Life is like that

Mirchi Bajji

2007-03-27T22:02:00.000-07:00

Do you love eating spicy food? I do eat spicy food and Mirchi Bajji is one snack that is very popular. This is typically made of stuffed green chilli fried with rice flour and served hot. Couple of weeks back I was eating one and ended up getting a really spicy one. This does not happen always. Most of the time they are somewhat spicy and some are not spicy at all. This particular instance I started getting water from my eyes and despite drinking good amount of water, eating sweet it took a few minutes before I felt normal again.

Something similar happened years ago when I went to Rajahmundry to meet my friends. We ordered Mirchi bajji and they were very spicy. We ran to nearest backery to get a cool drink and again it took quite sometime before we felt normal.

Recipe of Mirchi Bajji

Career Change Decision

2007-04-15T09:10:00.000-07:00

Making a career change is a tough decision. It is a decision you would not want to rush and consider all possible factors before taking the plunge. I was reading a book by Robert Heller recently and found a template to make an assessment. I have copied this and you can view this using the link at end of this post.

It is not only during career change but during various decisions at work or in personal life, it is important to consider all possible factors and rate them accordingly and take a right decision. Decision making should not be done under emotional circumstances. If you do it, you should not regret such decisions. At work it is also important to document decision making factors so that others can appreciate the factors considered.

Hope you will find this template useful

Pain Vs Suffering

2007-04-09T21:43:00.000-07:00

I am reading another book by Neale Donald Walsch: "Communion with God". Following is a brief extract I wanted to share.

"Pain is an experience. Suffering is a judgment which is made about that experience. The judgment of many is that the pain they are experiencing is not okay, and should not be occurring. Yet the degree to which pain is accepted as perfect is the degree to which suffering in life may be eliminated. It is through this understanding that Masters overcome all suffering, although they may not escape all pain.

Even people who have not achieved mastery have experienced the different between pain and suffering. An example of this might be having a badly aching tooth pulled. It hurts to have the tooth pulled, but it is very welcome pain.

Their feeling of separation from Me prevents humans from using Me, calling upon Me, having a friendship with Me, harnessing the full potential of My creative and healing power, either to end suffering, or for any other purpose. "

I experienced this recently when my daugther was vomiting. She accepted the pain as necessary to relive of her severe cold she has and she didn't suffer. She didn't cry that she is suffering but stayed unattached and believed that the pain is temporary and will go away.

Pain is common to everyone but suffering is a choice. And suffering is a feeling that comes out of ignorance and thinking that pain you are experiencing is not appropriate. It comes from ignorance of associating ourselves with body and taking a choice to accept the suffering. If you choose not to accept it, pain cannot become a suffering.

Friendship with God

2007-04-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

I have recently completed reading book Friendship with God. This book continues from Conversations with God (3 books). This book contains a little more personal life of the author and at same time continues to explore how we can are closer to God than we think.

You can read an excerpt from this book at this link

Playing Golf

2007-03-16T21:52:00.000-07:00

For quite some time I wanted to experience what it is like to play Golf. Everytime I passed a golf course, I was reminded of this. At last, I had a chance to learn and play golf for a day. We took a quick course in basics of golf in morning. This included learning terms, rules and etiquette. Later in the day we got to play a round of golf. It was not easy as it seemed. Take long shots to hit the ball hundreds of feet away took focus and energy.

Anyway, I enjoyed the day at golf and it was a good experience to remember.

Are you at peace?

2007-03-18T14:20:00.000-07:00

Most of the time we are in pursuit of happiness. It is a little difficult to define happiness. We can sometimes say lack of suffering is happiness. We wish for a time when we are free from worries, suffering, fear. We yearn for eternal happiness. Even when we are relatively free from physical sufering, we suffer mentally.

I think we experience happy moments when we are at peace. When we are able to temporarily forget worry, fear, suffering then we experience a sense of peace that can be equated to happiness. Each person experiences peace by doing different things: Meditation, Prayer, Gardening, Taking a walk, Taking a swim, Watching a sunset, Watching a baby, Listening to music and so on.

Understand what calms down your mind and engage in that activity once a day. This will help in your pursuit of happiness. As you understand how this works, you will automatically gravitate to things that give peace to you.

Flavors Movie

2007-03-10T22:53:00.000-08:00

Flavors is a nice movie that I liked watching a lot. I really recommend watching the movie, if you have not watched it before. Instead of writing my own review, I am providing link to the detailed movie review

"I really enjoyed Flavors. Whether it was because I related to the characters, or I feel an affinity for Indian-American films, or because it was just a well written and well acted film, there was something about the movie that I admired. Make no mistake, this is a low budget film, and it has the look of a low budget film. But once you get past that, you're left with a solid film, with a good story and fun and interesting characters. Let's start with the story lines."

You can read the full review: http://www.wolfpackproductions.com/archive/flavors.html

You can also browse the movie site here: http://www.flavorsthemovie.com/

Happy Feet?

2007-02-25T20:07:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking of writing about this for quite sometime but having seen it on TV as this movie got best animated movie award on Oscars 2007, I felt sharing this immediately.

A few weeks back I was planning to take my kids to watch movie happy feet. By the ads of this movie and also whatever little I read about Penguins thought they have a great time living on ice. But the day before we ended up watching march of the penguins which showed how penguins manage to live in very cold weather including the harsh storms and how they go without food. This movie was an eye opener to the life of Penguins.

I highly recommend that you watch both the movies and reflect on this.

Connected Anywhere

2007-02-23T18:36:00.000-08:00

It was more than 2 years back when I wrote that technology helps us stay connected. I have recently moved to next level of staying connected. It happened when I got a blackberry in my hands. Now I am not just connected but connected anywhere. Now I can read e-mail anywhere by carrying blackberry in my pocket. Surf internet if needed.

I hope to put this to productive use rather than getting carried away by it.

This Day, That Year

2007-02-21T14:23:00.000-08:00

Are you good at remembering dates/occasions? We all remember occasions like birthdays and anniversaries. But, there are other dates which remind us of something unique that happened long time back but you don't really celebrate them.

I wanted to write in my journal today because a few years back, this was the day I started my first job. I still remember the day I walked in to office to join after leaving college. I was pretty excited and there were 3 more people who joined along with me. Almost every year, when I look at this date Feb-21, this memory comes back to me.

Leading at a higher level

2007-02-15T17:01:00.000-08:00

I am reading latest book on Leadership "Leading at a higher level" by Ken Blanchard. This book defines leadership as "The capacity to influence others by unleashing their power and potential to impact the greater good".

This book goes into leadership in organizational context and how leaders take care of customers and employees alike to build a great organization.You can browse website focused on this book and also read first chapter using link below

Link: http://www.kenblanchard.com/thoughtleadership/authors/blanchard_on_leadership/

Leaders must act

2007-02-15T17:34:00.000-08:00

Leaders must act. Leaders cannot expect to remain leaders only by talking. They have to constantly follow up talk with action.

This calls for self-discipline on behalf of leaders. Self discipline means a lot of things

keeping promises and commitments
being consistent in action
taking responsibility for results (good or bad)
engaging people regularly (making time for people)
walking the talk

and more...

Every time a leader messes up any of the above mentioned expectations, team members start loosing trust in leaders. For this reason leaders must first become self disciplined.

I will end this post with an exercise you can try

Think of a movie you liked most. Think about a movie that inspired you and made you feel good. Write down the movie name and what you particularly liked about the movie. What incident or what action from individuals in the movie inspired you.

Do this exercise now.

It will only take couple of minutes and will enable you to discover values you respect

Tribute to Sidney Sheldon

2007-01-31T14:06:00.000-08:00

When I read news reports that Sidney Sheldon is no more, I felt sharing that I liked reading all Sidney sheldon books. His books are very gripping and you don't feel like putting down the book once you start reading. His ability build characters and situation is great. You can almost feel the event happening with very vivid description of the surroundings.

Since I mentioned all the books I read on my website, I once received e-mail from his secretary mentioning that one of the book listed and sold under his name was not written by him. That was news to me.

Sidney Sheldon website gives timeline of books he wrote and complete list. If you are also avid reader of his books, I am sure you will agree with me on my comments.

May his soul rest in peace

Learning As Long as I Live

2007-01-30T11:14:00.000-08:00

I was reading monthly articles of Vedanta Kesari magazine posted online and came across this editorial on learning. I wanted to share the article because it reflects what I aspire to do. Learn continuously from life's experiences and implement them. I hope you will find this article As Long As I Live inspiring.

20 Questions about your boss

2007-01-29T14:51:00.000-08:00

Managing up or working effectively with your boss is key to success at work. I have written one article earlier on this topic. Effectively working with your boss has covered some ideas.

I found this article called "20 questions about your boss" very useful. When I first found these, I realized that I didn't know much about my boss. At same time, I worked with my team members and asked them write down what they know about me. And in next one-on-one discussion I clarified answers they wrote. This helped me improve my relationship with my team members

I certainly recommend reading this article and making an attempt to answer the 20 questions in collaboration with your boss. Download the PDF file attached to the link.

Leadership Explained

2007-01-27T18:46:00.000-08:00

When we try to explain any concept in a theoretical way, it becomes harder to learn and implement. Using a story approach is always much better. Lot of books are written in this way.

When I was thinking on how to illustrate leadership through example, I remembered article posted long time back "Leadership lessons from Lagaan". I did a search and located link to the article. This series of 5 articles posted by Rajesh Jain is a must reading.

Read Leadership Lessons from Lagaan now and then reflect on it. Which part of the movie appealed to you most? Why? If you have not watched the movie from this perspective, watch it again after reading this.

Most important part I liked in the movie is the way Bhuvan builds the team. He sees key (hidden) strengths in each person and how they can help in reaching the comon goal.

Share your reflections through comments on this blog.

Leader's World Blog

2007-01-27T18:38:00.000-08:00

I have started a new blog called Leader's World on Silicon India forum. I will transfer the posts to this blog also a week after it is posted on Silicon India Blogs.

I wanted to write on topic of leadership for sometime and I wanted the blog to be completely dedicated to only that topic instead of mxing it with my personal blog.

You can see Leader's World Blog here: http://blogs.siliconindia.com/leadersworld

Following was introductory entry on that blog:

A leader has to pay attention to a multitude of things to become and stay a leader. Leader's responsibility increases constantly when more people start following him. Leader needs to stay in tune with everything around him and at same time build a vision and make it a reality.

In this blog I plan to cover a variety of topics that a leader needs to pay attention to. These topics will be mostly on Self Discipline, Thought Leadership, Communication, Management Trends, Best Practices, Technology, Networking but not limited to these.

If you are interested in Leadership skills and planning to build on your skills, you can follow this blog. If you are already in a leadership role, you can share your views on this forum in response to my posts. I plan to post at least once a week on this blog.

Book: The Ultimate Question

2007-01-24T20:47:00.000-08:00

More than 6 years ago I wrote one article on power of personal recommendation. I talked about customer satisfaction and how people either recommend or not recommend the products. This concept has taken off very well in business world.

Concept of Net Promoter has been defined. A person who gives a positive recommendation is called Promoter. A person who gives negative recommendation is called Detractor. By asking customers whether they are willing to recommend or not, business organizations can try to quantify net promoter score.

"The Ultimate Question" Book by Fred Reichheld explains the concept and growth very well. I just finished reading the book. This is definitely a good read and this concept is going to gain more steam in coming years. Read more about the concept on Net Promter website which features a blog and forum on this latest trend.

Links: Net Promoter

Builing and managing your network

2007-01-19T11:13:00.000-08:00

Building and maintaining a professional network has become quite easy due to internet. Linkedin.com is the site I use. Before Linkedin, networking was mostly happening through distribution lists created on available public mailing groups. It was difficult to keep track of changes in network. Linkedin solved the problem by providing an ability to maintain professional profile and make it visible to your professional network.

Linkedin Website is simple and easy to use and offers variety of features.

LinkedIn has become a success as it served a very simple but powerful need of time. If you are not using Linkedin, I would highly recommend that it is time you started using it. Go to the link provided below and start building your network.

As you continue to build network you can watch changes happening to your network, when people change jobs or get promoted etc. You should see benefits yourself.

Links: http://www.linkedin.com/

Blog: James Bach on Testing

2007-01-16T21:26:00.000-08:00

I have not added any more blog recommendations as I promised to. So, here we go

James Bach is quite regular in sharing his ideas on software testing, trends and how he is trying to sustain exploratory testing. I have been following his articles and books for quite a long time. I also continue to read his blog which contains good content.

Click here to go the blog and subscribe to the feed.
A specific post I would recommend is Show this video to your boss

Use Case Documentation

2006-12-29T15:31:00.000-08:00

Last month I attended a free breakfast seminar hosted by Borland. This seminar consisted of demos of their products focused around Requirements Based Testing. I liked DefineIT - a tool for documenting requirements. Nice thing about this tool is automatic generation of flow diagram based on steps defined in requirements.

This got me interested in similar tools and I have looked at 2 other tools so far: Visual Use Case, Use Case Studio

Irrespective of features available in these tools using any of the tools to document use cases is better than trying to do it through word document. I may do a more detailed evaluation of these tools in next few weeks.

Links to tools

DefineIt from Borland
Visual Use Case from Techno Solutions
Use Case Studio from Rewritten Software

Life is like that - A personal milestone

2006-12-19T18:28:00.000-08:00

As years roll by, we go through changes and reach different milestones in our lives.

I have reached one such milestone in my life. I recently bought a house. I think everyone dreams of owning a house and when it comes after lot of hard work, it makes one feel fulfilled.

I am sharing this milestone along with a photo of the house. My second daughter is standing in front of the house

Project Management Primer

2006-12-19T18:20:00.000-08:00

I came across a very crisp summary of project management. I read through the book and then went to author's website. It was quite impressive. Great photos, travel articles and more.

Do read the Project Management Primer completely and then feel free to browse rest of website

Nick Jenkins website

Career Change

2006-12-18T17:04:00.000-08:00

After almost 6 years at one job, I felt a need for change. I have moved out of Informatica and joined Satmetrix. My job does not change that much, but only the team that I work with changes.

I will continue to focus on Quality domain. Do check the website of company I joined using the link below.

Satmetrix
Informatica

Toyota Customer Service

2006-11-26T21:58:00.000-08:00

Last week I took my car for regular oil change service to a local Toyota dealer. I don't need to take any appointment for this service. I gave my car for service and I was waiting. I realized that I should have ordered replacement of wind shield wipers which are worn out.

When the service was finished I was pleasantly surprised to see that they have replaced wipers as a courtesy (free of charge). This didn't cost much but sheer fact that they went beyond the order to take care of an additional item makes this an "excellent" service.