Happy New Year

Wish all readers of this blog a very happy new year.....

Time for new resolutions .. atleast resolutions gives me the time to introspect myself ;-)) leave alone the implementation part... but this year will set some simple resolutions (hmmm.. God Knows !!!) & try to implement them...

I just read one of my friend's messages which said EOY is not exactly the time to start implementation of resolutions .. its the time to plan.. Will wait for Jan 2nd to start implementation ;-)) Same here...

So what's the resolution??? Here it goes..

1) Spend more time with my lovely little daughter
An indirect implication => cut on time spent on orkut (currently 30 mins a day, still added to criminal wastage of time, I see no value add here, I allow others to break on my privacy and allow myself to break on others privacy;-)

2) Utilise office timings more efficiently - Thank God I am already doing this ..9-5 strictly work, work and work ...only exception is lunch and cricket break (The LCD TV, even without sound, is distracting..who needs sound to see cricket scores??) and I have die hard cricket fans in my team...sushma cs that's u buddy ;-) she is an encyclopedia of cricket..her knowledge of cricket can put guys to shame :-)))

3) Increase presence in Nokia blogsphere and Nokia wikisphere( I have moved technical posts to Nokia blogs http://blogs.nokia.com/blogs/rajikannan , sorry, non -Nokia junta can't see this, if OPK blogs http://blogs.nokia.com/blogs/opk, why not me;-))), add to S60 Idea box, may be even file an IPR (just for the kick of it;-)))

4) Increase patience, be less critical and be happy(completely in our hands)
(will not ellaborate on these;-)

I am catching the new year's party live on www.nokianewyearseve.com
Thanks Nokia...excellent branding strategy :-)))

Happy new year once again...enjoy maadi...

Mobile greetings

Mobile greetings...will help all bogus friends

I always miss my friends bdays.. its not fair to always send "belated happy bday".. so will use mobile technology .. not just say "Happy Birthday" but say with a nice looking card, a flash card, with images, videos, animation, text and what not!!! My friend (Vikrant - due credit given) and I wanted to do this, publish this, et al.. but as usual the lazy bug took over... so here it goes

Application in app-shell
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The "Mobigreet" (if u get a fancier name tell me pls) app will be linked to contacts and calendar applications (these already existing in phone) and the user can add his friend , his/her bday, edit a greeting card, and send (email/multimedia message) to the recipient. Mobigreet will have the following options

1. Add friend - This will link to contacts application and from there u can select u'r buddy...

2. Set date - This will link to calendar app - select the bday

3. Edit - When u r free, choose from the custom greeting template and save
- There u go the greeting along with the bday and friends's name is stored.. You can have a jazzy flashlite (Macromedia Flash for mobiles) editor for selecting the greeting, adding text, animation and all other eye catching features... You won't need to set an alarm -event is automatically triggered a day before the bday - u friend will get the greetings - u can even time it so that he/she gets it at 12 At 12, the calendar application will send an event... Mobigreet will send the saved greeting to u'r friend for sure...Your friend sees the greeting and is very happy... little does he know that u haven't remembered his bday, u haven't sent the card... mobigreet does it all for u... u'r friend will never realise how bogus u r...Enjoy u'r sleep.. and wish u'r friendship lives long ;-)

Add Ons ... U can use custom greetings not just for bdays but also for wedding anniversaries, valentine day, diwali, christmas, halloween day, mothers day, fathers day, sister day, brother day et cetera ..et cetera

IT NASSCOM Women Leadership Summit

The summit was to spotlight the challenges women face in their career growth and how they can be addressed. The chair person for the summit was Kiran Karnik (President NASSCOM).

The first speaker was Narayana Murthy..I entered in the middle of Narayana Murthy's presentation (was a bit late - big jam on airport road:-( ). He told about different policies in Infosys..

The second speaker was Hari, HR Satyam. He talked about how telecomputing has changed the way we work.... most of the companies now have work from home. In his opinion, to be sucessful, we should be ready to let go of what is known and grab what one doesn't know...

The next speaker was Rosalyn O'Neale- CEO Barnes O'Neale & Associates.. I loved her speech so much that I will devote 70% of this post on what she had to tell..She first talked about "Gender bias".. She defined gender as "a particularly powerful lens through which all of us see and organise reality". Qouting her from now.. "The moment a baby is born people around announce with glee "Its a girl or a its a boy", the first message it gets is of its gender, we don't get an announcement like "she is a pontential engineer". The gender message is also conveyed through family and society.. The gender bias that exist is because of our conceived perceptions .. when a little girl falls, she is hugged, pitied for the small blood loss, whereas when a little boy falls and cries, he is told "little boys don't cry". Women are identified with attributes like "gentle, emotional, compassionate, collaborative" while men are identified with attributes like "aggressiveness (they play rugby), competitiveness, action oriented, individualist". She showed us an image of a brain (blue color) and asked us to identify if it belongs to a man or a women.. ofcourse we can't say that seeing an image...

She then talked about "Gender Stereotyping" .. Ultimately stereotyping undermines and undervalues women's leadership qualities. This stereotyping unfortunately is not just from men at workplace.. women are equal culprits...she sited an instance where her female colleague once stated "I don't a want a woman boss anymore.." That colleague has generalised and made an opinion - typical stereotyping. She also cited a humourous example of Senator Hillary Clinton.. people say that she is tough person ... not warm enough..unlike most women.. Hillary Clinton replies "You elect me President and I will become warmer".. Rosalyn also quipped that her husband, Mr, Clinton had got too warm ;-) This example was just to cite that if u r not warm its stereotyped as a male attitude and if u r too warm u still come under criticism....

"Lack of network"
I liked this quote ... "In the rarified upper reaches of high altitude careers, when the air is thin - men have a much easier time finding oxygen". She cited examples where when u talk to a guy about certain issues his eyes rollback and give a blank look and he says "oh ya.."

She went on to explain the positives of women workforce - some data which suggests that women remain in same job 2.5- 4 times more time when compared to their male colleagues. Its because of their nature ..women in general think deeper and take more time to arrive at decisions.. Another strong point in women is their inhrent capacity to multitask.. their different roles as a wife, daughter, daughter-in-law, mother etc make them more adept at multitasking.. also she sees others viewpoints with fairness, she is able to adapt more easily with lesser complaints ..this again is due to her different family roles.. She went on to explain how successful companies like IBM, Intel, HP, Motorola have leveraged talent and made the workplace better suited for women.

Other tips she gave - Trust ur instincts, n/w and support, don't be limited by cultural stereotypes, study- learn and grow...

She ended with this quote
"Today is all we have
Yesterday is gone and nothing can bring it back
Tomorrow is only a dream
Today is all we have to do things the best way"

Other speakers were Kalpana Morparia- ICICI Bank, Sangita Reddy- Apollo Health Street, Pari Sadasivan- IBM, Kalpana Sharma - The Hindu.

The last session was on "Glass ceiling for women leaders in Industry - Myth or reality?" This was more like a debate session with Kalpana Sharma as moderator.

There were two workshops of 80 people each ... Suprabha, Asha and myself (3 of us from Nokia) attended the training on "The power of networking and persuasive communication ". The other workshop was "Recipes of success : An interactive session with women leaders in IT"..

More on the workshop in a separate post later..