one year in Bangalore

To be honest, this has been one of the most satisfying years of recent memory. Surprisingly, the year before had me graduating out and lapping up my first naukri and year ahead will most probably when I get fall prey to my family’s vicious plans of getting me hitched, yet neither the landmarks of past nor the promises of tomorrow can dim the radiance of this wonderful passing by calendar. For one, I finally felt at ease with myself and this has happened after a long long time. Notion of being ‘in control’ has a vague condescending tinge of smugness and henceforth acceptance is what I would strive for. Acceptance of things I could have effected and could not, endurance of pricks I could not have changed and have not. Consequences of action are one load and sighs of inaction even heavier. Coming close to the realization that I am the sum total of my judgments and bias, I have started to let go of opinions concerning people, much more than ever.
I would rather be an outlier in the maudlin vortex of social Venn’s and namby pamby demonstrations have always made me uneasy. This year, I have made real attempt to pull the plug off on the biggest trigger of all, yes, I kissed goodbye to all the beers, brandy and blends. Single malts would be accorded due respect on need basis, need being a linear function of company I choose to drink with. I have been told by some of my peers that need to be gentler in my personal dealings and hell I’ll try that, regardless of how synthetic it may appear in execution. With my friends, I don’t choose my words and err on the lighter side with sprinkling of brutal logic and argumentative dressing. Never cared a toss if that’s making a dent, now will exercise more restraint and better judgment in such interactions. Guess, my teetotaler musings have a tad to do with enabling such ambience where i weigh my words and don’t become reckless myself.

I am finally settled with the idea of making a career in IT industry. Only challenge I foresee is to inculcate a dose of moderation in my articulation and be more thorough in my understanding of technological constructs. The phase so far has been more fulfilling and I guess that’s rewarding enough. Surprisingly, my mild cynicism for IT services industry has melted in the face of some of the smartest folks I have had the privilege to work with. I still distinctly remember when to a question on whither Indian IT industry, I had cribbed about their lack of ascent on value chain and how then stand no chance to the might and bright of product companies like Google and Yahoos (this was 2008). Wrong conclusion with pitifully un-informed generalization of companies which are as different in their business model as apple from oranges (again a lovely metaphorical banality in IT industry). Product companies like Microsoft, Oracle and apple have their revenues tied to the sale of the proprietary codes that enables the hardware for specific functions. To run a set of complex activities circumscribed by the IT division of any organization, high degree of customizations are required in the application. Many organizations have legacy and bespoke applications to support the unique set of business demands. Engineering arm relies on developments and testing of several separately developed modules of the final demonstrable prototype. Again, all these components have to been monitored for their availability and performance on a relentless basis lest business suffers due to breakdown in customer interfaces and productivity of employees. This is where our good old IT players pitch in and assist Boeings and Wal-Mart’s of the world. Just a look at the landscape they compete in and tags of HP, Accenture and IBM are hard to miss. Would like to mention even the swindling fortunes of IBM was revived by retrospectively applauded decision of Lui Gerstner to make a significant shft in business focus from products to services market. Deep pockets and wide-spread incumbency of global companies have traditionally been the odds against the IT services companies of Indian legacy and going by the count of new deals they are pocketing against strong global players they may well even it out in foreseeable future. This hypothesis has been many local variables and global imperatives and is a debate for some other time. Discounting the relevant digression, point I was driving home was about my sense of relative comfort courtesy fair and unobtrusive work culture of much scrutinized IT industry.
Then in my relationship spectrum- with my parents, I have touched a nadir, jumped to crescendo and then again been adrift in a strong wave of indifference. This volatility will go on for a while till the time either they see the man in me or I acknowledge the child in them. Don’t know why, but elders have always evoked my Sheldon Cooper’ish moment with all the befuddleness and bambozzleness of ‘aisa hi hota hai’ crippling my arguments before they germinate. Would love to understand them better but at present its respect... And peace.
I am buying a bike, albeit a used one. It checks my 11th grade dream of owning a Pulsar. Fond memories, I used to have a Pulsar ad cut from the last page of India today beneath my bed. Now I have one. Coming days will be fun with rides in divine Bangalore weather. Need to check if have ever showered gems and sung homilies in love of Banglorean weather on my blog or not. If not, then may be because I was too busy basking in the soothing winds than staring at my laptop and arranging some random words in a lame attempt to make sense in a funny way as I am doing now when it has become a lot nipping.

PS: just finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo…nice read

Great Job sir

I want to share few words about the my newfound respect for Steve Jobs . Not that I didn’t have an opinion of the Apple man, a more cognitive perception has started building up. It’s amazing how the track of brand affinity for products from Apple’s stable can be traced backwards and the charm runs in a loop where it’s hard to tell what breeds what. iPhone/iPod- Apple- Jobs this circle has cultivated a corporate cult, very rare in consumer durable market where price sensitivity eventually dethrones the design aesthetics. Apple has managed to duck the trend for long and very successfully. But did they manage to rule the roost with their technological advancement or were they sooper-smart to peddle us some expensive gadgets which we gleefully grabbed and waved. As some of the reports which sidetracked the one-dimensional paeans of Jobs telling people how we would have been bereft of some of the major technological breakthroughs have rightly pointed out, here was a man with the most precocious marketing sense. In fact, one of the things which worked in Jobs favor was his subdued technical faculties viz a viz his business acumen. Some of the anecdotes I read from Google and Kodak telling how the people who interacted with Jobs came out saying this man doesn’t understand what is technically unachievable. Fordish in some measures, we may say, but that blithe disregard for conceivable boundaries is what has made Steve arguably the best CEO ever.

Right from the instance he thought Woznaick’s creation has economical viability to his second coming act, Jobs has displayed a keen understanding of consumer sensibilities and that spirit gets manifested in Apple products and gets magnified in the cult . Now closely dissect a product like iPod which sent the market in an orgy. From the functional point of view it was not a disruptive technology, never. From the design perspective, Jobs had envisioned simpler interface and easy navigation. But that price premium it commanded never really rose up to the pericved value of extra features and functionalities it had. But assessment be damned, a large section of people felt, it did and that section kept on inflating.

Apple was not just a company with growth, it had glamour and both of it have remained in right proportion to let nobody in the cult turn atheist. Why, I am yet to meet a person who doesn’t turn soft to the display of an Apple (Tim cook may consider the idea of reserving Apple as a collective noun for all the iPads/iPods..). To me, Steve Jobs- the person- is the greatest marketing success of all times, a person who embodied the brand (this may turn to be Apple’s nemesis eventually if cult doesn’t warm up to the new god). Precisely, this is his greatest failure as well. May be I risked hazy crystalgazing yet the marketing mavericks Nike and Coke outgrew their promoters and their brand elements don’t really draw much from the people in the corner office but Apple the company had a looming shadow of Jobs all the time and with the body gone it could be dark days ahead. It’s an interesting debate whether people liked iPhone and hence they liked the company which comes up with such good looking products and next in spotlight was Jobs and that made him the magician we know or was it the other way round or the halo of a man in turtle neck with some sexy GUI was a function of reflexive variable. Try BlackBerry-RIM-Mike..Doesn’t ring a very obvious bell..Even the most ubiquitous windows-MS- Gates has a big yawn to it..

But the film of perceived divinity of the iCEO was too thin to have blinded Jobs. He came up with iPhone even before the crest of iPod had sniffed its valley bone and topped iPhone’s adolescence with iPad’s cradle. Brilliant implementation of new islands strategy. Credit must be given to Jobs for pulling off such a great marketing feet with remarkable consistency. Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison have an odd habit of taking digs at competitors(no wonder, they were best friends) in their stinging style and some of the overt references to Microsoft products being unimaginative and copycats were a shot in the arm for the Apple’s marketing anatomy. It not just brought out the product differentiation which an advertisement actually should, it also gave that rebel, ‘terrorist’ appeal to the cult. Guts ( and a bit of extra moolah) to go beyond the Windows to iMac and you ‘belong’ to that aesthetically provoked connoisseurs of desktop gallery where Jobs was Arvinda Adiga and Gates became Chetan Bhagat.

Single recurring theme of Apple products has been of convergence. What IT has given to us in the most unjargonistic term is the power to communicate and compute. Manifestation of technological advancement remained varied and grew uni-dimensionally in their respective product category with enhanced performance and availability. Economic commentators classified streams of need along entertainment, communication, business and crossed it mongrel monikers of infotainment, etc etc, but at the core of it, you had concept of digitization which essentially meant you can bring it all together in a single box . Apple successfully marketed the marriage of entertainment and productivity applications on the prototype of a music player, phone and tablet and worked out it ergonomics well, really well…in a way people really didn’t mind even if I cost a fortune.

Make no mistake, these products existed much before got frutified literally and they had almost similar design but it took the packaging and presentation of a marketing genius to make them the hot cake. Right from the graphics of first Apple computer to iPad, tsunami of each Apple’s product launch brings a splash of many ‘we did similar thing long back’ footnote. Does that really matter? We are not in the business of awarding Noble prize. For me each new i is a turnaround story and each new entrant fit perfectly in the leitmotif of convergence. Fable of Steve Jobs (and by extension all that he stood up and brandished, the i factory) would be and should be the new testament of marketing bible. He doesn’t stand a chance of finding a passing mention in the IEEE journal and that makes his achievement even more remarkable, iThink..