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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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:)

Happy Independence Day!

Image from http://coolclicks.blogspot.com

Happy Independence Day!

Celebrating 60 years of

Freedom, Unity and Democracy.

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

Website with Latest Supreme Court cases and judgements and central notification

I was checking my own blog and suddenly came across a google ad on the right side which read 'Indian Legal Database' -Latest supreme court judgements and central notifications'.

I think this is pretty cool. However i could find only 22 latest cases now. Though i can't understand lot of legal terms and meanings, i am sure this will be very useful for law students.

And seems like the main site manupatra.com also gives few analysis reports. Though i did not check in detail it flashed up two reports which i am sure will be interesting for all. One was "Handbook on Real Estate Investment-A legal perspective". it costs around Rs 50. But for anyone having interest in real estate think it makes sense to know about the law.

And seems like this company is also running an Essay writing contest for Indian lawyers. If you are a lawyer you can check here.
And if you are not a lawyer then don't even attempt, because the topics are all bouncers:)

Chris's Blog for Next Generation of Entrepreneurs & the Contest

The new generation business model (also referred by some as Business 2.0) and Entrepreneurship has become very different from what it had been few years back. With Web 2.0 business model and the popular Internet Assets like AdSense,Traffic calculators, blogs etc have opened up a completely a new set of business opportunities for Entrepreneurs.

Working from home and making money over the web has become a very professional way of running business and i know of many people who earn very well this way (sometimes more than what the legacy entrepreneurs do or even a full time employee earns).

Therefore more and more people have starting adopting the same. This means competition exists not just for companies into Automobile, Electronic or Banking business , but also to our web-entrepreneurs who run websites, blogs and portals.

Chris is one of the new generation entrepreneurs who builds business over the web. One of his first steps is his blog Chris Bloczynski dot Com .
In this blog he gives excellent tips and lessons on Entrepreneurship, especially over the web which are based on either his own experience or from the experience of his mentors. In his lessons of Entrepreneurship he emphasises on ownership, mentorship, attitude and automation. While many of these principles are common for all entrepreneurs irrespective of your business is through web or not, however i found many of his blogs which specifically are for web entrepreneurs. His blogs on branding and
'Branding on the web' are awesome!

Chris is also currently running a contest on his Blog
First prize - $50 cash, paypalled to your account.
Second prize - A copy of “The Four Hour Workweek” by author Tim Ferriss
Third Prize - A $15 iTunes gift card
Check here the details.


I think it's probably high time that even our MBA programmes programmes start including few lessons on successful business and branding over the web and go beyond the popular examples of McDonald's, Essar to few Digg.com's, UTubes, Flickr services and many more...

But till them people like Chris are there for your help!:)

This is a sponsered post with my independent views

Making them immortal...through online Memorials @ Registry of Life

Any day we open The Daily Newspapers in India, there are definitely two things that never get missed out.
One is about some crime or bomb blast that happened and other is about the obituary of some persons or the other.
The obituary space would have a nice young good looking photo of the person, even if he was very old when he died, and it would definitely have the names of all family members and friends with few wonderful lines on what they feel about the person.

We will find people doing this even years and years after the related person has expired
Now if you are a too practical person then probably you would think what's the point of having this obituary or 'In memory' gesture even after some 8-10 yrs of persons death, when we know there is nothing that's going to change. .....Well, there is no real answer to this.And all that we can say is the pleasure that you get in celebrating and remembering the lives of our loves one's is many times more valuable than the time and money that we spend on it!

Loosing someone near and dear is definitely the most painful thing and only time can erase that pain. But what's beautiful is that the 'time' only erases the pain, but never erases the beautiful memories of the person:) And many times we wish that there was some way that we could express our affection for the person and share it will all those like minded friends and relatively and jointly admire those few moments.

And that's why people build memorials, write books on memories, have an Ad in paper etc.
Similarly we also have 'Online memorials' , where we can share our feelings and life of the person with anyone we want over the web.
Registry of Life is a place where we can create online memorial of our near and dear who are probably no more on this earth, but are yet immortal for us and pay a tribute to them!

Now to talk about the site, first thing I would really appreciate is the concept!Excellent!

Technically speaking the site has a pretty decent User Interface, and it allows us to include photo albums, person's favorites, lifestyle pics of the person at different times etc.
And all this can be shared with our near and dear and people can pay tribute as well.

Now apart from the online memorials, the site also comes with many resources to help people in grief.
It comes with monthly Newsletter from Dr.Dees who answer to people's problem to help them to cope up with grief.
This is definitely a very nice place to have memorials. However i really wish no one really would require Dr.Dees, and there is no grief on earth!

Happy Living!

This is a sponsered post with my independent views

Few More Reasons for people quitting jobs

I was reading some of the mail forwards and came across Ajit Premjis speech on what can make people Quit. It said people usually leave there jobs because of there immediate boss and less because of reasons like salary etc. It also said that most of the times issues are trivial but mis-management by the company can make them resign.

I completely agree with this..but apart from this i was thinking can there be any more trivial (so called trivial) reasons which can make people quit.

Some of them could be like this...(the list is endless)

Flexible timings: "I can't wake up before 7", " I have to go to Gym everyday", "i have to take care of my child's homework in the evening", " I need to pickup my wife and go home"
People need to take up too many activities these days and are no more restricted to 9-7 job. So if the company's strict working hours are not giving them the flexibility to manage then people get frustrated.

Flexible timings is a must these days and i know of many who refuse to join a company unless it agrees for flexi timings.

Good Internet connectivity: "No Gmail, No yahoo. Life Sucks"
grrr..i would be the first one to quit if i don't have one.

Good Chairs and desks/ergonomics: "Aah This chair is so bad...2 more hrs to 6...1 more for 6, 30 Min's more...5 Min's..aah at last it's time to go home"
If ergonomics is bad people start counting time so that they can get rid of the uneasiness . Ergonomics is something that works subconsciously in people's mind though they try to adjust a lot to it. But physical discomfort slowly shadows the mental patience and it wins at last. It's very sad that HR's still do not think too much on this aspect.

Restrictions to usage of coffee/tea/smoking: Coffee and tea is still OK. but Smokers literally die. However it would be bad on my part to suggest encouraging of smoking. Probably companies should appoint counselors instead.
But usually coffee/tea/smoking are considered to be energy boosters and people feel they need it if they are under work pressure.

Restrictions to taking breaks between work-"Hmm i need to stretch. But will my boss feel bad if i go for a break again"
Many people fear there boss, when they feel the need for a break. But this slowly starts to irritate self and also changes his attitude towards his boss. It's very important that managers ensure that there subordinates don't work with unnecessary fear.

Restriction to talk on phones to near and dear: "My kid wants me to talk to him for few more mins, can't this silly 15 mins break be extended"
I know of a friend who has this reason and ONLY this reason to quit her call centre job.

I know of a colleague who updates his wife at least 6 times in a day....once as soon as he comes to office , once before going to lunch, and once after lunch , once whenever he meets his boss ,once when he starts for home and also once when he doesn't start for home.
Now if this guy is asked not to attend personal calls, he is sure to quit:)

Usually people shy away in expressing these reasons as they might sound a little unprofessional.
But then we all are human beings before being professionals.

Bandh against Supreme Court---best Fools month act!

I have always read that Supreme Court is the supreme authority to take decisions, and no one can question the Supreme court. Ok..lets relax this statement and say we can question the supreme court also.But Protest against court?!?!..that too fully supported by Governement..this would be one of the most foolish thing to hear..that too in month of April!

The bandh today against the Supreme court decision on stay order for OBC reservation was fully supported by all parties.And probably this would be one of the few things jointly supported by all parties.
And the reason for this is very obvious... because it's by showing the number of reservation that any parties would be able to win their votes.
So it's most practical for them to first join hands with ech other and get the judiciary out of interfering so seriously into all this. And then later they can use there free hand in ditching each other and the people.

But i am sure this would have been a great shock to the political folks because they might have always felt that result will be in their favour. And that's why they never worked hard to prove their point even though Supreme Court has been asking them for all the latest data since long. But the Government acted very passively at that point of time, probably because they felt no supreme court can change this system even if they do not provide correct data.


And second shock to the Governement would be post-bandh because we Indians , i beleive have learnt to adjust to all this bandh's and still continue with the routine life:)
Today morning i was warmed by my dad that i don't go to office as there are no buses and trains..but i still gave a try like any other 'experienced' Indian. And what i find is life was more comfortable today than any other day! Every day i had to either wait for a crowded bus or take a costly auto which would charge me Rs 200 to go..and today what i got is a charted company bus whose driver is making the best advantage of the situation and dropping people at there destination(ofcourse with tip). And surprisingly this got me to spend less paise than I usually do:)

Oh i wish this strike continous for some more days;) Just kidding..but then it just means this strike was a big failure.

There is a nice going on this here http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070329063808AAoP3J0

A excerpt from there...
"It spells doom for the future of the country. The kind of tussle that we witnessed during Indira Gandhi's time, between the judiciary and the Parliament, is going to be seen. Unfortunately, the small time players in the political arena,like DMK, PMK etc are having a big say on national matters. Their rabid social justice agenda is in fact creating a lot of heat in the social system."

Are u asking ur team to be toooo proactive- means u are becoming dumb

'I want you to more proactive and not wait for me to come'-- this is something that we keep hearing from managers and this is also something that we keep saying to our team members, if you are a manager by yourselves.
While this statement is completely correct and valid, i have observed many times that some managers say this more often than necessary. I recently happened to observe myself as how often i say this to my team and what are the situation that makes me say this. I thought this is the best way to understand a managers mindset i.e by being a manager by yourselves.
I found only two situation that made me say this to anyone. One was when my team member was pathetic at work and i felt that it's better that i do all his work by myselves rather than explaining him and getting things done from him. The other situation was when i felt lazy and had no mood to work:) Hehe. i might sound point blank in saying this. But it seems true that when a manager looses interest in the current work or doesn't have mood to work, he expects his team to be toooo abnormally proactive so that they do his work also and keeps repeating the same thing again and again to them. The reasons for this could be several ranging from job dissatisfaction or no new challenges or personal problems or whatever. But it defenetly means that there is some problem with the manager himself and he needs to be proactive rather.

So if you as a manager are doing this, then it's time that u take necessary action to correct yourselves(maybe change ur job or role. ;)).
And if ur a member who is being bullyed by ur manager by repeated verse of being proactive, then just give him sometime to become normal and u just carry on with ur work as usual ;)

Disclaimer: This is my general observation and has no reference to any individual living or dead:)