Advice - Quote

People will not bear it when advice is violently given, even if it is well founded. Hearts are flowers; they remain open to the softly falling dew, but shut up in the violent downpour of rain. -- John Paul Richter

shared By - Haroon

The Gender Bender!!!

We are a part of the IT industry where in there is no existence without a computer. Our normal (working) day begins with a computer and ends with one, but did we ever realize that the computer, which we have been using so diligently what can we refer to is as, a male or a female..have been ?
Well if you are a French or a Spanish or speaking that language, then may be you would ponder over the same.

How about taking a small break from our hectic schedules of working effortlessly on cutting-edge technologies, CRMs for Real Estate, Health Care & Event Management Companies, ERPs, MOSS, Portal Solutions, Asset Management Solutions, RFIDs, Bar code Solutions, Employee Relationship Management Solutions (including Human Resource Management)  and CloudERP (phew!!!....well quite an exhaustive list I must say) and let us spend some light moments.... :)

So finally... What is a computers gender? .... Male or Female?

A SPANISH Teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

'House' for instance, is feminine: 'la casa.'

'Pencil,' however, is masculine: 'el lapiz.'

A student asked, 'What gender is 'computer'?'

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether computer' should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men's group decided that 'computer' should definitely be of the feminine gender ('la computadora'), because:

1.. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
2 The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;
3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

(THIS GETS BETTER!)

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine ('el computador'), because:
1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;
2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves;
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model...

The women won.

-Najeeb
Octaware Technologies
[Octaware Technologies is a fast growing software development, enterprise solutions and consulting firm]

The Law of Priorities

The very worst use of your time is to do what need not be done at all. The Pareto Principle says that 20% of your activities will account for 80% of the value of your activities. This means that, if you have a list of ten items to accomplish, two of those items will be worth more than the other eight items altogether.

To achieve great things, you must always be concentrating on the small number of activities that contribute the greatest value to your life and your work.

Determine the Consequences

The value of anything in your order of priorities can be measured by assessing the potential consequences of doing it or not doing it. Something that is important has significant consequences to your life and your career. Something that is unimportant has few or no consequences of significance to your life or career. The mark of the superior thinker is your ability to consider possible consequences before you begin.

Ask the Key Question


Continually ask yourself, "What is the most valuable use of my time, right now?" And whatever it is, work on that. Your ability to discipline yourself to work on those few tasks that can make the greatest difference in your life is the key quality that makes everything else possible for you.

Action Exercises
Here is how you can apply this law immediately:

First, make a list of everything that you do as a part of your job. Now, analyze the list and select the three to five things that are more important than everything else put together.

Second, imagine that you are going to receive a $100,000 bonus at the end of the month if you can work on your highest priority items every minute of the day. How would that change your behavior? What would you do differently?

- Shared by Haroon

Practical Lessons from Life - Learning from the VJTI Seminar (Continued)

Part - III

Mr.Aslam Khan

CEO, Octaware Technologies.

One of the other guest speakrs at VJTI was Mr.Aslam Khan, the CEO of Octaware Technologies.

Aslam had whats a successful professional could ever imagine, a US green card, a cushy job at the top of the corporate ladder having the best of lifestyles to stay with (he never lost touch with his roots though) and one fine day he suddenly surrendered his Green Card, chucked all that and returned to India.

Well this was not an impulsive decision, Aslam always had the zeal to do something not just for himself, but for the community and society as well. He believed in not just being successful but according to him he staunchly believe in the proverb “Real Success is making others successful” and he has always lived upto that maxim.

He started a company which is working in cutting edge technologies, such as RFID, Surface computing, ERP, CRM, Portal development, Mobile computing, E commerce etc, with offices in 4 countries and customers across the globe. Here he could be the job provider rather than an employee who's hands are mostly tied, and true to his ideology he did create opportunities for those people as well who had the caliber and the talent but never got an opportunity or a good break. He has believed in creating entrepreneurs in the society along with serving the society and this ideology he has implemented in his Business, in the Hospital (yes he has a hospital as well), diagnostic centre, etc.
(The details (Aslams viewpoint at the Seminar) are available on another bolg posted a few weeks back in this regards by Aslam himself.)

Aslam does not believe in creating only wealth, instead he believes in creating value with wealth for all. As he always insists to the talents who move abroad (Brain Drain), rather than amassing assets for yourselves you should become an asset for your country.

The next installment will be on the excise officer Mr.Patel.

Najeeb
Octaware Technologies
[Octaware Technologies is a fast growing software development, enterprise solutions and consulting firm]

Learning from the VJTI Seminar - Part-II

Elsa D'Silva - Vice President- Route Planning & Charters, Kingfisher Airlines.


Elsa, plans and designs the route plans for aircrafts in Kingfisher Airlines. She is also in-charge of charter flights.

Elsa began her career journey in aviation as a cabin crew (Airhostess) in Jet Airways. She worked in that position for sometime and then appeared for internal examinations in Jet airways called as Fast Track management, and got selected for a a position in the route planning and as she kept on working hard grew further in her ranks.

She then joined Kingfisher Airlines as Manager-Route Planning and then grew to the position of Vice-President with her determination and hardwork.

Elsa, said that what she has learnt from her life is to be determined and focused and never shy away from takings risks and exploring newer avenues in life. She said that had she stayed in her original job when she joined the aviation industry she would not have grown to where she has reached today.

She also said that we need to have a fulfilling and satisfying life as what we earn is for ourselves and those around us and so we should never be miserly in spending on ourselves, our loved ones and those around us and in turn contributing to the society.

As Elsa was explaining about her job profile and her route plans and the nuances of her job, my mind raced towards some of our solutions that we had designed for the Aviation industry , which was an RFID solution for tracking the check-in baggage, which we had proposed to Qatar Airport. This solution as said earlier works on the RFID ( Radio-frequency identification) as explained earlier by Shahnawaz in one of his blog post, RFID is an automatic identification method, relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or transponders. An RFID tag is an object that can be attached to or incorporated into a product, animal, or person for the purpose of identification using radio waves. Most RFID tags contain at least two parts. One is an integrated circuit for storing and processing information, modulating and demodulating a radio frequency (RF) signal and perhaps other specialized functions. The second is an antenna for receiving and transmitting the signal. This can be used for Airlines baggage Handling, Boarding pass, Package handling.

The RFID tags can be attached to the Boarding pass and baggage. It helps in a way such that incase if a passenger picks up a similar looking baggage (belonging to someone else) by mistake, the nearby (strategically) located reader can match the tags on the boarding and baggage and incase of discrepancy an alert can be sounded so that it could be identified that the passenger is with the wrong baggage and this saves:
1. The trouble for passenger taking the wrong baggage to realize only after he opens that bag mostly after reaching home all the way and take the trouble of coming back for his baggage.

2. The trouble and tensions for the passenger whose bag has been wrongly taken.

3. The trouble for the airline to search frantically for the lost baggage and in certain cases compensate the passenger for baggage lost for no fault of the company.

4. Also, helps in preventing any wrongful conduct by someone who wants to deliberately walk away with someone else baggage.

5. Not just that this also reduces chances of baggage being loaded in wrong flights.

6. Also it helps to locate and unload specific baggage from the aircraft baggage hold.

Needless to say we have the technology and the expertise to provide this solution to our customers. The above details is just for one specific industry (transportation), this technology can be used in various industries as well such as Manufacturing, Retails & CPG, Healthcare, Inventory management, Warehouse management, etc.

- Najeeb
Octaware Technologies
[Octaware Technologies is a fast growing software development, enterprise solutions and consulting firm]

Sharpen Your AXE

A beautiful story on constantly upgrading our skills. We must continuously sharpen our axe of knowledge, skill and expertise. Sometime we are too busy in doing our routine work that we don’t get time to increase our knowledge. We don’t get ourselves equipped with latest and emerging technologies in the market which are changing the world. At Octaware, we strive hard and always make effort to provide the opportunity and platform to enhance your skill sets on Microsoft technologies (.NET development, MS CRM, MS AXAPTA and MS SharePoint 2010) and encourage certification in the respective technologies.

The below story is about sharpening our axe to achieve the goals...

-Aslam

Make Every Minute Count

Time management is the central skill of success. Your ability to manage your time, to focus and channel your energies on your highest value tasks, will determine your rewards and your level of accomplishment in life more than any other factor.

Save Hundreds of Hours and Thousands of Dollars in Personal Advancement

Your mind is your most precious asset. You must be continually working to increase the quality of your thinking. One of the best ways is to turn driving time into learning time. Listen to educational CDs or audio cassettes in your car. The average driver, according to the American Automobile Association, drives 12,000 to 25,000 miles each year, spending 500 to 1000 hours that you spend each year in your car. That is the equivalent of 12 1/2 to 25 forty-hour weeks. This is the same as two full university semesters spent behind the wheel of your car each year. Octaware CEO, Aslam Khan has habit of running business from behind the wheel. His follow up calls while driving in Mumbai traffic saves his lot of time and attends regular team sync up.



Use Traveling Time as Learning Time

If you did nothing but use that traveling time as learning time, this decision alone could make you one of the best educated people of your generation. Many people have gone from rags to riches simply by listening to audio programs as they drive to and from work.



Attend Every Seminar

In addition, for personal and professional development; you should attend every seminar you can. You can often save yourself 100's of hours of reading and researching by attending a seminar given by an authority in his or her field. You can learn ideas, techniques and methods that can save you hours, days, even months of hard work and research on your own.



Increase Your Earnings

Remember; to earn more, you must learn more. Your outer world of results will always correspond to your inner world of preparation. Continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field.



Action Exercises

Now, here are two things you can do to put these ideas to work in your life immediately.
First, purchase an audio program that can help you to be happier and more effective today. Begin listening to it immediately. Resolve never to listen to music when you can turn it into learning.
Second, seek out seminars and training programs given by experts in your field. Sit close to the front, take careful notes, and apply the best ideas that you learn immediately.

-Shared By Haroon