A Roller Coaster Ride!: Really Big Bump For Readers....

Last weekend, to enjoy my train journey, I selected the book - A Roller Coaster Ride! ...when an iitan met a bitsian girl by Saumil Shrivatsava (SS). I heard about this book from our alumni mailing group. Looking at Bitsians recommending the book, I read the book to only realize later that the BITS word has been used only for the tag line! It is very good start from SS as a writer by taking inspiration from his IIT-bro Chetan Bhagat and other authors from IIMs. He just presented each and every scene as a casual talk. So you don't need to think hard to look for multiple interpretations. Story moves smoothly but mind you don't think beyond what is presented in the book.

Things I liked about the book:
- I appreciate SS for coming up with a book of 160+ pages.
- Presentation of characters with full detail.
- Inspiration from Bollywood movies.

Things the book lacks:
- Same old story with many pages can be skipped.
- Too many love stories.
- Too many open questions end of the book. For example, Divya character presentation and the ending were  not convincing.
- Too much dragging of story...
- It is BITS but not BITs.
- Too many things are presented in one book. That is love story, first job and entrepreneurship etc...
- Few spelling mistakes which changed meaning of lines..

Overall, it is good start from SS but it is big bump for readers. Read this book at your risk...Better luck next time...

Start up Ideas

I have been thinking about some start up ideas from long time. Here are 2 ideas...

1. Multi Purpose Audio/Video Systems 

Few months back, I happened to buy audio system for my car. My car audio system price was equivalent to that of my television.  That time, a new thought came in to my mind. Why can't we have a system that can be easily pluggable into a car or at home. For example, I have audio/video player, speakers with some accessories. We should have design that helps plugging and removing easier. What I mean is within 15mins I should be able to setup audio/video system in the car. Similarly, within 15mins I should be able to setup at home. But there are many challenges to address in the design. For example, since car has small space and it varies from one car to another, the design has to be flexible and extend-able. Also, in a car, power of 200W - 500W can give decent sound effect. But this may or may not be suitable for home environment as you have more space. 

The new system should be in the middle ground that addresses issues of car and home environment. And, price has to be reasonable.

2. Affordable Movie Theaters

In cities like Bangalore, weekend entertainment for most of the people is watching movies. Thanks to multiplex  owners for opening complexes in major areas. Though we have more number of screens, still the ticket prices are still sky rocketing. For example, if you want to watch Raavan (Hindi) movie this week, you have to pay Rs.350/- per ticket. If you got with family, you end up spending Rs.1500+/-. This is the same case with other language movies. The minimum ticket price starts from Rs.120/- to Rs.200/- during weekends. There are multiple reasons for this: 1. high real estate costs. 2. high local entertainment taxes for non-kannada movies 3. more people can afford that cost (Don't take this in negative sense. Since we are buying the tickets, multiplexes are not reducing price of movie tickets. Anything sells anywhere in Bangalore...:-) )

The idea is to come up with movie theaters such that costs can be reduced and that leads to reduction in price of movie tickets. For example, opening complex with 10+ screens in sub-urban areas of Bangalore. Since the complex is in sub-urban area real estate prices are less then CBD areas. You can screen all languages movies with options like AC and non-AC. For example, AC theater ticket costs Rs.150/- where as Non-AC theater ticket costs Rs. 80 - 100/-. Also, good to have small setup of food court etc.  This complex can add more entertainment activities. We can reduce costs that are in our hands. For example, entertainment cost is something given to local government, we may have less control on this.

 

Please note that above ideas are just ideas. I have not researched more and evaluated them. If you feel these ideas are good, go head and implement it. Please leave your comment, if you like these ideas. I will be happy to see them. 

Movie: Darling Review

Darling (Telugu) - 2010

cast: Prabhas, Kajol Aggarwal, as usual comedians

music: G V Prakash

direction: Karunakaran

Darling is feast for not only prabhas fans but also all movie lovers. I want to write more about prabhas because he gave different shade to Darling character. His body language, dialogue delivery and action sequences are very good. Good going prabha...:-). Kajol had limited scope but apt in her role.

Karunakaran is next hero of this movie. He understood one point in recent movies. Many movies are flopped because poor, predictable and routine second-halves. So he came up with a story which has first-halves of few movies. Darling is regular story but different treatment. I liked story telling in first-half. Bad part is story telling goes for more than one hour, that made people in theatre felt really frustrated. But I was the one laughed like anything. :-). People gave a pretty bad look at me. I was enjoying the movie. Thats good part of Karunakaran way of story telling. I liked the episode where prabhas's friend lits cigarette from his t-shirt (neeku kadupumantaga undi ani naaku telusura...:-) ).

G V Prakash's music is different but loud.

Some drawbacks of this movie.

- Routine story.

- re-union of batch-mates once is not utilized fully.

- Dialogues are just OK.

- Why heros are always poor in studies in Karunakaran's movies?

Though some part of movie looked like regular karunakaran's movie, overall Darling is good to watch once.

How to delegate effectively

I happened to see an article about how to delegate tasks effectively at: http://www.theoutsourcingcompany.com/blog/entrepreneurship/how-to-delegate-effectively/

Read this article. Short and good.

Music: Sura (Tamil)

Sura (Tamil) is next and 50th movie of Ilayathapathi Vijay. It is one more movie from Sun Pictures. Looks like Sun Pictures tasted profits with Vijay's last movie Vettaikaran. It is slated to release on 30th April. Hope at least Sura has different story line than Vijay's previous movies.

Manisharma is music director for Sura. Mani gives really fantastic music for Vijay in Tamil. I listened to all Mani-Vijay combination movie songs. All songs are really good and different one. For Sura, Mani's part was made easy by taking his blockbusters hits in Telugu. Sura has 6 songs.

1. Thanjavoor Jillakari -> "Bommali" from Billa

2. Vettri Kodi Kattu -> "Inthe inthinthe" from Balu

3. Vangakadal Pulla -> I dont know exact movie. Jr. NTR or GopiChand movie.

4. Siragadikkum Nilavu -> "Thagilinadi Abba" from Samba.

5. Thamizhan Veera Thamizan -> "Hut Hutja" from Balu

6. Naan Nadathal Adiradi -> from Billa

Lyrics are aptly written. Even you have listened Telugu version you can still enjoy Tamil version.

I feel this movie may be remake or inspiration from "Chatrapathi", super hit movie of Prabhas-Rajamouli combination.

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Moive: Goa (Tamil)

Goa (Tamil) 2010

Goa is story about 3 youngsters of a village (Pannapuram, near Madurai, Tamil Nadu) who want to come out of their village, enjoy and settle down in abroad by marrying a foreigner. They get inspiration from their friend who marries to a London girl. The story is not something new and easily predictable in many places. Goa is sort of multi-starer story. Director Venkat Prabhu's 3rd movie. He had to maintain comedy quotient (CQ, I coined this word. I don't know somebody already uses it..:-)) for all characters.

I liked these things in Goa:

1. Premji's character and his love episode.

2. Vaibhav's episode with Sneha. It is sort of good.

3. Music added lot of energy to the movie.

4. Dialogues are quiet good. Not too difficult word to understand.

5. Picturaization of Goa.

I did not like these things in Goa:

1.Opening song. It looked like old movie. Lyrics of opening song talks about Venkat Prabhu's family (Isaignani Ilayaraja family and director Gangai Manaran family) , he should have used them in the song rather than one male dancer and other female dancers. When a songs has multiple singers, audience expect that many character are part of the songs. Atleast latest generation from the family would have been shown.

2. Too much emphasis on Premji's character.

3. Boring scenes in the middle for struggling to take to next level.

4. Story would have been much better something people like to explore.

5. Using the same formula of old music tracks as background in some scenes.

Overall, Goa is not good as Chennai-28 and Saroja. Hope next film from Venkat Prabhu will impress all of us.

Lines Make You Think.

For 33 years, CK Prahalad, management guru who passed away in couple of days back, delivered this closing lecture to his classes on Leadership and Responsible Management. This article is posted in Harward Business Review. I am not

Column: The Responsible Manager

by C.K. Prahalad

The global financial crisis of the past two years has triggered an unprecedented debate about managers’ roles. While discussions about managerial performance, CEO pay, and the role of boards have been fierce, scant attention has been paid to managers’ responsibilities.

For the past 33 years, I have ended all my MBA and executive education courses by sharing with participants my perspective on how they can become responsible managers. I acknowledge that they will be successful in terms of income, social status, and influence, but caution that managers must remember that they are the custodians of society’s most powerful institutions. They must therefore hold themselves to a higher standard. Managers must strive to achieve success with responsibility.

My remarks are intended to serve as a spur for people to reexamine their values before they plunge into their daily work routines.

Take a minute to study them:

• Understand the importance of nonconformity. Leadership is about change, hope, and the future. Leaders have to venture into uncharted territory, so they must be able to handle intellectual solitude and ambiguity.

• Display a commitment to learning and developing yourself. Leaders must invest in themselves. If you aren’t educated, you can’t help the uneducated; if you are sick, you can’t minister to the sick; if you are poor, you can’t help the poor.

• Develop the ability to put personal performance in perspective. Over a long career, you will experience both success and failure. Humility in success and courage in failure are hallmarks of a good leader.

• Be ready to invest in developing other people. Be unstinting in helping your colleagues realize their full potential.

• Learn to relate to those who are less fortunate. Good leaders are inclusive, even though that isn’t easy. Most societies have dealt with differences by avoiding or eliminating them; few assimilate those who aren’t like them.

• Be concerned about due process. People seek fairness—not favors. They want to be heard. They often don’t even mind if decisions don’t go their way as long as the process is fair and transparent.

• Realize the importance of loyalty to organization, profession, community, society, and, above all, family. Most of our achievements would be impossible without our families’ support.

• Assume responsibility for outcomes as well as for the processes and people you work with. How you achieve results will shape the kind of person you become.

• Remember that you are part of a very privileged few. That’s your strength, but it’s also a cross you carry. Balance achievement with compassion and learning with understanding.

• Expect to be judged by what you do and how well you do it—not by what you say you want to do. However, the bias toward action must be balanced by empathy and caring for other people.

• Be conscious of the part you play. Be concerned about the problems of the poor and the disabled, accept human weaknesses, laugh at yourself—and avoid the temptation to play God. Leadership is about self-awareness, recognizing your failings, and developing modesty, humility, and humanity.

Every year, I revisit my notes about the responsible manager, which I first jotted down in 1977. The world has changed a lot since then, but I haven’t found it necessary to change a word of my lecture. Indeed, the message is more relevant today than ever.

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I liked last line above. It is astonishing to know that he jotted down these points 33 years back but their relevance stays forever. May be after some more years, we may understand and appreciate above points in better way.

Father of Java leaves Oracle

It is little surprise to know James Gosling left Oracle. For more information, please read this article

http://adtmag.com/articles/2010/04/13/java-founder-gosling-quits-oracle.aspx.

Millions of Java fans have to wait for some time to know about next action from James Gosling and about future of Java. http://adtmag.com/articles/2010/04/14/oracle-faces-java-challenges.aspx