks to Tabi..though I don't know what will be the outcome.

Went on to visit Castle museum in York...had fun...Got hands dirty on Nikon camera...and now I am waiting to get my Canon Rebel xSi (450 D) I REALLY want that..its sexy....;-)

Found some fellow neighbours interested in travelling...will be planning to move off for some days trips soon.

Songs of Maskali and Rehna Tu are superb...can't get over them......waiting for the film release...

I am enjoying

2009-02-14T01:09:00.002+05:30

1. Listening to Songs....Lucky by chance, ghajini, Delhi 6 and so on..

2. Teaching/tutoring/helping a friend to get MS office basics correct for her interviews

3. Have taken a photo trip and borrowed a NIKON camera and played around it..Loved it.

4. Enjoying the snow these days...all white and all pristine.

5. Planning to take the Foundation exam of PRINCE2.

6. Taking walks around the city

7. Cooking and churning out new dishes these days

8. York Library is my most favourite place these days.

9. Planning for India trip

10. Job search

11. Brushing my mathematical ability

12. Will be working on the word list of GRE again...will be fun.

13. 50 crunches daily..though its not helping me..:-(

14. Learning to drive...sometime soon will give the test and will give the test again...and someday will clear the driving test surely.

Something I was reading

2009-01-29T02:34:00.002+05:30

Communication

Collaboration

Consideration

Choice is between Agile and UCD, between Prototype, Revise and rebuild AND Prototype, revise, redesign, between High value component focus AND Key USer Goal focus, between what works AND What users want, between Collaboration with stakeholders AND Bringing users in Focus.

From the book Nature of Design by Peg Faimon and John Weigand

2009-01-19T07:09:00.002+05:30

Design elements

Line

Curve

Natural Environment

Designed Environment

Shape

Colour

Light

Media and MAterial

Value

Texture

Visual world

Principles of Design

Unity and Variety

Grouping

Use of like parts

Common elements

Proximity

Overlapping parts

Common Ground

Border

Implied Border

Rythm and Pattern

Texture

Connection

Prominent

Subtle

Connect the object to its environment and Context

Inside and Outside

Connection with the earth

Seperation

Transition

Contrast

Size

Texture

Shape

Value

Color

Position

Strong Contrast

Hue

Value

Intensity

Focus

Hierarchy

Context and Scale

Unity

Grouping

Rythm

Larger Context

Appropriate

Good Design is not about EGO.

Good Design is scaled appropriately to the eye.

Good Design is scaled to the body

It engages problem at all scales

Balance

Symmetry

Asymmetrical Balance

Placement

Orientation

Value

Colour

Vertical Axis

Horizontal Axis

Figure Ground Balance

Mass Void Balance

Placement

Bleed

Alignments

Edge Alignment

Center Alignment

Modular or Grid relationships

Illusion of Depth

Perspective

Overlapping elements

Contrasting tonal qualities

Contrasting color

Proportion

Human Scale

Golden Section

1:1 relationship

Modular or Grid system

Maintain proportional relationships

Meaning

Problem

Process

2008

2009-01-15T04:34:00.002+05:30

Well...it should have been written long ago...but then there is nothing important as now...and its never late than now...so here I go....about the year 2008...

2008 started with me and my book on my cosy bed with 1 degree outside on a dark 31st december night. Mayank was on nights and I thought its better to start new year with book rather than being on the internet.

Witnessed the shopping craze for the first time.

Shifted houses twice for York to Hull to York again.

Made the trip to switzerland and learnt the ways to organize holidays and get the better deals.

Switzerland was beautiful and amazing, no words can every describe it. Want to go there again.

Mayank's parents paid us a visit and it was a fabulous time with them.

Gave the first job interview in UK to one of the south england based company and still giving interviews.

Got the job with Defaqto, shifted to London for the working weekdays and Hull on weekends.

Shifted the house to York again, mayank house hunted it alone, I was in London that time.

Went to Glasgow thrice in a single year (too much rain, too much cold and too much wind to bear for a single soul)

Ran to catch trains on Hull station...it was fun...though Mayank doesnt agree with my thoughts.

Tradition to call and talk to my mom continues.

Went to India for a month (had prebooked holidays so Defaqto allowed me to go for a month) and met friends and family and people close to my heart. Toured Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Puttaparthi, Ujjain, Indore and Bhopal.

Saw the mumbai tragedy and it struck directly to my heart.

Completed one year official anniversary (legal marriage) and one year anniversary (traditional marriage). Went to a lovely place called as Centre Parcs in Lake district to celebrate it.

Completed my contract with Defaqto in december and enjoyed the december christmas holidays.

Once again me and mayank went to attend the christmas mass at the York minster and were awed by its grandeur.

Loved English summer.

Was awefully sick in the return flight to Manchester...was thinking it is my last flight and was happy that I met my parents and my near and dear ones and am with mayank.

Was considering applying for higher studies and i am still considering that.

Got my ears pierced again, this time it was less painless.

Steps

2008-12-16T18:28:00.003+05:30

Envisioning the business goals and user goals

Defining the business constraints

Incorporate the best practices

PAper Prototypes

User interface design specification document

-----------------

Identifying a set of business critical tasks

Usability expert review

Usability testing

Consistency of moderation

Action oriented Recommendations

Content Inventory

Card Sorting Technique

Establishing the navigation scheme

Defining the critical Tasks

Measured user performance

Measures of Effectiveness, Efficiency and Satisfaction

Customer experience benchmark

Monitoring Tool

Classification of different types of end user

Face to Face interviews

Task Scenarios and Personas

Usability Audits

Accessible Web page design

Business and User Goals

EKO

2008-12-12T19:28:00.002+05:30

Amazing innovation...Good concept..though right now in a pilot model...worth reading and understanding..how they do it.

Read it here.

Read about what EKO is and how it is transforming todays Banking Industry in India.

Mein Ek Joota Hoon

2008-12-12T16:17:00.001+05:30

RANDOM thoughts....I love shoes....but then this is all random

"Mein Ek Joota hoon"

Bahut chalaa hoon...kai kadom tak...kai dooriyan tay kee hain maine.....bahut se nazaron se guzara hoon aur kai sapne bante aur bigadte dekhe hain maine..Par..Mein Ek joota hoon. Meri kahani mein na koi naam hain na koi manzil.....mera kaam sirf chalna hain...aaj yahan...kal wahan....purani sadke meri dost hain....aasmaan mera saathi.....behtaa hua sadak kaa paani mera dushman.....aur mera woh pehennewala...usko to pata hee nahi ki mein ek zinda moorat hoon...jo sochta hain..likhta hain..uska koi naam nahi to kya hua...woh ek joota hain.

Meine kai nayi jagah dekheen hain....kai safar tay kiya hain....Kabhi railway platform par, to kabhi kisi five star hotel mein to kabhi airport par to kabhi takeaway joint mein to kabhi Disc mein....Sab jagah mein gaya hoon..Worldly wise ho gaya haoon....Conditions meri badalti rehtee hain....Kabhi Paani to Kabhi bhayank thand...to Kabhi Kadak dhoop to kabhi woh reteli sand....sab nein mujhe khule bhaanh apnaya hain...to kabhi sabne mujhe thode aasoon bhi diye hain....Par....Mein Joota hoon....Mera kaam hain yeh...

Mera pehenewala...kabhi usne yeh na socha hoga ki main bhi apni abhvyakti doonga..kabhi yeh bhi kuch bol sakta hain...Mera pehennewala...jo meri kadra tabi karta hain jab woh mujhe pehle baar dukaan mein dekhtaa hain...ek bar us jagah se pehenewale ke ghar aa jaane tak he meri pooch parakh hoti hain..Baad mein to mein ek tucch cheez ..yaa nacheez ke tarah us RACK mein he pada rehtaa hoon....

Na pehenewalon ko koi gumaan hain..na us dukaandaar ko jisne mujhe bech diya..na in hawaon ko..yaa paani ko....jo mujhe karoddte rehte hain....Kyunki mein to SIRF EK JOOTA hoon.....

Coffee days

2008-12-12T02:09:00.003+05:30

Coffee days are back....to my utter pleasure....Thanks to my mausaji who gave me a filter coffee percolator....typical south indian style....that steel one.....ohhhh lalalalaa.....love the coffee made in it. I was searching for coffee grounded powder for quite some time in UK....aka..london and York and was not able to find it. Then I went to Glasgow and found a similar kinds from one of our family friends. They were really sweet people to give me an entire packet of grounded coffee powder. So there I go..I got it here at York and then today set the filter...and wowowwwww

Now I am enjoying coffee.....filter coffee to its last E!!!! Its yummy. I will also be visiting London coffee shop where they sell the karnataka coffee powder..Will ask Akshara to take me there......Then it will be good fun....Coffee days are back..with a BANG!!!

Spirals Explored

2008-12-09T20:03:00.003+05:30

In Glasgow

2008-12-05T20:59:00.002+05:30

Heading to glasgow today evening..

Travelling to London everyday..

Saw and witnessed snowfall twice in YORK..

Hated to go out in Snow to the railways station to catch the train to London..

Met up with a college senior, Prajat in London..

Juggling between dates and probable India travel in February and April months of 2009..

Havent yet charged my music player..

Want to eat good Indian authentic food...specifically KEEMA..and ROTI..

Using sketchup 3D and remembering old times..

Had almost slipped on the frozen ground...thankfully balanced myself in the nick of time..

Wearing four layers everyday..

sleeping for one hour everyday in the train...or trying to..

looking forward to the christmas holidays and shopping in the mad bargain frezy season..

Waiting for a good BOOTS sale and grabbing a pair or two...

Have to meet Akshara this coming week..

Didn't / Couldn't talk to mom...missing her ...

Tabita saves the day....most of the time...

I find SKYPE okeh...nothing great about it..

Prefer Gtalk anytime..

Have started liking black coffee with sugar and a dash of milk..

Watched Dostana on one of these crazy weekdays..

Loved Abhishek Bacchan and John Abraham in it..

Want to watch Rock ON...haven't still seen it..

Media Time out

2008-11-29T02:55:00.001+05:30

For the second time today.

Right now, UK time 9:3 in the night, I am glued to NEt. watching with horror about Mumbai attacks. Media blackout.

Thanks to twitter and citizen journalism......I am switching back to Twitter soon.

Some status messages on Mumbai blasts

2008-11-28T20:50:00.003+05:30

spent time writing alphabets on those tables which dont exist anymore....Taj Gateway!

Stunned

Terror Trail

!!!!!

Why

Mumbai

Prayers for Mumbaikars.

Black Thursday and Friday

2008-11-28T20:47:00.003+05:30

Pranab Mukherjee asks directly....to Mr. Qureshi.. " WHY SHOULD WE TRUST YOU??"

""Thank you for reassurance Mr. Qureshi. Hope to join you soon for more reassurance""

I admire Pranab....He is bold and to the point.

watching India live through NDTV.

Stunned, Depressed, Shocked, Miserable and wht not. Its the same mumbai which I visited 25 days back!!!!

Random

2008-11-26T21:32:00.001+05:30

LIFE INSURANCE and its types

2008-11-26T17:03:00.003+05:30

Well working in financial sector has improved my grey cells surely. Not all things make sense to me but then not all the thigns seem greek and latin to me these days. some of the pondering moments come and go these days.....we thinking to go for our first property but thenstaying back because of the huge prices involved in it and then it all making sense in my work here. some of the things that I am trying to make sense of and I think it is appealing to me...I am listing down here. Its more of a documentation purpose rather than writing the blog. But then thats me....

www.lifesearch.co.uk

Life Insurances:

150,000 satisfied customers have already found out that by calling LifeSearch they get MORE invaluable advice and pay LESS for their life insurance.

LifeSearch is the UK's leading life insurance broker and therefore best qualified to search the entire market to ensure that you get the right cover at the lowest possible price!

We can discuss with you:

1. How much life insurance you need.
2. How long you want the cover for.
3. What the right life insurance is for you.

We have listed below brief descriptions of different types of life insurance.

Level Term Assurance - fixed premiums for a number of years and a full payout on claim at any point during the term.

Increasing Term Assurance - the cover increases every year without the need for a medical. Not as popular as Level Term, but it should be as people may require additional cover in line with increases in their income and inflation.

Decreasing Term Assurance - the payout reduces over the cover period at a flat fixed rate each year.

Mortgage Protection Assurance - life assurance where the lump sum reduces in line with the outstanding mortgage balance over time.

Renewable Term Assurance - a short term policy and therefore cheaper initially, and commonly used for protecting Company Directors. Importantly, it can be renewed without further medical evidence.

Family Income Benefit Assurance - instead of paying out a lump sum, this type of cover provides a tax-free annual income until the end of the term specified at outset.

CRITICAL ILLNESS

Critical illness insurance will pay you a tax free lump sum on diagnosis of any one of a wide range of specified illnesses including certain types of cancer, heart attack, stroke, brain tumour and many more.

Diagnosis of such an illness would be a major trauma in your life, but you would still have to meet your financial commitments.

Remember, any life insurance you may have won't pay out unless you die or are diagnosed with an illness which will be terminal within 12 months.

Critical illness policies can vary greatly in the cover they offer. A basic plan covers the most serious conditions, but a comprehensive plan covers many more including loss of sight, total permanent disability and hearing loss.

INCOME PROTECTION

This type of plan is designed to replace your salary and will provide a tax-free income if you are unable to work through disability. The policy pays a monthly tax-free income until you recover - right up to retirement date if needs be and the payout can be level or set to rise with inflation.

The maximum cover you can have is typically half of your gross income but as it is paid tax-free it should mean that you can maintain a similar level of take home pay. However, some employers provide this cover as part of your overall employment package - so check these details first.

Everyone should have this cover, because the State simply does not provide adequately.

FAMILY INCOME BENEFIT

Rather than providing a lump sum should you die, family income benefit provides a regular, tax-free, monthly income for you and your dependants - from the time of the claim to the end of the plan term.

For example: Plan Term - 20 years. Time claim made - after 16 years. Benefits paid - for the remaining 4 years. This is why family income benefit often costs less than life insurance.

Family income benefit is particularly attractive to those who like to know they have a regular monthly income and would rather not have to worry about complex investment decisions to make the most of a lump sum payout.

WHOLE OF LIFE INSURANCE

Whole-of-life' plans are life insurance policies, designed to provide a guaranteed payout on death. They pay out a lump sum to your dependents, which is usually tax-free. However, crucially, the amount of the payout is not generally guaranteed.
Typically, your contributions are invested into a fund and the life assurance benefits are 'purchased' from that investment fund. The performance of the fund has a significant effect on the amount of future benefits, however the life office (the Insurer?) will also take into account other factors, such as changing mortality rates and the possibility of reduced investment returns in the future.
The policy will usually have 'review' dates. At this point the life office will compare the actual value of the plan with the benefits it is to provide. This may result in either the life office asking the policyholder to increase their premiums or suggest keeping the premiums as they are but reduce the benefit payable on death.

Some policies require policyholders to continue paying premiums right up until death, or upon reaching a stated age, even though the cover continues until they die. There are also plans that can be put in place to provide cover for additional benefits, perhaps a lump sum payout to for the policyholder in the event of becoming disabled or on the diagnosis of a specified illness.

What to consider when taking out a Whole of Life assurance policy

There are three main options to consider under a whole of life assurance policy. These are "maximum cover", " balanced cover" or "guaranteed rate".

1. The maximum cover option is the least expensive initially as the majority of the premium pays for the protection and very little is invested. However, the premiums will be reviewed at regular intervals subsequently, at which point either the premiums will increase, or the amount of cover will decrease to reflect the extra age attained. The cost will therefore continue to rise for the rest of your life and over time is likely to work out the most expensive option. Hence the longer you live the higher the premiums will become; for this reason we would not normally recommend this option.

2. The balanced (or standard) cover option sets the premium at a level where it is assumed that there should be no need for future premium increases. There is an investment element built into this option as well, however, it is more significant for the balanced cover option as it initially makes up a sizeable proportion of the premiums.

The invested element of the balanced cover option is used in future years to subsidise premiums into old age. Therefore, although the cost to the insurer of providing the cover will rise over time, the actual premiums that you pay will remain static. As long as the invested element has provided growth at a predetermined level, in the case below 6% per annum, when the 10year and subsequent reviews take place there will be no need to increase the premium level.

The policy would attract a surrender value should you no longer require the cover, although this will be comparatively small in the early years and may be less than has been paid in.

3. The guaranteed rate offers a fixed premium for life; however, this is likely to be the dearest option initially as there is no form of investment at all hence there is also no cash-in value at any time. Ideally this is the best option to pursue if you can afford it.

The advantage with this option is that your cover and premiums are not dependent upon the performance of the investment and premiums are guaranteed to remain the same throughout

You can be protected from the taxation liability upon any residual estate by utilising what is known as a Whole of Life policy. This policy runs for as long as necessary and should be written on the basis of the benefits paying out on the event of the Second death, as this is when the liability arises. Fortunately this also makes the policy much more cost effective, as the premiums are based on whichever of you is least likely to die soonest, statistically speaking.

Furthermore it is an added advantage to have the plans written under trust to ensure that, in the event of death, the proceeds fall outside your estate. The life insurance amount will pass to your nominated beneficiaries and can be used in the settlement of any IHT inheritance tax liability.

TRUSTS

Placing your policy in trust is important if, on your death, you wish the proceeds of your life insurance to be paid to your dependants in a straightforward manner.

Trusts are very easy to arrange, and LifeSearch does not charge for setting them up on behalf of LifeSearch customers.

For the vast majority of situations, the most sensible thing is to put your life insurance policy in trust. And in most instances, this should be a Flexible Trust.

A Flexible Trust allows you and others to control what happens to the money after your death. At the outset, you decide who is to benefit and in what proportion.

The great advantage of this? The money is passed directly to your beneficiaries, without reference to your will or the taxman. It speeds up the process of getting the money to your beneficiaries by, on average, six months. Absolutely vital!

A Trust is also key if you wish to avoid falling into the Inheritance Tax trap.

ndia Inc.: A Lesson in Business Design

2008-11-12T17:47:00.002+05:30

From here

India's business Design principles:

Practice the Rule of 10%
Embracing constraints as a source of creativity, resourcefulness, and ingenuity may very well be India's greatest advantage. The "10% rule"—delivering goods and services to the marketplace at 10% of the Western world's average price—could drive accessibility and competitiveness to a whole new level.

Broader Platforms for Collaboration
Go beyond "interdepartmental collaboration" to pursue more joint ventures and cross-institutional collaborations.

Technology as Infrastructure
Rapid and broad deployment of technology in lieu of physical infrastructure can accelerate delivery of both commercial and social services effectively and efficiently.

Mobilize the Masses
Many countries like India have effectively tapped human networks to deliver both commercial and social services. Instead of devising models to pay the unemployed, devise models to employ the unemployed.

Rethinking the Model
Creating new models requires challenging the status quo and rethinking activities that create value. India has a lagging education system and an enormous emerging workforce. By 2020, India will have the largest labor surplus in the world—45 million people. To capitalize on this resource and become a major global R&D hub, India has completely rethought the ways in which it recruits and trains its R&D workforce. Instead of counting on an army of PhDs to make their way through the educational system to serve the commercial agenda, Indian industry has developed a "surrogate education system" that can take workers with weak educational backgrounds and turn them into world-class R&D specialists by developing rigorous training programs and integrating best practices into a codified industry-based skill development program.

You can't seperate Usability from Visual Design

2008-11-11T21:18:00.002+05:30

Usability is necessary in the same way as the visual design of the application. Its the relationship between the Form and Function.

Function is Usability and Form is the Visual Design.

'Eye Candy' or AESTHETICS is an important business requirement.

Aesthetics: Science of how things are known via senses. It is the pshycological response rather than the actual trigger.

Affordance says an objects' sensory characterstics intutively imply its functionality and use.

Visual Language is a set of practices by which images can be used to communicate concepts.

While designing we should care about personalities:

People identify with or avoid certain personalities.

Trust is related to personality

Perception and expectations are linked with personality

Consumers choose the products which are extension of their own personality.

We treate sufficiently advanced technology as people.

Attractive things work better!!!!

How I think cannot be seperated from how I feel!!!!

80% of every project is the commodity. 20% of the project is the differentiator. the 80% of the project gets over in 20% of the time. The rest 20% of the project takes 80% of the time.

Abstract from this place.

Haathi Poop and Haathi Pooper

2008-11-11T20:39:00.001+05:30

http://haathichaap.com/

Profile: Kano

2008-11-10T20:53:00.000+05:30

Kano Profile

Kano coding is a method of mapping a personas response to a specific effect. The Kano methodology is a much richer means of representing the importance and satisfaction measures used by other methods.

The Kano space is shown in the following figure.

The vertical axis represents a person’s response to a specific feature, capability or outcome or experience. The horizontal axis represents the level (amount, quantity etc.) of that specific attribute. Curves in this space have specific names and meanings as described below. Green curves represent positive influences, red curves negative ones.

Must Have (MH)

Absence is highly negative but, after a certain threshold level, more doesn’t make any difference

Delighter (D)

Absence isn’t noticed but presence is highly values

More the Better (MTB)

A linear response where more of it is better (e.g. horsepower)

Less the Better (LTB)

An inverted linear response where less of something is viewed as better

Absence Delighter (AD)

Presence doesn’t matter or isn’t noticed but absence creates a strong positive

Can’t have/Spoiler (S)

Presence above a threshold is highly negative otherwise it makes no difference

Taken from this link.

Innovation

2008-11-10T20:39:00.000+05:30

Reading this new Wiki on Innovation.

इंडिया Trip

2008-10-22T12:11:00.002+05:30

Am having fun...travelling..which always want to do anywhere I go...be it home be it anywhere else. So from York I went to Manchester to Paris to Mumbai. From Mumbai I travelled to Pune. Did the Singhad Trek with Anku, Mausi, Mausaji, Mom and Maulika. From there came down to Bhopal. Went around new market and a handicraft mela. From there came to Ujjain.

The next lap of my journey starts from Ujjain, To Indore to Mumbai. From Mumbai to Bangalore to Puttparthi and back.

Keeping it short here.

One day in one of these days

2008-10-05T00:27:00.002+05:30

For the uninitiated and unaware person like me...it was a hard task to write what and how I have been spending my typical day these days....so here it goes.....

Getting up at 6 o clock in the morning every weekday to get ready to travel to London. I have never been an early morning person and still feel at 9:00 AM in the morning is early morning!!! So I get up at 6 o clock in the morning cursing the Alarm clock and the fact that it might be raining outside (thanks to UK weather) and it surely must be very cold....thankfully it hasn't started snowing here.

Running around the apartement searching for shoes or socks or stockings or ironed clothes or crushed clothes straight out of washing machine or worse searching those boxes and still locked suitcases for some lucky find ironed shirt for office wear!!!!

Running with a tea cup in hand, a purse in another, coat hanging like a dead pigeon on shoulders, hair flying here and there with the wind, trying to manage body balance on those heels, locking the door and opening other two with all of these makes me feel like a juggler. Thankfully Mayank has been giving me a lift these days to station. I dread the time when I wont be having such luxury which will show its face in November surely.

Forgot to mention in the above point, along with all this paraphernelia, there is also a book that I am currently reading and my tiffin of fruits (thanks Mayank again) to carry with me.

So running from the station car park to the Platform 3...not a huge task and I have been lucky not to run and catch the train till now...I was early most of the time. Its funny sometimes the way you get the looks from a milieu of people at the station....(sometimes I feel Am I so wierd..but then I am happy the way I am..so kewl)

Boarding the train is different from that of India..and I kinda miss it...but then i love it here as well as being a Woman, I am given the way and the opportunity to step ahead of the queue if there are only men which obviously is a good thing....I am looking forward to one time when there will be a fight for the seats or getting in the train here.....I want to see reactions and read behaviours at such opportunites....

Standing in the train for the first 15 minutes for people to settle in before I start my hunt for seat. The hunt is to go and first find an unreserved seat and if not then find the seat which is not occupied from or before the station I have boarded and still not occupied. If the two things do not work then I grab whatever unoccupied seat I get and then dread the next station where I will have to vacate the seat and stand in the vestibule area.......

I have done two journeys till now where I have arrived in Doncastor and York from London standing all the time in the vestibule area....It was fun and it was tiring. But then it was kewl too......

After grabbing the seat, put things in place which is usually under my seat. I am too lazy to even stand up and put my coat on the rack above...I usually keep wearing it. Take my Transcend music player out and enjoy JAGJIT Singh....Jagjit Singh has saved me from going insane and mad at times and I am really thankful to him for that. His gazals are intense and the deep throat voice shuns all the external voices and i am in my own world...kind of tranquilized...

Ticket checker and Thank You's.

Arriving in London Kings Cross Train station and standing in the vestibule area before the train arrives in the station so that I am one of the first ones to get out of the train and head towards the office.

From LKC (London Kings Cross) to Starbucks Coffee....Coffee...the addiction continues.....I thought I am out of it when I came here and always thought Starbucks is over priced but then....I love the coffee and Thanks to Akshara...the addiction continues....Every day I go to starbucks, order the Tall Cafe Mocha, without cream for Takeaway please. Can i order by Card? Yes sure Please. Thank you very much. Thanks. Usual conversations...love them........if there is lot of time at the till then I am also asked, How are you?

With the book, tiffin, coat, heels, flying hair, clicking earrings, my purse (thanks to Mayank: he got me a bag kinda purse which I adore: less maintenance and hassle to carry) and Cafe Mocha....my walk starts from Kings cross Starbucks to Caledonia House, Defaqto: My office.

Credit crunch

2008-10-01T16:46:00.001+05:30

Credit Crunch and the STRANGE creepy and Tangential events associated with it. Taken from (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2008/09/crunch_creep_5.shtml)

"Sales of turnips have rocketed in the past 12 months as families hit by rising prices look for affordable alternatives to more expensive vegetables, such as purple sprouting broccoli and baby sweetcorn... They are potentially a credit crunch vegetable." More details (Times)

"Tearooms are enjoying a renaissance in the credit crunch as people discover that sharing a pot of tea is cheaper than a round of cappuccinos. Some report a 30 per cent increase in trade over the past 12 months." More details (Times)

"The soaring cost of petrol and the impact of the credit crunch is doing what campaigners and Government initiatives failed to achieve - forcing children to walk to school." (Express)

"As the credit crunch bites, fish and chip shops have seen an increase in sales for the first time in five years." More details (Times)

"Chocolate sales are soaring as gloomy Brits comfort-eat their way through the credit crunch. Experts say millions who can no longer afford restaurant meals or holidays are opting for a 'quick-fix' treat instead." More details (Sun)

"A rise in theft of fruit and vegetables from allotments is being fuelled by the credit crunch, according to the National Society of Allotments and Leisure Gardeners." (Independent)

"A survey has revealed the latest victim of the credit crunch is the tooth fairy. It seems the economic downturn is starting to bite with the average amount left under a pillow dropping from £1.22 to 87p in the past six months." More details (People)

Britain is heading for a baby boom as the credit crunch is forcing couples to entertain themselves at home. More details (Sun)

"It may have been the credit crunch... but this summer is expected to have been Britain's best for cinema attendance." More details (Times)

"Hard-up Brits are shunning bottled water and turning on the tap during the credit crunch. Sales are down five per cent in the past year, with experts blaming the economy and concerns about plastic packaging damaging the environment." More details (Sun)

"City workers facing redundancy could help ease a shortage of teachers in London.

Officials hope victims of the credit crunch may be prepared to switch careers for the greater job security of teaching." More details (Evening Standard)

"One in five young Brits wants to quit the UK because the credit crunch is so depressing." More details (Daily Star)

Ramayan

2008-09-30T17:31:00.004+05:30

I am promoting Moserbaer and Ramayan and their fantastic marketting and Sales team with this post......along with the smile which this image brought to my face.......Funny....ehh???

Lyrics...I love this song!!!!

2008-09-29T17:31:00.001+05:30

Meri Laundry Ka Ek Bill, Ek Aadhi Padi Novel… Ta Ra Ta Ta Ta ….Ta Ra Ta Ta Ta… Ek Ladki Ka Phone Number, Mere Kaam Ka Ek Paper… Ta Ra Ta Ta Ta ….Ta Ra Ta Ta Ta… Mere Taash Se Heart Ka King, Mera Ek Chandi Ka Ring Pichhle Saat Dino Mein Maine Khoya Kabhi Khud Pe Hansa Main Aur Kabhi Khud Pe Roya  Ta Ra Ta Ta Ta …. Ta Ra Ta Ta Ta …. Ta Ra Ta Ta Ta ….… Ta Ra Ta Ta Ta ….  Present Mili Ek Ghadi, Pyaari Thi Mujhe Badi… Ta Ra Ta Ta Ta ….Ta Ra Ta Ta Ta… Meri Jeb Ka Ek Packet, Meri Denim Ki Jacket… Ta Ra Ta Ta Ta ….Ta Ra Ta Ta Ta… Do One-Day Match Ke Passes, Mere Naye Naye Sunglasses Pichhle Saat Dino Mein Maine Khoya Kabhi Khud Pe Hansa Main, Aur Kabhi Khud Pe Roya  Kaise, Bhuloon Saatva Jo Din Aaya Kisi Ne Tumse Ek Party Mein Milwaaya Kaisa Pal Tha Jis Pal Maine Tumko Pehli Baar Dekha Tha  Hum Jo Mile Pehli Baar Maine Jaana Kya Hai Pyaar Maine Hosh Bhi Khoya Dil Bhi Khoya Kabhi Khud Pe Hansa Main, Aur Kabhi Khud Pe Roya  … Ta Ra Ta Ta Ta ….Ta Ra Ta Ta Ta…… Ta Ra Ta Ta Ta ….Ta Ra Ta Ta Ta…   Maine Pichhle Saat Dino Mein Ye Sab Hai, Khoya..

IT HAPPENNED IN INDIA

2008-09-26T15:24:00.001+05:30

It Happened in INDIA

Excerpts from this fantastic book:

Written by Kishore Biyani with Dipayan Baishya

IT HAPPENED IN INDIA is the story of Pantaloons, Big Bazaar, Central and the GREAT Indian consumer.

In the books opinion, there are certain changes which the industries have to look up to.

The future is no longer something that can be painted Black or white. Its a fluid entity that organisations will have to half imagine and half create.

Organizations will therefore need to learn how to thrive in chaos.

The new macro differentiators can be design.

Design is helping companies to sell differentiated experiences and solutions that connect with the consumers emotions.

Diversity leads to Creativity.

We have begun to develop cross functional teams. We need more anthropologists, ethnographers, social scientists and more WOMEN to be part of every team within the organisation, Innovation will come through collaboration in the creative economy. We need to create win win scenarios, where we can win, our business partners can win and customers can win as well.

The future is for

Speed and Imagination
Innovation Rules
Intangible Assets
Abdication
Design Management
Seamlessness
Personalisation
Technology Drives Change
Scenario Planning
Experiences and Solutions
Storytelling
Thrive in Chaos
Relationships
Collaboration
More Women, ethnographers
Designers
WIN - Win - WIN

The genes of his organization according to the man behind the retail boom in India for common man:

We like being simple
Speed is the essence of everything we do
we like to learn while we execute
we like thrift
we believe that customers are always right
we like to think in terms of the majority of people
we take pride in our core value of Indian-ness
we believe in ourselves
we do not like to blame others or external factors
we like to think positively in every situation
we like building and nurturing relationships
we love to rewrite rules, even as we retain our core values.

I loved this book and hugely recommed it to everyone!!!!

Just to document what I have been searching around

2008-09-18T21:48:00.002+05:30

http://www.pbs.org/

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1066

http://www.avangate.com/articles/website-usability

http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/en/About-Design/Design-Methods/The-design-process/

http://www.scottberkun.com/

http://www.experientia.com/blog/

http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/

http://www.jacksonfish.com/

http://www.alistapart.com/feed/

http://www.1000wattblog.com/

http://www.digital-web.com/

http://headrush.typepad.com/

http://ashokbanker.com/

we begin with data, add context to get information, add understanding to get knowledge and add judgement to get wisdom

2008-09-16T19:53:00.005+05:30

General purpose Context information:

which is general to all user group.
Dynamic in nature.

Application dependent Context information:

depending on the specific user group.
Static in nature.
Maintained by the user and his preferences or is provided by a third party information provider.

Online Communities: Characterstics

1Domain: social community vs. professional community

2)Initiator: individual vs. organizations

3)Intention: commercial, non-profit and government

4)Purpose: Specific focus of the activities

5)Place: entirely virtual vs. partially virtual

6)Interaction form: synchronous vs. asynchronous

7)Structure: small group, network, public structure

8)Social ties: Strong vs. weak

SOCIAL NETWORKS

Bridging strategically important disconnects between departments or organizations
Improving a network’s ability to sense and respond to opportunities
Aligning the organizational context to energize and support networks
Identifying overburdened employees and redistributing workloads
Eliminating information bottlenecks
Recognizing and supporting key “connectors”
Pulling in peripheral people who represent untapped expertise

Somethings that I remember from way old back past

2008-09-11T14:47:00.004+05:30

The cadbury ad: Khuch Khaas Hain...Kyaa baat hain...Zindagi mein..I used to imagine myself like that Girl in that AD....and loved the way she used to dance!!!!!

The Ad of Doodh doodh Piyo glass full doodh....Doodh hain mast in every season....piyo doodh for every reason....

The CHANDRAKANTA story every sunday at 9 AM!!! with the title song as Chandrakanta ke kahani....yeh maana hain purani....yeh purani ho kar bhi......and that KROOR SINGH over there...i used to love that character!!!

The MOGLI every sunday....with the jingle...jungle jungle baat chali hain pata chala hain....Chaddi pehen ke phool khila hain....phool khilaa hain...

The samosas from Surana palace in ujjain while we used to go back home on our cycles.

The Shop infront of our school selling those ice candies and baked samosas which were soo very famous!!!!

The old women who used to sit infront of our school selling those imliies and ber (kind of berries) boiled and with that lovely masala!!!! Yumm Yumm...

The ruffles and their pudina flavour,,,,,which turned into Lays later on!!!

The weekender skirt that I had....all 90s memories

The Chitrahaar on TV.......every wednesday at 8 o clock in the night......

The 2:20 afternoon SHANTI serial which my parents used to disgust and never let me watch it!!!

The Aunty - Aunty Ad during the shaanti serial....some hair dye ad it was

Rahullll paani CHALA GJaayega!!!!!! Ad

The HE man shows, GI - Joe on sunday mornings!!!

The POTLI BABA KI serial!!!

Summer holidays without Computer or TV. Total aish all the time.

White Uniform on saturdays and scoldings from mi mom on ruining it thanks to sporting events on saturdays!!!

The crazy for Barbie doll...I had a single one...never had a teddy bear...still do not have one!!!

Games like Lagori, HopSchotch...Mosham Pa Bahi Mosham PA......Cricket with colony friends....Gadha Maar.......petty fights...and team issues......winning and losing....hurt and dettol...aaahhh it used to hurt when mom used to put the dettol on the wounds!!!!!

The Karate classes of mine.....and my little brother..ameep was my senior!!!!

My dad dropping all kids to school in the morning and my mom picking us up in the afternoons.

The homework sessions with mom and her way of tackling me and my brother...what energy she had!!!!

The House sessions in School and the sports day....and the bigg High of those times to own a jeans costing 800 RS.!!!

The FETE days....and the 50 Rs. given to me by mom to enjoy...with the teaching that I should know where I am spending and How I am spending......

The House wars..Tagore Vs. Nehru Vs. Gandhi Vs. Shastri!!!!

The picnics and the elaborate cooking by my working fulltime mom....and she had the energy to make cutlets for the entire class..

The Bdays...celebrations in school.....wowow...Loved the melodies and the Hajmola Imlieee toffees!!!

Those Bday parties and the games and their preparations......and then the CLEAN UP!!!

Fauji Serial on sundays...SRK in there!!!

The board exams and the exam fever!!!!

The first pair of sports shoes I got when I was in 5th class!!! Nice orange and mauve coloured they were!!!

Those Kartik Melas and those rides!!!!

My Dad's first car FIAT and then the Maruti 800!!! All those Poojas with the new vehicle...!!!

The first time computer user...and My dad the owner of those 486 or 586 computer....with Madhuri DIXIT wallpaper...

The WOLF Game....I was addicted to it!!!

The death of Princess Diana...and the live telecast on BBC and I went to my Dad's clinic to watch it!!!!

Advent of CABLE TV...and how proud it used to feel that one of my relatives had that Cable connection!!!

I dream of Jeannie!!!! Loved it!!!

Duck Tales and RITIKA....that cartoon character..with BAllooo jisme laga hain bada UUUU

Mile Sur mera Tumhara.....that song with all best people of India...

Surabhi serial...and the haircut of Renuka Shahene

Turning Point.....Girish Karnad....the anchor

Birthday gifts of brainvita and business and scrabble

Some of the talented people I am coming across lately

2008-09-08T20:58:00.002+05:30

http://priyankargupta.blogspot.com/

http://tran-smit.blogspot.com/

http://www.hogtodog.blogspot.com/

http://imraviranjan.blogspot.com/

http://www.flotsamnweeds.blogspot.com/

Am writing what is coming to my mind

2008-09-04T21:49:00.003+05:30

Found good friends in YMCA....thank god for them that evenigns are a good laugh andsharing conversations, trips to supermarkets and watching movies. Learning new things from them and then helping them out. The short but permanent stay is becoming more bearable and a happy experience.

Learning how to put the Damn EYELINER....well have been learning since the bangalore stay but then now seriously learning it. Learnt new tricks for quick makeup...;-)

Surprises landed at Hull home in the form of an envelop containing Rakhi for mayank which was sent by Srujana. Very sweet and thoughtful of her to think and send it. I was close to tears when I read her letter.

Reading Shri Mad Bhagwat Geeta these days, Have reached at the GEETA SAAR theses days. Reading from the book lend to me by one of YMCA friends.

Summer is over in England and it does make me depressed. I am scared of winters over here and I am so much dreading it from now onwards. God knows what is going to happen in december and january with me.....

Found a new sandwich parlour near Kings Cross. Decent salad collection they have for vegetarians.

Have been reading some nice blogs and design articles. Just to document them has been the WHEN factor.

Its lovely persists!!!

Coffee drinking has increased its frequency in my office hours. Will be switching on coffee without milk or sugar. Though I know i wont be able to survive.

Thinking to go to some places other than LEicestor Square or Oxford Square. Want to see some other part of london now.

Countdown has begun for my India travel days and going to some five different cities this time. Looking forward to go to puttaparthi and seek babas darshans.

Watched Bachan Aee haseenon....Loved RANBIR in that......and love the title track....soo much suits him.

Waiting to watch Rock on.

Sincerely trying to read the Bhagwatgeeta during my commute from YMCA to office. Its a good read till now.

Have installed Chrome and its fun. Love the way the downloads happen.

Discovered the facebook chat today.....(my cousin thinks that blunting has happened to my internet knowledge these days that i didnt know about facebook chat)

These days trying to know more about mortgages and personal finances..Its a good excercise to look into such things and learn more.

soem inspirational Blogs...

2008-09-03T19:12:00.002+05:30

I came across these sensational blogs...Totally blew away my mind with the creativity and design and the designerly eye...

http://artnlight.blogspot.com

http://indianbydesign.wordpress.com/

http://www.millionlittlestitches.blogspot.com/

http://adventuressheart.blogspot.com/

Movies that I watched in UK till now...

2008-09-01T20:35:00.002+05:30

Just random thought on the number of movies which me and mayank are watching for the past 9 months...Both of us are movie freaks and love to go to movies with nachos and hot dogs ...and watch movies.....

Am trying to list them down here....

27 Dresses 20th Century Fox
How to Rob a Bank IFC Films
Definitely, Maybe Universal Pictures
Be Kind Rewind New Line Cinema
Charlie Bartlett MGM
Vantage Point Sony (Columbia Pictures)
Penelope Summit Entertainment
The Bank Job Lions Gate Films
Drillbit Taylor Paramount Pictures
Forgetting Sarah Marshall Universal Pictures
Made of Honor Sony (Columbia Pictures)
What Happens in Vegas... 20th Century Fox
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian Walt Disney Pictures
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Paramount Pictures
Sex and the City Warner Bros. Pictures
You Don't Mess with the Zohan Sony Pictures
The Incredible Hulk Universal Pictures
WALL-E Walt Disney Pictures (Pixar Animation Studios)
Wanted Universal Pictures
Hancock Sony (Columbia Pictures)
Journey to the Center of the Earth New Line Cinema
The Dark Knight Warner Bros. Pictures
Mamma Mia! Universal Pictures
Step Brothers Sony (Columbia Pictures)
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor Universal Pictures

Bachna Ae Haseeno Siddharth Anand
Bhootnath Vivek Sharma
Jodhaa Akbar Ashutosh Gowarikar
Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic Kunal Kohli
Sarkar Raj Ram Gopal Varma
Tashan Vijay Krishna Acharya
U, Me Aur Hum Ajay Devgan
Aaja Nach Le

Experiencing London these days

2008-08-19T14:24:00.002+05:30

1. I take the tube to work and get back via bus, saves on time and the effort.

2. its difficult to manage a coffee cup in hand, one handbag, an unbrella, one plastic bag containing kellogs cornflakes and board a bus or a tube, I am learning how to do it.

3. London free papers like metro and london live are good fun to read and sudoku works the best for me to try my brains.

4. made selective friends here and am enjoying the company. Planning for some outings on one of the weekdays.

5. Forgot to book the tickets to Hull for this week and had to pay extra for the same journey...

6. Take a lot of care while walking with respect to my bag, I am paranoid about the feeling that my bag will be snatched from me one day.

7. Friendly people who help you, they give you directions, they tell you some more detail and off you go towards your destination.

8. met up with Mandira's parents last week. It was awesome to meet her mom as i felt i am meeting my own mom.

9. met up with my sister in law and went to an all vegetarian restaurant called as Sagar on Warren street, it was good food.

10. planning to go out with Akshara for some japanese food.

11. got the sour throat and bad cold and cough after eating dinner at Nandos, probably its the hummus that caught me on my wrong side, I think I am allergic to yoghurt.

12. Watched the movie Wild child and The dark knight this sunday with mayank, Dark night was way too long for a hollywood movie.......

13. Want to watch fox and the child and Women movie!!!

Sign Up forms

2008-08-15T14:22:00.003+05:30

Recently was involved in the development of Sign up form for a financial service organization. Few things I read up regarding the best practices for sign up forms, what all fields are required, whats the best way to represent the information to the user and how to elicit the information from the user were taken into consideration.

There were three different user groups that these registration forms were catering to as well as they were accessed from different nodes of the user journey and therefore the amount of information required from the user was different in all these cases, ranging from comprehensive to spot on crunched information.

Some of the key things that I took into consideration were:

1. Placement of the Sign up form link: Took the prominent position on the homepage itself beneath the header as well as took the same position in the rest of the pages as long as the user accesses the site content which is available for free.

2. Form design: minimalistic design, company homepage style without any primary navigation selected. Upfront, on the face for the user. Tone and the language is conversational without distractions.

3. Additional information was not provided on the registration page rather there is a seperate link which take the user to the content page of why registering with the company will benefit them.

4. Instant validation of the data filled in by the user in the sign up form on the similar lines of yahoo registration.

5. Titles of the input field to be highlighted and right aligned.

6. Number of mandatory fields were between 7 +- 2 range. In the comprehensive form it was 9 and on the toned down version had 6 fields.

Switzerland : Connectivity and Experience

2008-07-06T16:37:00.005+05:30

Swiss transport system

One of the interconnected systems I came to witness during the swiss trip and nevertheless to say I was astonished by the degree of connections their transport system makes and how accessible it is for a person coming from a different land, speakinga different language and still managing its way easily throughout the beautiful switzerland.

Some of the key points which I can remember from the swiss trip are:

Everything is interconnected, be it railways (underground/tubes), bus transport, ferry transport, curises, trams, cableways, taxi or funicular rides.

A typical scenario to explain the point further can be: A family arrives at the railways station at Interlaken and they are looking forward to travel for a day sightseeing to a place called as Thun.

At the railway station, there at the ticket counter, one can go and ask for train tickets which is as easy as it can get to at any other ticket counters across the world. Now to add beauty to this is: The person at the ticket counter will give you lots of options and yes at cheap and affordable prices. You can go to THUN in a cruise which is a 2.5 hour of cruise. The tickets are valid for an entire day so you can hop in and hop out at the villages nearby and see the countryside. Also you can mix and match this cruise ticket with a train ticket so that you can go by the cruise and come back to Interlaken by train. And if you feel more experimental, then you can get down at a village on your onward journey to Thun from Interlaken, get down at a village, take the funicular / cable ride up to the mountain top, enjoy and spend some time at the top, get down, catch a bus to another village to enjoy a local festival and then take the cruise on its way to Thun.

So in a single journey, we had the option of travelling by train part ways, taking a bus to reach to a particular point, take the funicular ride up to a mountain, then taking the cruise to our destination. It all cost some 40 pounds per person. All the tickets can be purchased at the same ticket counter!!! All the tickets....for bus, for train, for funicular ride, for cable car ride and for cruise too!!!!! ---> This was the example of concentration of service facilities at a single counter for tourists so that they do not have to run to fetch tickets from different places and who can have a variety of choices available at a single place.

The second thing which is most striking is the time table. The times of the bus service, cruise service, funicular/cable car rides, trains are so arranged so that there is a gap of 10 to 15 minutes of wait and one can avail any of this transport service depending on the need for travel. So if for example, you get down from your cruise to a village at 11:00. You go and see this village for an hour and then come back to the cruise pick up point where another cruise will pick you up to take you to the next destination. Then if you get down at the second village and then plans to travel by train then there is a train going to the next station from a particular platform which is already given in the timetable. So the timetable gives you the exact time of arrival of your cruise to a particular village, the train connecting with the platform number, the next bus on arrival to the village and the cable car time. All in one. Mix and match and ENJOY.

The third thing to wonder about is the location of all these transport systems. The cruise comes and dock itself in a canal which seeps right into the centre of the city/town/village. The railway station is usually a two minute (max is two mins..usually it was just by crossing the road) walk from the place where the cruise docks. The bus plys from the railway station itself. And if you have a cable car option then the pick up point for these services are behind the railway station or the bus drops you that pick up point which is included in that ticket. The best was the Zurich airport where on one level there were planes and aircraft passengers, on another level there was a massive train station and outside the airport there was a bus station and a taxi stand. The buses and the trains took the tourists to the zurich main train station where one can take the cruise or the next train to reach the destination.

Now one of the interactive things I came across the platforms and railways stations:

1. You can check your email at the railways station at 1 pound for 10 mins rate.

2. There are photo printing kiosks which accept photographs sent via MMS, Bluetooth, USB drive, Floppy drive, Compact disc, Infrared through which you can transfer your photos and get a printout.

3. At the railways platform, apart from the ticket machine dispenser, there are interactive boards for last minute hotel bookings. This board shows which hotel has available rooms, for the period of time and their rates. Also there is a numeric code assigned to each hotel. Next to this board is a public telephone with which you can dial the code and talk to the hotel reception desk for free.

4. whichever hotel you are staying gives you a village pass which entitles you to travel on all the public transport for free in that village and some nearby areas.

5. Cycling is the best way to have a look around the village where u are staying. Cycle is provided free of cost with the returnable deposit from the hotel where u have decided to stay.

Indian takeaways are virtually absent in swiss...At least in Interlaken we didnt find any. Though in Zurich and in Bern we happen to spend one of our evenings eating authentic indian samosas and chai. Bern Indian shop: Owner name: Mohammad: From Kerela: Kadak Chai and Samosa specialist.

Taking good sunglasses and sunscreen will be the best travel tip for travelling in Swiss. My skin is very photosensitive and so are my eyes and I had hard time facing the reflections from the snow and the sun on Alps. Even after the double application of sunscreen I got sunburnt!!!

Carry a good jacket rather than a coat. I carried my coat which was at times very heavy to carry. Better carry a very warm jacket during the summer time.

Swiss in Summer is like a country from fairy tales. Blue green water, cruises, wedding in a castle by the lake, tourists, football fever, fans, beer bars, little villages, sweet customs, trekking and hiking down the mountains...all fun and a relaxing holiday.

A cup of tea

2008-07-06T16:30:00.002+05:30

A cup of tea by my side, with the laptop on google site
cherishing the memories, missing the sun
sitting alone, wondering about the life to come

the cup of tea is a solace under the shadows of change
once i liked the change but now for a change i want it to change
lots of things to do, lots of things in mind
still sitting with the cup of tea, my mind in a grind

have seen the oceans, have seen the lakes
have touched the mystery, now waiting for a break
some envy me, some are jealous
some are laughing, some are mellow

at this roundabout, i am going round
looking for the exit, still going round
with a cup of tea by my side
i am enjoying everything about this ride.

From the drafts....Looks like Bhodi list of user requirements, usability processes, user centric design, design process in general

2008-06-19T17:13:00.004+05:30

Useful Content

Establish User requirements

customer support lines

customer surveys

bulletin boards

sales people

user groups

trade shows experience

focus groups

build use cases

meet user expectation

navigation

content

organization

involve users in establishing user requirements

set and state goals

audience

content

function

look and feel

Performance more than preference

considering many user interface issues

be easily found in top 30

appropriate meta content

page titles

number of links to the websites

updated registration with search engines

usability goals

success rates

time to find specific information

user satisfaction

user acceptance

parallel design

user personas

Credibility in web space

provide FAQs

ensure the website is arranged in a logical way

providing articles containing citations and references

show author's credentials

ensure the site looks professionally designed

archive for past content

site is up to dated

links to outside sources and content

site is frequently linked to by other websites

allow users to perform tasks in the same sequence across similar conditions

do not make users remember information, let the computer/application take care of it

facilitate fast page loading by reducing number of bytes per page

time out warnings specifically for bank account pages

display data in international standards or multiple ways rather than sticking onto one way

provide appropriate feedback

the content should be readable as well as printable

inform users for longer processes and the estimated time

user's terminology in help documentation

providing printing options

have the capacity to provide assistance to the user

all forms should be able to filled using assistive technologies

colour is not the only segregator: use other design techniques to seperate / demarcate content apart from colour to assist colour blind users

text equivalents to non texts elements

applets, plug ins should be tested for accessibility issues

scripts running on a page which are responsible for content/interface elements of that page should be readable by assistive technologies

provide equivalent pages if accessible pages cannot be provided

client side image maps should be provided with alt text

providing frame titles

avoid screen flickers

Me and my driving lessons

2008-06-05T06:52:00.002+05:30

Yep...me there out on the road and learning to drive..
Some of the thoughts that keep on coming....all the time and everytime i am at those steering wheels...

ZOOOOmmmmmmmmmm......at the speed of 100 mph ... and scare my driving instructor...(kidding)
I look forward to my driving classes with Lesley....who loves to teach and be a driving instructor and recently she celebrated her 1st wedding anniversary and then the other day ran for Cancer research for raising funds with her daughter.
The first time the car moved when I was at the wheels i was PETRIFIED
I am frightened when a car comes close to me when i am driving
I miss tabi for the moment when she picked me up from bangalore bus station and it was her first time out on her own in her car and i was the non driver.
I miss my mom and remember how she learnt to drive and how slow she used to be and how characterstic is her way of blowing horn when she returns home from her work.
I miss automatic Zen of my parents which I call Rampyari.
I glided past the lamp post when I was being asked to STOP
I forgot how to put the brakes.
I forgot where the brake peddle is situated.
I forgot to press the brake peddle when I remebered where it is actually situated.
The car usually stalls when i put in brakes as i keep forgetting that i have to apply the clutch as well.
I drove at the speed of 5mph at the first time.
I drove and stop and drove and stop in my first lesson.
I learnt how to take a right and left turns.
Left turns are easier than right turns...though i dont feel like it....its just that my instructor says like that.
I have the urge to blow horn here but then here nobody blows horn!!!!
At first i drove like I own the road.....(:D)

Part of the work I did lately.....on Digital Libraries

2008-06-05T01:51:00.002+05:30

Research on Digital Libraries, information retrieval, Search, Licences, Metadata, Databases

From the presentation: Part and parcel of it

Cultural industry covers both the fields of traditional & modern art & culture, from artistic creation to distribution, the creative work of an artist, its further development & commercialization to a piece of work, the presentation of the work & its distribution and reception.

It achieves its goal through cultural content production which is producing cultural material and then distributing and presenting it through various media in such a manner that it generates business activity.

“Digital libraries are organizations that provide the resources including the specialized staff to select, structure, offer intellectual access to, interpret, distribute, preserve the integrity of and insure the persistence over time of collections of digital works so that they are readily and economically available for use by a defined community or a set of communities” Waters 1998

In a digital library we are dealing with
1. Huge scope and heterogeneous nature of the fields encompassed in the broad term “visual arts”.
2. Diverse and frequently unpredictable needs of users
3. Bewildering variety of materials handled

Digital Library (DL)
An organization, that comprehensively collects, manages and preserves for the long term rich digital content, and offers to its user communities specialized functionality on that content, of measurable quality and according to codified policies.

Digital Library System (DLS)
A software system that is based on a defined architecture and provides all functionality required by a particular Digital Library.

Digital Library Management System (DLMS)
A generic software system that
(i) produces and administer a Digital Library System incorporating the suite of functionality considered fundamental for Digital Libraries and
(ii) integrates additional software offering more refined, specialized or advanced functionality.

User either browses or searches.

Digital libraries have to strike a balance between search and browse and professional and novice user and their behaviour.

Findability is governed by what user enters in the query and how the system approaches its search functionality on its metadata to achieve the desired result.

The fine granularity of the metadata helps in delivering objects in a meaningful way and therefore it affects its long term ability to maintain and preserve digital assets.

Descriptive metadata: like a traditional catalogue
Administrative metadata: information necessary to curate digital objects.
1. technical metadata: all necessary technical information
2. Rights management: declaration of rights and liscences held in the item and information necessary to restrict its delivery
3. Digital Provenance: information on creation and treatment of digital item
Structural metadata: information necessary to record the internal structure of an item for its proper rendering when retrieved by user.

User Behaviour: MSR 2007 , Cameron 2003 and Sero Consulting studies

Difficulty in query formation
Professional visual search & Novice visual search
Younger users prefer browsing options over specific searches
Want to drive their own pathways through collections
Seek interactivity and action spaces
Usually queries are in two or three words.
Its hard for users to formulate proper queries for visual search
Novice user prefer to browse the image search results
Professional users search directly, formulate more queries & navigate less pages
More time on browsing
Keyword spotting
Non-linear reading / scanning
Annotating and highlighting
Discovery to delivery processes are a part of emerging user “creativity cycle”(C2C create to curate)

Content search

Selecting search terms
Combining search terms
Field specific search
Truncation
Proximity adjancy and context searching
Range searching and limiting
Search management
Displaying the thesaurus
Hyperlinks

woh khat ke purze udaa raha tha...

2008-06-05T01:35:00.002+05:30

Woh Umra kam kar rahan tha meri...
Mein apne saal bada rahan tha...
woh khat ke purze udaa raha tha...
Hawaon ka rukh dikha rahan tha....

rahon ke beech raah bana raha tha...
doosro ko apna bana raha tha...
woh khat ke purze udaa raha tha...
hawaon ke rukh dikha raha tha...

waqt to rokna chaah raha tha...
beete palon ko beetana chaah rahan tha...
woh khat ke purze udaa raha tha...
hawaon ke rukh dikha raha tha...

kahaniyon ki kitab palta raha tha...
pariyon ko desh apne bula raha tha...
woh khat kke purze udaa raha tha...
hawaon ke rukh dikha raha tha...

What a did a while back...

2008-05-16T11:54:00.004+05:30

Bhangra at York: I went to York to attend the Vaisakhi and Holi festival celebration and it was fun. The bhangra group from Birmingham was fun and thrilling. It was a delight to watch them dancing at the dhol beat and then giving all of us a bhangra lesson.

Indian sweets at York: After months I had the taste of Jalebi and mithai in its purest form over there in York. HAd fun...and yeah ate a LOT....

Easter at York Minstrel: It was a heart touching gesture where the Archbishop was meeting every one and greeting them with good wishes and happy easter and making it a point to shake hands with most of them.

Some Interesting people I met lately

2008-04-14T19:05:00.004+05:30

Two of the interesting people I met lately and think they deserve a place in my blog...

Person 1: Mr. John, Tiling Expert.

Mr. John came to our apartment to lay tiles into our en-suite and make it's interface look all the more better and cleaner. For the first two hours I just heard his music which was playing from his music system and some hammerring and some spraying. After that during his lunch break, we got onto talking when he asked me what I do for living. I was wary enough and just said that I am into designing for computer's applications. On hearing the design he was intrigued and he asked me what I am doing lately. I replied that I am job hunting these days as well as spending my time travelling, sketching and in papercraft. And he looked at the things which I made in paper and he marvelled at those. Surprisingly he said he is a guitarist as well. That point I thought wow....its a surprise to find your tiling guy into some musical instrument and that he played it professionally. I asked him whether he played at a pub or something or that he is into a band or something. Then he took out his Sony Erricsson mobile phone and he played the song he wrote/composed/sang. AND I WAS astonished!!!!! He sang really well and the music which he composed for his song was KEWL. He asked me ways to record his music....and whether he should pursue it further...and I was like yeah...you should go ahead....advertise yourself....put your song on youtube....put up a blog...meet other guitarist......join some music groups......give in your song clips to radio ........ I hope I have inspired him...I hope he pursues his dream.....his dream is to become a guitarist and play and sing his own songs.......I hope he gets what he want......It was refreshing to meet him that day...

Person 2: Mr. Kamaal (aka Kamaal ho gaya...he introduced himself like this to us...)

We went out to an Indian takeaway restaurant the other day as we both were tired to cook/reheat/heat any food from the refridgerator. So we went to the restaurant/takeaway know as "The Last Viceroy". It could have been named as "Lord Mountbatton". But anyways.... we went in and were greeted by a chirpy and chatty folk who seated us graciously. After taking the seat, me and mayank were chatting about the cold and then he came back and asked us this question," Are you guys Indian?" "Yes, we are Indian". "well , I am glad that i met indians today...and that too young indian couple....as here what all we meet is old indian doctors and rarely their familes..." I didnt comment on it..at ALL...."So you guys know Ramayana and Mahabharatha? " "Yes, kind of...we read it in our school". "Yeah I am intrigued by Sita..." Kewl....I never though I would be intrigued by them...and wanted to ask him what makes him so intrigued. So the conversation drifted to Ramayana and Sita...and then mahabharatha......and then to the TAJ MAHAL and Kerela and Bangalore. I was surprised when he said he drove with his friend from Delhi to Bangalore..and that he loved the Bangalore campus. Its nice feeling when people appreciate the places where you have already been there and stayed and then they marvel at the beauty and the environment. He talked on and on about India and it was good for our ears......Discussed things like the way Indian police deal with robbers and what he witnessed and how he stayed in The TAJ hotel in Mumbai......(wow!!!). A nice character to meet that day.

Its snowing again..

2008-03-24T18:48:00.002+05:30

For the past three days...its been snowing in York...not continuously...but then in bits and pieces....and today i am witnessing kind of heavy snowfall.....its only for 10 mins here but then suddenly.....in the bright sunny day....there comes those white clouds...and then it starts snowing.......when i thought of writing..i had different things to write on the blog...bt when i saw the phenomenon.....i wanted to write how i felt when it started snowing.......its like something soft and very light falling from the sky above.....so much light so that if you blow across it....it will change its direction.....its course.....and the best part is that its sunny here and its snowing...such a sight it is....as the snow flakes shine and look more white in the sunshine...and ohh they are soo soft.....and the moment they touch the ground....they disappear.....and when its a heavy snowfall......then its like that photoshop image where one has put that sketch filter across everywhere and then have made the entire picture soft and dreamy.......

Philips and innovation

2008-03-16T00:23:00.002+05:30

I have always been a fan of Philips.....in Bangalore when me and tabi used to go past the Philips building we used to think someday we will also work there...Till now the dream hasn't been realized as it takes a lot of effort and experience to realize the dream but then its always a journey towards your goal.

Some of the new innovation from Philips few of the most interesting ones are Design probes. Philips Design Probes is a dedicated ‘far-future’ research initiative to track trends and developments that may ultimately evolve into mainstream issues that have a significant impact on business.

Some of the projects listed in the philips website are : Skin Tattoos, Vibe Emotional Sensor, Skintile Electronic Sensing Jewellery. They all emphasize on future integration of sensitive materials in the area of emotional sensing and thereby shifting their innovative process towards "sensitive" design.

Worth checking the site : http://www.design.philips.com

Things I learnt and am learning while the House hunting expedition

2008-03-09T15:56:00.002+05:30

Yes...house hunting...thats what me and mayank are doing these days. Our shifting to Hull requires us to look for a plae to reside for the next four months in Hull which is a coastal city in Humberside, Yorkshire.
The responsibility was mine to locate the places, check the details of the properties, fix a viewing time and then go with mayank to view them and then decide which one to take. Some of the takeaways from this house hunting experiment are: (we havent yet decided which one to take....and the excercise is still in progress)

- Score the internet...in all possible manners.....check for properties near the town centre, in the town centre, near to train station, near bus stops, near superstores, walkable distances to films centers. It is necessary to get out on your own at times and then you dont want to be stranded in some god foresaken place with no life around you.
- rightmove.co.uk is an absolute recommended site to check the available properties and fix viewings with the letting agents.
- on a single day visit, try to view at least 5 properties. Rate them.
- we developed a questionnaire where for every property we had a list of questions on a variety of issues as well as it had a checklist of the available furnishings coming with the house/apartment. Keep ticking....keep taking your notes, take pictures, take videos so that you remember later what all you had seen....
- lifts to reach to your apartment are an important factor. Dont miss it.
- Enterance to your apartment makes a major impact on your liking or disliking of it. We didnt like the dungeon enterance to one of the apartments even though it was really comfortable and at a strategic location.
- Go to your workplace from your desired/ mutually approved place and see how much time you take, how frustrating or soothing the drive is.
- Check the railway and tube connection with it.
- Make an excel sheet, believe me it is really helpful, list the properties, to whom you will be meeting, time, date , the letting agents address and contact numbers.
- In the same excel, on another sheet, start collecting data about removal companies and their quoted prices. Check the yellow pages also and make calls to removal companies asking them for quotes.
- In the same excel, start putting in data for the quotes from boxes companies and the various packages available. It will be the third stage after finalizing your apartment and removal companies.
- Bargain with removal companies to provide you with boxes. They might include the discounted boxes price with the removals and you are saved with spending more.
- EAT and start on a good note while you head on for your viewings. An empty stomach, some minor disagreement, cold weather, studies tension can demarr your outlook and mood all together.
- There is still lot of unsurity whether to take or not to take, which one is good. Jot down how you felt the moment you set your foot inside your apartment's building. First thoughts are worth paying your 100% attention.

Where are you now?

2008-03-06T02:38:00.002+05:30

A question.... a simple question..........think about it......it has got a deeper meaning to it. I got a forward and was reading it and in the last image this was the question that was written...Of course there were many other things also written over there but then this question caught my fancy.

Where are you now? Is it asking me my geographical location ?? or that on which latitute and longitude I am in as I am writing my blog or where I am in my personal life?? or where I am in my professional life?? Or where i am in my spiritual life...if there is any left...?? or where I am in my social life??.....what is it?? it has so many dimensions and surely I don't want to answer any of them over here in my blog but its thought provoking.....

To make it more interesting......just read this one....

"" Skills, Knowledge, abilities and Experience are only useful if you are at the right place ""
"""" Where are you NOW??? """

Somone answering this???

Earthquake in York

2008-02-27T19:07:00.002+05:30

Well it happened...I never realized for the first tremor what it was....just that my bed was shaking....and the walls of our house (which are made of wooden planks) were jittering...otherwise things were normal....and then I felt the second tremor.....well it was a warning for me and I jumped out of the bed to see what is actually happenning. I was under my sweet assumption that the winds are so strong outside that they are rattling the entire house....but when I saw outside the window then it was nothing.....just swaying of the leaves and some rustling noise here and there......

Mayank was on his night duty and so I smsed him...that I think I experienced an earthquake here....Am I hallucinating or is it true? and the reply came in positive that yes it was an earthquake and if things are dangerous then please call 999. Anyways within 10 minutes there was flashing news on bbc declaring with evidence that England experienced its "English" earthquake after a span of 6 years and the epicentre was some 30 miles off our current place...

Interesting thing to notice is that when in India I have been in a similar condition, then people come out of the houses and all the neighbours come out and talk....here people if they get up or feel danger then they call 999 or log onto the internet and check bbc site for some updates on what they felt. Neat I should say.....quite a different experience for me...,,,in the end...I had fun..

Some new things I learnt......courtesy Highway code book.

2008-02-24T18:29:00.003+05:30

Zebra crossings. Give traffic plenty of time to see you and to stop before you start to cross. Vehicles will need more time when the road is slippery. Wait until traffic has stopped from both directions or the road is clear before crossing. Remember that traffic does not have to stop until someone has moved onto the crossing. Keep looking both ways, and listening, in case a driver or rider has not seen you and attempts to overtake a vehicle that has stopped.

Where there is an island in the middle of a zebra crossing, wait on the island and follow Rule 19 before you cross the second half of the road – it is a separate crossing.

At traffic lights. There may be special signals for pedestrians. You should only start to cross the road when the green figure shows. If you have started to cross the road and the green figure goes out, you should still have time to reach the other side, but do not delay. If no pedestrian signals have been provided, watch carefully and do not cross until the traffic lights are red and the traffic has stopped. Keep looking and check for traffic that may be turning the corner. Remember that traffic lights may let traffic move in some lanes while traffic in other lanes has stopped.

Pelican crossings. These are signal-controlled crossings operated by pedestrians. Push the control button to activate the traffic signals. When the red figure shows, do not cross. When a steady green figure shows, check the traffic has stopped then cross with care. When the green figure begins to flash you should not start to cross. If you have already started you should have time to finish crossing safely.

Puffin crossings differ from pelican crossings as the red and green figures are above the control box on your side of the road and there is no flashing green figure phase. Press the button and wait for the green figure to show.

When the road is congested, traffic on your side of the road may be forced to stop even though their lights are green. Traffic may still be moving on the other side of the road, so press the button and wait for the signal to cross.

Toucan crossings are light-controlled crossings which allow cyclists and pedestrians to share crossing space and cross at the same time. They are push-button operated. Pedestrians and cyclists will see the green signal together. Cyclists are permitted to ride across.

Patient Care

2008-02-22T18:55:00.002+05:30

Strange I feel when I write something about medical profession.....as I never liked it...and never wanted to be a part of it....but as destined...I am into the thick of it.........Not being the one who is practising it but being a pseudo part of it.....but anyways despite my likings and dislikings and personal thoughts related to medicine.....I never imagined that I would be writing a post on it....and that too in my blog........but...truth is stranger than fiction which is much stranger than life itself....so here I go....something I witnessed this morning while I was sitting in my living room, enjoying the sunshine after 5 gloomy days of english weather......

The patient care in this country is amazing and something like an eye opener for me...everytime I learn something new and something which I always thought happens in TV serials like ER or likes.......I witnessed the epitome of patient care so as to say, when I saw a bright yellow HELICOPTER descending just near to our apartments and it was pretty LOW.......so much low so that if one stands outside one can feel the gusts of wind blowing from left right and centre and then it landed on the helipad.....which is supposedly the ground diagonally opposite to out apartment. These are the ambulance helicopters which bring terminally ill patients to the district hospital like the one in York accompanied by the Paramedic team or sometimes doctors. Then this team of flown in patient and the paramedics is recieved by the A & E, i.e. Accident and Emergency doctors who take the patient to the critical care unit. Having all thic action going on in the upfront stage, there are documents which are exchanged within the two teams, handover done in the formal manner, signoff taken, X rays and other vital test results are already updated and available in the A & E and the recieving team is on the way for patient recovery.

Then there is the Crash call in the hospitals.....A crash call is handled by a Crash team only. Crash team consists of a group of doctors at different levels of their training belonging to different specialities. Its head if the senior most doctor and whenever there is an emergency in the ward regarding a patient , the crash call is placed at top priority. The crash team members carry crash bleep with them and on hearing the crash call they rush to the needed ward where the patient is in an emergency situation. There are seperate crash teams for Accident and emergency, for the general wards and for the Obstretics and Gynaecology ward.

How very medical do I sound from this post????

Somethings about Art...

2008-02-12T03:36:00.000+05:30

Recently I visited the Royal Academy of Art, London. It was the time that I was exploring the Piccadily Circus area and had known that a place called RA existed somewhere in the area...and luckily found it. So here is what I saw...

Royal Academy currently exhibits a collection of Russian and French paintings dating from the period of 1870 - 1925 from Moscow and St. Petersburg. This landmark exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts presents modern masterpieces drawn from Russia’s principal collections: the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art and the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and the State Hermitage Museum and the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

For the first time, works from these museums have been gathered for a single exhibition.Over 120 paintings by Russian and French artists working between 1870 and 1925 will be displayed together in an exhibition which surveys the main directions of modern art from Realism and Impressionism to Non-Objective painting. Works will include paintings by Renoir, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Matisse together with those by Kandinsky, Tatlin and Malevich.

I am putting up some of the paintings which I really liked. All copyright and due credits to the painters and the collectors.

Renoir's Portrait of the actress Jeanne Samary

Monet's Poppy Field

Philipp Malyavin, Dancing Peasant Woman, 1913. Oil on canvas, 210 x 125 cm.

Léon Bakst, Portrait of Sergei Diaghilev with His Nanny, 1906. Oil on canvas, 161 x 116 cm.

Isaak Levitan, After the Rain, Plyos, 1889. Oil on canvas, 80 x 125 cm.

Charles Carolus-Duran, Portrait of Nadezhda Polovtsova, 1876. Oil on canvas, 206 x 124.5 cm.

-----

2008-02-12T03:30:00.000+05:30

sometimes I wonder if I am lost......
sleeping peacefully or walking down the path
looks as if it is a game of chess
muddled head and the impending mess

irrelevant things make new questions
gripping fears put me on pedestal
in search of something i wander around
i wonder if life has become a merry go round!

From "The Humane Interface"

2008-02-11T01:21:00.000+05:30

Usability issues for a humane interface

Jef Raskin wrote a book called "The Humane Interface". It deals with fundamental issues of interaction design for any computer based system. A nearly one page summary of design rules by Jef Raskin

The first principle.
When using a product to help you do a task, the product should only help and never distract you from the task. Definition: A gesture is an action that you finish without conscious thought once you have started it. Example: For a beginning typist, typing the letter "t" is a gesture. For a more experienced typist, typing the word "the" is a gesture.
Commentary.
Designing a human-machine interface demands that both the human and the machine be understood as well as possible. An understanding of the relevant portions of cognitive psychology, ergonomics, and cognetics is essential. That is not all that is needed, but it is a prerequisite.

Rule 1.
An interface should be habituating.
Commentary. If the interface can be operated habitually then, after you have used it for a while, its use becomes automatic and you can release all your attention to the task you are trying to achieve. Any interface will have elements that are habituating, but the principle here is to make the entire interface habituating.

Rule 1a.
To make an interface habituating, it must be modeless.
Commentary. Modes exist where the same gesture yields different results depending on system state at a time when your attention is not on system state. In the presence of modes, you will sometimes make mode errors, where you make a gesture intending to have one result but get a different and unexpected result, distracting you from your task.

Rule 1b.
To make an interface habituating, it must be monotonous.
Commentary. "Monotony" here is a technical term meaning that you do not have to choose among multiple gestures to achieve a particular sub-task. Crudely, there should be only one way to achieve a single-gesture subtask.

The second principle:
An interface should be reliable.
Commentary. Aside from not crashing, the system should never lose anywork you have done or any information you have received or retrieved,even if you make a mistake or are forgetful. This is often not thought of as a property of an interface, but one can build a reliable interface on top of an unreliable system (of the order of unreliability of todays operating systems).

Rule 2:
The system should neither lose your work nor through inactionallow your work to be lost.The third princple: An interface should be efficient and as simple aspossible.Commentary. Time is an unreplaceable asset. An interface should nottake more of your time than is necessary, either in use or in learning.

Rule 3.
Good engineering practices should be applied to interfacedesign. Quantitative measures should be used, and an interface shouldbe close to its theoretical minimum in terms of the time it takes todo an operation.Commentary. The GOMS model and information theoretic measures ofefficiency (to name two particular techniques among many) must bemastered and used by interface designers. Another set of techniquesand measures can be used to help judge learnability. LINK-Where forGOMS?

The fourth principle:
The suitability of an interface can only bedetermined by testing.Commentary. All of the theory in the world, and the wisest guru,cannot always predict how an interface will work in practice. One must test, objectively observe, and modify the interface if testingshows that users have difficulties. It is never the user's fault, but also remember that people find it difficult to change, so difficulties based on previous habits may not be dispositive.

The fifth principle:
An interface should be pleasant in tone andvisually attractive.
Commentary. How messages are phrased is important, how the interfacelooks is also important. But these are of secondary importance interms of task completion. When use of the interface has becomehabitual, these elements go unnoticed. All of the principles, iffollowed, create learnable interfaces.

Summary.
An interface should be effective, habituating, reliable, efficient, and tested. To the extend that doing so does not conflict with these essentials, an interface should also be attractive.

Blog worth visiting...

2008-02-06T14:40:00.001+05:30

http://www.designverb.com

The Glesca Patter

2008-02-01T18:17:00.000+05:30

I am in Glasgow for the past 8 days and I am finding it a little difficult to understand the Glaswegians' accent. So I decided to read about how people speak, what are the major characterstics of their language, how they write english, what phonetics they emphasize on and what all characters they eat while speaking........and here is the outcome......and yes....Scots are cute people which a raw sense of humour....they love cracking jokes at the drop of the hat.....and they are very talkative....love to talk to people they meet on streets.....and love to help a stranger out......

The Glesca Patter

Its a dialect spoken in and around Glasgow and has evolved over the centuries amongst the working class, Irish immigrants and passing seamen near dockyards.

ah means I : "Ah wiz oot wae Jimmy" translates into " I was out with Jimmy"
am ur means I am : "Yer no gaun" translates into " You are not going"
"Aye" is Yes
"At's aw yer gettin aff a me" translates into "That is all you are getting off of me"
"Awrite. Haud oan!" is "Allright, Hold On"
"Ahm gaun doon eh tae the shoaps, dae ye wan' anyhin?" is "I'm going down to the shops, do you want anything?"
"Aye, ye be'urr ge' some bu'urr an some breid an mulk" is "Yes, you'd better get some butter and some bread and milk."
"I belang tae Glesca." is "I belong to Glasgow"
"Come ben eh hoose." is "come inside the house"
"Ah canny dae it." is " I can't do it"
"Wher urr ye gaun eh day?" is "where you are going today?"
"Whit urr ye daein?""Nuhin!""Yir up tae sumhin, ah kin tell. Whit's gaun oan?""Nuhin.""Urr you smokin a fag?""Naw!""Whit's aht smoke risin fae behin ye then?"Nuhin!" is " What are you doing? Nothing! You are up to something, I can tell. Whats going on? Nothing! You are smoking a fag? NO! "Whats that smoke rising from behind you?"

More and more...and more and more..................I have to give my 100 percent attention to get a general idea of what a person said to me.....and that time also I just get 30 percent of what is being said......rest I figure out miself....or go and ask someone else.......but....its good fun...to hear.....it and try to decipher it.

Metamorphically speaking: From drafts

2008-01-30T19:29:00.001+05:30

I have been told to chill and have fun!!!

How about going Doon toon?

This is a lovelaie coountriee!

"Ayee" is Yes.

"Ken" is know.

"Yes my hen!" is equivalent to "Yes mi Luv" is equivalent to "Yes my Love".

"How not" is Why not?

"Often" is pronounced with T not silent but emphasised on.

"worrled" is "world", "girrl" is "girl", "Mora" is "Tomorrow", "Noo" is "now".

"Buh-urr" is "Butter", "Mah" is "My", "Hoose" is "House"

"Toonhead" is "townhead"

This is what I am doing lately....

2008-01-25T23:04:00.000+05:30

Christ walking down the road @ Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow

Machintosh's furniture design: Floral glass painting in a Chair

How do you explain line and form?

Dynamic structure

Touch of South India in Glasgow

2008-01-25T16:19:00.000+05:30

A visit to Banana Leaf, run by Shabbir, near Yorkhill Hospital in Glasgow, a visit which was down the memory lane, reminded me of Bangalore breakfast and Pune's Techmahindra, a trip to south india and the authenticity of its masala dosas and sambhar and rasam and chutneys. As I always say, it couldnt have got better.

York doesnt have south indian restaurants or takeaways and I havent yet found the packs of grounded prepared dosa pastes tasty enough, it was a treate to visit this small takeaway joint which offers authentic masala dosa, in the same way as I would have gone and eaten in the TM's canteen or at FC road or at Oracle's canteen or at some snack place on the roadside. I did hog onto the food and was eating greedily the masala dosas which Shabbir had prepared. Shabbir is a law student pursuing his Law from Glasgow university but his passion lies in making dosas and running banana leaf. One entrepreneur I met yesterday, he belongs to Pondichery and I had a good chat with him regarding Maa and Golden dome and the sun kissed beaches of Pondichery.

A place worth visiting if you want to relish rasam which gives you a spicy burning trail down your throat, nice crispy dosas with potatoe filling, coconut chutney and the ginger chutney and rasam. Very affordable place, don't give attention to the interiors they don't matter once you start eating the food. Add a cup of filter coffee to finish your meal, its worth it.

Continuing from the previous post

2008-01-23T17:15:00.000+05:30

People do read my blogs....even if its me and another friend of mine....they do read......

The roofs of the house are very low, as in when one stretches the hand up then one can touch the lamps.

There are yellow lights anywhere and everywhere. The white tubelight which we are accustomed to see in India are not present here at most of the places.

Travelling is fun, not that I discovered it right now, its jst a reinforced feeling.

London tube map is a perfect example of information visualization and presentation of information in clear and understandable manner. A first timer like me could navigate through the heart of London without a single glitch.

People come to your rescue when you are stuck, sometime somewhere someone always comes, pulls you out through the tough turn and then disappears.

Most of the people carry luggages with wheels, most of them. may be because there are no porters and one has to handle everything on your own.

Information is slowly but steadily hammered into your mind. Everywhere you read instructions and it gets repeated every 5 seconds visually and audibly. So much so that one thinks also in the same way i.e. in the instruction mode.

London tube is the pulse of London, one can find variety of people, travelling together, running in the humdrum of life towards their destination, towards their work.

Its not "yep" here. Its "Yes" and more "Yes please".

Its not "Thank you so much" which I happen to speak but its "Thank you very much".

Even railways platforms have shopping arcades.

There are different ways to denote the restrooms, "Ladies n Gentlemen", "His and Her", "He and She" and "Female and Male". The most prominent ones are "Ladies and Gentlemen".

One can witness beautiful hats adorned with feathers and laces while walking down in the town centre. Its not always in the movies that the haute culture is depicted, it can be seen live on the drive here.

Your hairdresser marvels at your black hair.

Random Thoughts

2008-01-16T14:14:00.000+05:30

Its always "Thank you very much" and not "Thank you so much".

The sun sets at 5 o clock and it can rain anytime, everyday and most of the days.

Parking is tough and one can go round and round and round the city centre to get a free one.

Carrying money is becoming absolute these days.....everyone relies on plastic money.

Pound one Coin is smaller but heavier than 50 pence coin.

Every city has a city centre.

All shops in city centre close at 5 o clock.

Every city centre has beautiful benches around the square where people perform or new eateries keep coming in with their delicious food.

Its a delight to hear some desi words once and for all while walking in the crowd.

Everything starts and ends with Lovely.

Always wrap an extra cover while stepping out...you never know when the temperature will drop.

If you are lost, better to ask and you will definitely get authentic and genuine answers.

Children are always a delight though they are quieter.

Good to have neighbours, they do send good stuff to eat and one can always hop in anytime.

Computer and internet is the lifeline, can't imagine a life without it.

Good to have friends but very frustrating if you keep planning to meet them and still can't.

Things are expensive....infact very expensive. It takes courage to spend and shell out money when one is not earning.

Libraries are good place to be and books can be very good friends, just that they dont talk and that they get over within some time.

Everything is available on internet and everything can be purchased on internet, but dont do that, just go out and purchase on your own.

Weather is always a big topic of discussion. Be it raining or cold or snow or a bright sunny day with showers in between.

You are being understood and listened by anyone and everyone.

Its a delight to see roads, buses, trains, stations, shopping areas, town centre accessible for everyone.

Young and Old, people with disabilities and on motor wheelchairs and able peole, all are one, they come, they shop, they carry their own shopping bags by themselves.

Churches are beautiful, idle for photography, peace of mind and heart.

Aerobics are fun excercises to do, though all excercises are tough and one has to drag oneself to do them.

Haven't had a pizza since I left BAngalore, kinda missing it today when I saw the pamphlet delivered to our place.

Postman comes in everyday, bringing in letters and pamphlets and lot of other irrelevant stuff. He wears an orange jacket.

The Art shops / craft shops over here are fabulous. They sell everything which one can imagine hunting down for two hours in old city.

Walking is good for health.

Driving rules are followed to the last alphabet.

Managing a home is a mammoth task. There are a lot of things to be done everyday!

Quilling has been a good time consuming activity.

Flowers remain fresh for two to three weeks.

Its fun to witness the shopping frenzy and craziness during christmas time.

Christmas is the time when everything is lit up and everyone is busy shopping.

ASDA and TESCO can be good outings and neccessary ones too.

You and I

2008-01-16T14:08:00.000+05:30

Go Kiss the World

2007-12-12T15:17:00.000+05:30

Go Kiss the World

by Subroto Bagchi, Chief Operating Officer, MindTree Consulting, India

Welcome Address by Subroto Bagchi, Chief Operating Officer, MindTree Consulting to the Class of 2006 on July 2, 2004 at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India on defining success.

I was the last child of a small-time government servant, in a family of five brothers. My earliest memory of my father is as that of a District Employment Officer in Koraput, Orissa. It was and remains as back of beyond as you can imagine. There was no electricity; no primary school nearby and water did not flow out of a tap. As a result, I did not go to school until the age of eight; I was home-schooled. My father used to get transferred every year. The family belongings fit into the back of a jeep - so the family moved from place to place and, without any trouble, my Mother would set up an establishment and get us going. Raised by a widow who had come as a refugee from the then East Bengal, she was a matriculate when she married my Father. My parents set the foundation of my life and the value system which makes me what I am today and largely defines what success means to me today.

As District Employment Officer, my father was given a jeep by the government. There was no garage in the Office, so the jeep was parked in our house. My father refused to use it to commute to the office. He told us that the jeep is an expensive resource given by the government - he reiterated to us that it was not 'his jeep' but the government's jeep. Insisting that he would use it only to tour the interiors, he would walk to his office on normal days. He also made sure that we never sat in the government jeep - we could sit in it only when it was stationary. That was our early childhood lesson in governance - a lesson that corporate managers learn the hard way, some never do.

The driver of the jeep was treated with respect due to any other member of my Father's office. As small children, we were taught not to call him by his name. We had to use the suffix 'dada' whenever we were to refer to him in public or private. When I grew up to own a car and a driver by the name of Raju was appointed - I repeated the lesson to my two small daughters. They have, as a result, grown up to call Raju, 'Raju Uncle' - very different from many of their friends who refer to their family drivers as 'my driver'. When I hear that term from a school- or college-going person, I cringe. To me, the lesson was significant - you treat small people with more respect than how you treat big people. It is more important to respect your subordinates than your superiors.

Our day used to start with the family huddling around my Mother's chulha - an earthen fire place she would build at each place of posting where she would cook for the family. There was no gas, nor electrical stoves. The morning routine started with tea. As the brew was served, Father would ask us to read aloud the editorial page of The Statesman's 'muffosil' edition - delivered one day late. We did not understand much of what we were reading. But the ritual was meant for us to know that the world was larger than Koraput district and the English I speak today, despite having studied in an Oriya medium school, has to do with that routine. After reading the newspaper aloud, we were told to fold it neatly. Father taught us a simple lesson. He used to say, "You should leave your newspaper and your toilet, the way you expect to find it".

That lesson was about showing consideration to others. Business begins and ends with that simple precept.

Being small children, we were always enamored with advertisements in the newspaper for transistor radios - we did not have one. We saw other people having radios in their homes and each time there was an advertisement of Philips, Murphy or Bush radios, we would ask Father when we could get one. Each time, my Father would reply that we did not need one because he already had five radios - alluding to his five sons. We also did not have a house of our own and would occasionally ask Father as to when, like others, we would live in our own house. He would give a similar reply, "We do not need a house of our own. I already own five houses". His replies did not gladden our hearts in that instant. Nonetheless, we learnt that it is important not to measure personal success and sense of well being through material possessions.

Government houses seldom came with fences. Mother and I collected twigs and built a small fence. After lunch, my Mother would never sleep. She would take her kitchen utensils and with those she and I would dig the rocky, white ant infested surrounding. We planted flowering bushes. The white ants destroyed them. My mother brought ash from her chulha and mixed it in the earth and we planted the seedlings all over again. This time, they bloomed. At that time, my father's transfer order came. A few neighbors told my mother why she was taking so much pain to beautify a government house, why she was planting seeds that would only benefit the next occupant. My mother replied that it did not matter to her that she would not see the flowers in full bloom. She said, "I have to create a bloom in a desert and whenever I am given a new place, I must leave it more beautiful than what I had inherited". That was my first lesson in success. It is not about what you
create for yourself, it is what you leave behind that defines success.

My mother began developing a cataract in her eyes when I was very small. At that time, the eldest among my brothers got a teaching job at the University in Bhubaneswar and had to prepare for the civil services examination. So, it was decided that my Mother would move to cook for him and, as her appendage, I had to move too. For the first time in my life, I saw electricity in homes and water coming out of a tap. It was around 1965 and the country was going to war with Pakistan. My mother was having problems reading and in any case, being Bengali, she did not know the Oriya script. So, in addition to my daily chores, my job was to read her the local newspaper - end to end. That created in me a sense of connectedness with a larger world. I began taking interest in many different things. While reading out news about the war, I felt that I was fighting the war myself. She and I discussed the daily news and built a bond with the larger universe. In it, we
became part of a larger reality. Till date, I measure my success in terms of that sense of larger connectedness.

Meanwhile, the war raged and India was fighting on both fronts. Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Prime Minster, coined the term "Jai Jawan, Jai Kishan" and galvanized the nation in to patriotic fervor. Other than reading out the newspaper to my mother, I had no clue about how I could be part of the action. So, after reading her the newspaper, every day I would land up near the University's water tank, which served the community. I would spend hours under it, imagining that there could be spies who would come to poison the water and I had to watch for them. I would daydream about catching one and how the next day, I would be featured in the newspaper. Unfortunately for me, the spies at war ignored the sleepy town of Bhubaneswar and I never got a chance to catch one in action. Yet, that act unlocked my imagination. Imagination is everything. If we can imagine a future, we can create it, if we can create that future, others will live in it. That is the essence
of success.

Over the next few years, my mother's eyesight dimmed but in me she created a larger vision, a vision with which I continue to see the world and, I sense, through my eyes, she was seeing too. As the next few years unfolded, her vision deteriorated and she was operated for cataract. I remember, when she returned after her operation and she saw my face clearly for the first time, she was astonished. She said, "Oh my God, I did not know you were so fair". I remain mighty pleased with that adulation even till date. Within weeks of getting her sight back, she developed a corneal ulcer and, overnight, became blind in both eyes.

That was 1969. She died in 2002. In all those 32 years of living with blindness, she never complained about her fate even once. Curious to know what she saw with blind eyes, I asked her once if she sees darkness. She replied, "No, I do not see darkness. I only see light even with my eyes closed". Until she was eighty years of age, she did her morning yoga everyday, swept her own room and washed her own clothes. To me, success is about the sense of independence; it is about not seeing the world but seeing the light.

Over the many intervening years, I grew up, studied, joined the industry and began to carve my life's own journey. I began my life as a clerk in a government office, went on to become a Management Trainee with the DCM group and eventually found my life's calling with the IT industry when fourth generation computers came to India in 1981. Life took me places - I worked with outstanding people, challenging assignments and traveled all over the world. In 1992, while I was posted in the US, I learnt that my father, living a retired life with my eldest brother, had suffered a third degree burn injury and was admitted in the Safderjung Hospital in Delhi. I flew back to attend to him - he remained for a few days in critical stage, bandaged from neck to toe. The Safderjung Hospital is a cockroach infested, dirty, inhuman place. The overworked, under-resourced sisters in the burn ward are both victims and perpetrators of dehumanized life at its worst. One
morning, while attending to my Father, I realized that the blood bottle was empty and fearing that air would go into his vein, I asked the attending nurse to change it. She bluntly told me to do it myself. In that horrible theater of death, I was in pain and frustration and anger. Finally when she relented and came, my Father opened his eyes and murmured to her, "Why have you not gone home yet?" Here was a man on his deathbed but more concerned about the overworked nurse than his own state. I was stunned at his stoic self. There I learnt that there is no limit to how concerned you can be for another human being and what is the limit of inclusion you can create. My father died the next day.

He was a man whose success was defined by his principles, his frugality, his universalism and his sense of inclusion. Above all, he taught me that success is your ability to rise above your discomfort, whatever may be your current state. You can, if you want, raise your consciousness above your immediate surroundings. Success is not about building material comforts - the transistor that he never could buy or the house that he never owned. His success was about the legacy he left, the mimetic continuity of his ideals that grew beyond the smallness of a ill-paid, unrecognized government servant's world.

My father was a fervent believer in the British Raj. He sincerely doubted the capability of the post-independence Indian political parties to govern the country. To him, the lowering of the Union Jack was a sad event. My Mother was the exact opposite. When Subhash Bose quit the Indian National Congress and came to Dacca, my mother, then a schoolgirl, garlanded him. She learnt to spin khadi and joined an underground movement that trained her in using daggers and swords. Consequently, our household saw diversity in the political outlook of the two. On major issues concerning the world, the Old Man and the Old Lady had differing opinions. In them, we learnt the power of disagreements, of dialogue and the essence of living with diversity in thinking. Success is not about the ability to create a definitive dogmatic end state; it is about the unfolding of thought processes, of dialogue and continuum.

Two years back, at the age of eighty-two, Mother had a paralytic stroke and was lying in a government hospital in Bhubaneswar. I flew down from the US where I was serving my second stint, to see her. I spent two weeks with her in the hospital as she remained in a paralytic state. She was neither getting better nor moving on. Eventually I had to return to work. While leaving her behind, I kissed her face. In that paralytic state and a garbled voice, she said, "Why are you kissing me, go kiss the world." Her river was nearing its journey, at the confluence of life and death, this woman who came to India as a refugee, raised by a widowed Mother, no more educated than high school, married to an anonymous government servant whose last salary was Rupees Three Hundred, robbed of her eyesight by fate and crowned by adversity - was telling me to go and kiss the world!

Success to me is about Vision. It is the ability to rise above the immediacy of pain. It is about imagination. It is about sensitivity to small people. It is about building inclusion. It is about connectedness to a larger world existence. It is about personal tenacity. It is about giving back more to life than you take out of it. It is about creating extra-ordinary success with ordinary lives.

Thank you very much; I wish you good luck and Godspeed. Go, kiss the world

Changed Status

2007-12-05T19:27:00.000+05:30

The New status in life......recently acquired on 21st November 2007....The Married status.....

Recently Changed address......recently acquired on 29th November 2007......York, England......

The photographs are PhotoLink 2 and PhotoLink 3....Check them out....

Days flew by....The month long break to be with my parents was one of the wisest decision I ever took....and it was 100% beneficial. Leaving Bangalore and Tabi's place was the end of one journey and the onset of another one.....and now when i look back....the entire two months have gone in a flash...........

Have left Ujjain, now trying to settle in a new country and a new town......all new faces everywhere I go......new streets and new conventions.......quite chilly weather....so much so that I am in two sweaters and a JAcket and gloves when I move out.........Watch Aaja Nach Le in Bradford and was bowled by Madhuri and her dances.....It was strange to watch a Hindi Movie in a Gora Land without any whistles or hooting during MAdhuri's dances.......Am getting adjusted to the time gap between India and here as I still feel that I am back in Bangalore and can call anyone anytime.......Seeing the setting sun at 4 o clock in the evening is surprising......and the fact that all the major shops and the town center closes at 5 o clock everyday!!!!!! I dont know when do they do business!!!!!
One of the most noticeable thing is the respect given to the disabled people.....They have their right to move in anywhere they want and everywhere they want to go, the shop or the mall or the theatre or the castle or the street is 100% accessible for them..........also I am looking at Old people of around 70 years merrily coming and enjoying shopping and some of them are coming on wheelchairs and electric motor chairs and they can be seen enjoying the sun and the walks in the Shambles........

Will continue with my writings here.......

Designing Interfaces I : What Users' do?

2007-09-21T19:13:00.000+05:30

Some Excerpts from Designing Interfaces by Jenifer Tidwell.

The patterns in the User group:

Safe Exploration : Let me explore without getting lost or getting into Trouble.
Instant Gratification : I want to accomplish something now, Not LATER.
Satisficing : Combination of Satisfying and Sufficing : This is good enough. I dont want to spend more time learning to do it better.
Changes in the Midstream : I changed my mind about what I was doing.
Deferred Choices : I don't want to answer that now; just let me finish
Incremental Construction : Let me change this. That doesn't look right; Let me change it again. That's better.
Habituation : That gesture works everywhere else; why doesn't it work here?
Spatial Memory : I swear that button was here a minute ago. Where did it go?
Prospective Memory : I am putting this here to remind myself to deal with it later.
Streamlined repetition : I have to repeat this how many times??
Keyboard only : Please don't make me use the MOUSE only
Other People's Advice : What did Everyone else say about this?

Perspectives....

2007-09-19T12:16:00.001+05:30

Different Perspectives of the same thing......looking at the other side........looking from a different angle.....things are different....and I am experimenting...........going ahead with the flow......without bothering about the constraints or the limitations.......going with what one feels like..........peeping into the flip side of things......may gain an insight........and as always....the trade off........and the FINAL decision.....

Need Inputs...

2007-09-18T14:37:00.000+05:30

One of the Design problem or the layout problem which I face most of the time while designing the forms....... Waiting for response....

Individual II

2007-09-15T22:42:00.001+05:30

Individual

2007-09-15T22:39:00.000+05:30

Food for thought

2007-09-09T18:38:00.000+05:30

This is the classic line from Reader's Digest.....and yeah I borrowed it....as I have visited some good restaurants lately and am going to definitely blog about it....(the reviews are up there on the Burrp also.....)

Frescos Cafe: Situated on the Cunningham road, opposite to the Pizza hut building, behing the HDFC ATM, this place reminds of old english days and country music.........the enterance is lined with pebbles which is like a typical cobblestone passage in english towns and then one goes and sit on the benches..wooden benches just like those which one can expect under a tree on a bright sunny day where on the side there is a barbeque in place......and on the side there is the bar behind which is the kitchen....right infront of you...one can see whats cooking.......and the best part is yet to come..........

So me and Anku and Tabi....we three gals went for this place...Tabi knew abt it from J sources....and therefore it was surely to be the best place........After picking up Anku from the station, we went to this place....and me and anku were amazed....this place surely has a feeling of quaintness mixed with warmth........highly recommended to go with best frens and cousins or for a hot date!!!!

we three had a good laugh....surely...thats the intrinsic factor as always...and then lots of stories to share...anku was in full form abt the stories from her hostel.....her talks reminded me of NID hostels and what we used to do........gave her some tricks about what more can be done to irritate others...or to simply have fun in hostels....and the pyjama parties.......Among we three we ordered only two main dishes.....along with fresh lime soda for all three of us......we were saving for the desserts so as to say......!!!!

So here comes the dessert.........we go inside the bakery place and then we chose what kind of dessert we would like to eat....I dont remember exactly which we chose as we were spoilt for CHOICES...there were soooooo many variety!!!!! and it was a tough decision to choose which to eat........anyways after deliberating for around 15 minutes, we chose two desserts and then came back to our usual place......We were waiting for the dessert to come and it was over 10 minutes...... we had actually began to think that he has forgotten to bring us the dessert!!!!!!!
and then our desserts arrive..........they didnt look the way they did in the display....!!! they looked like they have been carved out specially for us........and that looked delicious.......the way these people decorate the dessert plate and then they bring up to you...at first i thought i shouldn't even dig into the dessert as it will just spoil the art which the pastry chef made...bt then it was tooo irresistible...........and then we three dug into our desserts....and man....!!!! it was YUMMMMYYYYYY!!!!! mouthwatering.....and yummy...only two words to describe it.........
Highly recommended for everyone...once just go and enjoy a languid evening....slowly turning into the night.....and this evening at Frescos......

Only Place: Museum Road End: Known for Continental food and Stakes......must try.....

Koshys: Must go for the chicken sandwiches and potato widges and Chicken Stew and Appam...

Flickr

2007-09-05T13:53:00.001+05:30

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

The Gokarna Trip

2007-09-02T22:09:00.000+05:30

The usual humdrum of life.....of office...of getting up at 6:30 in the morning....getting ready after brooding over what to wear for the day......what is ironed among the shirts and whether this jeans will go with this or not.....or to wear a salwar all together just to avoid all the confusions........then catching up the CAB and those one to one and a half hours every morning sitting in the cab where the cab driver thinks he is Another Grand PRix driver.......with listening to songs of 91.4 what a fun everyday...reaching office and attending meetings and then working meetings and then meetings and then lot of work....with eating the same idlee sambhar every day for the past ten months...and with skipping or eating the same lunch of roti and north indian-south indian mixed dal....with reports and with heuristic evaluations...with comparative evaluation and peoplesoft.....with HCM and CRM........coming back in the same cab and trying to catch some sleep in the midway but as always failing to do so....with the cab driver cutting his cab from here and there on the way and inventing new ways to drive.......with pollutions and incessant car honking.......with the laptop bags and no water bottles.....coming home to open the lock...and seeing the room again.....with remembering the chores to be done....and the laundry to be washed......with meeting scheduled sometime according to India-US schedule....attending those and clarifying the doubts....the TYPICAL day goes like that........sometime or the other on the phone...talking to the loved ones.....sometime or the other on the road going to restaurants or meeting frens...this is what a day has been like........for quite some time....and therefore to break away from all this......and to get a change.......we decided to go to GOkarNA trip.

Gokarna: This beach place lies in the north part of coastal Karnataka. Its just on the border of Goa - KArnataka. WE started from Bangalore in a tempo traveler and our frens started from Pune for the same point. The road trip from Bangalore to Gokarna took around 12 hours and we were travelling on National Highway 269 (if i am correct here..) and SH 17 (if i am correct). From Bangalore we were : Sardana, BAnda, Tabi, Mani, Sonal, Nachiket and Amit. From Pune we had Coco, Medhu and Patel for the trip. From Pune it takes around 8 hours to reach Gokarna.

Gokarna is known for its virgin beaches and has been a hub for foreigners who come there in flocks sometime in search of brown sand and sun and beach and sometimes in pursuit of other heavenly pleasures abundant in places like these.....

WE stayed in a Shack on the Om beach which was known as NAmeste REsort....and which was a beautiful place when one is going with friends.....and is in full mood for fun and backpack travel. There were huts given to us....I wouldnt say they were of high class quality or matter of fact livable too..bt then they were nice for a day or two when we are on limited budget and we are on no frills attached principle........so nameste resort is where we were put up....the gals had two cottages and the guys had three cottages for themselves.....so the first day..when we reached we spent the entire day on beach.....enjoying the rain first and then enjoying the sun..........we had good time sunbathing out there on the rocks and then in the nite celebrated the day with pints of beer on the beach........it was like the beach is for us only...nowhere there was a soul to be seen and most of the people were those foreigners who were least bothered about what we do....so we did have a good time....the same day we trekked a hill.....We had planned to go to Kundlai beach in the afternoon and being adventurous we thought that we will go the hill way trekking and finding the way all by ourselves....well....we never found the way at all...bt then surely we reached the top of the hill.....and the view from there was awesome.........nothing in comparison to what could one can imagine.....

at times there was a feeling that Goa couldnt even stand what is there in gokarna......the kundlai beach which we did go the next day was another beach where one has to trek and then go....and its another beach where there is no one except you and ur frens and you and your thoughts......the only trouble which we faced while we were travelling there was the food...sometimes the food was nice....nice is Okehish nice but then most of the times we took and ate what we got....no complaints......I am still alive to write the blog abt it...so I take it that the food was good to eat and digested as well.....

The pictures of the trip are posted here and here. HAve fun watching them....

Some more updates..which i forgot to write in this post...So while coming back...we were as usual late...as we took lot of time to say goodbye and that we loved the Kundlai beach soo much that we couldnt detach ourselves from its beauty.....nevertheless... we started around 6 o clock from the Gokarna for Bangalore...Now the way back includes crossing the same Ghaats or the hills which we had crossed earlier but that was the day time...Now It was dusk time and fairly late we were to cross those hills....Bt whatever...we started........and then the typical round of Dumcharades and Antakshari went on...........While we were ascending the Hills we witnessed some mist which was pretty okeh to handle.....bt then as we approached the top...the mist started to be thicker and thicker....For the entire two hours of our journey...our driver had a hard time to see what is just ahead..the visibility was almost 1 meter ahead and despite the cab having floodlights we just COULDn't See anything!!! All the time I was praying that we reach safely back...as for this trip....I had faced lot of grumblings and No's from everyone...and it was from mi own pure wish that I had said....that I want to go...and so I am going........Anyways.....Tip for this travel...If you are traveling during the monsoons...then please make sure that u start at a good time...so that u dont have to face zero visibility or immense fear somewhere in between.....!!!!!!!

quite some time

Moms are the greatest

Persian carpets

आखिरी पड़ाव

yaar

Untitled

My favourite song these days

Top trends for Customer Experience 2011

Icy cold

Lost my purse

To my mom

Isle of SKYE

pachees saal hue

Web Strategy Matrix: Google Buzz vs Facebook vs MySpace vs Twitter (Feb 2010)

Web Strategy Matrix: Google Buzz vs Facebook vs MySpace vs Twitter (Feb 2010) by Jeremiah Owyang

Sounds of TAK TAK

Process / Progress

News from the past and present

Four key principles of mobile user experience design: Dakota Reese Brown

New house VS New Home

What a break and what a wait

Long break indeed

Films to be watched

Been a while

UI Web patterns

Google Wave

House Hunting II

Buying a House... Part 1

Interactive TV

nteractivity with TV program content

Friends

Delhi 6

I am enjoying

Something I was reading

From the book Nature of Design by Peg Faimon and John Weigand

2008

Steps

EKO

Mein Ek Joota Hoon

Coffee days

Spirals Explored

In Glasgow

Media Time out

Some status messages on Mumbai blasts

Black Thursday and Friday

Random

LIFE INSURANCE and its types

ndia Inc.: A Lesson in Business Design

You can't seperate Usability from Visual Design

Haathi Poop and Haathi Pooper

Profile: Kano

Kano Profile

Innovation

इंडिया Trip

One day in one of these days

Credit crunch

Ramayan

Lyrics...I love this song!!!!

IT HAPPENNED IN INDIA

Just to document what I have been searching around

we begin with data, add context to get information, add understanding to get knowledge and add judgement to get wisdom

Somethings that I remember from way old back past

Some of the talented people I am coming across lately

Am writing what is coming to my mind

soem inspirational Blogs...

Movies that I watched in UK till now...

Experiencing London these days

Sign Up forms

Switzerland : Connectivity and Experience

A cup of tea

From the drafts....Looks like Bhodi list of user requirements, usability processes, user centric design, design process in general

Me and my driving lessons

Part of the work I did lately.....on Digital Libraries

woh khat ke purze udaa raha tha...

What a did a while back...

Some Interesting people I met lately

Its snowing again..

Philips and innovation

Things I learnt and am learning while the House hunting expedition

Where are you now?