I first came across this phrase two and half years ago in the book "Modern Operating Systems" by Andrew S. Tanenbaum.
Ontogeny is the growth (size change) and development (shape change) of an individual organism; phylogeny is the evolutionary history of a species. (ref: wikipedia)
Tanenbaum quotes this phrase and explains how it has happened with compute science. In this blog I would like to generalise it.
When the radio was invented, it was the hottest medium of mass communication but radio became obsolete once TV was invented. It almost became extinct but suddenly came back as FM Radios became a very common thing in cities.
I have never used a gramophone player but gramophones were circular to allow random access but became extinct after tape drives came into existence. But CDs and DVDs are once again in circular shape. Here the circular shape of the storage media has done a come back.
When I was very small kid, we used to have antenna on the top of our home to receive the DD channels - direct to home is the concept. It became extinct after local cable operators became very strong and they would provide people with lot of channels. But the concept of direct to home with a small antenna on the top has done a come back now.
Writing Diary has reinvented itself as blogs.
Pen-friendship has reinvented itself as anonymous friendships on the net.
My mother told me once that when she was a kid, house holds used to use raagi quite often for food. But after some years it was looked down to have raagi dishes in the middle class families. Now, once again raagi and other such cereals have seen increased consumption due to health reasons.
Man started with raw foods and moved to cooked foods but once again raw food in the form of salads has seen increase in consumption for the same reason as in the previous case.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
The Transformation ...
There have been numerous articles in papers; numerous books have been written; it is in the air every day - India's transformation in the post license-raj era. But today I want to recollect my days to the farthest corners of my memory as small school boy to this day - a young professional who just entered the corporate world.
I was always excited at the prospect of New year when we could distribute greeting cards. My memory goes back to as far as 1992 - 93. ( I would have been 7 or 8 years old then ) It is not very long ago in terms of time but the way things have changed since then is unimaginable. We(My brother and I) would get to buy greeting cards each worth one or two rupees only. We would give a card including both our names to common friends and teachers. I can not remember buying a card worth even 10Rs till my 10th class. My brother and I would get to use pens costing 2 - 3 Rs. Reynolds pen with white bottom and a blue cap was 5Rs then and we would rarely get to buy it. Reynolds Jitter which was 14 Rs was always out of reach. I always wanted to buy that but don't remember if I ever bought one before my 10th. I don't remember when was TV bought in our home. But I faintly remember that the first TV we had was from dyanora company. ( I am neither sure of the spelling nor of its existence today) But I have vivid memory of BPL - AJITH which had 6 buttons for 6 channels ! Why do you require 6 channels when there were only two channels that you would watch - DD and the local cable TV operator's movie telecasts. This BPL - AJITH is not yet defunct and is faithfully serving even till date. It is in one of my uncle's home(We were a joint family then) I can faintly recollect the days when we did not even have TV and would go to some one else's house quite a bit far to watch the weekly Mahabharatha serial in National DD. I also cherish the memories of our struggle with the antenna on the top of our home to get it working so as to receive the DD channel. I miss the Friday evening Chitralahari program - a bouquet of songs.
I was in fourth standard when they introduced computer classes in my school. Logo was the first language that I learnt. There was a boot floppy followed by another floppy to load the OS and probably another to load the language. Logo was a drawing language. The programs to draw triangle would be
FD 20
RT
FD 30
HOME
Very recently did Bajaj anounce that it would be exiting from the scooter segment. I very vividly remember those days when I would stand in the front of my father's chetak, my brother and mother sitting in the back seat.
My last recollection is that of the first time I saw a phone in my neighbour's home. My most memorable phone call is the day I got a call from my friend soon after we got a phone ourselves, after I longed for one for a couple of years. This would be somewhere in my seventh or eighth class.
Just seven to eight years back there was no internet connectivity available in my hometown. I created my first mail id only in the third year of my undergraduation which would be in the year 2005. You might say I am very late in catching up with technology for the previous sentence. Agreed, I was very late in catching up with technology but my point is not that - we are changing at a rapid pace!
I described my memories of TV, money(the way a middle class family would deal with it), phone, and computers. Today I see my cousins growing up in an environment with atleast 50-60 TV channels. They will probably laugh at me if I tell them that we had only one or two channels as small kids. I need not say much about the amount of info that goes around today. The middle class is no more conservative in terms of money. ( especially in the urban and semi-urban areas) This carries some bad news with it. Firstly, India being the youngest nation has millions of youth who have just started earning salaries which are more their parents were earning almost at the end of their careers. This has lead to severe indulgence into materialism among those who earn and thereby leading to change in lifestyle patterns(especially in the cities.) I never imagined myself sitting in Cafe Cofee Day to spend 50 - 60 Rs on cofee even a couple of years back. My mother will surely chide me if I tell her that sometimes I spend that much amount on cofee.The problem is that college goers and teenagers want to have similar cosy life styles and many of them are burdening their parents with little concern for their plight.
A lot has changed in just 15 years. I am happy that my own growing up has coincided with this change. I am also proud to be part of the times which will take Mother India to new peaks of glory and happy for having been placed in the right age group to do so. The past has been filled with sweet memories. The future is filled to the brim with unknown opportunities to learn and contribute and therefore filled with excitement. I cherish my past and look forward for my future.
I was always excited at the prospect of New year when we could distribute greeting cards. My memory goes back to as far as 1992 - 93. ( I would have been 7 or 8 years old then ) It is not very long ago in terms of time but the way things have changed since then is unimaginable. We(My brother and I) would get to buy greeting cards each worth one or two rupees only. We would give a card including both our names to common friends and teachers. I can not remember buying a card worth even 10Rs till my 10th class. My brother and I would get to use pens costing 2 - 3 Rs. Reynolds pen with white bottom and a blue cap was 5Rs then and we would rarely get to buy it. Reynolds Jitter which was 14 Rs was always out of reach. I always wanted to buy that but don't remember if I ever bought one before my 10th. I don't remember when was TV bought in our home. But I faintly remember that the first TV we had was from dyanora company. ( I am neither sure of the spelling nor of its existence today) But I have vivid memory of BPL - AJITH which had 6 buttons for 6 channels ! Why do you require 6 channels when there were only two channels that you would watch - DD and the local cable TV operator's movie telecasts. This BPL - AJITH is not yet defunct and is faithfully serving even till date. It is in one of my uncle's home(We were a joint family then) I can faintly recollect the days when we did not even have TV and would go to some one else's house quite a bit far to watch the weekly Mahabharatha serial in National DD. I also cherish the memories of our struggle with the antenna on the top of our home to get it working so as to receive the DD channel. I miss the Friday evening Chitralahari program - a bouquet of songs.
I was in fourth standard when they introduced computer classes in my school. Logo was the first language that I learnt. There was a boot floppy followed by another floppy to load the OS and probably another to load the language. Logo was a drawing language. The programs to draw triangle would be
FD 20
RT
FD 30
HOME
Very recently did Bajaj anounce that it would be exiting from the scooter segment. I very vividly remember those days when I would stand in the front of my father's chetak, my brother and mother sitting in the back seat.
My last recollection is that of the first time I saw a phone in my neighbour's home. My most memorable phone call is the day I got a call from my friend soon after we got a phone ourselves, after I longed for one for a couple of years. This would be somewhere in my seventh or eighth class.
Just seven to eight years back there was no internet connectivity available in my hometown. I created my first mail id only in the third year of my undergraduation which would be in the year 2005. You might say I am very late in catching up with technology for the previous sentence. Agreed, I was very late in catching up with technology but my point is not that - we are changing at a rapid pace!
I described my memories of TV, money(the way a middle class family would deal with it), phone, and computers. Today I see my cousins growing up in an environment with atleast 50-60 TV channels. They will probably laugh at me if I tell them that we had only one or two channels as small kids. I need not say much about the amount of info that goes around today. The middle class is no more conservative in terms of money. ( especially in the urban and semi-urban areas) This carries some bad news with it. Firstly, India being the youngest nation has millions of youth who have just started earning salaries which are more their parents were earning almost at the end of their careers. This has lead to severe indulgence into materialism among those who earn and thereby leading to change in lifestyle patterns(especially in the cities.) I never imagined myself sitting in Cafe Cofee Day to spend 50 - 60 Rs on cofee even a couple of years back. My mother will surely chide me if I tell her that sometimes I spend that much amount on cofee.The problem is that college goers and teenagers want to have similar cosy life styles and many of them are burdening their parents with little concern for their plight.
A lot has changed in just 15 years. I am happy that my own growing up has coincided with this change. I am also proud to be part of the times which will take Mother India to new peaks of glory and happy for having been placed in the right age group to do so. The past has been filled with sweet memories. The future is filled to the brim with unknown opportunities to learn and contribute and therefore filled with excitement. I cherish my past and look forward for my future.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
5 Reasons why you should know more than your Boss does?
1) Because the Boss never works - you have to work.
2) Because the Boss only knows how to give work – He doesn’t know how to do the work.
3) Because the Boss will never know more than you, but somebody must have the knowledge for the work to get done.
4) Because managing your boss is more important than managing your subordinates
5) Because every system that is in place for appraisals allows the Boss to evaluate you, but no system allows you to evaluate the boss.
If I am given a choice I want to put in place a system that will allow people to evaluate their bosses during the appraisal cycle just as bosses evaluate their subordinates.
2) Because the Boss only knows how to give work – He doesn’t know how to do the work.
3) Because the Boss will never know more than you, but somebody must have the knowledge for the work to get done.
4) Because managing your boss is more important than managing your subordinates
5) Because every system that is in place for appraisals allows the Boss to evaluate you, but no system allows you to evaluate the boss.
If I am given a choice I want to put in place a system that will allow people to evaluate their bosses during the appraisal cycle just as bosses evaluate their subordinates.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
My thoughts on Communication skills
Initially I wanted to title this blog as 10 ways to Enhance Communication skills and put 10 good points on the topic but looks like I haven't got those many points despite my waiting for quite some time. So I decided to change the title and make it less attractive instead of never getting to post the blog.
Understanding the importance of communication skills: Once we understand the need and the importance half the work is done. In one of the soft skills lecture that I happened to listen, the speaker rightly pointed out that the importance soft skills keeps increasing and that of technical skills keeps decreasing as one grows up the corporate ladder. Initially I thought of putting this point in the end as a finishing touch when I was pondering over the previous title.
Awareness of the fact that communication implies Transfer Knowledge/thoughts:. Each of us has a unique state of knowledge and what we perceive is based on what we already know. Hence one needs to constantly ponder on the ability to know the other person’s state of knowledge. This becomes more challenging when one needs to communicate to a group of people and even more challenging when the group is mixed(with respect to the subject/topic of communication).
Eye for Brevity and precision: Though this a thumb rule we often miss it. I think one needs to constantly listen to himself in oral communication and read a couple of times what he/she has written when it comes to written communication.
Stop thinking in the native language and then translating to English: This particular point is specific to English & us Indians. All Indian languages have a different grammar than that of English. Many people tend to think in their mother tongue and then translate it to English when speaking. We have reached a stage in India that we have added so many English words into our native languages and now we don't speak either languages properly. My own humble opinion is that one needs to know both the languages fluently and not mix them up.
Communication is a process involving the following facts:
P.S. These are just my opinions and as I said each of us needs to lay emphasis on our communication capabilities.
Understanding the importance of communication skills: Once we understand the need and the importance half the work is done. In one of the soft skills lecture that I happened to listen, the speaker rightly pointed out that the importance soft skills keeps increasing and that of technical skills keeps decreasing as one grows up the corporate ladder. Initially I thought of putting this point in the end as a finishing touch when I was pondering over the previous title.
Awareness of the fact that communication implies Transfer Knowledge/thoughts:. Each of us has a unique state of knowledge and what we perceive is based on what we already know. Hence one needs to constantly ponder on the ability to know the other person’s state of knowledge. This becomes more challenging when one needs to communicate to a group of people and even more challenging when the group is mixed(with respect to the subject/topic of communication).
Eye for Brevity and precision: Though this a thumb rule we often miss it. I think one needs to constantly listen to himself in oral communication and read a couple of times what he/she has written when it comes to written communication.
Stop thinking in the native language and then translating to English: This particular point is specific to English & us Indians. All Indian languages have a different grammar than that of English. Many people tend to think in their mother tongue and then translate it to English when speaking. We have reached a stage in India that we have added so many English words into our native languages and now we don't speak either languages properly. My own humble opinion is that one needs to know both the languages fluently and not mix them up.
Communication is a process involving the following facts:
- I know something.
- I have to make the other person know it.
- What I know is a thought.
- What I speak is words.
- What the other person will know after I communicate is once again a thought
- Thoughts are infinite in nature.
- Words are limited + Our vocabulary is even more limited.
- We ourselves may lack in the clarity of our thoughts
P.S. These are just my opinions and as I said each of us needs to lay emphasis on our communication capabilities.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
The Other Side of the Coin
Note: I always come with disclaimer! The views expressed here are purely personal. No Offence is intended. Any unintentional offence is apologized before hand.
Two days ago, a friday I was planning to go to Bangalore for the weekend to a friend's house. I have been in chennai for a month for now as my work brought me here. Now, this is what happens - The day starts in a board room with a presentation from a leading open source company in our company. I was very much taken by the professional environment that prevailed in the room for this was my first job and the first such meeting and as I am only one month world in the corporate world. This our first bookmark - I am part of India that is professionally competent with anybody in the world.
Fast Forward to the end of the day. I am in the CMBT bus terminal of Chennai to catch a bus to Bangalore. As I walk into the bus stand I see many people sleeping on the floors outside the terminal. This is not a new sight to anybody but still I was moved at the site. After I go inside the terminal I wanted to take of the pressure of my kidneys as I had long night journey. So, as I go towards the toilet I see a huge line into the toilet. Everybody is closing their noses as the stench is intolerable. The flushing system has taken a long vacation I guess. Those two minutes were unbearable to the passengers. There is a wonderful fountain outside the terminal and yet there is no cleaning mechanism in any of the urinals. This our second bookmark - I am still part of the India where the government is working awesomely wonderful!!!!
I reach Bangalore on Saturday morning and we go for a movie in the Forum in the afternoon. The movie starts with the hero throwing a party to friends in Sydney or somewhere and he is shown very affluent. After the movie we go for lunch to a mess a nearby and find an old man living as a destitute seeking help. We give him a ten rupee note and go for food. But the point is I am still part of two worlds.
Later on we go out seeking to buy a wrist watch for me and when I entered the showroom I saw too many good watches which for a moment thought I should have. Third Bookmark - Too many desires and craving to own too many things
This is the problem as I have always seen(refer to previous blog) - We are living in a world that is extremely powerful in communication and media. The media is glamourizing affluence like anything while there are still millions for whom a square meals a day is a luxury. Only a month ago there was a huge coverage for a french flight that crashed - I don't remember the details - but the amount of coverage for the kids suffering in poor nations in africa or other developing nations for an entire year would not be probably equal to that. We are living in a bipolar world and it is going more and more bipolar by the day. It is very easy for a millionaire to earn another million in a year from now than for a person with income of around Rs100 a day to make it something like Rs200 a day in a year from now. If the big guys(nations) want to prevent/eradicate Terrorism, I suggest them invest in poverty eradication than in arms.
The ideas that I have pondered over till now are anything new. But this blog is a snapshot of an Indian youth caught up between affluence and poverty. I know that I am a part of the solution and not the problem. The new economic story of India post reformation by our beloved Prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh way back in the 90's is what we have seen in our formative years. Thousands and thousands of people like me are in the beginning of our careers and are gowing to a life that is comfortable materialistically but have come from middle class or lower middle class background. Education had made this possible - Don't we have the responsibility to take the other 300 million in India alone and over 1billion in the world to take us along with us?
We are caught up between two forces - One driving me crazy in the form of media towards material world and the other which is morally holding me.
Probably we can use the money spent in a bowling alley for better purposes like helping a kid get his education. Probably we can help millions if all of us give one day of our salary every year for lesser privileged people in this world.
I am a part of the generation that will go down the history with probably the most number of challenges. Will we be able to pass on the great Indian cultre which we got from our parents to our kids when our turn comes? Will we as Humanity be able to give future on this planet for three generations from now? Will we go down as the ones who took the right decisions? - Only time will tell.
Two days ago, a friday I was planning to go to Bangalore for the weekend to a friend's house. I have been in chennai for a month for now as my work brought me here. Now, this is what happens - The day starts in a board room with a presentation from a leading open source company in our company. I was very much taken by the professional environment that prevailed in the room for this was my first job and the first such meeting and as I am only one month world in the corporate world. This our first bookmark - I am part of India that is professionally competent with anybody in the world.
Fast Forward to the end of the day. I am in the CMBT bus terminal of Chennai to catch a bus to Bangalore. As I walk into the bus stand I see many people sleeping on the floors outside the terminal. This is not a new sight to anybody but still I was moved at the site. After I go inside the terminal I wanted to take of the pressure of my kidneys as I had long night journey. So, as I go towards the toilet I see a huge line into the toilet. Everybody is closing their noses as the stench is intolerable. The flushing system has taken a long vacation I guess. Those two minutes were unbearable to the passengers. There is a wonderful fountain outside the terminal and yet there is no cleaning mechanism in any of the urinals. This our second bookmark - I am still part of the India where the government is working awesomely wonderful!!!!
I reach Bangalore on Saturday morning and we go for a movie in the Forum in the afternoon. The movie starts with the hero throwing a party to friends in Sydney or somewhere and he is shown very affluent. After the movie we go for lunch to a mess a nearby and find an old man living as a destitute seeking help. We give him a ten rupee note and go for food. But the point is I am still part of two worlds.
Later on we go out seeking to buy a wrist watch for me and when I entered the showroom I saw too many good watches which for a moment thought I should have. Third Bookmark - Too many desires and craving to own too many things
This is the problem as I have always seen(refer to previous blog) - We are living in a world that is extremely powerful in communication and media. The media is glamourizing affluence like anything while there are still millions for whom a square meals a day is a luxury. Only a month ago there was a huge coverage for a french flight that crashed - I don't remember the details - but the amount of coverage for the kids suffering in poor nations in africa or other developing nations for an entire year would not be probably equal to that. We are living in a bipolar world and it is going more and more bipolar by the day. It is very easy for a millionaire to earn another million in a year from now than for a person with income of around Rs100 a day to make it something like Rs200 a day in a year from now. If the big guys(nations) want to prevent/eradicate Terrorism, I suggest them invest in poverty eradication than in arms.
The ideas that I have pondered over till now are anything new. But this blog is a snapshot of an Indian youth caught up between affluence and poverty. I know that I am a part of the solution and not the problem. The new economic story of India post reformation by our beloved Prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh way back in the 90's is what we have seen in our formative years. Thousands and thousands of people like me are in the beginning of our careers and are gowing to a life that is comfortable materialistically but have come from middle class or lower middle class background. Education had made this possible - Don't we have the responsibility to take the other 300 million in India alone and over 1billion in the world to take us along with us?
We are caught up between two forces - One driving me crazy in the form of media towards material world and the other which is morally holding me.
Probably we can use the money spent in a bowling alley for better purposes like helping a kid get his education. Probably we can help millions if all of us give one day of our salary every year for lesser privileged people in this world.
I am a part of the generation that will go down the history with probably the most number of challenges. Will we be able to pass on the great Indian cultre which we got from our parents to our kids when our turn comes? Will we as Humanity be able to give future on this planet for three generations from now? Will we go down as the ones who took the right decisions? - Only time will tell.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Heralding the Digital Revolution
Some of the greatest inventions of mankind:
Invention of Fire.
Invention of Wheel.
Invention of weapons at various points of time. (Major impacts started from the invention of Gun Powder)
Invention of Paper & Printing Press
Invention of Electricity
Invention of Steam Engine.
The list is incomplete and may not be accurate. I have only written from the top of my hat.
Industrial Revolution was one of the main revolutions that took the world by storm. But the Information Revolution that is taking the world by storm now has no precedents. Globalization is the new buzz word that has changed everything in this world. We all know that it has been spearheaded by the revolutions in communication and information technologies. I do not intend to write on how businesses have changed. But I would like to mention a couple of things that have been the best things that could have happened today:
Internet has evolved so much and web 2.0 is all about the content driven by users. It gives me the luxury to write blogs. I am not a writer by profession but I have the urge to write; how do I do it? I write blogs. So are various creative activities that small timers & amateurs like me can engage in and enjoy the respective tastes.
Mp3 players, music phones & FM radios have made people listen to music more and more. Music is one of the best fine arts and the more it is cherished the better.
Mobile phones and internet are two of the best things that could have happened which give so much access to information & communication to common man.
Invention of Fire.
Invention of Wheel.
Invention of weapons at various points of time. (Major impacts started from the invention of Gun Powder)
Invention of Paper & Printing Press
Invention of Electricity
Invention of Steam Engine.
The list is incomplete and may not be accurate. I have only written from the top of my hat.
Industrial Revolution was one of the main revolutions that took the world by storm. But the Information Revolution that is taking the world by storm now has no precedents. Globalization is the new buzz word that has changed everything in this world. We all know that it has been spearheaded by the revolutions in communication and information technologies. I do not intend to write on how businesses have changed. But I would like to mention a couple of things that have been the best things that could have happened today:
Internet has evolved so much and web 2.0 is all about the content driven by users. It gives me the luxury to write blogs. I am not a writer by profession but I have the urge to write; how do I do it? I write blogs. So are various creative activities that small timers & amateurs like me can engage in and enjoy the respective tastes.
Mp3 players, music phones & FM radios have made people listen to music more and more. Music is one of the best fine arts and the more it is cherished the better.
Mobile phones and internet are two of the best things that could have happened which give so much access to information & communication to common man.
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