Back Again!

Hello All. Back again to blogging after 2 years...Seriously Missed this world.

The personality development programmes should be more optimistic...

I had recently attended a personality development programme *accidentally*. Yes accidentally..., because i had stopped attending them after my college days when we had over dosage of too many personality development programmes. And therefore i was even little careless in taking the trainer seriously , and was rather spending my time observing others.

Two people in room, made an interesting case to me. They made me feel that these programs can do more harm to people than do good

There was one man, who when entered the room was very energetic, full of enthusiasm and very social but when the program was about to end, he became very hyperactive, tensed, wanting to prove something and restless. The reason was just one psychometric analysis paper which showed him that his energy levels and self motivation was low and he needs improvement there.
The psychometric paper also showed that he is very honest and sincere...but then went unattended.

There was another lady in the room who sounded very authoritative from the beginning of the class. The trainer had asked each of us, what do u think are the qualities you want to change. I seriously dont' remember what i said :$, ya but this lady said 'i am very short tempered, and i want to change that'.

Sometime in the break i asked that lady if she has attended such personality development programs before. And she said from many many years she has been attending these kind of programs, and her main motive is to reduce her short temperament.

Well...since so many years what didn't happen, will it happen today ??!?! Are these personality programs helped her in anyways.
I think it has done her more harm. These programs have indirectly and silently hypnotised her by making her believe that she is short tempered. And now she is already in love with her short temperament and thinks that's her identity.
No human being, likes to leave his identity, irrespective of its good or bad. And nor will this lady do it.

It would have been great if the program had stressed more on persons strengths and told them how to capitalise on one's strengths instead of thinking so much on weaknesses. Who doesn't have weaknesses? If you are fat, people will say become thin. If you are thin, people will say you were cute when you were fat. If you are dark in complexion, then you need to become fair. if you are fair, then black is beautiful. So there is no end to it.

The best thing would be to fall in love with your strengths and make it your identity, and just be aware of your weaknesses.

(personality img source :http://lifeskills-consultancy.com/db5/00451/lifeskills-consultancy.com/_uimages/personality1.bmp)

Deligation at work ..for prestige or power or responsibility or empowerment?

As people grow up in career and get into a managerial or leadership postions, its pretty common to see them delegate there work to others. The delegators are given different names at different times; while most of the times they are called leaders ormanagers ...but many a times they are also called as lazy bones, incompetent or beurocratic bosses.

To be a balanced and successful leader or a manager, it becomes very important to know when to delegate and when not to.

In my opinion, delegation is to be done in following situations

• Delegate when ur an expert and now its others turn to be.
• Delegate when there is someone who needs to know that particular job better than u.
• Delegate when you think someone else in the team can do it better than you.
• Delegate when u want to empower people and create the next generation of leaders
• Delegate when you want to focus on new role, and ur looking for ur replacement

Delegation should not be done for the below reasons

• Dont delegate when its ur job, and u as well are learning to do it (Else you will become dumb in due course)
• Dont delegate, because u think ur the boss (If u have competent people around u, flat culture works better than bossism)
• Dont delegate, because u have to keep others happy (U as well need to be happy)
• Dont delegate, because u think thats the right way to show the power (U may totally spoil the job my giving it in wrong hands).
• Dont delegate because your boss thinks you should delegate (Use your own brains when its ur job)

dressing like a professional, talking like a professional,sitting like professional...list is endless

I was doing my shopping to select a T-Shirt for a relative who is in his later teens. And ofcourse the sales person did not know that i was shopping for someone else.

I selected a really cool, bright and sexy T-Shirt with something interesting written on it . The shopkeeper sees that and comes and tells me.."'Ma'm, you better take the other one (selects a pale yellow coloured dim T-shirt). This looks professional Ma'm on Office goers like you. What you have selected suits college goers only".
Grrrr..Well i forgave him because he did not know that i was shopping for someone else.

But that meant that, with or without reason, everyone feels that one needs to look so called 'professional' if he/she is working.

"Professionalism" is a word that refers to the way a person does his job. When we say he/she has done a professional work, it means he/she has worked like an expert in his field unlike a novoice. Other than this simple meaning, i don't think professionalism carries any other meaning.

But the corporate world uses this word so much to refer to everything around it more often, instead of referring to the way a person works.

How often do you hear the statement 'he/she has done a professional job'.?I remember reading this last in the formal appreciation letters that are given on completion of work. Never otherwise!

Now how often do we hear the below statements?
"Hey , that company folks are very professional in the way they talk."
"This lady looks very professional in the way she dresses"
"Hey, don't buy those shoes'they aren't professional looking"
ALMOST EVERYDAY:)

There are so many HR programs that happen on how to look professional. But i rarely see any program that talks on how to do a professional work.


Somehow the word professionalism is now used more to describe the way a person talks ,dresses up etc rather than the way he works:)


On a side note...

I was just searching the Net on "Why do we need dress code" and it took me to this page
http://www.libsci.sc.edu/bob/class/clis724/SpecialLibrariesHandbook/neal.htm#why.

It says "Many people will be turned off by staff members who dress sloppily or wear clothing with potentially offensive images or words. If a coworker proves to be a distraction, the other employees will have a hard time concentrating on their work. "

I agree with the above statement that distractions would exist if there were no dress codes. However i was also wondering how did we manage to complete such tough higher education during our teens , which is considered to be the most distractive period in life, with literally no dress codes.
Hats off to the teens:)

eehhh..does this mean we need more regulations around us as we grow old and grow responsible?

Go to the terrace to see the Moon...Oops i mean go to the Airport

Few days back there were few talks on one of the powerful Babas giving Vishwa rupa darshan to people at the Moon appearing near the airport .It was said that God/baba will be seen in the Moon, and people need to go to the airport to see the moon.
People as well ran to airport and waited there the whole night watching the moon. But it seems the clouds ditched them by covering the moon, and therefore covering the God as well.
News details here

Now, i don't want to analyse if this is a myth or a belief or a fact or publicty stunt or whatever...
But i am forced to analyse why people had to run to Airport to see the Moon, when moon and Sun can be seen from anywhere from the earth:S:S

Ok Ok..now let me find a reason for people to justify.
Apart from the clouds, I think it's the mistake of the contruction industry and real estate boom. Because these days Sun also struggles to get into my home because of the huge buildings on the eastern side of Home. So i think the Moon and the stars as well are facing the same problem nowadays.
In earlier days we used to go to Terrace to have a full view of Moon, and now we go to Airport. Well...whatever, life's getting crazy.

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Review: TrustSource.org for health product reviews.

I was reviewing the site TrustSource.org. This is a site where people post there reviews of products that they have used. The focus seems to be around healthcare and anti-smoking related products. There are many such sites; however I think this site focuses on specific topics or products rather than allowing people to give random reviews of their own choice.
Currently I can see the home page showing the product reviews of items that help people to stop smoking.

Similarly there is a previous rating of hair loss prevention products like provillus, procerin etc.
The ratings of products are not just based on people ranking them on the website. It considers lots of others factors as well like Sales Data and Rank, Consultations with Health Care Professionals, Consultations with Ex-Smokers and Customer rankings and reviews of popular stop smoking products. They seem to be using some proprietary formula which uses all the above inputs to rank the products.

There are also hair loss prevention and smoking preventions guides as well available there.
What is little confusing in the site is to find the relevant links as the home page always shows only one type of product. And unless I know the links for the others, I am not sure how to reach them. Like now the home page shows the reviews of Smoking related products alone with no direct link to Hair loss product reviews

Note: this is a sponsored post

Times of India - Lead India contest

Times of India announced a lead india contest. And the last date for applying for this is Sept 7th.

TOI says "'Lead India' initiative to provide a platform for the best and the brightest of Indian youth to come forward and showcase their capability as the Leaders of tomorrow. This is an effort to look for and groom a young leadership which will be bright and modern-minded and can herald this nation from 'India Poised' to India Realized. "

Registration Phase - Aug 14-Sept 7, '07
The 'Lead India' programme has been broadly divided into three phases: The first phase is the registration phase which calls for entries. The same can be done by eligible Indian citizens by sending the registration form to The Times of India from August 14-September 7, 2007.

Interested participants can also log on to www. lead.timesofindia.com or SMS 'lead' to 8888 City

Elimination - October 2007
In the city elimination round, one person each will be shortlisted from Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Pune and Hyderabad. The elimination round will comprise of debates, papers, projects, personal interviews and other evaluation techniques as decided by The Times of India.

National Finals - Nov '07-Dec '07
The 8 'Lead India' City winners will participate in the final phase where they will be evaluated through various techniques as decided by The Times Of India and finally one winner will be selected.

The winner gets Rs 50 Lakhs from TOI to help him lead in any of his favorite projects and he would also be given a chance for the Lok sabha elections.

I think it's a good initiative for we young to express themselves and understand the political realities.
So people who are participating to experience it, need not even read my rest if the post and go with a positive thinking. However if you are a true thought leader then you should continue reading!

I registered in this site yesterday to see what it asks for and what's the contest all about.
When i filled the form it just asked me 'Please share your experience of any leadership roles u have played'.

Well i filled this, and i was expecting there will be one more form asking me for some more info about myself. But nothing came up!

So TOI going to select the leaders based a simple textbox that i have filled?

Times of India does not mention anywhere about what process are they going to follow to select there leaders. What qualities are they going to look for? and how would they judge it? It just mentions there would be few essays, debates etc etc.

More than a year back i had predicted that we might land up having a stupid sms voting system to choose our leaders as well, just the way we have for contests like Indian Idol and Fame gurukul. I had blogged on that here. And i am finding this true now.
The lead india contest as well would be SMS votes based!. How crazy!
I don't know if i should feel happy as my predictions have come true, or feel bad about this.

There was a section in the website where one can select his favorite leader from a list of leaders. TOI says they have selected the popular leaders post independence. I don't know on what basis was this selection made.
I checked all the leaders and was looking for few more popular names, but did not find them. Then i thought there would be some space or a textbox where i can add a new leader name. But surprisingly the list was freezed!

Media Censor Board - Need of the time.

"Abhishek bachan was wearing a white kurta on his wedding ', Salman Khan took Jet Airways to jail', 'Sanjay dutt had 2 rotis, drank water 15 times and ....'

Huhhh..This is the kind of news that gets flashed on the News channels repeatedly. And they repeat it till you get bored and swap the channel. But the sad part is that which ever channel you reach, you happen to read the same thing.

People were tolerant before, but now more and more people are getting frustrated with this. In fact media is one topic of fun and comedy when we do not have anything to discuss to pass the time.

I think we really need a media censor board just like we have films censor board, to filter the crap that they show.


Aaj Tak which was once upon a time one of the best channels however these days i see more of ghost stories like...some ghost killing every villager in a highway, or some child claiming to be the re-incarnation of Kalpana chawla.

Media is sometime so hungry for publicity that they have proved dangerous to people many times. A year back they had motivated a person to self immolate himself for better wages, so that media can get some news to cover . I had blogged on this before here.

The recent one is the case of a teenage boy Adnan who was murdered recently by few people and media is being held responsible for this. It seems Adnan's parents had registered a police complaint and had requested the police not to reveal the information, because they don't want the kidnapper to get annoyed. But media did not keep quite, and kept on flashing the news on the TV. After seeing the media coverage, the scared and confused kidnappers took the extreme step of killing the boy.
Adnan's friends and relatives along with orkut members are going to organise a rally on Sept 9th in Mumbai for justice. Check here

It's high time we get the censor board introduced, just the way we have for films. This will help in ensuring that the media is more responsible towards public and determined towards their work .

Are our Police matured enough to handle POTA or any special rights?

After the recent blasts in Hyderabad, the oppositions parties have been consistently saying that if POTA would have been there and police would have been given a free hand in handling terrorism and this situation could have been avoided.


To give a brief..., POTA gives special rights to police to arrest suspected people without the requirement of complete evidence. The idea behind POTA was to have all suspects inside the bars even if there is not enough proof so that they cannot cause much harm by being outside.
POTA existed during the BJP rule and then was removed later by Congress.


Now the question is even if POTA is reintroduced, is our Police is matured enough to handle this?
I personally feel they are not at all matured.

I was literally shocked at the video of how a Police man tortured a chain snatcher in Bagalpur in Bihar by dragging him by the vehicle. Check the news here. Check the video here

This is a total violation of Human rights, and the Police have been doing this again and again in many circumstances. Last time during the Mecca Masjid blasts the Police men had brutally killed few innocent for no reason.


This is not meant to say that all Police men are like this Or to say that they aren't doing any good job. But they aren't the best as well!
Why am i being humble by comparing with the best???...[:S]..Well the truth is that they are far far away from the best.



Before the Govt brings any new rules and regulation for Police they need to increase the standard of Knowledge and Education in police. Otherwise Police would just misuse there freedom and go on making arrests based on there whims and fancies under the name of POTA.

It's time we have better educated people in Police. This would also require us to increase there pay scale so that more number of educated people are motivated to join them.

Unless these changes happen, whatever rules and regulations come, be it POTA or anything, we would never have a strong security backbone and never be crime or terror free.

Post Hyderabad Blast - Are the Security measures going in right direction

I was just getting few random thoughts on the bomb blasts that happened in hyd on Saturday from whatever i was observing around me and in the Television. Here are few and some more will come later.

Need for security-Never consistent
Today morning i was going to the office via the Hyderabad Central, a famous shopping mall in the city, and for the first time i have seen so many security guards actively doing there job. The place that was always filled with unauthorised Auto parking, today there was not a single vehicle that was allowed to park.

I was happy that there is some serious thing happening on the security front at least now...but all my feelings changed when i was returning back home at around 8.00 P.M. Things had come back to normalcy, autos were parked where ever they want. There was lethargic police gossiping with each other. And at some important places no security at all. And all this change in just few hours.

People Reaction: Are we strong Or thick skinned?
I have seen lots of people being interviewed on the TV about how they are feeling after the blasts. And people say 'we are scared but Hyderabadis are very strong and we will not allow it to affect our daily lives etc etc'. I have heard similar statements from people during Mumbai blasts also.

Well...i do understand that life never stops. However, it sounds very crapy to me if people say they can accept anything because they are strong.If a similar answer was given by a relative of a victims then i can agree that we are stronf.
But if we the unaffected are saying this it need not necessarily mean that we are strong. Probably It's just that we have got used to all this or are now no more ready to give time to ourselves to think about all this very seriously.

Because we the people are showing a thick skinned attitude, the Govt as well is thick skinned to this.


Police Security-Ignorant till yesterday, and suddenly Intelligent today ??
I have read in google news that till now police has defused around 15 bombs in Hyderabad. I do not know how much of this number is correct. However it's for sure that they were able to successfully diffuse many bombs saving the lives of many.

• If this was so easy for them to diffuse so many bombs in just one day, how come they say they did not have any information about the previous blasts ?
• Whatever bomb detectors they are using now why is that they have not used it on Friday itself, when they were getting several Hoax calls?

Are the police in other states sleeping?Is it really the 'South' in red alert?
I keep hearing in the news that "South in red alert". Now South covers lots of other states as well and not just A.P.

What are the other states in India doing to secure there places?

It's a little surpising to me that in Hyderabad they were able to difuse more than 15 bombs in 2 days and no one has so far found even a single bomb in other states.

Does this mean Police is other states is Sleeping? or does it mean that this statement that "South in red alert" is a randomly made statement just to add little spice to life?

Lumbini Park Blast Helpline numbers

Few hours back at around 8.00 P.M today there were two blasts in the Hyderabad City. One at Lumbini park near secretariat and the other at the famous Gokul chat bhandar at Koti.
Around 45 people are reported dead till now , and around 60 injured.

Both these places are a very common venue for people to spend there weekends

If you know of someone who has not returned home or had to planned to visit or pass thru any of these places and not found then below are the help line numbers to confirm.


Help line numbers for victims: 040-23202833, 09440815858, 09440815456
People are being admitted mainly in Osmania Hospital, Medicity and Yashoda hospital

why do some people call some of their managers dumb in the IT industry

Today i attended a book review and topic of discussion was on leadership and management.
People in the room were trying to relate the things told in the book to some practical scenarios in IT/Technology industry.

One of the things the book was talking was about different levels of managers and the level of details and subject knowledge required at each level. So it said people at senior management level need not know subject details and most focus more on strategies.

In the same context one of the gentlemen raised a topic saying "if the manager doesn't know java, then the java developers reporting to him call him dumb. it's really wrong on the part of the developers because manager need not know it" . People were condemning this and were saying in such situations it's the java developer who is dumb and not the manager himself, because the manager need not know so much of things :)

Well, i actually agree to this to large extent that the manager need not know the details.

However why is someone being called dumb needs a different analysis.

Below is one of the common conversation between managers (the dumb one's) and subordinated

Manager: How much time will it take to develop a application which has feature X from MS Office, feature Y from the Drupal and feature Z from the Amazon e-commerce site.
Developer(hard core): it takes 6 months approx to develop.
Manager: hey come on...I thought it will not take more than 1 week. You have everything already available in MS office, Drupal and Amazon. You just need to look at them and write some java code to integrate the different features.

Developer: (whisper) Now how do i explain this guy that these are three different vendor applications without the source code.
$!^&@??? head bang bang bang...


Now wouldn't the developer call him dumb?

Many times managers do this Or rather any individual does this because he doesn't want people to take him for granted and show that he as well understands and has control of things.

It's like me going to a tailor and telling her ' i know this doesn't take more than 3 days then why are u taking a week to stitch' . Well in reality, i may really not know how much time it takes ;) , and that's just a trial and error strategy to ensure that the tailor doesn't fool me.

Similarly the problem with some of the managers who are considered dumb is that we sometimes try to interfere in areas where we are not comfortable.

And my personal opinion is that if we are in the IT industry and heading a set of technical people, then as a manager either we should have some basic knowledge of what's happening so that things don't go out of our control.
OR
we should respect and trust the words of our subordinates who knows things.

If we don't do this then obviously we would be called dumb.
Otherwise managers are the most important assets in a company:)

Branding Test to know your brand value

BrandIdentityGuru is a branding company in U.S that helps companies with branding and marketing. They have come up with a Branding Test tool that can measure the brand value of your products or services.
The results are shown in a branding meter in the scale of 1-10 as how good is your brand is.
The tool asks the user a set of 12 questions focusing on products & Services, the target market, messaging, company’s communication client satisfaction, messaging, communication etc,
And based on the user's reply the brand test gives the final result.
You can check the tool at http://www.brandidentityguru.com/popUps/brandtest.html
This is a good one and the questions asked cover the major areas to measure the brand value. However the results are based on user's responses. I feel it would be good if the questions are made more specific than general so that user’s can give more accurate replied with no wavering mind. For example if I am running a company and I am asked to rate my collateral's in the scale of 1-10 or asked how often would my clients come back to know about my products it’s slightly difficult to always decide correctly.
However, the brand test is only the first steps. You can take the next step by sending a mail to sales@brandidentityguru.com or call at 508.238.4347 for a complementary 1 hour personal training. I think this is good offer!

This is a sponsored post of my independent views

Payday loans at PersonalCashAdvance.com

I had already written on what's a Pay Day loan in one of my earlier posts. Pay day loans are small and short term loans which do not require any credit checks of the consumer.

Think of a situation when you need to make an emergency payment to a hospital and you are short of money in your account. Or say it’s the last date to pay your school/college fees and you are bankrupted for the month because of few other urgent expenses. In such situations if you are asked to go through a long process of checking your credits, bank balance etc just to get a small amount of cash advance then there is nothing more irritating than that. Yes, friends are always the first one’s to approach in such situations but even for them it’s not always possible to arrange things within a day!
In such situations pay day loans comes to our rescue.

Personal Cash Advance.com is one of the companies that provide payday loans.
This company only requires that you are a employed major and you receive at least a monthly payment of $1000 per month. However when you are applying for the loan or when they are providing you with cash advance, no balance is required in your account.
As per the site, you will need to fill up a free online application and within few hours only a representative would call to confirm your details. And within a day you cash is credited into your account. Check the sites FAQ section for more details.

This is a sponsored post with my independent views

Happy Independence Day!

Image from http://coolclicks.blogspot.com

Happy Independence Day!

Celebrating 60 years of

Freedom, Unity and Democracy.

Payday loans for immediate cash advance even at zero credits

Pay day loans are small and short term consumer loans which do not require any credit checks of the consumer. Cashadvance-fast.com is a site where people can apply and avail pay day loans or cash advance online from any of the listed vendors on the site. The purpose of the site is to make money available to consumers at the time of emergencies without any hassles.
The loan amount could be something from $100-$1500 approx.

The general pre-requisites for applying for he loans are

• Being Employed for at least 3 consecutive months.
• Earning at least $1,000 per month in income.
• Having a valid checking account open for at least 3 months.

There are mainly 3 steps to applying for this loan online.

1. Have a pay stub and the bank account information.
2. Choose an online lender and the most relevant loan scheme from the website
3. Provide the lender with required information online

And this is all that's required for you to get your loan. However it's important that you are not too much into taking loans or have many loan applications so that the loans don't get rejected.

As per the site most of the online payday loans lenders will electronically deposit the loan amount in the applicant’s checking account overnight itself. And for withdrawals, the the online payday loans lender will electronically withdraw the loan amount plus specified fees on the specified pay date.
However most of the lenders also offer clients the option of extending the loan to the next payday.

This is a sponsered post with my independent views

HerFabLife.com - for women

I was going through the list of sites that i wanted to review and this site ‘ HerFabLife.com ‘ drew my attention. Well the very reason was that it was a women's site :)

This is a life style site for women and has decent information on fashion, restaurants, malls etc which would be useful and can act as your personal lifestyle guide
What's more interesting is that it also has a community place where we can find freelance women writers or bloggers write their thoughts on new things , fashion, new restaurants discovered , and any other trendy and cool things found.
However, so far i find more users from the west and therefore more information as well about the west.
So that also means that if you are on a trip to the west then this could become your fav lifestyle guide to help you out there. Go, Get a fab Life!

This is a sponsored review with my independent views

CriticsRant.com - a movie review site

I was going through the site Critics Rant to get the reviews of Rush Hour 3, which would be releasing soon in India.

I was reviewing the site and found it pretty cool to get the first hand movie reviews from the movie freaks. The site has a look, feel and ease of a blog. Apart from movies this site also has tv shows and games that are being reviewed.

The site also sends regular Newsletters to users about the Movies, TV shows and the discounted offers for the DVDs etc . And if you are a movie freak by yourself, or a first day first show guy then giving your critical reviews can even win you few DVDs.

This is a sponsored review of my independent views

Free calorie counter tool

I was just reviewing a fitness site called MyFitnessPal . It is a free diet and fitness website. In fact there are many sites on the web for this purpose and I keep checking them once in a while to see what my current BMI :). However, i found this site to be slightly different.

It was not just about BMI calculation or a diet suggestion. This site is more about helping people to manage their diet by providing them with a calorie counter tools. This looks like a online food and activities diary to me.

The tools allows us enter the food and the activities details for the day and the site itself calculates the calories lost and also tells us how far OR how close we are from our weight reduction goals.It stores the day -to- day information in the database, and therefore whatever report that we see is always personalized.

When we are on diet, for the first few days we are very strict, but then slowly we stop counting on calories. This is pretty common! And sometimes even if we want to count on calories, we may not know the composition of the food we take.In such cases the free calorie counter will be pretty useful.The site gives good suggestion on food habits with details on there calories.

However i did find some of my favorite asian food items missing(Idlis and Dosas). But there is a provision to enter this missing food information as well. Hope some Asian Dietitians do this for us soon:)

The only sad part is that we need to enter data into the tool manually. Now we are all lazy bones! It would have been nice if there was a tool that could calculate calories with a touch screen ;) Just kidding!

However, I think if we try to ensure to enter this information for initial few days and if the tool also shows positive results, then I am sure we would be motivated to enter in future as well.

This is a sponsered post with my independent views