Brand Value

In the all-hands meeting, there was a discussion on how to develop the brand value of a company in India. My thoughts on it:

When I joined my first company in 2000, I did not have an idea about the professional world. I knew all the tid-bits like C, Networking, OS fundamentals and stuff you can think off, but I did not know how to apply it. I still remember the first assignment I was given in Wipro was to find out the changes in code that would be required if we make a variable from 16 bit to 32 bit. I spent days to figure that out, but the days I spent figuring that out, I had mentors beside me who spent minutes everyday to help me figure that out. Those minutes were PRECIOUS for them on that day and for me today. But the reason they had those minutes for me was that Wipro culture was built that way. You help young people out and mentor them towards the right path. It was what I wanted as a fresher and it was what they gave me. That was the BRAND VALUE any fresher willing to learn should be looking out for.

When I joined my current company in 2002, I wanted to break the boundaries I had started to feel in my first company. My first company, being a big company, had a little buerocratic culture built in. Moreover, being a services company, it had the dis-advantages of not focusing on innovation and products. I had always wanted to get the system perspective and see products taking shape. It was something that would have been difficult to materialize there, and so I came to my current company. A small company focused on product development was the BRAND VALUE a two year experience guy was looking at.

When I had five years experience, I suddenly started thinking about my long term goals. A great amount of debate focused on what I wanted to be – An architect or a manager. A parallel ladder (with equal opportunities to grow in both ladders) was the BRAND VALUE a five year experience guy was looking at.

When I will have eight years experience, I think forming a world class team would be my prime goal. A team which works like a team, is devoid of politics, is ready to be there for others, does not think about boundaries (definitely not the yeh tera kaam tha kinds). A company which gives me the liberty to do this is the BRAND VALUE I would be looking at.

Beyond that, I think its too early to talk. But if we come back to the topic of the debate, I think a single company can very well provide the BRAND VALUES which people look for at different point of their careers. Mentoring the freshers was something that was missing in my current organization till now. I would not have recommended it to a fresher when I joined here in 2002, but with the effort being spent on the topic (freshers training) over the last year, it is one of the better companies to be at this moment of time. It is a product company and if you are the kind of person who wants to learn everything, it is encouraged here. With the All-Hands, I think there would (should) be focus on getting equality between the two ladders. It is certainly the BRAND VALUE all techies want in their company and I hope we get it in my current organization.

Quote: Iski smile meri smile se badi kaisi

Question: Who in the below picture is saying this to whom?
Is it Didi to bhabhi or bhabhi to Didi?

Kitne Mahine / Saal

Thats me when I was around 2 years old. There is a custom in our family to cut the new borns hair only after the second Dusshera (Yup, I came to know about it couple of days back). I was born on 7th November and the family custom gave my hair two years security before anyone could touch them.

Now coming to the heading of the blog: Kitne Mahine / Saal. I came upon this whacky thought of re-doing the past once again. Earlier, the family custom made me look like that and 27 years down, I would like to do it for my pleasure. But, I have absolutely no idea on how much time it would take to do it. Following are the estimates I got till now:

Papa: 4 months
Saurabh: 6 months
Mine: 5 months (Chose the average till now, thats called BEING SMART)

Get the brains working overtime and tell me how much time you think it would take to get there!

The final plan is to TAKE A SNAP when I reach there in the same pose as above, thats what I call a perfect PLAN :)

Category: Personality

Birthday Card from Mamu on my 9th birthday

This is not FAIR

http://search.blogger.com is not returning proper results. I might be jumping the gun (maybe I might be missing something), but the search I have been doing for the past 10 minutes has led me to shoot the gun.

For ex.

Typing VaibhavMadan in http://search.blogger.com results all the posts I have made till date, which is FAIR.

BUT

Typing VaibhavMadan Category in http://search.blogger.com does not return all the posts which have those two keywords in them, which should be almost the same result as the previous one because I have added the Category Keyword to all my blogs just now.

I DO NOT LIKE THIS because this is NOT FAIR :(

Google guys, help me out on this one!

Category: Official

My 50th BLOG

This one happens to be my 50th Blog.

Three cheers for it

Hip Hip Hurray
Hip Hip Hurray
Hip Hip Hurray

15th November: My first Blog

50 blogs in around 85 days

This means that there haven't been lots of writing and some of them even have been the Happy Republic Day, Movie review kinds (have nothing special about them but are just blog fillers :))

There are still lots of experiences everyday that I miss everyday to write, intentionally skip to write. Some of them have been written but are not in a position to be posted and are still in draft stage.

The next step is to try and group the blogs into some categories that can be linked together logically. For ex.

1. Entertainment
2. Wishes
3. Philosophy
4. Official
5. Personality
6. Creativity
7. Sports
8. Humour

The reason I am trying to do this is that this will enable me / others to do the following:

1. Go to http://search.blogger.com/
2. Type "vaibhavmadan Humour"
3. Voila. The results will show me the things I have been writing in those categories.
4. You may call it Getting Organized or The Curses Of Being An Engineer
   
5. Depending on the mood you are in the day, you can get the blogs from the corresponding category
6. Maybe it will help you in getting cheered up, take quizzes on your personality, check out how creative I am.

Category: Creativity

The reason why I am putting this blog under the Creativity category is that I think the idea of organizing the blogs in different categories is itself creative :)

Purse, Papers, Handkerchief, Keys, Mobile, Watch

Guess what! Very soon, coming only on Shahji De Puttar Da Blog

Fundooooo attempt to raise the hits of my blog site :) Atlease, Shahjis khaandaan would hit the blog sometimes in the coming weeks and anyways they are the only members who know of this site right now.

CHANGE

Some famous Churchill quotes on change:

• To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
• There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction.
  

My small efforts on changing myself. Must admit that even these two small changes in my habits took me around a month to break (almost consistently). I do not think it was important on what I tried to change in myself, but the involved process was much more interesting. For ex. I managed to get the G-Mail change done by writing this note on G-Mail. I think my memory is related to my writing skills :). I managed to get the second change done by placing the Deodrant just next to the mirror in front of which I comb everyday. Now combing is one thing which I do not think I will forget every morning till the time I become a ganja / hippi (which I bet isn't going to happen soon) and by that time the habit would be inculcated in me.

a) Atlast I have managed to get used to the "Two Tick Delete" interface provided by G-Mail with consistency. Now the annoyance feeling is gone.
b) Put lots of Deodrant in the morning. For a person used to take baths on every Holi and Diwali, Deodrant is a gift sent straight from the GOD.

Category: Personality

Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Color Coding:

Red: Truth
Bold Red: How can they be so true?
Green: False

Always in control, you are a great leader, deligator, and diplomat. These qualities attract people to you, and this sometimes annoys you.

Aloof, introspective, and philosophical; you enjoy quiet time in solitude.

Take the Star Trek Quiz

Category: Personality

Statistics of my site for the past week

Nothing much to go hu hullah on, as most of the clicks I am sure would be mine :)

Blah Blah and more of it

                     (s22vaibhav)                     

                 -- Site Summary ---                  
       Visits

         Total ............................ 8         
         Average per Day .................. 4         
         Average Visit Length .......... 2:16         
         This Week ........................ 8         

       Page Views

         Total ........................... 16         
         Average per Day .................. 8         
         Average per Visit .............. 2.0         
         This Week ....................... 16         

 http://s22.sitemeter.com/stats.asp?site=s22vaibhav   


               --- Visits this Week ---               
    Day
Hour  1/28   1/29   1/30   1/31    2/1    2/2    2/3   Total
---- ----- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------
1       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
2       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
3       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
4       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
5       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
6       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
7       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
8       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
9       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
10       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
11       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
12       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
13       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
14       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
15       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
16       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
17       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
18       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
19       0      0      0      0      0      0      3       3
20       0      0      0      0      0      0      3       3
21       0      0      0      0      0      0      1       1
22       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
23       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
24       0      0      0      0      0      0      1       1
 ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------
      0      0      0      0      0      0      8       8


             --- Page Views this Week ---             
    Day
Hour  1/28   1/29   1/30   1/31    2/1    2/2    2/3   Total
---- ----- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------
1       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
2       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
3       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
4       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
5       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
6       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
7       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
8       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
9       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
10       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
11       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
12       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
13       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
14       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
15       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
16       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
17       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
18       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
19       0      0      0      0      0      0      4       4
20       0      0      0      0      0      0      7       7
21       0      0      0      0      0      0      1       1
22       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
23       0      0      0      0      0      0      0       0
24       0      0      0      0      0      0      4       4
 ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------
      0      0      0      0      0      0     16      16

Category: Official

Self Analysis of my life based on the feedback I received:

Life:

Satisfied: Yes, I am with the occasional dips
Successful: Yes, but there is a long way to go.
Balanced: Yes, I am but then there are occassions....
Capable: Sky is the limit
Valuable: Immensely, to all people whom I love
Happy: Definition keeps on changing

Mind:

Absolutely True. I agree to every word of it.

Body:

True.

Spirit:

I am all confused on this one.

Friends / Family:

Family - Absolutely absurd. I am lucky to have so many loving people around me in my family. Friends - Somewhat true. I am very choosy in selecting my best friends, but once I select them, they ARE THE BEST.

Finance:

The comment "You have a rather good financial score, which is not all that common these days" is somewhat wrong. WELCOME TO THE NEW AND EMERGING INDIA.

Category: Philosophy, Personality

This was a third person analysis of my life based on the feedback I provided.

Your Life Analysis:

Life: Your life rating is a score of the sum total of your life, and accounts for how satisfied, successful, balanced, capable, valuable, and happy you are. The quiz attempts to put a number on the summation of all of these things, based on your answers. Your life score is reasonably high. This means that you are on a good path. Continue doing what is working and set about to improve in areas which continue to lag. Do this starting today and you will begin to reap the benefits immediately. (Read more on improving your life)

Mind: Your mind rating is a score of your mind's clarity, ability, and health. Higher scores indicate an advancement in knowledge, clear and capable thinking, high mental health, and pure thought free of interference. Your mind score is not bad, but could be improved upon. Your mental health is not weak, but you are not achieving full mental clarity and function. Learn how to unclutter your mind. Keep learning, keep improving, continue moving forward. Read advice from other quiz-takers on improving the mind.

Body: Your body rating measures your body's health, fitness, and general wellness. A healthy body contributes to a happy life, however many of us are lacking in this area. You have a rather good body score, which is an indication that you take care of yourself. There is room for improvement, however. Please keep doing what works. Eat right, exercise, reduce your stress, treat any illness. Doing these things will help ensure your body will be in good working order for a long time to come. Read advice from other quiz-takers on improving the body.

Spirit: Your spirit rating seeks to capture in a number that elusive quality which is found in your faith, your attitude, and your philosophy on life. A higher score indicates a greater sense of inner peace and balance. Your spirit score leaves room for improvement. Consider making a concerted effort to redefine your attitudes and focus your beliefs. Boosting your spirit will lead to greater life satisfaction. Read advice from other quiz-takers on improving the spirit.

Friends/Family: Your friends and family rating measures your relationships with those around you, and is based on how large, healthy, and dependable your social network is. Your friends and family score suffers, yet it does not need to be this way. Strengthen your social network by reaffirming old bonds. Seek out new friendships, and they will provide you the reward you need. Try using MeetUp.com to find people near you who share your interests.

Love: Your love rating is a measure of your current romantic situation. Sharing your heart with another person is one of life's most glorious, terrifying, rewarding experiences. Your love score is in good shape, meaning that things are going well. Do all you can to maintain it, and continue to grow and move ahead. Read advice from other quiz-takers on finding and maintaining love.

Finance: Your finance rating is a score that rates your current financial health and stability. You have a rather good financial score, which is not all that common these days. Keep doing what works. Avoid common pitfalls and save for the future. You will be glad you did. Read advice from other quiz-takers on improving your finances.

Category: Philosophy, Personality

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	7.1
Mind:	6.2
Body:	8.2
Spirit:	6.3
Friends/Family:	3.2
Love:	6.9
Finance:	7.7
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

Whats new?

For the past month, I had visited blog of lots of people. Many of them had statistics on how many people have visited them over the past, how much time they spent on the site and usual mathematics. Statistics and numbers have somehow always fascinated me, as I believe that they represent a sign of progress. For ex. The amount of pay hike I get during a year is an indicator of my performance. The willingness to add the site meter to my blogsite had been at the back of my mind for quite some time. I decided to implement it. Following are the steps to do it:

a) Go to Sitemeter
b) Follow the instructions given on the site. They are more or less complete in information. You need to have the blogsite to add to the sitemeter.
c) The "Your Current Time" on one the sign up pages was disappointing, as it is at a granularity of 1 hour. My statisitics would now be shifted by half an hour, not that it makes a huge difference, but it was a thing which you will note very easily.
d) After having done all the usual stuff, you need to confirm that the information you have entered is correct.
e) After having accepted that "Jo kuch bhi likhunga, sab sach likhunga aur sach ke siva kuch nahin likhunga", it is time to add the Site Meter to your website.
f) Select "Add html for your counter to your web pages" in one of the followup pages after you have signed up. This will help you to add the SiteMeter to your blog site and you are through.

HAPPY MARRIAGE ANNIVERSARY TO
MAMA AND PAPA
1st February, 2006

Category: Wishes

How do I go about paying my ICICI Prudential life insurance premium the second time around?

The first step involves getting the Customer Care number of the ICICI Prudential people. This would be available commonly across any website or on the policy that you would have received when you would have taken the policy the first time.

Call the customer care centre. It would be better if you have your policy number with you when you place the call.

There are normally lots of options available when you dial into the customer care centre of any customer oriented company. It is very important to listen to the multitude of available options, otherwise it becomes a Jantar Mantar riddle. I normally prefer to go in for "Press to speak to the customer care executive" if such an option exists. It is much easier to deal with humans than with machines. If the company prefers the other way round i.e. if they want you to deal with machines, then I need to stretch the muscles of my brain. Being an engineer helps me in doing that and I do not mind doing that once a while during the year.

Coming back to the topic, the customer care executive told me the way to go about it.

Executive: Sir, will you pay by cash or cheque?

Me: Cheque

Executive: You need to prepare the cheque in favour of "ICICI Prulife Policy No. " and behind the cheque you need to write the Policy Holders FullName and Contact number.

Me: Where do I need to drop the cheque?

Executive: Where are you calling from - Delhi?

Me: No, I am calling from Noida.

Executive: You can go to "Plot No. 3, Fifth Floor, Brahma Dutt Tower, Sector 18 - 201301" The office is open from 9.30 a.m. till 5.30 p.m. on working days and 10 a.m. till 1.00 p.m. on Saturday.

Me: Thats cool.

Executive: Anything else I can do to help you out sir.

Me: Yes. I also need access to my internet account. I do not remember receiving it.

Executive: Please go to www.iciciprulife.com. There is a link to "Forgot Username / Password" at the top right corner. Press the link. It will take you to a form where you need to fill in the policy number, policy holders name and E-Mail id. The account name and password will be E-Mailed to you.

Me: Thats even cooler.

Executive: Anything else sir.

Me: Thats it.

So, it was short, sweet and simple. Let us see if it works as explained to me.

Category: Official

How do you tell a person you are not interested in the offer?

Background: An AVIVA Life Insurance agent visits me in the office and wants to sell an offer from Aviva. He is one of the countless agents who suddenly become active (or rather hyper-active) at this time of the year as the financial year closes. He explains me the PROS of the scheme (There are absolutely NO CONS in this scheme SIR. I did not think I look like a moron by face value ;)) Anyways, after the PROS without any CONS were over, I told him I will get back to him. I received around 3 calls (within a 2 week duration) from him reminding me that the date of 8th Feb (the time by which we need to give the investment proofs to the Finance Department) was fast approaching and I needed to take a decision (thats what I call social service). Even after having read lots of articles on "How to say NO?", the brainy part in me told me that "I will get back to you" would be sufficient in sending the message across to the agent that I am not interested.

Finally the climax

Transcript between a person trying to sell Aviva Life Insurance and me (30th January, 2006)

Note: All the comments within the () are the thoughts of my brain.

Agent: Hello Sir, I am Mr Agent calling from Aviva

Me: Hi, How are you?

Agent: Fine, Sir. Sir, I wanted to remind you about our talk. You said that you would be taking a decision. (Oops, I did not say that buddy. I said that when I take a decision (which may be never in this case), I will get back to you)

Me: I haven't decided yet.

Agent: Can I do anything to help you out? (Wow, the social service has begun.)

Me: Not really. (I am a trained anti-social element who accepts help only when requested for :))

Agent: Maybe we can talk about some other plan.

Me: Not now, maybe if I need to, I will get back to you.

Agent: Sir, please be assured that I am not trying to sell Aviva to you.

Me: Yes, I understand. (Do I? That was not TRUE, unless he agrees that he is really doing social service, in which case I would really appreciate his wastage of time on a moron like me)

Agent: 8th Feb is the last date. I need a week to get the proofs, so that you can show it to your Finance Department (Now, IS HE or IS HE NOT selling Aviva?)

Me: Thats True, but actually my investment of 1,00,000 is almost over. I have taken a House Loan and the principal part is added to 1,00,000. (Time to speak the truth.)

Agent: Sir, maybe we can meet tomorrow.

Me: I will get back to you. I have your phone number.

Agent: Sir, do you want to take the insurance? (Atlast, he has set the gun in the right direction)

Me: No (I could not get more blunt than that. Sighhhhh)

Agent: That was what I wanted to hear, so that I do not disturb you any more. (It is the time to fire the bullets. Am I supposed to be grateful now?)

Me: Okie, so now that you have managed to test my "How to say NO?" skills, I really appreciate if you do not disturb me any more.

Agent: Bye, bye (If the phone lines could be used as a mode to carry heat waves, then the BYE would have been sufficient for me to cook a cup of tea :))

Me: Bye (Maybe, this one BYE would cook his cup of tea also :). What do they call it - Tit for Tat?)

Of course, this is only my part of the story. If the agent has his own blog, he would be equally bewildered by my attitude and he would be writing his version somewhere. Anyways, this brings back me to the question:

"How do you tell a person that you are not interested in the offer?"

Anyone with any interested tricks to do that can E-Mail me at

vaibhav.madan@gmail.com

Category: Creativity

Lyrics of Rubaroo from Rang De Basanti

Ae Saala, Abhi Abhi, Hua Yakeen
Ki Aag hai, mujhme kahin
Hui Subah, main jal gaya
Suraj ko main nigal gaya
Rubaroo, roshni
Rubaroo, roshni hai

Rang De Basanti

*ing: Aamir Khan, Siddharth, Kunal Kapoor, Madhavan, Atul Kulkarni, Sharman Joshi, Soha Ali Khan

Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

Music: A.R.Rehman

Hall: DT Mega Mall in Gurgaon

Date: 26th January



Category: Entertainment

Is changing the User Interface of your E-Mail website a good idea?

For all the early users of GMail, they will remember that to delete an E-Mail, there was a "Move to trash" link in the "More Actions" drop down list. Thus the process to delete the E-Mail consisted of three ticks:

• First tick on checking the box of the E-Mail that you want to delete
  
• Second tick on the "More Actions" tab
• Third tick on the "Move to trash" option

For people who got used to it (and those people includes me), it is quite annoying when I have to delete an E-Mail now considering the fact that the option has been removed from the drop down list. Now, instead a TAB for Delete has been added to the left of the "More Actions" tab. Though if I were a new user of GMail, I would have appreciated this considering that it just takes two clicks to delete the E-Mail.

But, unfortunately, I also suffer from the age-old problem of "Old habits die hard". Instead of getting used to deleting E-Mail through a single click, it now takes me three clicks and a feeling of annoyance to delete the E-Mail. Thus the process to delete the E-Mail with the changed User Interface has now become:

• First tick on checking the box of the E-Mail that you want to delete
• Second tick on the "More Actions" tab
• A fraction of a second feeling of annoyance that I once again FORGOT that the Interface has changed
• Third tick on the "Delete" tab

Maybe after writing this particular piece, my instincts would tell me not to hate myself for forgetting that Google has changed the experience of the user and customize my actions to the two-click offer that G-Mail has provided.