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Featured Discussions - The Rodinhoods 2014-11-24T13:05:31Z http://therodinhoods.com/forum/topic/list?feed=yes&xn_auth=no&featured=1 Work for Games2win!!!! tag:therodinhoods.com,2014-07-24:6328457:Topic:232442 2014-07-24T14:01:21.614Z Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal http://therodinhoods.com/profile/alokrodinhoodkejriwal

About Us:

 Games2win (G2W) is the publisher of Parking Frenzy, the game with over 16 million downloads worldwide on iOS and Android. Parking Frenzy was…

About Us:

 Games2win (G2W) is the publisher of Parking Frenzy, the game with over 16 million downloads worldwide on iOS and Android. Parking Frenzy was also ranked #1 on the US iTunes Appstore.

Our other hit games include Turbo Cricket on Android Super Mom on iOS and Fab Tattoo Artist on Kindle Appstore. In total, we have
 developed and published over 45 mobile games, touching more than 35 million downloads.

We are one of the fastest growing online gaming companies in the world and feature in the top 20 online gaming properties (USA and World) (comScore reports). Top tier investors such as Clearstone Venture Partners, Nirvana Venture Advisors & Saama Capital have funded G2W.

Careers

We are a passionate, crazy and out of the box Company to work for and are currently hiring:

 Opportunity At Games2win for Analytics Executive

Insights, numbers and analytics can make or break a games fortune. This is a dream job for someone who wants to make games and numbers dance together and make it a profitable performance! We want someone who can come in and make our games go a 100x further just using the power of data and analytics

Click here to view the job profile

Click here to download the job profile

Unity Developers ( Delhi )- Games2win Wants You

We are now embarking on an ambitious plan to produce 24 mobile games in the next 12 months.
 As we build more of our games on the Unity platform, we require experienced and passionate developers to join our team.

Click here to view the job profile

Click here to download the job profile

Mobile Game Producer

Product Managers at Games2win define the games they plan to publish for the year, and the download & revenue targets each game will achieve monthly. These games also need updates and porting across platforms (i.e. Android, iOS, Kindle, Windows). In order to get these games published on time, to quality, they require Game Producers who ensure a team of analysts, artists, game designers, engineers, marketeers, and quality control, are all in-sync to the game's project plan.

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Webmaster

Games2win requires a webmaster to publish games weekly on our websites, www.games2win.com, www.gangofgamers.com, and www.chimpoo.com. Aside from the publishing updates, the candidate will also have to configure ad networks to serve on-site and in-game ads.

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Test Engineer

We are seeking a self-motivated individual who love to play games have a keen eye for detail, great work ethics, excellent verbal/written communication skills and the ability to work in a fast-paced, team-oriented environment.

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Creative Head – Games

We are now hiring for the position of Creative Head – Games. We are looking for Passionate & Dynamic professionals who can Create compelling concepts and ideation. If you have the passion, we have the right career for you. Come, Grow with us.

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Web Developer

Games2win requires a web developer to undertake all web development activities on our websites www.games2win.com, www.gangofgamers.com and www.chimpoo.com, and any other web applications we may launch. Aside from a development role, the candidate will also have to take on a publishing role to ensure that games are published weekly on time and on quality

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Game Designer Mobile – Girls Game

We have operated extensively in the mobile space for two years now and have gained a ton of insights about what makes great mobile games; thanks to our global hits such as Parking Frenzy, Fab Tattoo Artist and many more.

We now have a pipeline of deep mobile games planned for the next calendar year. Many of these are targeted towards a tween girl audience and based on fun activities for the girls of the age group 8-15 years of age.

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Opportunity at Games2win for a Senior Flash Game Programmer

We are now hiring for the position of Senior Flash Game Programmer. We require a strong Flash game programmer well versed with ActionScript API & Adobe Air API. Apart from Developing Flash Games, should be able to integrate ANE's for IOS, Android & Kindle platforms.

Think you have it in you? Contact us right here.

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Opportunity at Games2win for a Flash Game Programmer

We are now hiring for the position of Flash Game Programmer. We require a strong Flash game programmer to work in a team and collaborate with game designers, website designers, graphic artists and portal managers, to help build a world leading casual games business. Aside from Developing Games, should be able to port existing flash games for Mobile Platforms – IOS, Android & Kindle.

Think you have it in you? Contact us right here.

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Human Resource (HR) Manager

We are now hiring for the position of HR Manager. You will be the link between the company and all the talent there is out there. We are looking for experienced, focused and determined people who can source out the best for us. All you need is the right education, background and experience to be a part of an awesome team here.

Think you have it in you? Contact us right here.

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Business Manager – Online Games

We are looking for passionate, focused and goal-driven individuals for the role of Online Games Manager. The candidate should be well-versed with the online gaming business and should be familiar with analytics dashboard, SEO targeted advertising and the likes.

Apart from being knowledgeable about the shifting market trends, the candidate should be hungry to learn more and to deliver products on time.

If you think this is challenging enough, we look forward to hear from you.

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Do you understand casual Casino Mobile Games?

We are looking for people who can create cool Casino games.

The role will be challenging as the person will have to create games that will be competing directly with top players of all the leading app stores. If you love to play casino games and would love to create one with your own unique touch, we might just have the opportunity for you.

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Technology Head – Web

The candidate will be responsible for managing the web engineering and operations team, which includes our game backends, websites, and ad servers. These include Games2win.com, Chimpoo.com, our Inviziads ads server and a suite of web services that support our mobile games. This is a technology and people management role.

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Technology Head – Mobile

The candidate will be responsible for managing the mobile games engineering team, and help mold the way we build mobile games. This is a people and process management role, for someone already comfortable with mobile games technologies.

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Delivery Head – Games2win

We require dynamic, eagle-eyed individuals seeking to make a mark for themselves as the "Just Launched It" people at Games2win.

The candidate will be responsible for the timely delivery of new games across Android, iOS, Kindle, Windows and also web. This involves coordination of tasks amongst dynamic, multi-functional teams, and working closely with the Product Management teams at Games2win.

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Opportunity at Games2win for 3D Mobile Games Producer!

The ideal candidate should love games, and understand the process of making 3D games. You should have published at least three 3D games on the mobile app stores, at least one of which has been ported to Android and iOS, using Unity3D.

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Product Managers – Mobile Games

If you dream of managing digital products including games then this is the ideal job for you.

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Senior Game Designer

We are seeking someone with a scientific approach to game design. Someone who understands core game loops, currency and monetisation tricks for casual games is a must. The candidate should have deep knowledge about successful games in Western Markets, and the core elements of game design that made those games incredibly successful.

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Mobile Games – Bounty Hunter

We want a "Mobile Games Bounty Hunter" who spots low ranking / no ranking games across the android & iOs app stores (in the categories that we understand), downloads them, plays them, figures out what's wrong with them and then proposes that games2win either buys the game or rejects it.

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Head of Analytics

Insights, numbers and analytics can make or break a games fortune. This is a dream job for someone who wants to make games and numbers dance together and make it a profitable performance! We want someone who can come in and make our games go a 100x further just using the power of data and analytics

Click here to view the job profile

Click here to download the job profile

Cocos2dx Programmers – Games2win wants you!

With the success of our mobile games such as Parking Frenzy on iOS/Android, Fab Tattoo Designer on Kindle, and Fashion House on Android, we are now embarking on an ambitious plan to produce 24 mobile games in the next 12 months.

As we build more of our games on the Cocos2dx platform, we require experienced and passionate developers to join our team.

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Online Games Designer

We are in search of a highly energetic, enthusiastic and adaptive talent that turns storyboard ideas into real games. If you can analyze popular game trends, find out what worked and what didn't for a particular game and have a bag full of ideas of your own that you are confident will be highest-grossers one day, we would be interested in meeting you.

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Mobile Games Designer

We are looking for fast, receptive and enthusiastic minds that can sail the mobile gaming tide and turn it too! Are you someone who enjoys mobile game as well as understands what goes into building it? Can you go behind-the-scenes of a successful title and retrieve their success mantra? Are you bubbling with game ideas and waiting for a team to make it real? Then you are exactly what we are looking for!

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Games2win seeks a Mobile Platforms Engineer

The majority of our games are in Adobe AIR and Unity3D technologies.

As we develop our portfolio of games, we come across new distribution partners, tools and platforms that we need to integrate into our games. For example, partners like Amazon have specific ad network APIs for Android games, MoPub supports multiple ad networks through their open-source MoPub ad network, and Microsoft is rapidly rolling out their platform APIs for game developer to use in their games.

In order to incorporate these 3rd party platform APIs into our games, we need engineers who can understand the various components of the new platform, and build the necessary plugins for use in Adobe AIR and Unity3D.

Click here to view the job profile

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Unity Developers – Games2win Wants You

We are now embarking on an ambitious plan to produce 24 mobile games in the next 12 months.
 As we build more of our games on the Unity platform, we require experienced and passionate developers to join our team.

Click here to view the job profile

Click here to download the job profile

Unity Technical Leads – Games2win wants you!
 We are now embarking on an ambitious plan to produce 24 mobile games in the next 12 months.
 As we build more of our games on the Unity platform, we require an in-house expert to provide technical guidance and contribution to our growing team of developers and partners.

Click here to view the job profile

Click here to download the job profile

 Would you like to write the weekly newsletter?! :) tag:therodinhoods.com,2014-05-29:6328457:Topic:221840 2014-05-29T12:43:52.427Z asha chaudhry http://therodinhoods.com/profile/ashachaudhry

Hey all,

In the spirit of celebrating being one heckuva community; we've been trying to figure interesting ways of including all you rockstars in every aspect of rodinhooding. Plus, we want to reward you for creating awesome content on trhs!

Drum roll….

It's no secret that Friday's are my fav days – that's when I get to write to you…

Hey all,

In the spirit of celebrating being one heckuva community; we've been trying to figure interesting ways of including all you rockstars in every aspect of rodinhooding. Plus, we want to reward you for creating awesome content on trhs!

Drum roll….

It's no secret that Friday's are my fav days – that's when I get to write to you and be my crazy self!! So why should I not share a little bit of crazy with you?!

So…. If you've written at least 5 WOW POSTS on trhs – you are eligible to write one weekly newsletter!!

That's right – you will create it and email it to me – I will post it for you on the site – give you full credit and send it out to our 8000 (almost there!) rodinhooders that particular Friday!! What say?!

Now being eligible DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAVE TO do the newsletter. This is just an opportunity to do it ONLY IF YOU'D LIKE TO. Pls note – this involves a couple of hours of compiling, etc. But as I mentioned, I'll spare you the effort of actually posting it :). Remember, this is a reward, not punishment!! So if this doesn't appeal to you, you need not claim it!!

I'll be adding more names to the list, as and when more members are eligible. [I know a lot of rodinhooders who have written 3-4 amazing posts – so they're gonna be on this list soon!!] In case I have forgotten anyone – please please holler or merely write to me sharing your 5 links! (the omission is not intentional – my memory isn't all that great anymore!!)

Like everything else on trhs – this list will be totally transparent so everyone gets a fair chance to do the newsletter!! Chhota-mota posts in ASK, JOBs, etc are not gonna be considered. ["WOW Post" = taking into consideration the page views, comments and all other aspects of engagement :) ] And yes, the editor's decision is final!

So if your name is on this list below, and you're interested in doing a weekly newsletter – pls write to me at email@example.com and we'll schedule your newsletter (and also discuss how to go about it!)

PS: more ideas & suggestions are ALWAYS welcome :)

(in alphabetical order)

abey john (each comment he makes is equivalent to a post!)

abhik prasad

abhinav sahai

akhil gupta

aman jha

anamika joshi

aneja raj

ashish chowdhary

darshan bhambiru (just like abey!!!)

divyanshu (considered his amazing radha story on rhm as well!)

gurleen kaur

gurpreet singh tikku

hardik shah

himanshu mody

kiran kumar

kriti vichare

mandar joshi

mohul ghosh

omkar nisal – (his rodinstar compilation earns him this!)

perzen patel

prajakt raut

rahul dev

rahul varshneya

rishi gorantala

rohan bhansali

saraswathi pulluru

shilpi choudhury

sunaina shenoy - wrote her newsletter on june 6!!

sushrut munje - wrote his newsletter on june 13!

tanutejas

vikram parekh

vishal khandelwal

 *****

UPDATED with new additions:

Abhishek Barari

Tanya Rao

Deep Malhotra

******
 RodinSTAR Posts - the entire compilation tag:therodinhoods.com,2014-05-26:6328457:Topic:221723 2014-05-26T21:30:48.921Z Omkar Nisal http://therodinhoods.com/profile/OmkarNisal
Introducing a startup enthusiast or even a hardcore 'Dhanda' man to our super lively Rodinhood community.. is a bit of a challenge.

Why?

Well, we are growing by leaps and bounds every single day.. (and night)!

There simply is an explosion of great content in here!…

Introducing a startup enthusiast or even a hardcore 'Dhanda' man to our super lively Rodinhood community.. is a bit of a challenge.

Why?

Well, we are growing by leaps and bounds every single day.. (and night)!

There simply is an explosion of great content in here!

And for those who are new in here, I always wanted a page having ONLY the most awesome content collected together. Asha and me talked about this and as we all know (or will soon find out) that the 'RodinStar Posts' are examples of pure awesomeness and this post is an Table of Content to 50 gold posts!

So lets get started with RodinStar Posts :

(NOT in any order)

On the worst day of the season….Cheque comes

Losing My Virginity - my first entrepreneurial leap

Startup?? Middle class?? Oh boy!!

What Did I Learn By Getting Fired From Blackrock UK

How I Doomed my 1st venture?

Flat, marriage and family – 3 reasons why young Indians don't turn entrepreneurs!

I have failed, but I am not a failure !

An entrepreneurial state of mind 24x7 - my true story

What to do when you are BROKE: building your startup?

365 Days Of Unemployment

And then there was light

Internet Marketing = Traffic Generation + Conversion Optimization

Commitment to win

How I hit rock bottom while running a startup and bounced back

Email Marketing – How to Make $100,000

Why TOM never killed JERRY?

10 years of being an entrepreneur, 10 truths of about being one!

Can your blog become a business?

3 Mistakes of my journey from CA to Startup

An Entrepreneur's Quarterly Performance Evaluation – Corporate Style

(COMIC) New Years Jeers: Startup Resolutions for the Clueless Entrepreneur

Everybody needs a hobby- So what's yours ? Resurrection !!

Why Obama Wears Only Blue Suits or Gray Suits?

Woohoo!! Just got rejected by 10,000 Startups. Going for an Ice-cream with my team!

The Golden Hen and the Hungry Monster

Should startups fire under-performing employees? If yes, how?

Women in Technology

Are you a business card CEO?

Karma Dosa - A small act of goodness

How starting really very small has made me profitable in a week

Darr ke aage Jeet hai!

Why I write (and why you should too)

Malegaon to Mumbai

Don't listen to Alok

Almost 2 years out in the cold and loving it

Startups: How to stay motivated and focused?

My experience with crowd funding

Humans, Shoes and eCommerce

My Journey being an Entrepreneur

The BHAD (Big Hairy Audacious) plan… to change the world.

How to Save an Extra Rs 25 Lac for Your Next Startup

Does your investor play Parking Frenzy?

Ten startup lessons I learned even before my first startup

365 Days Of Unemployment

6 Lessons for Enduring Success from the Pharaohs

Page99 - A Better bookstore and a labour of Love

100 things that I learned while building my startup

Being inexperienced, thick skinned and persistent! My one year as an student entrepreneur.

You can't code? Great. You are much needed.

End of a chapter

Error: Co-Founder Not Found!!

(Comic) Cofounder Needed: Toons Need Not Apply

When you Jump from 3000 FT, DO NOT CALCULATE ROI...Results are not inspiring !

 More Rodinstar Posts

Why Can't I Paint Everything?

2014 Budget Simplified for you

How we growth hacked our services business to generate $300k in 9 months

Markhor - we are rocking on kickstarter!

Nichola or Thomas?

On the worst day of the season….Cheque comes

Yes it was the worst morning of the season, heavy rain and dark sky, gloomy mood, tough to reach office. But still somehow I started my day and reached work. Had work to do, but in the back of my mind same bloody question, how to pay off the rent and what about the future business.

In the deadly summers (42° to 45°) of the year 2012, we decided to …. ( Continue reading here)

Losing My Virginity - my first entrepreneurial leap

It was summer 1996. A recent graduate from Business School (1993), I was then an executive at the recently launched Sony Music in Mumbai. 3 months into the role, I realized the job stank of politics, gossip and petty intrigue – it was a startup, but a bloated, overpaid and top heavy one. Very quickly, I put in my papers, and decided that …. (Continue reading here)

Startup?? Middle class?? Oh boy!!

If you have ever watched any of Sunil Shetty movies, chances are you have watched him in a prison scene. The one where a scrumptious meal of one roti and some daal on a plate could be seen sliding across the horizontal length of your screen only to dash into the far wall and splatter its contents into a food graffiti. I used to find it very funny until my mother started doing that to me.

Hector from troy and Indian Middle class have one thing in common, they live by a code. In this case the code is simple "get settled"which entails …. ( Continue reading here)

What Did I Learn By Getting Fired From Blackrock UK

Life 2.0 is 32 onwards and this blog is accounting it. Life 1.0 wasn't bad but there are some incidents that are my dark past. They are big scars on my life but then they have also helped me to be a better person. I am still a work in progress since I am a slow learner. One of my dark secrets that I hardly talk and very few people know is that I was fired from Blackrock, UK. It took me years to overcome the pain of being fired and my fault – I told a lie. But then …. ( Continue reading here)

How I Doomed my 1st venture?

I used to run coaching classes on contract-basis few years back, It was a moderate cash cow for but not my own venture as it didn't bear my name though I was the one who was running it, recruiting teaching staff, paying them, etc. But classes was owned by some other guy whom I used to give share of revenue.

In 2010, unfortunately I got less students, the amount of fees collected was less than I had to pay to my teaching staff. But I had a buffer of 6 months as I used to pay only after completion of syllabus.

Now comes the mistakes that I did to doom my 1st venture …. ( Continue reading here)

Flat, marriage and family – 3 reasons why young Indians don't turn entrepreneurs!

About an year back one of my very close friends told me about a product idea. I liked the idea and told him I could work with him on that if he's willing to seriously build it. His answer was – "yaar abhi job nahi chhod sakta, 6 mahine mein shaadi hai" [Dude, I can't quit job right now, getting married in 6 months]. Okay, get married but why do you want give up on an idea you believe in? Your girl will understand, won't she?

Guess what? …. ( Continue reading here)

I have failed, but I am not a failure !

I am writing this today cos, failure is celebrated only at one place in the world and that's TRHS. I am amazed to see how people share their failure stories and are appreciated for that. I would have never spoken about my failures but got the motivation from this community.

Not even my family understands this, and I have a tag of a failure and my family thinks that I should just be doing a job. Whenever I share a new business idea with my family, they … ( Continue reading here)

An entrepreneurial state of mind 24x7 - my true story

My startup is powering AutoExpo 2014 in Delhi by making it an RFID enabled experience for all visitors and delegates. This is NOT a story about AutoExpo. Heck, it is not even about RFID.

This is a story of what it means to have an entrepreneurial mindset 100% of the time. So I left home for the airport with 1:30 hours to spare. Technically, I should have got there in 45 minutes. Today, however, …. (Continue reading here)

What to do when you are BROKE: building your startup?

I don't exactly have an answer to the question above, though here's the case:

I started up 4.5 months back. Have had a pretty exciting run till now. The product we are building is due for launch in January 2014. The situation which I'm in right now, Im sure ….  (Continue reading here)

365 Days Of Unemployment

Well, it's kinda 390 Days now. Around a year ago, I quit my job in Bangalore and gave up MBA plans to start a new venture. I figured since I eventually wanted to start-up at some point in my life, an expensive MBA degree was something that I needed the least. The same funds could well be used as seed for my start-up & with that thought I finally decided to do something that I always wanted – create something valuable from …. (Continue reading here)

And then there was light

If entrepreneurship was to be learnt ONLY in a class I would have learnt it by the end of my MBA course.But then like everything this subject too has a lot of practicality involved, of which I was specifically informed by my professors back then. I have this habit of meeting and talking with people , while travelling, while rummaging old places, while having a roadside delicacy, a lone conversation with a bus conductor, a rickshaw puller.

But never ever I thought that the biggest lessons would be told by an autorickshaw driver who completely , mind it completely sold himself in a matter of hardly 20 minutes. I won't say that I didn't expect entrepreneurship from him, that would be wrong cause these people have shown me that the most relentless strength lies in these corners. But what I was actually amazed was by the principles of management that this guy was following.

So, it was one usual night in Gurgaon when I stepped out from a late office night …. (continue reading here)

Internet Marketing = Traffic Generation + Conversion Optimization

Sorry for the bad news. But your website sucks. No no no. There is not one of you who escapes. Don't look at your revenue numbers and think: 'Okay this doesn't apply to me. My website is raking in the moolah and this is for the losers.'

When you open a physical store and 90-99% of your visitors walk in, poke around, and don't buy anything, do you sit back and grin contentedly just because that 1%-10% of buyers is keeping your head above water?

If you are of the mindset 'build it and they will come' or to quote Thoreau 'build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door', sorry. It is my painful duty to inform you that is no longer true. In the 21st century even if you have a …. (continue reading here)

Commitment to win

1989 - I was playing at little yard we had in front our government railway quarters, when I was told to go to neighbor's place. Curious 10year old, I asked my aunt (who was visiting us) 'Why?' I didn't receive any answers but I decided to obey the orders and moved along. I felt something wrong about this whole thing, and kept looking at my place from neighbor's. Few minutes later an ambulance arrived with bunch of folks in it. They all went inside including my mother, father and others straight inside my home. I figured probably its time for me to go back, take a look at whats happening. My heart was pounding, as if it knew what has happened..which should have never happened.

My father was dead! …. (continue reading here)

Email Marketing – How to Make $100,000

According to Direct Marketing Association, for every $1 invested in Email, the return was $40, which makes it one of the most profitable Marketing channels with the Least Investment. You Don't need an Office, you don't need Employees, You don't need to Pay for Expensive Servers - Just Need to Read On.... (here)

Why TOM never killed JERRY?

Tom was an Entrepreneur, sitting idle would give him nightmares. You must have seen few episodes of Tom and Jerry, wherein Tom almost had Jerry but let it go. Tom never really wanted to kill Jerry because what would he do if Jerry dies. Jerry was the Chase. Tom was running not after Jerry but because of Jerry.

After certain point of time name, money, power, etc cease to be a motivation for an Entrepreneur. Ever thought the great Ambanis, Tatas, Birlas, why are they toiling so hard, they hv already got name, money and power. What makes these people run is …. (continue reading here)

10 years of being an entrepreneur, 10 truths of about being one!

As I complete ten years of being an entrepreneur, here is what I would like to share with all you aspiring, being and dreaming to be – entrepreneurs: (continue reading here)

Can your blog become a business?

Am writing in today because I've been blogging since the past two months and am now looking at spreading the wings of the blog and trying to slowly monetise it and evolve the blog into a business. For this I had a few questions which I was hoping my fellow Rodinhooders could help me with. (continue reading here)

3 Mistakes of my journey from CA to Startup

Being from a strictly middle class family in Mumbai, my parent's dream was to see me as a CA. Finally after 6 years of struggle juggling work, college and professional studies, I finally managed to complete my CA in Nov. 2011. My parents were jumping with joy. I hadn't required the customary 4-5 attempts to clear and the extreme hard work had paid off rich dividends.

January 2012, when my results came out, saw my parents start calling up all my family members to inform them of my success. I already was working in KPMG, one of the four largest Financial Advisory companies in the world (popularly known as one of the Big 4s). My results saw me having a huge jump in my pay package, one which my parents and friends could hardly imagine possible. Being in International Tax meant I was in a field envied and lusted for by many. I was also pursuing law simultaneously and had managed to scrape through my 1st year. An amazing professional career awaited me.

However, there was one small problem in the suns and rainbows scene! A dark cloud of an idea had creeped into my head. It wasn't like in the inception movie, where someone plants it into your head. It had come up all by itself. In fact the reason for it's inception was partly because of the CA course itself! (continue reading here)

An Entrepreneur's Quarterly Performance Evaluation – Corporate Style

After having spent close to 12 years in corporate life, working across multiple industries, domains and countries, I finally gathered some courage to give it all up and follow my dream - Be an entrepreneur!!

Just three months into my new venture, I still find myself going back to my corporate days and imagining what life would have been if I was still in a job? And this morning when I asked that question again, I realized that …. (continue reading here)

(COMIC) New Years Jeers: Startup Resolutions for the Clueless Entrepreneur

It's that time of the year again. You'll see a million posts and articles about what to do and how to make this new year more productive. In the midst of all the hacks to stay on track, we want to share with you what the clueless entrepreneur is planning for this year. …. (continue reading here)

Everybody needs a hobby- So what's yours ? Resurrection !!

Above is the screenshot of what you see when you mouse-over on the Products link on Adobe website. Did you notice something unusual ? I see something I never expected to see in my lifetime. Flash is missing. Well, it is there listed somewhere on the products page itself. But It is no longer part of the Main-course at Adobe. As an Entrepreneur who has built his career around Flash Platform this probably means end of story.

Time and again in my career I was asked this question that 'What if Flash ends' …. (continue reading here)

Why Obama Wears Only Blue Suits or Gray Suits?

Do you know why Obama wears only Blue suits or Gray suits? That he does not Decide what to eat for lunch, his staff Decides it for him. It is because he has to make too many Decisions in a day & therefore cannot afford to waste his Energy Deciding on less important things such as what to wear or what to eat. (read more here)

Woohoo!! Just got rejected by 10,000 Startups. Going for an Ice-cream with my team!

This quick post is about you, the Entrepreneur, the rare breed of people who can withstand almost all adversity with divine composure.

So how do YOU handle rejections or setbacks? What do you feel when you get a mail from someone who did not like your idea? Do you feel you are a failure? (read more here)

The Golden Hen and the Hungry Monster

We all are chasing the big golden hen that is India and its 1billion people, waiting for the golden eggs to fall in our hands. To chase the hen, we have created huge and hungry monsters, and unleashed them on the poor hen. We feed them with money, because we all want our monster to race ahead of the others. But what happens when it catches the hen, tears it apart, and turns around to look back at you. No more hen - no more golden eggs. How do you now feed the monsters you have created? Who are these monsters? (find out here)

Should startups fire under-performing employees? If yes, how?

Because it is tough to get people to work for a startup in the first, often entrepreneurs hesitate to fire an employee even if he/she is not a fit with the organization. Also, they worry about the impact it will have on the other employees. These are valid concerns.

When should an employee be asked to leave? Three broad reasons why a person should be asked to leave. How should the firing process be handled? Suggestions on how firing a person can be handled. (read more here)

Women in Technology

I recently was invited to speak on Women in Technology....to give my perspective. While thinking what to talk, i suddenly got lost. As i never have looked at business or technology from a gender perspective. I looked around and figured out that basically i was of a different breed & thus lets share some of my genetic make up. I put together few things on being a Woman. (read more here)

Are you a business card CEO?

I am very happy to see more people starting their own. But, I wonder if there is a 'trend' happening among the 20-something generation in Kerala, especially engineering college students/graduates/drop-outs to jump in to entrepreneurship without due diligence .

Seems like the youth mistook starting up a business for another 'hot' trend in the market. They assemble their friends, find a 'cool business idea', register a domain and voila!- without giving a second thought about what it could do to their life, their families and people around them.

Just few years back, it was really tough to convince a normal middle-class Kerala parent to start a company. But …. (continue reading here)

Karma Dosa - A small act of goodness

I asked the man who was making Dosa for his wife – Why didn't you ask for at least half the money? The guy replied, "Sir, If he would have something to give back he would have given it to me himself". When I asked that if he give food for free on daily basis he replied, "Din mein ek toh acha kaam karun. Waise bhi aaj ka idli kal thodi naa use karunga". I was surprised to see that how a small guy who runs a small stall of Dosa in this Big City of Dreams take care of the small goodness he can infuse in this mad world where we all are running behind money and nothing else. …. (continue reading here)

Darr ke aage Jeet hai!

I have been always scared of doing a lot of things in my life, right since childhood. I was scared of making friends at school, was scared of speaking english, was scared of appearing for my exams that I might fail. I've been afraid of doing everything in my life. You will not believe that I was even afraid of writing this article that people might laugh on me after reading it. What the heck! :P (continue reading here)

Why I write (and why you should too)

Many people will tell you many different reasons why you should blog and how it will help you in your life goals but I think it is much more than that. Writing provides me with so many avenues of improvement in my personal life that slowly it has turned into a necessity for me. Like always I have tried, using points, to summarize how writing helps me and can help you too. (continue reading here)

Malegaon to Mumbai

I am going to share journey of my life from a small town Malegaon to Maya Nagri Mumbai. I don't know how many of you will be interested in reading this. This should be shared on a personal blog but I am sharing it here because everything that I am sharing has a point of entrepreneurship. (continue reading here)

Don't listen to Alok

This story starts fifteen minutes before my conversation with Alok bhai.

The first task at hand was making sure my housemaid does not start the mixer during my phone call. She did not really understand if I was talking to Alok Kejriwal or Steve Jobs. But I had to make sure she didn't fuck the call up. (continue reading here)

Almost 2 years out in the cold and loving it

"Start-ups are my favorite thing in the world because they are the direct collision of fantasy and reality." — Andy Dunn (@dunn)

Mine too. In another well written piece on Medium, I'd come across an apt description of what drives an entrepreneur to initiate the first precious steps of building a venture. We are driven and distracted by the existing world around us. So distracted, that we start living our imagination. That is when we dream, we imagine and we get down to building.

I personally believe that the world around us is simply a physical manifestation of our emotions, our ambitions and our desire. At every living moment, we shape the reality around us. We welcome experiences, but forget everything when we start reacting unfavorably to the experiences we invite. The act of starting up is thus beautiful, since you're creating value out of nothing. It is the result of belief, trust and consistency. (continue reading here)

Startups: How to stay motivated and focused?

Last year, when I saw this picture of Mark Zuckerberg's desk with a poster that screamed "Stay Focused & Keep Shipping, I thought it was lame. I could never see myself do something like that until I realized a need for it, very recently. Yes, I have something similar now

When I recently quit my job to focus full-time on my startup, I took a month off to travel alone, and …. (continue reading here)

My experience with crowd funding

Are you planning to run a crowd funding campaign? Are you fascinated by how some kickstarter projects are racking up 100s of thousands of dollars? Are you planning to launch a crowdfunding campaign? Any yeses?? Then you will find this article interesting. (continue reading here)

Humans, Shoes and eCommerce

This is my story of building my startup in Pakistan.

I grew up in a small town of Punjab. Life got me to a good university in Lahore for education (BS Physics). While studying I started learning internet especially social media, and was helping few small businesses use it.

During vacation in May 2010, I went to my town to spend time with family. Every evening I used to visit a Panchayat (local meeting in town). It was time when Facebook was blocked in Pakistan. So there were three guys in their 50s discussing the news story. Though none of them ever used Facebook or even Internet, they were blaming Facebook. This is when I interrupted the discussion, and the idea of a startup was born.

"Facebook is not responsible for blasphemous content, it is just a social platform." I said to them

"Young man, who you are." Asked one of them.

Me: "I use internet, I know Facebook, and you?"

"I make shoes, hand made shoes." He replied. (continue reading here)

The BHAD (Big Hairy Audacious) plan… to change the world.

Was I here to sell assorted things to make a living? Or could I do something Big, Hairy, Audacious in terms of contribution to humanity, as well as $$$ profit?

I didn't have to look far for opportunities. The diagnostics and treatment of CAD was a trillion dollar beast. CAD killed off more people than all the cancers combined. It offered the canvas to do something BHAD. There was big money, as well as good karma to be made. (continue reading here)

How to Save an Extra Rs 25 Lac for Your Next Startup

A three-bedroom apartment. Two cars. Enough flying miles to send an airline into losses (well almost!). Job with a foreign consulting company. Annual salary of Rs 30 lac...or around 45-times India's average per capita income.

Yet my friend Rohan is not happy.

Whenever I meet him, he is, as I put it, caught on the "work-spend treadmill."

So, last week when he was showing off his latest purchase, a third mobile, and one costing in excess of Rs 45,000, I told him, "Spend less money, my friend."

"But …. (continue reading here)

Does your investor play Parking Frenzy?

You may not believe this, but I have an incredible set of friends. Every heard of Sam Walton and Wal-Mart? Richard Branson of the Virgin group? Or maybe you have heard of Akio Morita and a small company he made called Sony. All of them have personally told me their life stories.

Ok fine. I've just read their biographies. But I have to tell you, that is probably the best way an entrepreneur learns. You can read Kotler all day, but that's bullshit. Did Kotler make facebook? Or does he even run a 'kirana' store? Hell I have more faith in my Kirana guy than Kotler. (continue reading here)

Ten startup lessons I learned even before my first startup

It took me 30 years to seriously start working on my first "real" startup project in 2012, in San Francisco. Looking back in time, I feel I could have started one much earlier. This post (sorry about the length) is to share some of the mistakes I made, and related takeaways from all those 30 years. Read on…

6 Lessons for Enduring Success from the Pharaohs

Early this year we visited Egypt. It was a once-in-a-lifetime trip; we stayed at beautiful properties and we managed to cram in a lot of sightseeing and local flavor. The wonders of ancient Egypt were truly spectacular and they made an indelible impression on us. Looking at the achievements of the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt, so many still there after more than five thousand years, I think there are some really important lessons we can learn from them – inspiring lessons that we can apply in our lives, in our businesses and in our communities. (continue reading here)

Page99 - A Better bookstore and a labour of Love

A common friend introduced me to Nivida sometime back when she was looking for someone to help her with Digital Marketing at her newly launched startup.

While reading and reviewing books is fun, running a startup involves a bit more work and a lot of stuff she hadn't bargained for. However, she seems to be enjoying it at the moment and is determined to make Page99 a successful community of book lovers in India.

Here a brief interview which encapsulates some of her triumphs and tribulations as an entrepreneur. (continue reading here)

100 things that I learned while building my startup

Yesterday night, which turned out to be a sleepless night, i sat down and recounted all that has happened since i started and shut down my startup. All that happened over 2 years played out in a blink of an eye.

Then goblins in my head worked its magic and started jotting down all that i had learned while building my startup. This post is a result of that.The best way to get over something is to turn it into literature. I might be correct on few things. I might be wrong on many things. I might even be crazy. Still, every line that is listed below is from the school of experience.So, here goes the list.

Being inexperienced, thick skinned and persistent! My one year as an student entrepreneur.

Being a student entrepreneur is full of challenges and adventures, your subject of tensions are entirely different from your pears, you handle a dual responsibility. But if you are goal driven you can manage to do handle them all and walk firmly on your road to success.

Dec 2012 : Did an internship at an online fan merchandizing startup and learned how to make an online store, i already had a bug of entrepreneurship, I couldn't stop myself more at the place, once i had an idea for "local shopping search engine" in mind. (continue reading here)

How I hit rock bottom while running a startup and bounced back

I had heard somewhere that the best way to connect with someone is to show them that you are as crazy as them.

Six months back

She called me 10 days after the breakup and told me that the breakup hasn't happened yet and then she broke up with me the very next day again. I was sure this was the girl of my life and almost sure that I will end up marrying her. Did it hurt? Well, the only time I did not feel the pain was when I was sleeping and that's why I slept most of the time. And then … (continue reading here)

My Journey being an Entrepreneur

Being a Sindhi, I was exposed to entrepreneurship right from birth. All my family and most of my extended family were entrepreneurs. Some very successful ones. Most Notably: Gopal Vazirani of WMI Cranes and Dinesh Vazirani of Saffron Art. But business never excited me. I had one dream. Being a pilot. It was the only thing I ever wanted to be. But Life's Twist came … (continue reading here)

How starting really very small has made me profitable in a week

I started working on the site on 7th May and launched it on 8th May, going as lean as possible. To start off, I thought, I didn't need any automation for sending mails as I could do them myself, so I didn't code up the automation mails in the app. This lead to me talking directly to my customers which gave me a lot of valuable feedback I gradually included in my site and service.

I also didn't want to integrate a Payment gateway because it took time, so I used Instamojo as payment service, sending the payment link to customers myself. This allowed me to easily offer them discounts when it was required. (continue reading here)

End of a Chapter

When you set out on a journey, you generally get on board with the aim of embarking at the final destination. And then we hear people say that 'the journey is always more important than the destination'. True that – but is it practically always possible? What if you actually want to reach the destination but circumstances force you to jump out mid way and switch lanes?

'Agar tum sachche dil se kise cheezo ko chaahte ho toh puri qaynaat tumhe use milaane mein lag jaati hai'

Maybe not.

There are things you may not want to talk about. But certain eyebrows are always raised and your decisions always questioned. They may not confront you – but behind you they would always gossip. (read on..)

"You can't code? Great. You are much needed."

It is not uncommon for people who can't code but bristling with product ideas—the Idea Smiths— to wistfully exclaim "ah…if only I could code".

To be able to code is definitely an advantage, but if you can't, how can you still be the one whose need is greatly felt in the team?

There are a few things that Idea Smiths can do that are critical to the idea's success, which if done well, can over compensate the lack of coding skills. As an Idea Smith myself who has built and sold a product, and working on my next one called Parallelo, here are five things that I endeavour to improve at. (continue reading here)

Error: Co-Founder Not Found!!

There is so much a non-tech co-founder can bring to the table- and is there a better example than Steve Jobs himself, but the bigger question is does the coding population recognizes that fact. I was reading through an article that talked about a quick poll at a class in Harvard Business School, students who wanted to start ventures were asked to raise hands, about 50 people did. Out of which tech guys were asked to raise hands- 4 raised hands. Now the four were asked how many of you are looking for non-tech co-founders- 1 raised his hand. This somehow gives the impression that non-tech guys are not all that important. So is it the general perception, and if so then that makes me sad. Start-up teams as much as anything else should have the right balance. (continue reading here)

(Comic) Cofounder Needed: Toons Need Not Apply

Let's set the scene:

It's a CoFoundersLab Meetup group set in a fun, colorful coworking hub in town. You see introverted onlookers assessing the scene and you see aggressive sales-y types already making their rounds. And you look on and you wonder if you'll ever find your match here.

Every week, scores of wantrepreneurs and real entrepreneurs attend these events, comb LinkedIn, and network with friends and family to find the perfect startup mate. Unfortunately, most of them are disappointed and discouraged.

 If you are looking for a cofounder, (continue reading here)

When you Jump from 3000 FT, DO NOT CALCULATE ROI...Results are not inspiring !

 4 days ago, I jumped ( with a professional) from 3000 Ft and for the first time in my life, decided to confront it. The first two minutes were not as tough, but as I started to look down, I realized that I probably made a mistake. That was a moment in my life when I started to think about "What were some of the things I could have done differently in life?"…/"What is my motivation?"…" Did I like Money?" or "Did I like admiration/Fame( whatever level of it)?" …and I did not know why am I doing whatever I am doing?...Not sure if I am trying to prove myself. I used past tense in all these questions as I had doubts of survival.

(continue reading here)
 The Art of Winning by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar tag:therodinhoods.com,2014-05-24:6328457:Topic:221351 2014-05-24T11:00:20.356Z Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal http://therodinhoods.com/profile/alokrodinhoodkejriwal
Sometimes, the Universe grants you what you want, almost instantly!

Just out of the blue, it just occurred to me that Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (Guruji to many) is as much as an ENTREPRENEUR as he is a Guru, Spiritual leader, Yogi, Art of Living Founder, etc etc.

Now, if he IS an Entrepreneur, then WHY isn't Rodinhood (me) interviewing him? So, I just mailed Sri Sri's office with the pitch…

Sometimes, the Universe grants you what you want, almost instantly!

Just out of the blue, it just occurred to me that Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (Guruji to many) is as much as an ENTREPRENEUR as he is a Guru, Spiritual leader, Yogi, Art of Living Founder, etc etc.

Now, if he IS an Entrepreneur, then WHY isn't Rodinhood (me) interviewing him? So, I just mailed Sri Sri's office with the pitch that said, "Let me interview Sri Sri as an Entrepreneur so that all the startup entrepreneurs understand what it takes to build an organisation like the Art of Living directly from the founder and take away many precious lessons!"

Believe it or not, in less than 24 hours, I got a "We like your idea" mail from HIS office.

I was on the plane the next day, and interviewed Sri Sri (Magical "daadiwala" to me) in the cute media cottage next to his operating office in Bangalore!

Enjoy the interview that includes Sri Sri's secrets and failures and many other insights! The transcript with my favorite parts is produced just after the video!!

Photos from the Session:

Transcript:

The 'Art of Winning' Management Mantras …Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in conversation with Alok Kejriwal

Q: Sri Sri, everyone knows you as the CEO of AOL, spiritual master, global leader. But I would like to interview you on your incredible journey as an Entrepreneur-Guru.

SSRS: It was a very eventful and interesting journey. I started by taking responsibility of a sick school which had no funds. Promises made had not been fulfilled, therefore, the children were left without a teacher or a place to stay.

Neither had we ever asked anyone for money, nor did we have any experience of running a school. But I knew I had to do this. Soon, things fell into place and people came forward to help the school grow. Then I started teaching courses. The first course I taught in Shimoga was attended by 8 doctors and engineers. I never intended to start courses. My intention was just to share what I could.

Q:That is what all entrepreneurs say, but then it become so big…

SSRS: My passion was to do something for villages. I used to travel in villages, sleeping on the floor at their homes, talking to people, being with them, teaching them meditation.

Q: You are a science graduate. Why do entrepreneurs do the unusual? When you entered the realm of spirituality, why did you do the unusual? You could have been a tech guy, earning a lot of money, travelling everywhere.

SSRS: It was simply not my cup of tea. There was a calling, a feeling that there was something I needed to do. I had seen wealth and fame when I was with Maharishi. I spent most of my youth with elderly people, great poets, great entrepreneurs and people dedicated to a social cause. Their wisdom, simplicity and broad vision was so beautiful. We started very small, going from village to village. Then I started training people to be teachers.

Q:The famous story (in your life) of the train - one train going north and one south… that represents in entrepreneurial life one very critical decision, where there is nobody to tell you what to do. There is something intuitive, something from God. How do people make that one critical decision that can change their life?

SSRS: At Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's they wanted me to stay. On one hand I had all comforts. I had this comfort zone, but I chose to come out and do something that was more needed in society. Something essential.

Q. In startups that have succeeded, the first team members - 5 or 10 - they make or break a company. What did you do to form a team?

SSRS: I did not base this on anyone or on volunteers. I based it on knowledge and wisdom. There is one power that is going to take you through - Moving with passion and dispassion together. Praise, talent and adulation are things people aspire to see in their twenties, thirties and forties. I had seen all this in my teens. Time is only for caring and contributing. And then the path opens up.

Q: On Mondays people in organisations are crying, Tuesday they are frowning. How do so many of the people in the Ashram keep smiling?

SSRS: Moving with passion and dispassion together. That is the power of spiritual knowledge. It gives you centered-ness which recuperates your energy, keeps you enthusiastic, and brings the much-needed passion for work. You want nothing for yourself. That brings passion in work and dispassion in meditation.

Q: As you started up, I'm sure there were failures, hiccups and problems. Many good enterprises fail. Can you share…?

SSRS: Once I was invited to teach at the Vatican by the very powerful Priest's training college. The Rector told me that people are forgetting what they taught them and requested me to train one of their people.

Then there was a de-addiction camp. There were 50-60 people there and the head was using fear of the outside world to keep them there. I taught those people and there was such a transformation in them. They had tears in their eyes and said they had found a new way of looking at life. The head of the camp became paranoid. On the third day the head said that this was not a good thing as people there had no fear in them now.

There was an ashram in London. They begged me to come and stay with them. Those days I travelled with one assistant. On the third day the person there saw everyone coming to me, and he told me I could not stay there.  I had had just 6 dollars in my pocket. It was a cold winter. My assistant was worried, but I told him to relax. At that time a Punjabi man requested us to come and stay with him anytime that week. So I said,"Why some time, I'll come right now."

So where your intentions are pure and clear, nature will support you to go forward in unimaginable ways.

Q In entrepreneurship and spirituality we have a common problem. 5 in 10 IIM-IIT graduates want to start up and family members become cagey.

SSRS: They should do startups. 30 years ago there was so much prejudice against India. When we started the Prison-Smart Program in Boston they just gave us a small 10' by 15'cell to do our Sudarshan Kriya. It was a dusty place with a small window. But when we started the course it created a big breakthrough in the prisoners' lives, and the prison authorities said what they were seeing was a miracle. They then gave us a grant to do the course for 3000 people in another place.

So, wherever there is sincerity and talent there will be people who recognise it. It may take some time. You simply have to have patience and hold on.

Q. Sri Sri, we are talking about patience and time, but everyone wants to grow a rose-garden in a day. You are talking about 30 years (to build Art of Living). Lot of young people think startup means instant money. Nobody realizes the value of time and money. What is your advice to young people?

SSRS: You should not be feverish about it. When you are feverish about success you take wrong decisions. It is not difficult to climb up that ladder by hook or by crook, but then you fall down the ladder faster than when you climbed it. Realise that you have sown a seed and you have to let it grow.You have to have inner strength.

At every step you have to ask yourself, "Am I doing the right thing or not?" If you sit and worry "What about me" all the time you miss out on ideas because you are self-centred. If your goal is clear, your aim is clear and you have the patience to move in that direction, nature is with you.

Q: On the power of intuition, a lot of us who are trying a new business, have not done that before. How do we cultivate intuition, how do we draw on it?

SSRS: That is what spirituality is all about - taking that inner rest.That restful alertness of mind, meditation and seeing life from a broader context. Then you will not be so feverish. You will let things unfold. You cannot force a flower to grow. You simply let it be there. Now "let it be there" does not mean inaction. People take it to the other extreme. Either they are complacent or they are too feverish.

Q. Sri Sri, a lot of us find it hard to get success. 99% of the time it is not easy to do a startup. Then we start comparing ourselves with other, wishing we could be like others, or saying "I wish I could get that funding." A bit of Jealousy creeps in, and then it starts dominating our mind.

SSRS: That is because you don't recognise your uniqueness. In this creation everyone is unique. Nature has made us very unique and if we recognise and we honour our uniqueness, there is no jealousy or competition.

Jealousy is there when we want to possess things. When you know you are here only to contribute, how can there be jealousy? Here spiritual knowledge becomes so relevant. Firstly, it helps you to overcome all these negative tendencies, and secondly, it improves your intuitive, innovative abilities and communication.

Q: If you were to price everything you give at market-price then you would be in the Fortune 500. How do you create this unbelievable business model of giving away the (wealthiest ) things for free and yet making your organisation run?

SSRS: Because I don't know marketing! We have done some of the biggest mega-events. 1,100 sitarists on one stage, 30 pianos and 300 bagpipers on a single stage. 10 of our programs are mentioned in the Guinness World Records. We have not made any effort to market them. Not many people even know about them. Art of Living has grown by word-of mouth as the product speaks for itself.

Q: You have made a product that is popular in India and abroad. How did you globalize your product so fast and make it so popular?

SSRS: (laughs) Everyone is breathing ! Everyone wants to be in love, be happy and at peace. We just guide people what they already have in them. And I still feel it has not become as popular as a cellphone. Cellphones are useful as they help you in communication. In the same way, meditation is even more useful because it helps you communicate with yourself and with the universe.

Q; Many of us in India are taught from childhood not to fail. Parents drill this into us and entrepreneurs become defensive about failure.

SSRS: One of the failures was when I tried to stop the war in Sri Lanka. I made efforts to reach out to the LTTE's Prabhakar and tried to bring sense into them. On the other side I also spoke to the President of Sri Lanka. I tried a lot and went there several times. Some of our Swamis were also working there. Today we have two orphanages in Sri Lanka. But somehow there was a prejudice against our dress, or how we look, how we are. This came in the way of our efforts and had a toll.

Similarly in Iraq, when Saddam Hussein was still alive, we tried to speak to them. We have not had Government backing. I have always felt that if we had had a little backing from the Government, we could have done a lot more work to bring peace.

All we needed was a simple recognition from them that this NGO is for peace and let's involve them. You know, there is a hard power and a soft power, and this was a soft power which our country failed to utilize.

In fact they did the contrary. They tried to stop us so that we wouldn't get the credit.

That was so unfortunate - the mindset of our bureaucrats and politicians. They should utilize India's soft power to bridge people, to bring peace in the world, to resolve conflicts. We could offer a lot to the world. And this is a big failure on the part of our society.

Another time, in one of the South American countries they gave me the highest honour in the country and the Indian Ambassador refused to come saying I was a religious person. This has happened a couple of times. Once in Brazil they had a program. The Indian flag was to be hoisted, and the Indian Ambassador refused to come. So, there is prejudice at home and prejudice outside. But the Information Era has helped a lot. 30 years ago it was difficult. Those days yoga and meditation was not something people were doing. Today large companies make their people meditate for relaxation.

Q: This whole problem of competition becomes so serious that sometimes you feel like giving up. How do you keep yourself sane in in this competitive field?

SSRS: You should see the positive aspects of competition. Competition in business will help you be more innovative and alert. Every competitor can inspire you to do more, and if you look at it that way you will be more at ease, and it will not dampen your enthusiasm. Else you will burn with jealousy and depression and do unethical things.

If you go with this one principle that no one can take away my enthusiasm, happiness or disturb my state of peace, then you will see the difference.

Q; Seva, satsang and sadhana is the formula for spiritual success in Art of Living. Any formula for entrepreneurs to succeed?

SSRS: They should keep their mind open and not be too anxious about success. Put in your 100% effort and be open to new ideas instead of being stuck in old one. You never know what will work on this planet.

People should meditate at least twice a day, especially in a group. Then you will find the atmosphere is more humane. If there is a humane atmosphere, there is nothing you cannot do.

www.artofliving.org

----------------------------

 UPDATE JUNE 13, 2014: Excerpts of our interview were carried in ET Panache today!

******
 We don't work on Weekends :) tag:therodinhoods.com,2014-02-09:6328457:Topic:204456 2014-02-09T13:30:18.438Z asha chaudhry http://therodinhoods.com/profile/ashachaudhry

Dear All,

Just a quick note (especially for the newbies) to say, like most other humans, we don't work 24x7 or 365 days a year!!

So if you've posted at 9.45pm or 1am - pls don't expect us to check out your post at that hour!!! We may not follow any hard & fast office hours - but let's be reasonable here folks!

(yep, i've seen stinkers…

Dear All,

Just a quick note (especially for the newbies) to say, like most other humans, we don't work 24x7 or 365 days a year!!

So if you've posted at 9.45pm or 1am - pls don't expect us to check out your post at that hour!!! We may not follow any hard & fast office hours - but let's be reasonable here folks!

(yep, i've seen stinkers in the main room saying "moderator must be sleeping"....!). Yes, I plead guilty - I do sleep at night!!!

Infact, like NING (the platform we operate on) - WE DON'T WORK OVER WEEKENDS!

[image source: theoplife.com]

So pls don't expect your approvals to happen over the weekend or on a calendar holiday. Infact, even on a weekday, it may take a two or three days depending on how much content has come through!! And depending how well you've written your post!! We aren't a notice board. Our content is curated in a certain way. We follow some basic site hygiene! The idea is to ensure your post is worthy of everyone's time; and to help you get adequate response...!

We are 7100+ 8300+ members and counting so you can fathom the amount of content that comes through every single day!

You may find moderators online on a weekend, but that only means we are doing other admin stuff. Or tweaking the site. We can appreciate that you might find time to write over the weekends. But pls appreciate the fact that your content can be approved on a Monday morning. In case something is super urgent we are just an email away!

Thank you for understanding!

Happy Weekend folks!

email@example.com

(editor)

ps: In case you are wondering why this is being posted on a Sunday.... well I'm constantly pinged about approvals (even on 26th Jan!!!) so I thought this should be made official :)
 The Best of Entrepreneur! tag:therodinhoods.com,2014-01-19:6328457:Topic:201474 2014-01-19T06:37:56.553Z Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal http://therodinhoods.com/profile/alokrodinhoodkejriwal

My articles in Entrepreneur India have been usually well received! Here are some of them, made easy to find and read!…

My articles in Entrepreneur India have been usually well received! Here are some of them, made easy to find and read!

 How to write effective e-mail proposals! tag:therodinhoods.com,2013-12-24:6328457:Topic:198339 2013-12-24T10:32:24.693Z Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal http://therodinhoods.com/profile/alokrodinhoodkejriwal

In the last 14 years or so I've received zillions of e-mail proposals. On an average day I get 200 e-mails (not counting spam and social media notifications). So how does one break the clutter and get my (or the next person's) undivided attention? By writing an EFFECTIVE E-MAIL!

It need not always be creative or out-of-the-box. Simple, direct and effective usually work the best. Add a little intrigue and it becomes…

In the last 14 years or so I've received zillions of e-mail proposals. On an average day I get 200 e-mails (not counting spam and social media notifications). So how does one break the clutter and get my (or the next person's) undivided attention? By writing an EFFECTIVE E-MAIL!

It need not always be creative or out-of-the-box. Simple, direct and effective usually work the best. Add a little intrigue and it becomes memorable.

Here some of my tips to write an effective e-mail.

There is a homework slide in the end. So PLEASE PLEASE e-mail us your examples so we can update this PPT with the best e-mails (yes, we'll give you credit!). Also comment with your own special tips!

How to write effective e-mail proposals from Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal

There is a wonderful example of how someone wrote a "terrible e-mail" and how I told him off and then how he took the feedback so positively that I created a post about it! - The Egoless, Hungry, Humble Entrepreneur ALWAYS WINS . [I'm sure I've told off many many people but only a few took it in the right spirit :-) ]

Another unconventional example is a PPT i received recently! It got my attention for sure!

Share some examples of effective e-mails you've received in the past...

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UPDATE BY ASHA - dec 31, 2013

We've been getting shiploads of emails. Sharing one of the best (as selected by Alok)

Superb Start Team IIE!

Dinesh Juneja <firstname.lastname@example.com>

1:22 AM (10 hours ago)

to alok, me

Hi Team,

Hope you're doing well.

I came across your reference on the www.therodinhoods.com community. Truly appreciate the initiative and with such a service being the need of the hour, it has the potential to go a long way.

As a Digital Marketer, I was hoping to contribute with some quick suggestions that might help you grow your venture. Do share your kind feedback if you think they might work:

1. Build a mobile friendly website: Majority people view updates on their phones. So, make sure your website is mobile compatible and a variety of browsers. Don't forget to keep the content simple, straight forward and focused on the WHAT, WHY, HOW.

2. Focus on one channel: Stick to focusing on only one medium to start with. As you are aiming to reach aspiring/early entrepreneurs, LinkedIn would be the most suitable option to explore.

3. Invite Viewpoints: Do try approaching established entrepreneurs in helping you spread the message. They have a fan following of the right kind of TG that you are looking to reach. A few suggestions would include Mahesh Murthy, Vishal Gondal and Kunal Shah.

If you need any further assistance, do share your co-ordinates and I will get in touch with you. And in case you are in Delhi, do join us for a cup of coffee at our office in Noida.

We run a young Digital Advertising firm - Creativa India and would love to have you over.

Wishing you all the very best.

--

Dinesh Juneja

Co-Founder | Creativa India

M: +91-9871112247

T: +0120-4159625

www.creativaindia.com

One Stop Advertising LLP

Connect with me on:

Creativa India - Connecting People using digital media, as PEOPLE are most important

**************

 How to make an engaging PPT? Here are some Presentation Tips! tag:therodinhoods.com,2013-12-17:6328457:Topic:197704 2013-12-17T13:21:56.791Z Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal http://therodinhoods.com/profile/alokrodinhoodkejriwal

I LOVE making PPTs over the odd weekend. In the last 15 years or so, I've made at least a hundred presentations in front of various audiences. People have appreciated these presentations, so this is my attempt to share some of my personal PPT-making tips. Hope you find it useful while creating your next presentation!

Pls note: In the PPT, The Tip slide is in Blue italics & is…

I LOVE making PPTs over the odd weekend. In the last 15 years or so, I've made at least a hundred presentations in front of various audiences. People have appreciated these presentations, so this is my attempt to share some of my personal PPT-making tips. Hope you find it useful while creating your next presentation!

Pls note: In the PPT, The Tip slide is in Blue italics & is followed by an Example slide. So don't get confused on what is the TIP and what is the EXAMPLE

Do share some of your own tips in the comments!

Presentation tips by rodinhood from Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal

UPDATE ADDED BY ASHA:

Within a few hours of this ppt being posted on SlideShare and trhs, it got featured on the slideshare home page and liked by the FOUNDER of SlideShare. How cool is that?!

 Meet the Rodinhooders! tag:therodinhoods.com,2013-05-13:6328457:Topic:145681 2013-05-13T12:33:32.745Z asha chaudhry http://therodinhoods.com/profile/ashachaudhry

Ever met another Rodinhooder and thought she/he was really awesome and that you felt you should share his/her story to the whole world...?!

Now you can! And you should!!

'Meet the…

Ever met another Rodinhooder and thought she/he was really awesome and that you felt you should share his/her story to the whole world...?!

Now you can! And you should!!

'Meet the Rodinhooders' is a part of our revamped Interview section (the concept of 'self interviews' was getting a bit thanda), where ANY Rodinhooder can "interview" another member over coffee, tea, bagels, noodles, phone, email, chat.... There is no fixed format or questionnaire. Just feel free to ask everything you wanted to know and share about the other member's venture!

There is no pre-determined criteria either! If someone is doing something INTERESTING and you'd like to highlight it (we have a Rodinhooder who makes chocolate – imagine!!!)...

or a Rodinhooder just got FUNDED and you want to shout about it...

or you know a Rodinhooder who is LAUNCHING A NEW APP or new anything...

or you think a Rodinhooder is POST-SHY...

or a Rodinhooder is doing something UNIQUE AS A PASSION/SOCIAL VENTURE....

or just because you reckon a Rodinhooder deserves a shout-out...

just send me an email (firstname.lastname@example.com) and we'll get the ball rolling!

The first post of the 'Meet the Rodinhooders' series is an interesting e-interview of Sanal Nair (co-founder, Bagelwala) by Perzen. I'm sure everyone will just love this one!

We've already got quite a few Rodinhooders who have shown a keen interest in interviewing others – but the more the merrier, so please feel free and let us know!

p.s: if you'd like to be interviewed, you could also send an email :)

LOGO DESIGN: Nishchal Par

*******

Other recommended interviews to go through in this category:

The man who is bringing TechCrunch to India!
 Eye My Baby: Why a bachelor created an awesome parenting app

Page99 - A better bookstore and a labour of love

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 Alok's reading and meeting notes! tag:therodinhoods.com,2013-05-12:6328457:Topic:145444 2013-05-12T14:27:56.568Z Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal http://therodinhoods.com/profile/alokrodinhoodkejriwal

For years, I've been reading The Economist, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, Fortune etc and attending meets, conferences etc.

Most of the stuff I've picked up and learnt is in my head & I'm guessing that isn't the best 'long term' storage place. Also, thankfully, my memory is NOT publicly google-able by others. But this stuff HAS to be shared!

So, I'm…

For years, I've been reading The Economist, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, Fortune etc and attending meets, conferences etc.

Most of the stuff I've picked up and learnt is in my head & I'm guessing that isn't the best 'long term' storage place. Also, thankfully, my memory is NOT publicly google-able by others. But this stuff HAS to be shared!

So, I'm just adding notes and snippets that I think are worthy of sharing (ONLY for non-commercial, academic and general interests). Browse them once in a while - or specifically when you are making a PPT or writing an article, for interesting quotes or chat-patta trivia!

Abbreviations - E- The Economist ; WSJ - Wall Street Journal; F - Fortune (F); NYT (New York Times), FT (Financial Times) & others mentioned case on case. PLEASE CREDIT these sources if you use these quotes and link to the content if possible.

I separate updates (typical monthly by adding *** at the end)

TO be updated on additions, simply add any comment at the end. You will then receive an e-mail from me everytime I update this page!

Here goes:

January 2014

Market Capitals of emerging countries and how puny they look when juxtaposed by single Market Caps of Western markets! (E)

- IT IS no secret that equity analysts at banks do not always give the best investment advice. In 2001 Eliot Spitzer, the attorney-general of New York state, exposed their habit of heaping praise on undeserving firms with which their colleagues hoped to do business. Some had advised clients to buy stocks they had referred to in private as "junk", "crap" and "shit".

Roger Loh of Singapore Management University and René Stulz of Ohio State University looked at analysts' forecasts of profits and the buy or sell recommendations they issued for the period 1983-2011. Their predictions, it turned out, were less reliable in falling markets than in rising ones, even after making allowances for increased volatility in such times. Analysts' forecasts of profits for the next quarter were out by 46% more during periods of financial crisis than at other times, for instance. (E)

- AT GOOGLE they call it the toothbrush test. Shortly after returning to being the firm's chief executive in 2011, Larry Page said he wanted it to develop more services that everyone would use at least twice a day, like a toothbrush. Its search engine and its Android operating system for mobile devices pass that test. (E)

-  "Software is eating the world," says Marc Andreessen, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. (E)

-  According to a recent survey of 12,000 people aged between 18 and 30 in 27 countries, more than two-thirds see opportunities in becoming an entrepreneur. That signals a cultural shift. "Young people see how entrepreneurship is doing great things in other places and want to give it a try" (E)

- Suckers aren't born, they're trained. (Wolf of Wall Street)

- In retrospect, it's a miracle that anything worked in the late '90s given how limited the market was and given how expensive it was. It's a miracle that eBay worked, it's a miracle that Amazon worked. Marc Andressen in an interview with WSJ explaining how different the startup scene is today.

- "About half (51 percent) of the 6.6 million pregnancies in the United States each year (3.4 million) are unintended" and "the U.S. unintended pregnancy rate is significantly higher than the rate in many other developed countries." NYT

- A history of USA Unemployment: (WSJ/NYT) - Click to expand

- How the Rich got Rich:

December 2013

- Data reviewed by The Wall Street Journal showed that one major record company makes more per year, on average, from paying customers of streaming services like Spotify or Rdio than it does from the average customer who buys downloads, CDs or both.

The average "premium" subscription customer in the U.S. was worth about $16 a year to this company, while the average buyer of digital downloads or physical music was worth about $14.Other data from the same company showed that in the long run, even many individual albums eventually make more money from streaming services than they do from downloads. (WSJ)

It took 34 months for an album by an "indie rock/pop group" to make more money from streaming than from sales. An album by one "modern male R&B rapper" reached that juncture after just four months.In both cases download revenue flattened as sales flagged, while streaming revenue continued to climb as people kept listening to the music.

In Sweden, where streaming subscription has overtaken downloading as the most popular method of acquiring music, the difference is more pronounced.

An average premium subscriber there is worth about $17.75 to the company, versus less than $4 for the handful of people who still buy music. (WSJ)

- Top Hotels in the world via strict standard operating procedures (SOPs). The Marriott family turned the method into a science. The second-generation boss, J.W. Marriott junior, who still runs the firm, became a fanatic. "When I say that the company's prosperity rests on such things as our sixty-six-steps-to-clean-a-room manual, I'm not exaggerating," he wrote in his 1997 autobiography.

A veteran chef explains the grip that SOPs have. From Tokyo to São Paulo all omelettes must match a laminated picture (they should be cigar-shaped). A manager in Dubai says he follows 2,300 rules, including the phrases used to greet guests. A 2010 Hilton manual stipulates that staff must answer phones after three rings, that guests' pets may not weigh more than 75lbs (34kg) and that scuba-diving boats must provide free pieces of fruit. A 2004 SOP book for InterContinental allows staff to wait until the fourth ring, requires drinks to be refilled when two-thirds empty and specifies that rooms must offer at least four pornographic films. (E)

- 60% of Apple's revenues are generated by products that are less than four years old. Therefore, they have a more uncertain future: Harvard Business School's William Sahlman warns young entrepreneurs about "the big eraser in the sky" that can come down at any moment and "wipe out all their cleverness and effort". (E)

- That old US Navy saying, "Keep it simple, stupid", is not a bad rule for management too, simple-minded though it may sound. (E)

- How CEOs screw up:

Mr Messier spent $17.5m of Vivendi's money on a New York apartment for his personal use. Fred Goodwin, boss of RBS, micromanaged the building of a £350m ($630m) head office, called "Fredtown" by his underlings, and found time to redesign the bank's Christmas cards.  About 40% of the heads of FTSE 100 companies employ "personal coaches". (E)

- Some of the most creative people in business have been very peculiar indeed: Henry Ford loved conspiracy theories of the blackest hue; Thomas Watson of IBM commissioned company songs in his own honour. (E)

- Mr Ram Charan is so dedicated to studying the inner life of firms that he spent years without a home, flying from hotel to hotel. (E)

- American students are bored by math, science and engineering.

Engineers and physicists are often portrayed as clueless geeks on television, and despite the high pay and the importance of such jobs to the country's future, the vast majority of high school graduates don't want to go after them. Nearly 90% of high school students say they're not interested in a career or a college major involving science, technology, engineering or math, known collectively as STEM, according to a survey of more than a million students who take the ACT test. (NYT)

- Only 18 percent of American adults can calculate how much a carpet will cost if they know the size of the room and the per square yard price of the carpet, according to a federal survey. (NYT)

- Like physical stores, online clothes sellers suspect they have a hard core of habitual returners. In Germany there has been talk of "Zalando parties", with giggling teenage girls ordering crateloads of stuff for a big weekend, only to send it all back (complete with forgotten car keys and other such stuff in the pockets).

November 2013:

- "Strategy, it turns out, is really about trying to work out in a sensible way how to get from one stage to the next. With each stage a new set of problems has to be negotiated before you move beyond it. There is no end point: strategy is not simply a grander name for a plan, something that moves you forwards in predetermined steps. As Helmuth von Moltke, a 19th-century German field-marshal, put it: "No plan survives contact with the enemy." Or Mike Tyson, still more pithily: "Everyone has a plan 'til they get punched in the mouth." A strategy that starts with objectives and works backwards is one that is likely to fail. (E)

- Since 2010 worldwide air-cargo volumes have grown by just over 2%, from 50.7m tonnes to a forecast 51.8m this year. And revenue is shrinking, from $66 billion in 2010 to an expected $59 billion this year. But robust e-commerce, the growth of demand for cheap package delivery and such specialist freight as refrigerated medicines have helped the two firms buck the trend. (E)

- As Benedict Evans, an analyst based in London, put it: "Bezos has chosen to run Amazon to be the biggest, most powerful and successful retailer on Earth 20 years from now. Any fool could run it profitably today." (NYT)

- Said Colin Gillis, senior tech analyst at BGC Partners (On Amazon). "It is easier," he said, "to sell things and not make money than it is to sell things and make money."

- "What Amazon is trying to do is raise my expectations so that I'll eventually buy everything from it," Mr. McFarland said. "At some point it won't have any more competition, and I won't know if prices are being raised because I'll have nothing to compare it to." (NYT)

- A company has strong incentives to degrade product durability when it has a lot of market power and when consumers don't have good substitute products to choose from. (That's what happened with the international light-bulb cartel of the early 20th century, which penalized its members for manufacturing bulbs that lasted more than 1,000 hours.) (NYT)

- Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason University, once pointed out that America has more than 3,000 halls of fame, honouring everyone from sportsmen to accountants. If people cannot reach the top of one ladder, they climb a different one. (E)

- Mr. Bloomberg, is not especially charismatic. His motto—"In God we trust; everyone else, bring data"—is not one to set the crowds chanting. But it makes for sensible government. Under him New York has weathered the financial crisis, cleaned its streets and become a magnet for talent and tourists. (E)

- New York needs its plutocrats. The top 1% of its taxpayers fork out a whopping 43% of the income taxes; if they leave, public services will suffer. (E)

- "OPERATIONS consultants sit at the front of the classroom," says a partner at a strategy consultancy. "Strategy consultants stay in the back, not paying attention, throwing paper airplanes. But they still get the girls and get rich." (E)

- At Microsoft, Qi Lu, an executive vice president, submitted a 56-page report on applications and services. Mr. Ballmer sent it back, insisting on just three pages—part of a new mandate to encourage the simplicity needed for collaboration. Mr. Lu says he retorted: "But you always want the data and detail!" Mr. Ballmer says he started to realize he had trained managers to see the trees, not the forest, and that many weren't going to take his new mandates to heart. (WSJ)

- Economics of real pirates (E)

A recent report's authors estimate that between $339m and $413m was paid in ransoms off the Somali coast between 2005 and 2012. The average haul was $2.7m. Ordinary pirates usually get $30,000-75,000 each, with a bonus of up to $10,000 for the first man to board a ship and for those bringing their own weapon or ladder.

- Economic Times Award's function notes:

October 2013

- IN INDIA there are about 280m cows. They produce valuable things—milk, dung and calves. But cattle are expensive to keep. The biggest outlay is food—the average cow consumes fodder worth about 10,000 rupees ($160) a year. Veterinary costs also add up. (E)

- According to ICRIER, a think-tank, only 7% of Indian villages have a bank branch. (E)

- CONDOLEEZZA RICE trained to be a concert pianist. Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, was a professional clarinet and saxophone player. The hedge fund billionaire Bruce Kovner is a pianist who took classes at Juilliard. Multiple studies link music study to academic achievement.

Paul Allen offers an answer. He says music "reinforces your confidence in the ability to create." Mr. Allen began playing the violin at age 7 and switched to the guitar as a teenager. Even in the early days of Microsoft, he would pick up his guitar at the end of marathon days of programming.It's in that context that the much-discussed connection between math and music resonates most. Both are at heart modes of expression.(NYT)

- "IF YOUR seat belt is a bit uncomfortable, it might be because you're sitting on it," quips the Alaska Airways flight attendant during the passenger safety announcement. The recording became a hit on YouTube, a video-sharing website. Jokes can make serious messages more effective. Mr Mukherjee and Ms Dubé found that funny anti-skin-cancer ads made people 20% more likely to use sun cream. And amusing anti-AIDS messages in Norway were more effective than the austere Canadian offerings. (E)

- ON JUNE 16th something very peculiar happened in Germany's electricity market. The wholesale price of electricity fell to minus €100 per megawatt hour (MWh). That is, generating companies were having to pay the managers of the grid to take their electricity. It was a bright, breezy Sunday. Demand was low. Between 2pm and 3pm, solar and wind generators produced 28.9 gigawatts (GW) of power, more than half the total. The grid at that time could not cope with more than 45GW without becoming unstable. At the peak, total generation was over 51GW; so prices went negative to encourage cutbacks and protect the grid from overloading. (E)

- "NO URINATION or defecation in the working area." That admonition was among 13 rules that managers felt necessary to post on the walls of a shambolic fridge factory in Qingdao in the early 1980s. (E)

- Incensed that a fifth of the products his plant turned out were defective, in 1985 the CEO of Haier -Mr. Zhang handed out sledgehammers and joined employees in smashing 76 faulty fridges in public view. That won him national celebrity and was the start of the firm's transformation.

By listening closely to demanding consumers, his firm's fast and frugal engineers came up with clever products like mini-fridges built into computer tables (for students), freezers with a slightly warmer compartment (for keeping ice cream soft) and horizontal deep freezers with two tiers of drawers (for Americans too lazy to dig to the bottom). Haier also developed new niches, such as affordable wine fridges, ignored by Western rivals obsessed with economies of scale. It is now pioneering wireless charging of appliances. (E)

 September 2013

- Settlement risk is also known as Herstatt risk, after a German bank that failed in 1974 and left many of its counterparties nursing big losses.

- How nothing remains the same

- ATM density in the world:

- GIACOMO CASANOVA, an Italian writer and bon vivant, was not easily shocked. But when he visited London in 1763 he was appalled to see Londoners brazenly urinating in the streets; in Venice, at least, people discreetly used doorways.August 2013 (E)

- Mr Mishra compares two villages 15 kilometres (9 miles) apart, near the city of Bhopal in central India. One has been connected to the road network since 2009. The other just has a dirt track. In the first, land prices are three times higher, wages are 50% higher, and far more people commute and engage in market gardening. At the present rate, it will take half a century before India's economy is fully formal.(E)

- "CAFUNÉ (N): A STROKE or ruffle of a loved one's hair". That Brazilians have coined such a specific word testifies to their physical warmth, sense of touch—and obsession with hair. (E)

- The lesson of "Breaking Bad"

Three things help our chemistry teacher turn an insight into a flourishing business. The first is huge ambition. He is not in the "meth business" or the "money business", he says. He is in the "empire business". The second is product obsession. Other dealers might peddle "Mexican shoe-scrapings" on the ground that addicts care little about quality. He produces the king of meth, so pure that it turns blue, and would rather destroy an entire batch than let an inferior product be traded under his brand. The third is partnerships and alliances. He spots talent in a former pupil turned drug-dealer, Jesse Pinkman, and forms a strong working relationship with him. He also contracts distribution to a succession of local gangs so that he can concentrate on the higher-value-added part of the business: cooking and quality control.

- Strained relations between companies and distributors are common: in one survey 80% of executives said that they had worries about "exclusivity, control and resource protection" (E)

- AC Nielsen, a research firm, says that 70% of women in India cannot afford sanitary products. Many who can pay do not, as they hate having to ask for them in drugstores that are usually run by men. This has serious consequences. Adolescent girls miss up to 50 days of school a year. Some 23% drop out altogether. Working women lose their daily wages. (E)

- How to stop getting hacked

- In the 1950s one-third of America's workers belonged to a union. Today 11.3% do, including just 6.6% in the private sector (E)

- Almost 70 years after that first Dundee lecture Mr Coase won the Nobel prize for economics. "A scholar must be content with the knowledge that what is false in what he says will soon be exposed," he noted in his speech. "As for what is true, he can count on ultimately seeing it accepted, if only he lives long enough."

- THE INTERNSHIP", a film about two middle-aged no-hopers who land work experience at Google, is a dire offering even by the standards of Hollywood summer comedies. But it does get one thing right: that it is rather absurd for a technology firm to provide slides for staff to play on, and to let them wear silly propeller-hats. Google is not alone in its juvenile tastes. Box, a Silicon Valley company, has installed swings in its headquarters. Red Bull, an energy-drinks firm, has a reception desk in the shape of a giant skateboard in its London office. Businesses of all types have moved towards sitting workers in groups in open-plan rooms, just like at nursery school. Time was when firms modelled themselves on the armed forces, with officers (who thought about strategy) and chains of command. Now many model themselves on learning-through-play "Montessori" schools. (E)

- Montessori management has plenty of supporters in the higher reaches of business. The bosses of Google (Larry Page and Sergey Brin), Amazon (Jeff Bezos) and Wikipedia (Jimmy Wales) were all educated in Montessori schools. So was Will Wright, a video-game pioneer. Messrs Page and Brin credit their Montessori education with their enthusiasm for thinking differently. Mr Bezos thanks it for his enthusiasm for experimentation—for "planting seeds" and "going down blind alleys" as he puts it. Mr Wright says SimCity "comes right out of Montessori". (E)

- Morten Hansen of the University of California, Berkeley studied 182 teams who were trying to win a contract on behalf of a professional-services firm. He found that the more time they spent consulting others, the less likely they were to win a deal. This shows, he says, that collaboration has costs as well as benefits. (E)

- According to one survey around 70% of all offices in America have gone open-plan. Yet evidence is mounting that this is a bad idea. Over the past five years Gensler, a design firm, has asked more than 90,000 people in 155 companies in ten industries what they think of this way of working. It has found an astonishing amount of antipathy. Workers say that open-plan offices make it more difficult to concentrate, because the hubbub of human and electronic noise is so distracting. What they really value is the ability to focus on their jobs with as few distractions as possible. Ironically, going open-plan defeats another of Montessori management's main objectives: workers say it prevents them from collaborating, because they cannot talk without disturbing others or inviting an audience. Other studies show that people who work in open-plan offices are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, stress and airborne infections such as flu. (E)

- WHAT do you say to a teenager with a job? Answer: "A Big Mac, fries and a Coke, please." At least, that was the joke in happier times.

- How to sleep!

- In the USA in 1930, house calls accounted for 40 percent of physician interactions. By 1980, that number had dropped to 1 percent. (NYT)

- The cost of a doctor visit at home in the USA is around $500 a visit (Rs 33,000)

- THE job of clever people is to ask difficult questions. The job of very clever people is to ask deceptively simple ones. Eighty years ago a young British economist wondered: why do companies exist? Ronald Coase and asked this question and attempted to answer it. That won him the Nobel prize for economics in 1991 (E)

- "We've had three big ideas at Amazon that we've stuck with for 18 years, and they're the reason we're successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient," he said. Jeff Bezos speech at this newly acquired Washington Post (NYT)

- Only 3% of Indians pay income tax, so the government's tax take is puny. (E)

August 2013

- The left invented paid holidays in France. In 1936 Léon Blum, leader of the Popular Front government, gave workers the right to two weeks' paid annual leave, with discounted railway tickets to help factory workers and their families head to the seaside. (E)

- There is a saying in Buddhism: Don't just do something; sit there. (E)

- Women in the US make $0.77 for every dollar a man makes (FT)

- "You say the word 'math' and people shut down," says Mr. Frenkel, sitting outdoors in New York's Bryant Park. In his book, to be published in October, the tenured professor at the University of California at Berkeley argues that the boring way that math is traditionally taught in schools has led to a widespread ignorance that may have even been responsible for the recession.

"It's like teaching an art class where they only tell you how to paint a fence but they never show you Picasso," he says of elementary school math classes. "People say, 'I'm bad at math,' but what they're really saying is 'I was bad at painting the fence.' " Love is a different story, though. "People might think they hate math but everyone loves love," he says. "I want to put more love into math."

What he means is that while the philosopher Pythagoras lived over 2,000 years ago, his theorem still exists today; it holds true across cultures, time and space. "How many things have the same endurance?" he asks. Mathematical formulas "have a quality of inevitability." (WSJ)

- Mr. Ballmer, meanwhile, told Fortune magazine in 2006: "I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod." If he had let them, he might have understood sooner the revolutionary impact of these products.

- TEN years ago sportswear-makers were cramming ever more features and futuristic designs into their products. They were convinced that the consumer bought, say, training shoes based on their technical specifications. But in 2004 James Carnes, today adidas's creative director for sportswear, and a Danish consultant named Mikkel Rasmussen met at a conference in Oslo at which Mr Rasmussen challenged this notion. A mobile phone, he said, may have 72 functions, but that is 50 more than most people wanted, or used.

- In a related project, an anthropology doctoral student working for ReD mailed dozens of customers a disposable camera, asking them to photograph something that made them work out. Of 30 women who responded, 25 sent a picture of a little black dress, says Mr Carnes. The company had assumed that most customers were training to be good at specific sports; in fact for many, fitness itself was their "sport".

- How oil prices and production has moved:

- Only 3% of Indians pay income tax (E)

- When a new technology rides into town, the moguls try to destroy it, but it survives and becomes part of the town's future. Hollywood loathed the VCR (comparing it to the Boston Strangler); the networks hated cable TV; sheet-music publishers feared the phonograph; Socrates was sceptical about writing (not interactive enough, apparently). Yet nearly always two things happen: the old media survive (people are still buying vinyl records and even the odd printed magazine), and the new media expand the market. (E)

- The internet is the same, only more so. This year will be the first in which the average American will spend more time with digital media each day (around five hours) than watching television (4½ hours), according to eMarketer, a research firm, though many of these hours will overlap.

- Browser shares:

- According to executives familiar with the ads, Facebook will charge around $2 million per day to let advertisers reach the full Facebook audience of adults aged 18 to 54 (via video ads). As a comparison, a 30-second spot during the last Super Bowl cost advertisers about $3.8 million. (WSJ)

- "Windows is a hammer, and everything looks like a nail" to Microsoft, saidRyan Block, a former editor at Engadget and a co-founder of Gdgt, a gadget Web site. "You can look at the Surface, which is the best example; they created this totally blown-out tablet based around Windows and Windows-like experiences that didn't translate" for most people. (NYT)

"The people in Redmond have a fundamental misunderstanding of what users are looking for, which is not speeds and feeds," said J. P. Gownder, a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. (Microsoft is based in Redmond, Wash.) (NYT)

- THIS year will be the first in which emerging markets account for more than half of world GDP on the basis of purchasing power, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In 1990 they accounted for less than a third of a much smaller total.

- Housing prices movement in the world

- Mealtimes are no longer conventional or clearly defined. People eat often and quickly. One study comparing Britain and Spain found that about 40% of Spaniards were eating at 2.50pm and about 30% at 9.30pm. At no point in the day were as many as 20% of Britons eating. Over the years, peaks in sewage flow have greatly diminished, notes Rob Smith, chief sewer-flusher for Thames Water. (E)

- Last year almost a quarter of the houses and flats that sold in Mayfair were bought—for up to £3,500 ($5,400) per square foot ( alok = 3.25 LACS per square foot )—by Indians, according to Peter Wetherell, an estate agent, making them the second biggest buyers after Britons. (E)

- At a recent conference organised by Simon-Kucher, the 100 or so delegates were asked to put their hands up if their company had a written pricing policy. Just two did so. Setting prices, promotions and discounts is often left to junior people and local sales offices. Even where a policy is set from the top, the salespeople may ignore it because they are still being rewarded for maximising sales and keeping customers. Neil Hampson, a pricing expert at PWC, says he sometimes starts his client meetings by asking: "When was the last time you congratulated a salesman for walking away from a client?" Most have never done so.

Second, companies need to remember that, as the late Peter Drucker, a management guru, once put it, customers do not buy products, they buy the benefits that these products and their suppliers offer to them.

In the early 2000s executives at General Motors were told to wear badges with "29" on their lapels, as part of a disastrous plan to get back to a 29% market share in America. This merely reinforced car-buyers' assumption that GM would offer them whatever discounts it took to shift its metal off the forecourts, putting the firm on the road to bankruptcy. Simon-Kucher's consultants praise DHL, a logistics firm, which spent years drilling into its customers that whatever the economic conditions there will be a rate rise each year.

Fourth, there are lots of simple presentational tricks that almost everyone is wise to but which still, miraculously, work. Restaurants add some overpriced wines lower down the menu to make the ones at the top seem reasonable. Makers of ice cream offer "33% extra free" rather than "25% off" the cost of the regular size, even though these are arithmetically the same thing. Buyers at big industrial firms are just as susceptible to such "framing" when reviewing a list of widget prices. (E)

- In 1961 North Korea's income per head, at $160, was twice that of the South, despite heaps of American aid. (E)

- Price movement of luxury goods

July 2013

- Around 13% of Americans were obese in the early 1960s, as compared with 36% today (about two-thirds of contemporary Americans are considered overweight or obese), which can make a trip to the beach a jarring experience. (WSJ)

- The Yuasa Phenomenon. This is a theory expounded by a Japanese physicist and historian, Mitsutomo Yuasa, in the 1960s. Since 1540, he declared, the mantle of global scientific leadership has moved from one country to another every 80 to 100 years. The United States, by his reckoning, became the leader in science in 1920. (NYT)

- Allison Stewart, of the SAID Business School at Oxford, says that Olympics tend to have cost overruns of about 180% on average. (E)

- BAM is the 4,300km (2,700-mile) railway across Siberia that cost the Soviet Union $14 billion and took 36 years to build. BAM was one of the projects that crippled the Soviet economy, as Yegor Gaidar, a former prime minister and architect of Russian reforms in the 1990s, wrote in an article published as long ago as 1988. He argued that the Soviet Union had wasted its money on construction projects whose main purpose was to "utilise" government funds. This was made possible only by a political culture which deprived people of any say and substituted the narrow corporatist interest for the country's. (E)

- The pressure to marry remains heavy in today's China, where almost 80% of adults have tied the knot at some point, compared with only 68% in America. (E)

- Last year online sales of shop-based American retailers grew by 29%; those of online-only merchants grew by just 21%. Apart from Amazon—which has long spurned profits in favour of growth—most pure-play online retailers are losing market share, says Sucharita Mulpuru of Forrester Research. (E)

- The Torah teaches us that it is the intent of our actions that determines our morality not their consequence. (E)

- I liked this cart that triangulates Crime Rates in the USA and UK and proves that crime has DECLINED in the past 10+ years:

- Awesome insight! (as seen in an Ad in the Economist)

- ALFRED HITCHCOCK once compared television to indoor plumbing. "It didn't change people's habits," said the master of cinematic suspense. "It just kept them inside the house."

- Each young American who subscribes to pay-TV will probably spend around $40,000 over their lifetime in subscription fees, says Laura Martin of Needham, an investment bank. (E)

- From Japan to Estonia, property and people are now safer than at almost any time since the 1970s (E)

- In 1990 some 147,000 cars were stolen in New York. Last year fewer than 10,000 were. (E)

- One in every hundred American adults is now in prison. To keep each one inside costs taxpayers $47,000 a year (about the same as a place at Stanford University).

- NO ONE denies that America's tax code is a mess. It is unintelligible, which is why 90% of taxpayers use an accountant or commercial software to file their returns. The 6.1 billion hours Americans waste each year complying with tax rules could have been spent inventing new products. Exemptions promote unproductive activities, such as buying big houses, while high rates penalise work and drive companies abroad. (E)

- How do Brick & Mortar retailers review their daily business? This is one actual dashboard:

- Nowadays, according to a Harris Poll, 38% of adults 30 to 39 have tattoos, as do 30% of those 25 to 29 and 22% of those 18 to 24. Inked women slightly outnumber men. By comparison, only 11% of Americans 50 to 64 say they have tattoos, a number that drops to 5% for Americans 65 and older.Why the proliferation of body ink? Twenty-five percent say tattoos make them feel "rebellious," like growing long hair back in the 1960s, while 30% say that they make them feel more sexy, 21% more attractive or strong and 8% more intelligent. Meanwhile, 45% of Americans without tattoos believe those who have them are less attractive, while 39% say they're less sexy and 27% less intelligent.Of course, you could always cut your long hair if you got tired of it or faced an unexpected court date. Getting rid of a tattoo is not so easy, though 86% of tattoo bearers said that they have never regretted their decision, perhaps belying the idea that the younger generation has commitment issues.

- Asked about the latest consumer durable, many men (in the 1960's in Britain) said, "I don't need one, my wife is my washing machine." (E)

- IN THE late 1700s William Playfair, a Scottish engineer, created the bar chart, pie chart and line graph. These amounted to visual breakthroughs, innovations that allowed people to see patterns in data that they would otherwise have missed if they just stared at long tables of numbers. (E)

- In recent years the London-based daily newspaper has promoted a new area called "data journalism". The idea is that reporters must interrogate both people and databases in order to get their information. (E)

- On June 27th the lower house approved an amendment to a consumer-rights bill that will force restaurants to label the dishes they prepare from fresh ingredients in their own kitchens as "fait maison", or "home-made". (E)

- The French are known to prize good food. But almost a third of all restaurants serve dishes prepared largely or entirely elsewhere, says Synhorcat, a big group of hotel- and restaurant-owners (E)

- THE first iPhone went on sale on June 29th 2007. (E)

- Taiwan, once a maker of soft toys and umbrellas, has long been a high-tech hive. It provides a rare example of successful industrial policy (though much more so in hardware than software). In 1973 the state created the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) to nurture the tech industry. ITRI started with semiconductors, securing the transfer of old technology from RCA, an American company, in 1976. In 1983 ITRI developed a clone of the IBM PC. Seven years later it formed an alliance of notebook-PC companies. Information and communications technology now makes up one-third of GDP. (E)

- Around half of steel output is used in construction (E)

- BOTH relief and tears will greet the results of France's school-leaving baccalauréat exam on July 5th. With breathtaking efficiency, the entire country's exam papers are corrected and marked within just two weeks. This year the papers seem particularly revealing of how French youngsters are taught to view the world. "What do we owe to the state?" was one essay option in the philosophy exam. In another textbook, a chapter on "social justice" asks: "Do high revenues threaten fairness?"(E)

- France excels at producing top-rate academic economists. But high-school teaching of economics is uneven. The IREF study last year showed that, in one tome's 382 pages, only 18 were devoted to business. "Entrepreneurs and business leaders are almost absent," noted the report, and "globalisation and free trade are treated with distrust." The curriculum remains heavily tilted towards social conflict. The analysis of social structure starts with Marx. (E)

- Asked by a colleague why the loan he sought was for €7 billion ($10.3 billion), John Bowe, then Anglo's head of capital markets, explained that the figures were picked "out my arse". The bail-out strategy to be adopted was simple, but devious: to get the central bank to provide an initial loan that would, in effect, commit the government to further payments as needed. "You pull them in," he said, "you get them to write a big cheque, and they have to support their money." (E)

- BARACK OBAMA was raised by his grandparents for part of his childhood. He remembers his grandmother as being "tough as nails". Clarence Thomas, a Supreme Court judge, was raised by his grandparents because his mother could not make ends meet. He called his grandfather "the greatest man I have ever known". Grandparents have always reared children when need arose. (E)

- Of the 75m children in America, 5.5m live in households headed by grandparents, a number that has risen by almost a million since 2005, according to the Census bureau.

- 39m Americans currently owe the government a collective $1 trillion in student debt. (E)

- "I LEFT in 1980 with only three dollars in my pocket," recalls Li Sanqi. He was one of the first allowed to study overseas after the dark days of the Cultural Revolution. Like most in that elite group, he excelled, rising to a coveted position at the University of Texas, while launching several technology firms. Mr Li seems the perfect example of a sea turtle, or hai gui (in Mandarin, the phrase "return across the sea" sounds similar to that animal's name), long applauded in China for bringing back advanced skills. (E) (Alok Note - Mobile2win China was rescued in the end, rebuilt and sold to Disney by Nick Zhang - a Sea Turtle)

June 2013:

- The first big cyber-attack dates back to 1986, when a bunch of German hackers in Hanover, working for the KGB, sneaked into American military networks. Named "Cuckoo's Egg", it was caught only because a sharp-eyed official noted a tiny 75-cent billing error, revealing unauthorised use of a computer network. One especially damaging operation involved the theft of top-secret material from the most classified NATO networks. The attackers had used infected memory sticks, which were left lying around in car parks near sensitive buildings. Careless or thrifty officials picked them up, and some used them to copy material between classified computer networks and those connected to the internet. A clever bit of software then copied, encrypted, compressed and dispatched the material—probably, spooks think, to Moscow. (E)

- Twice as many Indian children (43%) as African ones go hungry. Prejudice kills on an immense scale: as many as 600,000 fetuses are aborted each year because they are female. (E)

- In the USA, Mortgage costs relative to annual incomes are still extremely low (around 17% compared with a historic average of almost 24%), so there is scope for mortgage rates to rise further without choking off the nascent recovery. (E)

- The greetings-card industry, which studies social trends carefully, is a useful window on changing manners. (E)

- The Khan Academy, a creator of online tutorials widely used as a form of home tutoring, is beginning to provide hard evidence for why it is considered one of edtech's rising stars. At Oakland Unity, in tough inner-city Oakland, test scores for 16-17-year-olds in algebra and geometry have risen significantly in the two years since Khan courses were introduced. (E)

- Apple says it sold 3m iPads to American educational institutions last year

- Velcro is a combination of velvet (velours) and hook (crochet) in French. Employees are taught "You need to always use it as adjective, never as a verb and never as a noun". (F)

- Tips on selling to 19 year old girls from Jeff Rubin (CEO of It'Sugar - the hottest new successful biz in confectionary):

He defines attitude as 'rebellion'

Dont try to conceal the vice - revel in it

The company generates 1000$ per sq. foot in revenue in the Mall of the Emirates in Dubai - placing that metric as amongst the top 10 in the world. (F)

- Peter Thiel has a 2 year fellowship that past 100K US$ (approx 60 lacs) to students who skip college or drop out to pursue their startups as long as they dont sneak back into class. (F)

- Vinod Khosla told a conference "people over 45 basically die in terms of new ideas". (F)

- From Japan whose Economy and sentiment is perking up, a consumer says "I don't really need it, but I want it," he said. "A good economy means you can buy things you don't really need."

- "We've seen confidence start to explode over the last months," said Herbert Appleroth, chief executive of Ferrari Japan. "We're seeing some of the highest growth in the world here."

- The United States built its lead in Internet Connectivity because companies invested nearly $1.2 trillion, over 17 years, to deploy next-generation broadband networks. These investments, which began with the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, were neither accidental nor inevitable; they were a result of deliberate policy decisions by Congress and by Democratic and Republican administrations alike to protect consumers while encouraging companies to invest in nascent technologies that are now flourishing. 80 percent of American households enjoy 100 megabits per second speed

- With youth unemployment running at 35% in Italy and annual net pay for a young leather-cutter starting at around €18,000 ($24,000), fashion firms ought to have applicants beating down their doors. Like people in other rich countries, Italians tend to look down on manual work, however skilled, and families prefer to push their children towards careers in the professions and the public sector. The education system, at all levels, generally provides a poor preparation for working life. Italian universities are full of youngsters studying subjects in which they are not interested but which their parents think are good, regardless of the job prospects. (E)

- The 'recipe' for making cement has not changed for hundreds of years.Cement is so costly to transport that it rarely travels more than 200 miles (320km) by road, so its markets tend to be local. Barriers to entry are high: a new cement works producing 1m tonnes a year, the smallest worth building, costs around $200m. (E)

- How cyber attacks started : Teenage pranksters in the 1990s used DDoS attacks to boot enemies from internet chat rooms. (E)

***

- Long-term, "the digital download is going to be like the cassette," predicts Russ Crupnick of NPD Group, a research firm. (E)

- Facebook, which lacks maps of its own, was said to be close to a deal. Talks reportedly failed because Waze's team did not want to move to California. (E)

- Only 3% of Britons used one (Classic Red Phone Booth) to make a phone call in the past month, according to BT, the country's biggest telecoms firm. (E)

- A five-year-old Boeing 737 costs $180,000 a month to lease, in Europe (E)

- Managers who rely too much on their strengths may become hammers that see every problem as a nail. Over-forceful bosses can turn their subordinates into patsies; consensus-obsessed bosses can institutionalise dithering. It is not difficult to find examples of strengths-turned-weaknesses in politics. Barack Obama's talent for lofty rhetoric has distracted him from the nuts and bolts of policymaking. François Hollande's passion for being Mr Normal has rendered him too small for his grand office. (E)

- One result is that leaders end up micromanaging their subordinates (particularly those doing the job that they used to do) and neglecting the big picture. It often makes bosses choose to do the wrong thing well rather than the right thing poorly. One reason for the 2007-08 financial crisis was that the heads of big investment banks and brokers had often made their reputations as traders, rewarded for taking big risks rather than managing for the long term. Examples include Dick Fuld of Lehman Brothers and Jimmy Cayne of Bear Stearns. (E)

- Among the solutions offered by Messrs Kaplan and Kaiser is for bosses to create feedback mechanisms that tell them when they are going over the top (one "over-talker" got a friend to hold up a sheriff's badge if he was talking too much in business meetings). (E)

- ODesk was the matchmaker for 35m hours of work in 2012 (over 50% more than in 2011), divided between 1.5m tasks, at a total cost to the employers of $360m. The value of work on Elance rose by 40% in 2012 to exceed $200m for the first time. Last year the value of this sort of online work topped $1 billion for the first time; it will double to $2 billion in 2014, and reach $5 billion by 2018, forecasts Staffing Industry Analysts, a "contingent work" consultant.

- "You talk to a mathematician, and he tells you that he's one in three people in the world who understand the problem and it's not been solved for 200 years," says Mr von Ahn. "A computer scientist says: 'I solved an open problem yesterday'." MUST READ Interview and article of the man who invented CAPTCHA

-Redundancy, resiliency and adaptability, plus human ingenuity, keep distant hardware going. Must read this article on HOW TO FIX THINGS IN SPACE

- Of the 7 billion people alive on the planet, 1.1 billion subsist below the internationally accepted extreme-poverty line of $1.25 a day. America's poverty line is $63 a day for a family of four. In the richer parts of the emerging world $4 a day is the poverty barrier. But poverty's scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries' own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.

- Cuba's governmentsaid it would allow ordinary Cubans to access the internet for the first time, but for a pricey $4.50 an hour. The average monthly wage is $20.

- But in reality most people still get their news from TV." That's true not just in Russia, where perhaps 80 per cent do, but even in the US. Russian newspapers are comparatively tiny: few sell more than 100,000 copies, a figure representing under 0.1 per cent of the population. (FT)

- Jobs was so persuasive that he could claim the sun was setting when it was actually rising, and everyone would nod in agreement.(NYT)

- Snippets of Interview with Yousendit CEO :

 One thing I started doing was to send out every Sunday night an e-mail to the whole company. The e-mails aren't particularly structured, and they might be on all kinds of topics, like what's really going on with our monthly results.

But I've also been in companies where the communication increasingly became noncommunication — where the C.E.O. would do an all-hands meeting, and at the end of it I would be wondering: "What did they just say? I don't even know what that meant."

Q. How do you hire?

A - The thing I look for more than anything else is passion.

One of the questions I love to ask is, "How would your friends describe you in college?" And then they'll say a few words, and then I'll say, "All right, so after you graduated from college and started working, how would your first group of colleagues describe you?" I think you get more real answers that way than if you say, "Hey, describe yourself." You definitely see some evolution as people mature.

My dad told me at a relatively early age about this idea of "take the professor, not the class," meaning just seek out the best professors, whatever they're teaching. And the idea of taking the professor, not the class, applies to your professional life, too. (NYT)

MUST READ this incredible interview!

- "I think of Xbox as the accidental success out of Microsoft," said James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research

- Alex St. John, an entrepreneur who worked on Microsoft's pre-Xbox game efforts, says he is pessimistic about prospects for gaming consoles.

"They're coming out with the latest and greatest stone tool," Mr. St. John said. "The new console that trumps the old console is called the Apple iPad. This generation of kids loves mobile games."

- The median home price in America (excluding new builds) was $192,800 in April, a rise of 11% since April 2012, according to the National Association of Realtors.

May 2013:

- Back in 2010 Mark Zuckerberg made a very bad decision. Instead of building separate apps for iPhones, Androids, BlackBerrys, Nokia devices, and, yes, even Microsoft phones, he put his engineers to work designing a version of Facebook that could operate on any smartphone. In effect, he was betting that as different operating systems jostled for control of mobile devices, standalone apps would go away and soon we would surf websites on our phones, just as we do on PCs.

 Zuckerberg was wrong. Android and iOs quickly became the dominant mobile operating systems, and Facebook's applications, which were built with its CEO's web-centric worldview in mind, didn't work well on either platform. They were buggy and slow, crashing often. A 2011 update garnered 19,000 one-star reviews in the Apple App Store within the first month. "It's probably one of the biggest mistakes we've ever made," (F)

- Zuckerberg demurs when I ask him how the IPO has changed Facebook. "We made this transition to being a public company, and at the same time we made this transition to being a mobile company," he says (F)

- The status of professionals in North Korea : Doctors can make drips out of beer bottles, but know nothing of the modern pharmacopoeia. The typical history teacher, Mr Lankov says, "knows a lot about events that never actually happened". (E)

- AFTER a Soviet missile shot down a South Korean airliner that strayed into Russian airspace in 1983, President Ronald Reagan made America's military satellite-navigation system, GPS, available to the world. Entrepreneurs pounced. Car-navigation, precision farming and 3m American jobs now depend on GPS. Official weather data are also public and avidly used by everyone from insurers to ice-cream sellers. (E)

- The cynical view is that managers are vain and hate to admit mistakes. Investors usually decide an acquisition has gone bad within a year or two. The buyers' shares drop. It takes longer for the accounts to catch up. Auditors should subject balance-sheets to a yearly impairment test, but valuations are subjective and executives can twist their arms. When the auditors do, at last, assert themselves, companies are often blasé. The typical lag between error and admission seems to be about five years. Take the top 3,000 firms listed worldwide. In the boom of 2004-07 takeovers were at a peak, and write-offs were minimal at about $30 billion a year. Impairments surged to $150 billion in 2012, according to Bloomberg data. (E)

- So what does Tata's write-down (Of Corus) signify? Ratan Tata, the patriarch of the Tata group, retired as chairman of Tata Steel on December 28th. Until he left it was probably impossible to recognise that Corus, his biggest deal, was a flop.

His successor, Cyrus Mistry, has several underperforming businesses to deal with. Yet Mr Mistry has opted for a small write-off. Corus, analysts estimate, is worth a third or less of the $13 billion Tata paid for it, meaning the impairment should be much bigger. (E)

- Previous activist investors seeking to crack Japan have fared only slightly better than the Christian missionaries of the 16th century (who were crucified). Locals assume that their goal is short-term profits, rather than better management. Steel Partners, another American fund, tried for years to reform corporate governance at Sapporo Holdings, a brewer. It failed. Cerberus Capital Management is still attempting to win more sway over Seibu, a hotels-to-railways-to-baseball conglomerate it first invested in back in 2006.

As a globally minded firm, Sony may be more inclined to listen to outsiders. This week it said its entertainment assets were not for sale, but it welcomed dialogue with shareholders. (E)

- Dominique Turpin, the head of IMD, a Swiss business school, writes that "the CMO is dead". (E)

- With new digital tools marketers can reach the likeliest customers when they are most in the mood to buy. Last summer Wall's ice cream and O2, a mobile-phone network, teamed up to send advertisements to Londoners' smartphones when temperatures climbed. When the weather cooled Kleenex, a brand of tissues, used Google search terms and health-service data to target ad spending to areas likely to suffer the most sneezes. (E)

- MarketShare touts the case of Electronic Arts, which was spending too much on television and cinema advertising and not enough on search advertising and YouTube videos to promote its "Battlefield" video game. After cutting television's share from 80% to half and boosting spending on video and paid search, sales of the new version jumped by 23%. (E)

- Already 70% of big American firms employ a "chief marketing technologist", says Gartner. (E)

- Somali piracy (which, according to a recent World Bank report, may at its peak have cost the world up to $18 billion a year in extra shipping expenses and lost trade) (E)

- Between 1994 and 2012 the number of licensed motorcycles in Britain jumped by 70%. Cars increased by just 35% over the same period. They are popular for several reasons. Smaller engine capacities mean more miles per gallon at a time of high petrol prices. The vehicles are cheap, around £3,000 ($4,600) for a new one.

 A full motorcycle licence is not needed. Insurance is also cheaper. The bikes might replace a second car, says Steve Kenward of the MCIA, or they may be used by first-time motorists.The new popularity also points to a wider money-saving trend. In pinched times, motorbikes are valued more for their usefulness than their speedy glamour. Many of the riders on these mid-range models are commuters. (E)

- IN "SOAPLAND"—Sopurando, a Tokyo red-light district—the price of a basic half-hour "massage" has recently gone up for the first time since 1990. Demand for the top-end, "highly technical" massage service, costing ¥60,000 ($600) a go, has also been soaring, according to Akira Ikoma, editor of My Journey, which covers the sex industry. He says it is all thanks to the surging stockmarket. (E)

- Mr Abe (the Japanese Prime Minister) refers to his monetary, fiscal and growth strategies as his "three arrows". The reference, understood by all, is to an old legend from Yamaguchi, the southern part of Honshu and the region from which Mr Abe hails. The legend has it that a lord asked his three sons to snap an arrow, which each of them duly did. He then produced three more arrows and told the boys to snap all three at once. None of them could. One arrow, the father said, can easily be broken. Three arrows together, like a bundle of birch rods, cannot. It was an exhortation to work together for the good of the clan. (E)

- Mr Abe is a man who learned better. They say his years in the political wilderness transformed him. He educated himself, especially about economics. He resolved to avoid needless historical distractions. Residual displays of nationalism are just tokens of gratitude to old friends who held faith with him after his resignation. Economics trumps all now. (E)

- After two lost decades, the Japan's nominal GDP is the same as in 1991, while the Nikkei, even after the recent surge, is at barely a third of its peak. (E)

**

 How St Goran - a 'Model' hospital in Sweden works:

- St Goran's is now a temple to "lean management"—an idea that was pioneered by Toyota in the 1950s and has since spread from carmaking to services and from Japan to the rest of the world. Britta Wallgren, the hospital's chief executive, says she never heard the term "lean" when she was at medical school (she is an anaesthetist by training). Now she hears it all the time.

- The hospital today is organised on the twin lean principles of "flow" and "quality". Doctors and nurses used to keep a professional distance from each other. Now they work (and sit) together in teams. (Goran Ornung, a doctor, likens the teams to workers in Formula One pit stops.) In the old days people concentrated solely on their field of medical expertise. Now they are all responsible for suggesting operational improvements as well.

- One innovation involved buying a roll of yellow tape. Staff used to waste precious time looking for defibrillator machines and the like. Then someone suggested marking a spot on the floor with yellow tape and insisting that the machines were always kept there. Other ideas are equally low-tech. Teams use a series of magnetic dots to keep track of each patient's progress and which beds are free. They discharge patients throughout the day rather than in one batch, so that they can easily find a taxi.

St Goran's is the medical equivalent of a budget airline. There are four to six patients to a room. The decor is institutional. Everything is done to "maximise throughput". (E)

**

- The average return on equity for the world's 13 largest investment banks may fall to 6-9% by 2017. This is well below the cost of equity (E)

- Few firms are good at recognising their own flaws (which helps to explain why only one company from the original Dow Jones Industrial Average of 1896 is still on that list: General Electric). (E)

- Henry Ford was so allergic to evidence that America was falling out of love with the Model T that he dismissed sales statistics as fakes and fired an executive who warned him of disaster. (E)

- In "The Innovator's Dilemma", Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School argues that companies are often doomed not by their failures but by their triumphs. They may realise that the world is changing. But they are so good at doing what they have always done—making mainframe computers in IBM's case—that they make a hash of embracing the new.

- McKinseyites are said to be "vainies" (who come and lecture clients on the McKinsey way). BCG people are "brainies" (who spout academic theory). And the "Bainies" have a reputation for throwing bodies at delivering quick bottom-line results for clients. (E)

- It is fashionable to complain that consultants "steal your watch and then tell you the time", as one book put it. (E)

- About 85% of India's jobs are with "informal" enterprises—those organisations with fewer than ten staff which are not incorporated. Another 11% are casual jobs with formal companies. Only 16% of Indians say they get a regular wage. People with informal jobs are usually very poor. An official study of 2004-05 data concludes that 80% of informal workers got less than the then national minimum wage of $1.46 a day. (E)

- One shipping boss thinks logistics add 20% to the cost of making something in India, compared with 6-8% in China. (E)

- Dylan Grice at Edelweiss, a fund manager, notes that last year 12 of the 50 richest Americans listed by Forbes magazine were financiers, asset managers or investors. In 1982 not one person on the list worked in finance. (E)

- Of the millions of homes being financed (during the S&L crisis), a worrying proportion was bought by people who had no hope or intention of repaying their loans. (E)

****

Warren Buffet! Pointers (WSJ)

 - work as hard as possible to find someone who rejects your philosophy & proves you wrong.

 - when 2 intelligent people disagree (called thoughtful disagreement), it generates learning & momentum to move ahead..

 Specific to stock markets:

 - oldest but most ignored saying "don't confuse brains with a bull market"

 - biggest mistake in investing is the failure to distinguish something that's become more expensive vs. something that's still a good investment !! (WSJ)

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- Since it debuted in London 27 years ago "The Phantom of the Opera", a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, has grossed $5.6 billion worldwide, more than any film or television show (even More than Star Wars) !! (E)

 - Mathematicians had been wondering how many colours it would take to ensure that, no matter how complex a map, no adjacent countries would be the same colour. It took mega computers & years to find the answer = 4 colours (E)

 - The number of young people out of work globally is nearly as big as the population of the United States (E)

 - McDonald's is one of Britain's biggest trainers. It gets about 1m applicants a year, accepting only one in 15, and spends £40m ($61m) a year on training. The focus is on practicalities. A retired policeman conducts a fast-paced class on conflict management. He shows a video of a woman driven berserk by the fact that you cannot get chicken McNuggets at breakfast time. He asks the class if they have ever had a difficult customer, and every hand goes up. Students are then urged to share their advice. ("Serve drunks quickly…"). (E)

 The company professes to be unfazed by the fact that many alumni will end up working elsewhere. (E)

 - In the first quarter of 2013 Apple reported revenue of $43.6 billion: an 11% increase compared with the same period in 2012, and a figure that exceeds the combined sales of Google and Microsoft. (E)

 - Real life situation in the USA DMV (Our RTO) office - IN 2002 the columnist visited the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in Washington, DC, to renew his driving licence. The queue moved at a glacial pace. The staff alternated between hostile and indifferent. There were lengthy forms to fill in, six documents to produce, confusing instructions and, hanging over everything, the warning that any false answer is a crime. One man said he had sent his paperwork by fax only to be told that the DMV does not accept faxed documents. Then why do you provide a fax number, he asked? "We do it as a courtesy." (E)

 - TO MOST people, bumblebees are charming, slightly absurd creatures that blunder through garden and meadow with neither the steely determination of the honeybee nor the malevolent intention of the wasp. If you are a plant, though, things look rather different—for from the point of view of some flowering plants many bumblebees are nothing more than thieves. They rob them of their nectar and give nothing in return.By breaking in in this way, though, a bumblebee nullifies the 100m-year-old pact between flowering plants and insects: that the plant feeds the insect in exchange for the insect pollinating the plant. (E)

 - One of Rolls-Royce's stories is that three-quarters of the cars the company has ever produced are still on the road !! (E)

 - A POKER face. It is the expressionless gaze that gives nothing away. To win at poker, the face must be mastered, and master it is what the best players try their best to do. But a study just published in Psychological Science by Michael Slepian of Stanford University and his colleagues suggests that even people with the best poker faces give the game away. They do so, however, not with their heads but with their hands. (E)

March 2013:

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Eric Schmidt (Google Chairman) meeting in Delhi (Nasscom)

Notes on Eric Schmidt Nasscom meeting - Delhi - 20.3.2013

- Don't discount luck!!

- Get people smarter than u

- People underestimate the opportunity

- indian telecoms don't have enough capital :-))

- 40% of Silicon Valley Startups have indian founders!

- Laws in India should be changed. That's what indian govt should do

- mobile is the next big thing!!! BUILD APPS!!!!

- YouTube does well in India despite bad bandwidth !!

- whatever you do, try and expose your API so that others can build on it

- google has changed ad units to suit new behavior

- people are addicted to their phones

- Eric doesn't like software patents :-)))

- a software architect can make markets transparent - but protected markets like art don't want them!

- he learnt how to manage CASH

DNROOC = do not run out of cash :-)

- find people as co-founders who you can have non egotistical arguments with!

- Larry focuses on recruiting

- google acquires companies for talent!

- envy, greed, wealth drive market creation!

- great leaders can see what's gonna happen AND COMMUNICATE what they see

- entrepreneurs are BORN :-) difficult to train

- it's very tough to get a job at google...

- smart people respond to appeal!

- in business school, the mistake is to emphasize on money

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