To Fire or Not to Fire - That is the question

The biggest question plaguing almost every big IT business leader today is precisely that. Should I fire or more likely especially after the Tech Mahindra Audio Tape Gate scandal, how to fire without creating a scandal around it? The one person that needs to get fired sooner rather than later is the HR Head of Tech-M, that’s for sure.

Why this post? 

I am a big fan of Prabal Basu (he writes so well, he's a fellow alma-mater from London Business School and his articles are so spot-on on a wide range of topics). How can someone be so knowledgeable on such a wide-range of topics I always wonder. His article on the Tech Mahindra saga is interesting to say the least. He raised several important points including the impact of beliefs at the top on actual decisions taken by the middle management and how the culture change in Tech Mahindra due to HCL imports might have led to this.

My only point of contention is that this is a common dilemma that an IT manager or in fact any leader faces today and there are none around that are better than the others. With the current generation of millennial employees with limited loyalty, the only thing these companies can and should do is provide enough opportunities to train and challenge employees to utilize those opportunities to upskill themselves. Once that is being done, some hard decisions need to be made, they just need to be made. Of course, execute those decisions as humanely as you can do and that is really where the HR team needs to learn to put its foot down because that is their space.

I write today (thanks to a nudge from someone I respect a lot) to share some interesting anecdotes and experiences from my life. I've had my fair share of experiences both as an employee during the 2001 recession and as an employer in the recent past as we go through the ups and downs of trying to build a start-up with the right culture and the right kind of people. This post is more about my experience as an employer and I'll follow up with my view from the other side and the tough decisions that need to be made.

2000: The rise 

The Y2K Boom had made all the IT majors including the highly respected Infosys, TCS, Wipro and almost every IT company in Bangalore rich and greedy. They went about hiring with gay abandon especially at the entry level and what better place to get good talent in Engineering schools across Bangalore. Most of my 2001 batch (including friends across most colleges in Bangalore and as I heard later across India) got offers galore and were all excited about their bright future in the rosy IT sector. I for one had not one but two offers. Even though our college (UVCE) allowed only one offer per student, I'd gone through the PPR program at PESIT (an industry training program sponsored by a couple of companies including Yahoo, HP and Others) and through that I had got placed in Infosys. Everyone at home was over the moon since Infosys was really the star of the IT sector (largely due to its stock price) of course and in a few weeks, I even got placed in the one and only Lucent Technologies "Bell Labs" of Dennis Ritchie fame (Great pay, expectation of great work, tons of perks). I could not have asked for more. 

2000: The fall 

The recession then hit and man oh man, did the atmosphere on campus and across the city change. One by one, the companies started cancelling offers that they had made and / or indefinitely deferring the joining or in some cases suggested trainings and courses that we could take up (to skill ourselves up). Thanks for the advice, that's so kind of you, we all thought.

Back to my story, Lucent was at least clear in their thought process and cancelled its offer outright and well ahead of the others. Along with the nice letter intimating us about their decision due to changed circumstances, they gave a nice consolation sum. In hind sight, it is indeed funny. I got fired before my first day at work and I got my first severance package (a handy sum at that) without putting an hour of work. Post this experience, I realized that everything in life happens for a reason.  Infosys on the other hand sent a vague "joining date deferred" letter and left us on tenterhooks for nearly 8-10 months and for some of my friends, well over 15-16 months. We did receive a few more nicely crafted letters from their HR team every 2-3 months and kept us all hopeful. The offer finally came and while we were doing something productive in the time, many of us were happy to finally start our careers off or give it a boost. While there was a lot of bitterness about the whole affair, some of the bitterness came from the high pedestal Infosys and NRN was placed on by all and sundry including parents, uncles and aunts. Don't get me wrong. Infosys was an amazing experience for me. I spent the more time in Infosys than in any other company including my own company where we are nearing the 5 year mark. I made the best friends there and also learnt so much there that I have no regrets about losing 8-10 months. Like I said, in the long run, what is a few weeks or months.

NRN and the claims

The bitterness with the founders remains and it just creeps me out when I see the same founders of Infosys preaching about how they are holier than the rest. NRN in this article talking about what happened in 2001 says "Let me give you example of Infosys itself. When the market became very tough and it shrank actually in 2001. We all sat together with senior management and then we said: look let us make some sacrifice and ensure that we protect the jobs of youngsters. That time we had offered jobs to 1,500 engineers. Several companies were postponing the joining day. We said let us not do that, let us demonstrate the commitment to youngsters by senior people taking some salary cuts based on the disposable income as we go down the hierarchy and welcome those 1,500 engineers.”

Mr. Narayana Murthy is an honest soul and about that, I have no doubt. But then, unless I imagined what happened to me and 1000+ other friends in 2001-02, his recollection of the 2001-02 treatment that Infosys delivered to us and my own recollection is just poles apart. I'd love to know if it was just a honest mistake or was he misled into believing this is how it happened. You can forgive him for believing the stories spun by his and Infosys’ PR machinery as the holy grail.

My respect for him will go up manifold if he admits that he got his facts wrong. I do respect him, Nandan and others a great deal despite what we personally went through for he and his Co-Founders really showed us first time entrepreneurs the way and helped build that dream of starting something on our own.

Since it's already quite a long post, I'll hold off on my "own experiences as an employer" for another post.

Coming Up: The Bad and the Ugly - My experiences with letting people go and why that is necessary!

About the Author: 

Randhir Hebbar is one of the founders of Convergytics - a bespoke analytics consulting firm and is a leading tech entrepreneur who has worked with companies like Mu Sigma, Dell and Infosys Technologies Ltd. He has consulted with many large retailers, technology companies and telecom companies and is a highly regarded digital analytics consultant. He has spent over 17 years in the IT / ITES industry both as an employee and as an employer and loves nothing more than spending time with employees working with them to make a bigger impact on clients.

Hospitalforsalelease.com - A new and innovative platform

What started off as a small project for Convergytics a few months ago has been a fun ride so far. We became good friends and I built a close and strong bond with Amrit Pal Singh - the CEO and Founder of Hospitalforsalelease.com. He's a really motivated and smart individual who totally believes in the concept of buying hospitals and selling hospitals made easy and that in turn helping turnaround many a distress hospital and in turn making life easier for Patients and Doctors alike. 

Is there a huge market for it? The number of people who've registered already in the first 3 months (even before launch) tells me there is surely a demand for such a platform (at least on the side of hospitals). What sort of pivot will be necessary to make this platform work for Hospitals and Investors is still open for consideration (depending on how well the launch goes) and I have been advising the HFSL Team on and off on how it can succeed and the digital analytics team at Convergytics is excited to be working closely with the HFSL Team.

All the very best to Amrit and the Hospital For Sale Lease Team as it gets prepared for a grand launch in Feb-Mar 2017! If you are a doctor or want to invest in hospitals, please do check out the site, register online and share with friends & family who might benefit from this.

If you have any feedback on the concept or want to get in touch, please use the contact us form at HospitalForSaleLease.com or drop me a message and I'll put you in touch with Amrit himself.

Results of Bommanahalli election and what next?

The results from Bommanhalli (see link) show the obvious fact that we (Yogesh and all of us who fought it together with him even if some of us with limited commitment due to personal constraints) lost the election. We lost and so did for now, the hope for good clean politics. But, while it is a small battle lost, let's not lose hope and continue to focus on the bigger war ahead. Between Yogesh Devaraj and Ashwin Mahesh, there were 15K people in Bommanahalli (or around 10% of electorate) who voted for Clean Politics. Hopefully many more thought about voting for them, but decided against considering the enemy (greater evil in their eyes) that they wanted to defeat (Congress, BJP).

While both had issues with the way each other's campaign & why we were working against each other, the promise that both made were very similar: Greater empowerment of citizens, clean governance, zero corruption, prioritizing and focus on solving people's problems instead of filling their own bank lockers and many more and nearly 10% of the electorate has responded and many more were denied the opportunity to express themselves by missing names on electoral rolls, incorrect information of booths, misleading of educated people who came out to vote (similar to attempts with misleading me and Bhagyasri Hebbar). In addition, the over 500ppl arrested for attempting to cast fake votes means that a % of the 80+60K votes that Congress & BJP polled might also have been fake (we'll never know for sure). Last but not the least, this is the story in every constituency. A LSP candidate in my constituency polled over 6K votes, many others polled between 6-12K votes and it is more often than not close to 8-10% of the votes polled.

So, what this means is good clean politics does have a chance. I know most of my colleagues at work don't even have a voter id OR atleast don't go out and vote. But the good thing is that some OR most of them because of me atleast started talking politics. I might be the taboo to some at work today because I went out and openly became a part of politics ... but hopefully, things will change and people who don't participate in politics will one day be a taboo.

And that's also probably the case in 100s of companies around Bangalore. So, if all of them get registered by the time of the next parliamentary elections and even if a small portion of us go out and actively participate in the election process by even just talking to people in our neighbourhood and most importantly, the EC can find a way to eliminate fake/bogus voting completely OR atleast to a large extent, the next election is going to be a close fight and the one after (Municipal elections 2015) will be a cake walk for good clean politics. Let us all work together by associating ourselves with the cleaner parties (AAP, LSP and others) even if you can spend just 2-3 hours per week and continuing this fight onwards towards zero corruption and good governance.

If you want to start this weekend, there is an AAP meeting (https://www.facebook.com/events/431688986927365/?ref=2) that I might try and attend (not sure yet). Ping me or Drop in a comment and I can ask some of my friends to connect to you. Of course, this does not mean I am joining AAP. I have a lot of questions & concerns about AAP including why they chose not to contest this election - but will never know unless I engage with them and some of the other parties.

More about some of these candidates I spoke about at:
https://www.facebook.coml/priya4change?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/YogeshDevarajForMLA
https://www.facebook.com/ashwin4mla
https://www.facebook.com/ravi4mla
https://www.facebook.com/drmeenakshibharathformalleswaram?fref=ts

PS1: In addition, let's be fair to this campaign and not judge this by the number of votes cast in his favor. We reached over 25K houses door-to-door without doing a big rally of any sort (maybe that was something that could have helped get some belief in his winnability - kind of sad if that's the case considering all of us get irritated by the traffic jams and noise pollution they cause), helped over 4-5K people register (it does look like many either failed to get the voter ids, did not receive it in time OR didn't get the intimation that they could vote with just an EPIC#), reached over 100K people per week on FB (especially in the last two weeks incl. of course people from outside Bommanahalli & well-wishers of Yogesh). Everywhere we went, people responded favorably and expressed the need for such people to come out. We just need more structured build of this rather than reactions such as nothing will happen, we are bound to suffer corrupt politicians, etc.

PS2: Afterthought, while the BJP and Congress have money and muscle power that enables their wins, what they also have is a strong committed group of party workers at the street level and while they themselves with their family not only vote for their party candidate, they are also empowered to solve problems (as heard from certain friends). i.e. If any citizen faces a problem, the citizen reaches out to the party worker in the street and he will call the MLA to get the problem solved (calling police, getting a water tanker, getting a road done, etc). Interesting similarity to a Ward Committee of sorts that all the new politicians are talking about and in a way, becoming the eyes and earls of the leader. The difference is obviously a centrally elected representative instead of the local party worker. Some might say, not much of a difference. Definitely does mean that, for good politics to succeed, we need people coming out in every street and spreading the word, working for the good. All of us should do that, even if it means a few hours a week only OR even to start with, a few hours every month. Almost like your CSR activity for the quarter. What say, folks? :-)

B.PAC - Not a great start

A few friends asked me why Yogesh didn't get endorsed by B.PAC and many more probably wondered about that. You go to the B.PAC FB page and read the comments and you'll learn of lots of idiosyncracies in their list of 14 that they endorsed: Virtual greenhorns with no background of service (only claim to fame being that she campaigned for one of the B.PAC Core Committee members Ashwin Mahesh in his last campaign for MLC election), Candidates from mainstream parties with complaints pending against them (Krishna Byre Gowda - see link in image, Tejaswini Gowda - as seen in one of the comments, Ashwin Mahesh - click on http://myneta.info/karnataka2013/index.php?action=show_candidates&constituency_id=54), Two candidates in some constituencies but not in others where there are good candidates.
Edit: B.PAC has clarified that the complaint against Ashwin is that of a defamation case filed while he was an editor of a magazine. There are other improprieties he is a part off. But, let's leave out the criminal case for now.

B.PAC's response is that we went through a thorough process. A process doesn't become thorough by saying that you are thorough. And what about Agenda for Bangalore being endorsed by candidates from parties which doesn't endorse it. They will easily sit behind the excuse of the party to do nothing. The only ones who got unlucky are people who didn't care enough to speak to them, didn't know them personally OR those who didn't realize that saying the right things was what mattered.Having said all this, it could have been a great initiative if the execution was correct.

On the why was Yogesh not endorsed question, we knew all along that Yogesh would not get the nod ahead of Ashwin Mahesh (considering that he was on the core committee) and actually attended several B.PAC meetings (including the inauguration) as well as featured on the B.PAC homepage till recently. Per a tweet from one of the people in B.PAC, he resigned after he filed his nomination. That is a good 3 months after he started his campaign and also several months after he became president of Loksatta Party. Does reek of gross impropriety (using a position in a neutral forum to favor yourself)? And being a part of Yogesh's campaign over the past 6 weeks, I know some of the things that Ashwin and his team have stooped to during this campaign (spreading lies, spamming folks, volunteers posting on different forum recommending Ashwin without as much as a disclosure, etc) that it doesn't surprise me at all that he might have used some of his friends to get together to endorse him and a few of his party members under the guise of a neutral initiative.

Isn't this like maybe a Congress Party getting 3-4 of its promoters to form a so-called neutral governance improvement initiative and just before the elections use that forum to promote some of its candidates? How is this different?

A few friends who volunteered for B.PAC and took part in some of their activities earlier have started showing their frustration on the forum. This definitely could have been avoided if 

1) They asked Ashwin to resign from B.PAC and avoided all references to him after he officially joined politics as president of a party (especially)

2) They were more open about how they chose candidates and why they chose multiple candidates in some constituencies and not in others. If splitting votes is a problem in one constituency, it is a pain in other constituencies too, isn't it?

PS: Subsequent to this reaction, B.PAC has now come back asking other candidates to request them to consider them now. Isn't that a little too late? And will they drop the names on whom criminal cases have been found OR other better candidates were found. Question will remain.

PS2 (update on 5/2 at 11:15pm) : Two days after Yogesh submitted his credentials of over 18 years of volunteering under various groups part-time, his last 3 years of full-time service under IAC, AAP, Corruption Saaku, BANA and other initiatives after he quit his job to go into full-time public service and how he was aligned to B.PAC's AfB and there's not as much of an e-mail acknowledging the receipt and no-one receives the phone. Again, looks very convenient to favoring their favorite. Maybe, they plan to endorse Yogesh after May 5th and say "Oops sorry, we were busy organizing events for Ashwin Mahesh and others". :-) I personally have lost all respect for M.D.Pai and all the others with all of the above events. I am sure he and his group don't care about my one voice. But, I will make sure I tell everyone who'll listen about what I feel are the true colors of B.PAC.

A super campaign day for Yogesh and the Team ...

I spent the entire day (a holiday and the festival of Ugadi at that) campaigning on the ground for Yogesh Devaraj in and around Arekere with a team of 10-12 committed volunteers (all doing it just because they believe in Yogesh and his commitment for changing the system & of course changing people's belief in their ability to change the system one person/voter at a time).

Two things that stood out after a long and tiring day ... the hope that the poor and quite a few of the middle class still have for change and their needs are very very basic (Water, Roads, Drainage, Better education and Get my son a job) and the apathy among some of the apartment dwellers (some of them claiming to have a voter id in their home town) while almost scolding us saying "Why didn't you come earlier, you could have got us a Voter ID card and we would have voted for you". While it is sad that people expect to be spoon-fed into doing their most basic duty to the nation,, one thought in hind-sight was if ONLY our campaign had started a few weeks earlier, we really could have if nothing helped bring up the voting % by another 5-10%.

All in all a super campaign day ... the team met probably a record number of people today and also got a record number & % of "Yes, we will definitely vote for you". Surprisingly, among even the poorer class of people who said almost every time, we have realized that selling our vote for a few 1000 Rs. is hurting us. We will never do it again". There were a handful of jerks who said, "I have 100/150 votes, how much will you pay". We responded with lines like "Is that what your children's future is worth?", "God save you", "He'll give you 1000 and make sure that you end up spending 5000 or even 50000 more over the five year term for Water, Electricity, Travel from one place to another and for your child's education", "Keep getting fooled" and so on and so forth.

On the positive side, we also heard several people say, "I/my family/my extended family of 20+ have been voting for BJP/Congress for the last god knows how many years. Now, we have had enough of it. Thanks for coming today and giving us hope. We will definitely vote for Yogesh." And as the buzz gets stronger and stronger and spreads across wards, any fears that people have that my vote will go waste is slowly and surely going away.

Yogesh is sure to make an impact and the best testimony to that is some so-called good parties starting a dirty game of spreading lies about Yogesh (again revealed because they happened to say the same lies to a friend of Yogesh that we met) and also spreading cleverly written propaganda (read lies) about them being supported by AAP, establishing cheap alliances with mainstream political parties with a record of corruption, violence and no match in ideology OR reason for doing so. Come on, guys. What is the difference between you and the Congress and BJP now if you will do all this to try and get a few more votes?

Anyway, to end this on a happy note, I will share what Yogesh said to us during the break. I will never stoop down to that level even if I lose this election because of not doing so. Because, I am thinking long-term and the cause of cleaning up politics and governance in India. I don't want people to lose hope that there are good people in politics. And people will see through their lies & cheap tricks either today OR some day when word gets around and they will lose out their place in this campaign for cleaning up politics sooner rather than later. The crusade will go on.

Read more about Yogesh at www.vote4yogesh.org and his Facebook page. Please like and share his page with friends and do try and see if you can join one of his Weekend campaigns (one contact with him and your belief in the possibility of CHANGE will definitely increase). You can enroll for one of the campaigns by calling Yogesh on his personal no. 94803.25600

What is a VOTE worth in the Karnataka Assembly Election?

How much might a vote in the Karnataka Elections be worth? 

A rough guesstimate and how you can overcome the buying of votes.

• Total Karnataka Budget > 1 Lakh Crore
• Assume our politicians eat up at least 2% of it (Conservative)
• Total Population of Karnataka: 4.2 Crorer
• Registered Voters: 70% (assumption) = 3Cr
• Voting % in the past: 50%
• Assume 2 serious candidates and 10% serious (non-bought) voters
• Total Votes Bought: 40% of 3Cr = 1.2Cr

How much is going into our politician's fat pockets?

One vote should actually get paid Rs. 1700 (assuming 2% goes into politician's pockets). And what I last heard is that the rate has gone up to about 4000 this election (per one of the maids in my friend's house). They surely wouldn't be paying 4000 OR 800/year to just make a 2x return over 5 years considering that there is a 50% chance of them losing all that money. No stupid investor would do that, leave alone our smart businessman politicians. That must mean that 2% assumption was grossly incorrect assuming the politicians need to make a profit if they have to invest (most of them are pukka businessmen). Probably more like 10+% of the budget is going into our politician's pockets.

How much are you losing every year, you stupid tax-payer? 

Just imagine how much your taxes will come down by considering the tax-paying population is a small % of the total citizens of Karnataka if you just go out and VOTE and get a clean government in place. Should definitely be worth spending 30 mins going to a booth if you can recover upto 40K every year in reduced taxes or increased facilities (assuming 10% cut and 25Lakh Tax Paying population) by just voting in a clean government. Good return for your time? Be a good investor and invest your time suitably. Don't fall for the "My one vote won't count" ... do the opposite you also vote and make sure every one of you and your friends vote.

What can we do now?

Having said that, we can still beat this system of buying votes.  All we need to do is vote for serious citizen candidates like Yogesh Devaraj (More at www.facebook.com/YogeshDevarajForMLA) instead of saying sab chor hai and the good guys won't win and sitting at home. In a typical constituency, it only requires about 10-15K additional people to come out and vote and the non-serious good candidates who have a decent base and will get between 15-20K votes will soon become a viable good candidate and possibly the MLA who will work to meet your needs and transform your constituency. And considering all the voter drives that have happened in companies, apartments and elsewhere thanks to Smartvote.in ... this is definitely in the realm of possibility. It's your choice ... want to try and save that 30mins of your time OR have a chance at saving 30-40K per year and of course doing your duty to saving your country?

All we need to do is just increase the voting % from 50% to 70% and most of the increase should be in the educated urban youth and I am positive none of the educated urban youth will vote for any of the mainstream political parties (viz. Con'gress, BJP, JD-S) after all the ghotalas in the Center by Congress and in the State by the BJP and JD-S. That will mean that we get rid of the mainstream parties once and for all atleast from the major cities (Bangalore, Mysore, Mangalore). That would be a start, wouldn't it?

Will put together a list of my preferred candidates and the reasons soon. Still trying to figure out a good candidate in my constituency #BTM Layout. Anyone you know?

Why Yogesh for MLA - Bommanahalli?

Those following my posts on Facebook might know that I have been all about Yogesh Devaraj and Yogesh Devaraj - MLA for Bommanahalli for the past couple of weeks. Forgive my spamming you with it and please bear and share until May 5th ... have tried to restrict the spamming to FRIENDS in BANGALORE for the vast part but for the occasional rant.

Who is Yogesh? 

Yogesh is a friend who I met through two of my closest friends in Hong Kong way back in 2007. Yogesh was travelling back to India for a vacation and had a 6 hour stop-over. Yogesh wouldn't miss a chance to meet his friends for the world and since I was at home that afternoon, I decided to join and meet them. My first impression of him was as though he was my friend too and not just Pushpa & Deepak's. We ended up chatting for long and he almost ended up missing his flight. He just about made it to the boarding gate on time and pretty soon, I forgot all about him. A few days later, a mail and a Facebook request followed and we stayed in touch for a long time. 

A few more things about him that you might be able to connect with ... Schooling in Marimallappas, Engineering in RVCE, Sr. Manager in CISCO, Born in Mysore, Living in Bangalore since 2007 in Pride Regalia, near Bannerghatta Road, Arekere, Founder President of BANA, Active Volunteer of IAC, AAP [worked full-time for IAC coordinating various activities], BIG Fan of Anna Hazare & Arvind Kejriwal. :-).

He quit his JOB

I heard from friends that he had quit his full-time job and was committing to social causes. I heard about a few things he was doing (An NGO, A School, Fights against Corruption in Government Agencies like BDA and BBMP, founding and leading BANA - A group of RWAs, Organizing Socio-Cultural activities to encourage young talents) and the impacts it was having (again from friends and the occasional update on Facebook). When he got actively involved in IAC, I always admired what he was doing, the courage he was showing, the conviction he had shown to go the whole hog and wanted to join ... but like 90% of the Facebook crowd, I just liked and commented and never did anything to follow-thru in terms of even attending a dharna OR a meeting OR a candle-light.

I AM CONTESTING

Things changed on a lazy Sunday Afternoon when I was chilling and checking out Facebook in early Feb/late Jan (Not sure), I saw an update from Yogesh that he was going to contest the coming Assembly Election ... while I was happy for him, I didn't know a lot of what, why, etc. Continued giving free gyaan on various topics around what he should do in his campaign, what he should not do, etc ... all along frustrated with myself that I was not able to do much.

FREE GYAAN ENDS ...

One fine day, Yogesh had had enough with my free gyaan. He pinged me, asked for my no and almost immediately called me back. Spoke about his campaign, what he had been doing (in more detail) and why he wanted to contest the election, his vision and how this would be a game-changer for Bangalore and Karnataka Politics. He also spoke about how he is different from all other candidates including some people with a good-image but who were all talk and little action. He spoke about his sacrifices and the motivation for his sacrifices. He had got a lot from the State and the City and the people here and he wanted to give back to society. More importantly, he saw the clear need for people like him to come into Politics and clean it up from within. If not, he said, the day is not too far when all of us will need to pack our bags and move off to a Europe or a South-East-Asian Country (since US would anyway not be able to handle all of us).

I obviously knew most of what he was saying about Doomsday being near being an active follower of politics and corruption (in the State by the BJP, Congress & JD-S) and in the Center by Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and her bunch of servants. And the nagging feeling of not having done anything to fix the mess that we are in and disaster we are moving towards finally got me to say "Yogesh - What you are saying sounds great, how can I help?". He sought help in 2-3 areas that included Social Media Campaign Management and Website Optimization. These were obviously my strengths being an Online and Social Media Analytics Consultant at one of the world's most active company in Social Media and one of the early movers in the eCommerce space (way back in 1995). So, I jumped at the opportunity.

AND ACTION BEGINS ...

Since that day in the first week of March, a lot has changed.  I have met him and talked to him so many times. I have actually gone on a couple of campaigns with him in his constituency. I have asked him so many questions including many that people in his Facebook Page ask as well as many of my own. I have learnt so many new things about him. So many unsung achievements (schools he has transformed, NGOs that he has given a huge fillip too, enabled a signficant increase in voter registrations in his area) and transformations he has been able to achieve in the last 4 years of full-time public service that I am convinced that come what may, we need to ensure he makes it to the Assembly on May 5th. I don't care if the richest businessman (embroiled in the land-mafia) OR the worst goon is contesting. We need to make sure Yogesh wins and he's going to change not just Bommanahalli, but politics in Bangalore and Karnataka too.

HIS PROMISE

As many of my friends asked me, I asked Yogesh too. So, what are your promises to your electorate? What are you going to do if you win the election. His answer is simple ... people are tired of promises. People need MLAs who can deliver and have shown a track-record of delivering, a track-record of service, someone who they can approach when they need something, someone who will make sure that all the basic needs of a human being (whether rich OR poor) such as Water, Electricity, Roads, Employment & Self-Employment Opportunities (by Skilling, Training & creating Jobs), Health and Hygiene and sufficient well-equipped Civic Amenities and someone who can ensure that there is zero-tolerance to corruption.

He says once I achieve this, then we can think of the moon and the stars and then I'll refer to the manifestos of all these parties. The other thing he says is why second guess what people want ... he seeks opinion from people at every stage in his campaign on what they want and more often than not, he is proven right. The odd occasion when someone brings up a valid point and it makes sense, he is quick to absorb into his vision and also then start talking to various people in relevant roles / departments about how that can be achieved. E.g. One such point that came out from a young graduate who was looking for a better job (he was doing some part-time work) was how are you going to help people like me in terms of opportunities and skilling. He took the youth's number, spent the next few days thinking about this and talked to various friends in companies in a range of sectors and came back with a clear answer and an action plan of what he would do. The kid was not only impressed ... he now volunteers with Yogesh (and yes, he volunteers - not paid employees just called volunteers to feel good about themselves)

WHY YOGESH IS INDEED THE BEST CANDIDATE?

I asked several trying questions to him around how will you achieve each of the objectives and there are five key traits which I feel will help him achieve whatever he has set out  to do:

1. He understands the pulse of the people really well. He knows exactly what the people on the street want since he's talked to 100s of 1000s of people over the last three years in his various community service initiatives and activities. His conversations with people are so wonderful. It almost feels like his pitch is exactly what everyone on the street is looking for. And no, this is not just a pitch. He feels strongly about it.
2. He is fully committed to this cause. Who would quit a well-paying job and work full-time on various activities that affect society in terms of governance, social-welfare, education for 3-4 years. Most candidates I know are either full-time businessman OR employed in some kind of role.
3. He has clear ideas on each and every need and how he is going to fulfill it. But, more importantly, he has the humility to seek inputs from the grass-roots and experts, listen to them and implement suggestions when good ones are made.
4. He totally believes in democracy and empowerment of local bodies. So, while his priorities are the basic needs, he is not going to go and start doing what a corporator OR a Govt Employee has to do. All he will do is to get the team to focus on achieving his vision of meeting all the basic needs and give his 100% to fulfilling it.
5. He is a doer. Unlike most other well-minded candidates, he is one person who has achieved in his short public career achieved so many things that he's built a huge fan-following across the constituency and actually across the state and even in the US during his time there.

As regards his winnability, he is super-strong in 3-4 wards of the constituency (where he stays and where he has done a lot of good work for people there) and is also gaining a lot of traction in others with strong teams of volunteers getting formed. And every new ward that his team goes after, people are seeing him and realizing that there is still HOPE and the HOPE is leading to a WAVE for CHANGE across BOMMANAHALLI. And more importantly, this time is going to be a 6-way fight (BJP, JD-S, Congress, KJP, BSR and Independents/Small Parties) and even if TOTAL VOTES go up to about 150-180K (from 120K last time), getting about 40-50K votes should get him into the reckoning. Then, it's just a matter of a few more things falling in place and we should have Yogesh as our MLA for Bommanahalli. :-)

THE FINAL REQUEST

My request to my friends and family is this:

1. Please VOTE for him (irrespective of what your political affiliations are, what your friends tell you about any other candidate, what Social Media tells you about the race being between BJP, Congress and JD-S)
2. Please spread the WORD between now and 5th May (Talk to at least 3-4 people about Yogesh every day, Share our stories about Yogesh and his campaign on social channels, email to friends, chat with them) - Basically do what it takes to help Yogesh win. DO IT FOR YOURSELF (even if he is not in your constituency, I believe his winning will change KARNATAKA and NATIONAL POLITICS). For more info about Yogesh OR pass on the word, please refer to www.vote4yogesh.org OR www.facebook.com/YogeshForMLA. Use this post if you like.
3. Please VOLUNTEER and join his campaign team. Believe me, you'll really feel good about yourself. I thoroughly enjoyed the two days when I was part of it and am sure you will too. Don't worry about not being in his constituency ... I am not too. I plan to take part in as many as my JOB and my 3-month old kid allows ... to be fair to her, it is more my wanting to be with the kid than the kid wanting me right now since she's settled down significantly now (touch-wood). :-)

That's it for now. Over to you in terms of Liking and Sharing this post on e-mail, FB, Twitter, LinkedIn and every other channel that is available. Let's get working!!! :-)

Coming Up: Some interesting stories from the Campaign Trail including one on how not to mess up our Social Media campaign (as one of the other candidates did) :-)

My First Ultra Marathon ... yeahhhh!!!!

Coming back to the topic of this post, it's been a life-long ambition to complete a full-marathon and this was a spur of the moment decision to "Just Do It". Late-September, I was debating between the 12.5K and the 25K and the 12.5 would have been the more reasonable choice considering the longest I'd ever run was the TCS 10K earlier this year. But then, I thought what the hell. What's life without a challenge. This post is a long (really really long) time coming. I was once an avid blogger and wrote on the smallest of events of my life. This past month has been the most eventful month of my life and I felt that it deserved a post even if it doesn't become the restart of what was once a regular habit.

The two events:

Event 1: Nov 11th, 2012 - Ran and completed my first ever Marathon (OK, it was just a half marathon rather a 25K race).
Event 2: In just a little under 4 weeks after that, we were blessed with a little angel (To-Be-Named) at 5:38 am on the 8th of December. After some initial breathing troubles and a minor bout of Jaundice, she is now back at home enjoying her long naps interspersed with frequent smiles immediately followed by frowns which keeps us amused all day.

The next 6 weeks were spent in diligent training. lots of useful advice from my experienced marathoner friends (Special thanks to Rajit), lots of purchases (shoes, ankle and knee support, running clothes - all to keep me motivated & fake preparedness:-)) and tons of (pre-exam day like) anxiety over if I would be able to do it. Before I knew it, race-day was onto me. The longest I'd run in my 5 week training on my long run days was about 11-12K and the race was double the distance.

Race day started really early. Got up at 3am (after a couple of hours of sleep) and drove down to MG Road to get on the Bus to the race location. Reached the race venue at 5am, did my stretches, ate some light snacks since by my estimate the race would only end around 10am for me (Positive thinking that I would make the end) and started at the back of the line-up when we were called to the starting line. Start late, start slowly was what everyone had told me. I followed the advice to the T.

I really was at the back of the pack and even the few who started behind me started running past me pretty soon ... was jogging that slowly. It wasn't until the 3k mark that I finally noticed a few people who'd raced ahead starting to walk and I slowly jogged past them. Since it was a 6.25x2 loop that we had to repeat twice, I made the half loop in around 48". Relatively slow, but I was still jogging and hadn't once stopped but for the occassional walks at the water junctions.

I continued on and surprise surprise, was still jogging at the 12.5 mark. When I was about 200m from the half-way mark, I heard a lot of chatter and excitement on the loud speaker. I did for a moment begin to wonder if all the excitement was for my completing the biggest run of my life ... I looked back and saw a tall lanky dude running after me. I suddenly realized that this was the "To-Be-Winner" of the half-marathon who was running towards the finish line. I definitely didn't want to get lapped, not even by the winner of the race ... so I ran like I was actually racing him to the finish line. Was probably a funny sight for the volunteers ... but it definitely mattered to me. :-) I crossed the half-way mark at around 1'45". This speed and I would make the full race at 3'30" which would have been amazing for a first-timer.

Happy that I'd made it past the half-way mark, I continued running/jogging till about the 15K mark ... that was when I started feeling a real pain on my left heel. I'd strapped myself around the ankle and the ankle-brace while keeping my ankle protected was starting to hurt near the heel real badly since I'd not strapped it on correctly. I stopped to remove my shoe & the ankle brace and that was probably the first big mistake. The break was a long one (atleast 5-8mins) and I lost a lot of time and momentum. After that, I was not able to jog continuously however hard I tried. As I neared the 3/4 distance point the runs had reduced to a few meters followed by long walks.

Lot of pain, lot of hobbling and several failed attempts at running later made it to about a km of the finish line. I definitely didn't want to walk past the finish line and jogged the last km despite being in real pain. Was a satisfying finish in 3'50" ... much slower than what I'd hoped for at the half-way mark but within my worst case scenario of 4 hours. And better news was delivered a few minutes after I finished ... the announcer announced that there were still around 75 people still running after I had finished. I wasn't the last one and that was good enough for me.

Finishing a half-marathon was probably never a big deal ... finishing it when I am at my heaviest & most unfit without picking up any major injury both during the training & during the race is the real story.

Having spent the last month gloating over having finished a marathon, I signed up for the Auroville Marathon to make sure that I keep up my running and don't give up on my dream to one day complete a full-marathon. After a month of lazing on my backside and resting on my so-called laurels & accolades (read likes), I ran my first training run yesterday. The goal for Auroville is to complete the shorter distance of 21.2K (Half-Marathon) at a 2'30" OR atleast a 2'40". Might be ambitious ... but what's life without a challenge or two. Wish me luck!!!

A side note: I did make sure I told my gym instructor about this. In early October, the dude gave me a "you must be joking" look and laughed his heart out when I told him that I'd signed up for a 25K. Saying that "he was shocked" when he heard that I'd completed the 25K would be an understatement.  :-)

Top 7 Resume Improvement Tips - For even the best

I gave out Free Resume Tips to improve even the best CV all of July on Facebook.com/Randhir.Net. While it has been shared and liked by many friends & clients, I thought it would be great to share them in one place.

#R2J Tip 1: Resume is about what you achieved and what you can achieve and not about what you were supposed to do as per your job description. Check every line of your CV to make sure that this is what it is doing.

#R2J Tip 2: Tables look lame on your CV but are a powerful way of Formatting your content into multiple columns/sections. A cool way to get the best of both is to create the tables, but remove the borders.

#R2J Tip 3: Make sure your most important content is on Page 1 and at the Top of Page 1. A good way of doing this is to make sure your Professional Summary is your 2 minute pitch and the first 1-2 lines of the Summary is your 30 sec pitch. Add Skills, Achievements, a work summary

#R2J Tip 4: Have Certifications, Affiliated to some Industry Forum? Worked with Big Brand Names and are proud of it? Make sure you add the logos in appropriate locations on your CV so that they stand out in your CV.

#R2J Tip 5: Having a Social Profile (atleast on LinkedIn) is more important than ever before? I get 50 visitors on my LinkedIn profile every week and atleast 50% of them are prospective employers or consultants who are checking me out. My company does most of its sourcing on LinkedIn. Make sure you maintain it appropriately. Why is this a resume tip? If you have some great recos on LinkedIn, make sure you highlight that in your CV (Possibly in the Footer)

#R2J Tip 6: Want to switch industries? Want to take on a new role within the current company/industry? Freelance/Weekend projects & Internships in your area of interest and other areas too and a separate section that talks about all of your independent initiatives will help showcase you as a well-rounded individual and a go-getter.

#R2J Tip 7: Last in our Resume Improvement Tips, but definitely not the least. Matching the CV to the Job Description is very important. Matching could be as simple as moving bullet points around, highlighting keywords from JD or rewording parts of the CV to reflect relevant achievements that the Job is looking for. I typically start with a 1.5 page resume and cut down to 1page depending on the role I am applying to.

Do like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/randhir.net to keep getting tips such as these, special offers on our services and trainings and a lot lot more. Share this with your friends and family if you think they will benefit from our services or tips.

Also, go to the Photos section of our Fanpage to see Page#1 of my 1.5 page resume which has most of these tips incorporated. Feel free to learn from them and do it yourself. If you need my services, I am just a phone call away (+91.9945.254742). You can also book an appointment by going to our website and clicking on the meeting scheduler at the bottom right of the screen.

Best Business Travel Innovations - A Guest Post

This is a guest post from Logan, a friend who is an expert on private air charters. He writes on some recent innovations and projects related to his field travel. 

Best Business Travel Innovations

As someone who is not short on travel experience, I can appreciate a good innovation in the field of business travel. Turns out the folks at Fast Company and the Global Business Travel Association share the same appreciation. On July 22, Fast Company and the GBTA will present the 2012 Business Traveler Innovation Awards. The awards has 7 categories including “Sustainable Practice,” “Traveler Comfort,” “Travel Personalization,” “Outstanding Apps,” ”Travel Convenience and Efficiency,” “Travel Management” and “Traveler Productivity.”  Visit this link to check out more information about the nominees. Of the many worthy nominees, I wanted to spotlight a few of my personal favorites.

The Carbon Dioxide Emissions Calculator

This handy tool allows customers of Avis Rental Group to calculate their CO2 emissions. The formula Avis uses was developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and can calculate emissions for any time period and location and allows this information to be reported by businesses which have established rate codes. In this age, more and more people are conscious of and curious about their carbon footprint. This is a great tool to give people an idea of the impact they are making on the environment.

The Travisa Visa App

The Travisa Visa App gives relevant information on Visa and passport services to you via your Android or iOS device. This can be a life saver when you’re traveling between many different countries and keeping the various rules and regulations straight gets tough.

Cabforce.com

This site allows users to find, book and pay for a taxi in Europe from their mobile device. Gone are the days when you had to wait half an hour in the pouring rain simply trying to hail a cab. With this site, you have the power to do it all from the comfort of home. The company will also be launching its mobile app at the GBTA Conference.

TRX Travelinx 

If you’ve ever had multiple flights in a day or simply had many places to be in a short period of time, you’ll appreciate this app. The Travelinx app converts your entire travel itinerary into one simple-to-use list. This is the easiest and most efficient way to handle a schedule chock full of meetings and flights and bus rides.

Those are just a few of the nominees for awards at the GBTA Conference that I really appreciated. Check out a few of the nominees for yourself and next time you find yourself traveling on business, be sure and take advantage of a few of these great innovations in business travel.

Author's bio: Logan is a guest author and expert on private air charters. He uses Teterboro airport to fly all around the world.

Certifications - Great Opportunity to add a few to your CV today ...

One typical feedback I give most of my clients (especially freshers and young professionals) who come to me for Resume Improvement - Try and Add one or more Certifications relevant to your Profile to your CV. This will help prove yourself to potential employers (especially when you don't have relevant experience in the field/tool). The obvious question is which ones, how much to pay for it and aren't there free certifications that are worth going for to prove ourselves. While most certifications worth the paper they are printed on cost Rs. 5000 upwards, over the next two days, you and I have an opportunity to get certified in a few relevant courses from Brainbench.

This is what I got in the e-mail from Brainbench today or within the next two days (when it is free). Go ahead and register on Brainbench and get certified. In fact, do your bit for your country and get India to the top of the leader-board (as on today - 3/7 as I post this, India is at No. 3 behind US and Ukraine in terms of Most Certified and No. 5 in terms of those certified with a 4+ score).

If possible, please let me know which ones you got certified as well.

Brainbench would like to invite you to participate in our online worldwide certification competition -Bench Games!

Throughout this event we are making ALL of our 600+ certification tests free -- YES FREE -- fromMarch 5, 2012 through March 9th, 2012.
Learn more about Bench Games: Click Here

The Bench Games leader board will be available starting March 6th. Find out which:

• Country has the most certified citizens
• Person received the highest score on a given test
• Country has the most MASTER level certified citizens

Support your country and get a chance to win free Brainbench annual subscriptions, all while enhancing your resume/CV and online transcript.

To take advantage of this great event, simply log-in to your Brainbench account during March 5th - 9th and start your testing!

The Brainbench Team

Top 7 Resume Blunders

Randhir.net launched the Resume Improvement Service in a big way on Resume2Jobs.net in August and followed it up with a Snapdeal.com offer of doing a Basic Critique and Feedback. This received an overwhelming response and kept our team busy all of this month. With this post, we are sharing the Top 7 Mistakes that we found across 80-90% of the CVs that we reviewed.

1. No Consistency: Stay consistent on the Font (Style & Size) you use, the spacing between paragraphs and lines, the tone and tenor of your voice across content and the amount of text you bold and what you bold. This makes your CV look professional & doesn't distract the reader away from the actual content. Pure hygiene factor, but important nonetheless.
2. Not doing a Spell-Check: How long does it take to open your resume in Word and fix the obvious spelling, grammar and punctuation errors? This is criminal and really says that you are not very quality-conscious and that you are satisfied with mediocrity.
3. Incorrect Tense and Incorrect Person Usage: Use past tense (except for maybe the present position) and use abbreviated third person (Randhir managed a team of  ... is replaced by Managed a team of ). More importantly, make sure that you stay consistent on this across your CV. Not following this can be very distracting to a Reader and makes you appear as someone who is not strong in English.
4. Missing (Contact) Information: I found CVs that had missing dates (on Jobs), missing role/title and one of the best (Missing Contact Information). Whatever you do, make sure that your Phone Number and E-mail are accurate and bold/clear at the Top of your CV (Preferably on every page  if you have a multi-page CV).
5. Not having a Professional Summary: CVs are looked at for a split second. If you can't give your 10 sec story at the top of your CV, you are losing a big opportunity for sure. This one is more relevant for someone with 5+ years of diverse experience. But for everyone, this is a way to highlight the most important things about you that you want the Hiring Manager to know.
6. Writing about your Roles and Responsibilities: 90% of the content of most CVs I reviewed could have been pulled out of a Job Description directly. This again is criminal because if you are like any other Java Developer or Sales Professional, you are not telling me why I should hire you and not the 100 other people that have applied for this same job.
7. Missing Specifics: This one's related to Point 6 above. Make sure you get very specific in what you did at your job and what you achieved/accomplished. e.g. Replace "made a business impact" by "saved US$ 3 MM" and "Appreciated by Client" by "Appreciated by multiple Senior Client Execs for the innovative solution that saved over US$ 1.5mn".

If you can make sure you avoid these, your CV is probably better than at least 50-70% of your competition depending on your industry/sector. This is what I saw from my experience over the past 3 months. Take a look at your current CV and let me know which of these are mistakes you have made. If you feel, there are others that belong here, please do post your feedback/comments either in the comments section below or on our Facebook Page.

Bio: Randhir Hebbar is a seasoned Resume Development Expert (Website: Resume2Jobs.net) and Hiring Manager with 10 years of experience in IT/ITES/Analytics Consulting. For any of your resume development needs, he can be reached at cv2randhir@gmail.com or on the phone at +91.9945.254742. We are also on Facebook (here and here) and on LinkedIN.

Mysore Calling ... Day 2

The next morning started off with a guided tour of the farm where we saw Ripe Guavas, Lemons, Tangerines, Chickoos, Mangoes (Not too many considering the season has ended) and a few other fruits I was seeing for the first time and pretty much every vegetable one might need for day-to-day cooking. It was really nice to pluck some ripe Guavas (with the red core) and almost instantaneously bite into them. Yummm!!! Around 11am, got ready and decided to do some sightseeing. Since we were quite close to Infy, decide to go down memory lane and see how Infy had changed (if at all). We obviously couldn't get in but we did stop over at the Gate and ask the Security Guard at the Infosys Gate (for random directions which we didn't need) as we got a peek past the gate at some of the Buildings. We drove around the compound looking at some of the other buildings and facilities and decided to head off towards the city before one of the security guards posted at a height near the 4 corners of Infosys Campus shoots at us assuming we are terrorist doing recee. :-)

We then went straight to the Mysore Palace got tickets and went around watching in astonishment the Palace and the Life of the Maharajah and the poor dude(s) (Wodeyar and his children/grandchildren) who missed out on all the fun because India gained Freedom and became a Democratic Republic. I had of course been there a few times, but was surprisingly the first time for Bhagya (someone who had studied in Tiptur for 4 years and probably visited Bangalore tons of times). Some minor shopping (Sandal scented Incense Sticks, Perfumes, Soaps, etc) later, we headed off to the Jaganmohan Palace. This included an Art Gallery and a Museum which had all of the utensils, weapons, dresses and portraits of all the Kings and their History. I also learnt on this visit that the fifth King of the Wodeyar Dynasty was actually (Ranadhira Kantheerava) Narasaraja Wodeyar I (1638–1659). For some weird unknown reason, this made me happy. :-) A little more shopping and we decided to take a break and head back home (to the farmhouse) but not before we stopped over to have some pastries. Did I mention that before the plans for the trip got finalized, we were actually on the GM Diet. :-( Need to start afresh or maybe screw the diet and get back to some workouts.

Before we reached home, I saw a sign-board that read Kalidasa Road and this again brought back nostalgic memories of the 3-4 months spent at our Apartment on KD Road (It is Bangalore’s MG Road equivalent in Mysore). Decided to drive around and find our old Apartment and get a pic or two. We finally found it after asking a couple of people for directions. Since it had started drizzling, we managed with pics from the car and headed on to the farmhouse.

Since it was Ganesha, Periyaswami had cooked Ganesha's favorite sweet - Modak. Had a couple over lunch and hogged the other dishes he had cooked. We were also warned to keep enough space for the evening's special - Persian Veg Pulao. After lunch, had some nice filter coffee (yummm!!!) and after a lot of thought decided that Brindavan Gardens and the Musical Fountain was not to be missed (especially since KRS was not too far from Mohan Uncle's farmhouse). Started around 5ish and we were at Brindavan after some bumper to bumper traffic around a kilometer from the entrance to KRS where the Parking Fee was being collected. The parking lot was packed to the core and with great difficulty managed to find what was a suspect parking slot. Even though I was a little worried that my new car might get nicked by someone trying to sneak in the gap between my car and the next line, decided to take a chance since there didn't seem any better options. 

We got lucky with a new line that got formed at the Ticket Counter and rushed to enter Brindavan Gardens. It was better than I had memories off from my last visit (Of course Bhagya wasn't with me the last time round ;-) so she does get some credit) and around 7ish, we decided to head off to the North Block of Brindavan where the Musical Fountain was showing. We were shocked to see the bridge packed with people trying to get to the other end. But left with no choice, we decided to join the rush and after about 15mins of struggling through and guarding our purses & camera from pickpocketeers, we finally got to the Musical Fountain area. It was pretty impressive but for some weird reason, there was a 10 min gap between every set of 2-3 songs. After watching a couple of sets, we decided to sneak out midway through a set so that we don't get caught in the rush again. It was a great decision because we were back at the parking lot in 5 mins. Had a couple of Sugar Cane juices and started back towards the farmhouse. It was a nice short drive back as well with lot of overtaking maneuvers that would have made a Schumacher happy. Yummy Persian Pulao and lot of home-grown fruits later, we were ready to crash.

Also Read ... Mysore Calling ... Day 1

Coming Up ... Mysore Calling ... Day 3 & Some Pics

Mysore calling ... Day 1

Long weekend and plans of a Ooty+Kerala Trip cut short due to Bhagya's needing to go to Hyderabad on Saturday meant that we had to come up with a quick plan for Wed-Thu. Wed morning as we start typing in Google "Places to see near", the first Auto Suggest option that comes up is Bangalore and then comes Mysore. That's how we make plans in the Internet or Google Era.

Even before I could pick Bangalore and hit enter, we are both like "Purrrrfecttt!!!". We had been talking about visiting Mohan Uncle's Farmhouse in Mysore for quite some time now (He had moved in around 5 years back when I was in the US and somehow everytime there was a family trip to Mysore, I had been out of the country). I had been talking about giving my new i10 some work (I had done around 400kms in 2 months considering that my office is 10mins from home). Bhagya had not been to Mysore really except for a trip with friends to Balamuri Falls a few years back. We decided within minutes to go for it, asked Mom and Dad if they wanted to join (Mom agreed since she wanted to catch up on loads of gossip with her bro - Mohan Uncle and Dad decided to pass considering his coming in will mean finding a security guy and that is such a pain at such short notice.

Started off around noon after a call to Mohan Uncle to confirm he was going to be in town and had the most painful 1km on the Mysore Road Flyover (Eid celebrations and people coming out of / going into the Mosque there combined with Metro work) meant that getting out of Bangalore took a good 2 hours and the last 100m of the Mysore Road Flyover took 45mins. Once out of Bangalore, it was the most amazing driving experience (going at  80-100kmph consistently) and switching back and forth between 4th and 5th gear through most of the journey and by around 4:30ish was near the outskirts of Mysore. A 30-45min break for lunch at Kamat Lokaruchi (Just after Channapatna) meant that I had done about 140kms in under 2 hours. 

A couple of calls for directions later was at Mohan Uncle's Farmhouse in Emerald Enclave just behind Infosys (My former company and the campus where I spent the most fun 3 months of my career during Infy Training). Since it was around 5:30 by the time we got in, had some snacks & coffee, we decided not to do any sightseeing and went for a long romantic :-) walk around Emerald Enclave. Bhagya said that it would have been more romantic if we had gone out with one Umbrella instead of two or better still without Umbrellas and got drenched/danced in the rain. I decided that with the small size of the umbrella and the fact that one of them was broken slightly, we were safer from catching a cold and spoiling the weekend with one each instead of one for both of us. How unromantic eh!!! :-(

We came back to some hot food cooked by Mohan Uncle's cook Mr. Periyaswami. We obviously weren't very hungry at 8:30pm considering we'd had a full North Karnataka Meal at 3pm and Snacks at 5:30pm. But we ate enough to ensure we didn't hurt the hosts' feelings. :-)


Please read ... Mysore Calling ... Day 2
Coming Up ...
Mysore Calling ... Day 3 & Pics

A Strategic Project with London Business School

I just worked on an interesting academic project to assess Dell's Analytics Maturity completed by 5 highly professional exec-MBA students from my alma-mater, the London Business School. I am happy that I initiated this project a few weeks ago after seeing a mail from a LBS Faculty seeking support from LBS Alumni for what really is an elective course. This is an course that involves students with a professor come in to a company in a developing country such as India and work on a strategic project for a week learning about the challenges of working in India as well as providing an outside-in perspective to the company on a key problem they identify. A month later, they present a more detailed report and recommendations on the problem or question posed.

While there was nothing path-breaking that came out (at least not yet) in terms of findings/recommendations, the glimpses of what we saw in the preliminary report impressed me with how well they had understood our business (Not one of them had a background in Analytics or working in India) and what they put together in terms of preliminary recommendations in 4 days of talking to people across the floor and reading Tom Davenport's "Competing on Analytics". In addition, this was a good outlet for the floor and some good recommendations came out. The leadership team of DGA now look forward to the final presentation and also agreed to work together with the school and the faculty on certain areas of their expertise (e.g. Research on Innovation).

A photo we took at the end of the presentation with the students, Pankaj Rai - Head of Dell Global Analytics and Alok Agarwal, Director of Marketing Analytics, a couple of my colleagues (Santosh and Praveen) who helped drive this project and a few Managers who attended the preliminary presentation.

L-R Standing (Praveen, Puneet, Sanjay, Pradeep Menon, Niraj, Pankaj, Viktor, Wael, Santosh, I and Alok)
L-R Sitting (Angeli and Kamila)

My New Website and the FUTURE of this Blog

Based on the feedback I received from friends offline and my audience online (as a result of my previous post), I learnt that the audience for this blog largely consists of friends and family interested in hearing about my life and my experiences. I will continue writing about the same on this blog and I will move my more technical content (On Analytics, Investment Management and Start-ups) to other blogs or websites including my very own web-site which I put some time into last weekend and got it up and running. The end result is probably going to be less frequent updates on this blog (since my time is limited) but more focused and richer content on the other blogs (without limitations of catering to the audience of my blog).

Please feel free to browse www.randhir.net and pass your feedback/inputs on content, design and anything else on the site. Also, please let me know by e-mail / Facebook / Twitter if this approach is the right one and what topics you would be interested in so I can loop you into the new blogs as and when I start adding content.

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To ensure you don't miss any of my blog posts, please click on subscribe to add my blog in your favorite RSS Feed Reader.

You can also follow me on twitter @rhebbar to get frequent updates on this and my blogs and talk to me on anything under the sun

Wanted: Feedback on my Blog

Over the last one week, I received strong feedback from 3-4 people very close to me around the content and style of writing in recent posts which got me thinking.

I totally enjoy writing (just for the heck of it) and I'd write most of these posts even if my blog had no readers (There are more unpublished posts than published posts on my blog :-)). This blog has had nearly as many visitors/page-views/comments in the last 6 months as it had seen since its inception (back in 2005) to start of this year. This has helped inflate my already inflated ego :-).

I am seeking feedback from you - the esteemed readers of my blog to get me back to level-ground and validate the feedback received. Please click here to provide your feedback on how you want this blog to shape up. It won't take you more than 2-3 mins to do so (I promise!!!) and I also promise to act on your feedback.