7 Jan 2012

Your movie will return in 20 seconds!

I think this is pretty old news now but many of you might have seen this message on your TV.

"Movie will return in 20:00 seconds"

This is so brilliant!

Whoever came up with this idea must be rewarded by all the TV channels! It is earning them millions. 

When you see this message chances are that you will stop switching the channels and you will see all the ads for those 20 seconds. I am sure there are different rates for the ads for those 20 seconds. If not, hey I gave you this idea! :)

Sometimes small ideas like these make so much difference and they are so simple that they make us say "Ah! Why didn't I think of that?"

Three cheers for the inventor of this idea.

UPDATE:

After reading above post my colleague, who has worked in an analytics space, gave me an interesting intel on this topic.

In his own words:

As per the report this works better if countdown starts right after the break....Initially when they implemented countdown started after 5 mins of ad and people really got frustrated. Also, note that expensive and sponsor ad slots are near the countdown ends as people do take a break and go away from the channel till they reach final 20-30 seconds of countdown. So it's unfair for people giving ad in the middle of the break. While earlier it was the prime slot as people assumed that by this time movie would have started but it's not.!!!!..so that was frustrating for viewers and unfair for sponsors and that's why all channel started 2 mins break (by strict measure) to implement this idea. However, shifting of viewers is surely observed as we did analysis of viewership data collected right from the set-top boxes and people tend to come back when countdown comes near to completion.
2 Jan 2012

2012: Either it is a doomsday or a high class company

I recently came across a very interesting TED talk shared by a colleague.

Simon Sinek on How great leaders inspire action 

The gist of the talk is:

"People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it?"

It made me ask "Why?" to myself, for everything I do in life and especially it made me ask:

"Why am I running Digicorp?"

When we started, one goal was clear, we wanted to make a company which doesn't suck for developers. We wanted to be a good employer. We wanted to trust our employees to the fullest. So much that in earlier days a gaming session was compulsory after  lunch. We all played Need For Speed together on a network! It was fun.

Yup this sounds like a dream when you are small but trust me it is very hard when your team grows. 

Trusting that everyone will do their job in time with utmost sincerity is really hard. We became skeptical of our ideals. We created some weird HR policies which were not true to the "Good employer" goal.

This was the time when we were not enjoying our work. Fortunately it didn't last long. 

We came back to our senses and realized we can grow and yet enjoy what we do. We chucked off our boring HR policies and created a new one. Of course some basic rules are there but no "evil" types like you have to be in front of your computer before 9:30AM else forget about your half day salary!!

Again as I said, this is very hard. When you see somebody on Facebook 2-3 times a day, you will wonder if that person is actually working or enjoying on your salary!!

But there are 10 good people for one facebook addict like this. And trusting everyone to the fullest is the only solution to this problem. We try very hard to treat all our employees like adults.

So the first goal is:

"Treat your employees as adults and trust them to the fullest"

Second goal is:

"Get rid of mediocrity and make software simple"

We are not here to make mediocre software. There are lots of mediocre software companies around us but I don't want Digicorp to be one of them.

We believe software can be simple and yet high class. This belief was not there when we started. I would say, we were not mature enough then. But as we came across more and more influential people ranging from Steve Jobs to Jason Fried, our belief got stronger. 

Yes, not everything we make for our clients is simple and high class. Sometimes things are not in your hands but yes we want to keep it simple as far as we can. Not all clients know what they are building, it is our job to tell them what is right and how it should be?

This thought is slowly getting ingrained in my brain. 

As soon as I see a website or a software which does not make sense in first 30 seconds, I start finding what we can change there. I have to train my team for the same now and this is my new year's resolution.

Some of them are already getting it but not everyone. My job is to make them understand. 

Digicorp is here to make simple and high class software. If our clients don't understand, make them understand. 
  • Make them understand, why making another Facebook is not a good idea. 
  • Make them understand, you don't need gazillion features in version 1.
  • Make them understand, you just can't build a cool web-based app and sit tight hoping it will become successful overnight! Building the app is only the first step. There is a long way to go from there.
If I achieve above two goals, I guess I will be on my way to achieve following

"People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it?

- Because lot of people believe that software can be simple and yet high class and I am sure I will attract them. They are perfect clients for me. 

- And lot of good software developers will be attracted to Digicorp because of the culture we have created. They will be a perfect fit if they believe in what we are doing! 

So 2012, here I come. Either it is a doomsday or this, whichever comes sooner!

This is my new year's resolution, what's yours?
31 Dec 2011

Steve Jobs street art

I know it's a terrible painting but having Steve Jobs on the walls of Ahmedabad is something in itself.

Photo

Sent from my iPhone

7 Dec 2011

Indian Programmers: Let's prove this guy wrong

I came across a very interesting article few days back. It talks about why the author who is a US based programmer is not afraid of Indian programmers.

I don't agree with him over all but he does have couple of points worth mentioning.

1) "Sure they’re only being charged $14/hour for that work, but I think the Indian firm is, as the saying goes, making up for it in volume.  And that’s to say nothing of the time our heroes have spent proctoring the whole process: in his words, they’ve got to be constantly super explicit in their instructions, or it comes back wrong–then then have to spend more hours getting it fixed..."

Since I started my career as a programmer and I am an Indian working with Indian programmers for more than 7 years now, I can have my say here.

I have seen lot of projects going over board like this including some in my company. Most of the time there are more than one issues causing that but yes sometimes not asking the right questions is a root cause. 

You have to see the whole problem from client's perspective. You can't depend on explicit instructions all the time. Start a project for client as if it is your own. 

Read books, blogs, use twitter, pariticipate in stackoverflow, have broader perspective of the world. Be a complete programmer.

2) "...and text like “Link will be sent to your mail for to update your Password.” sprinkled throughout public facing parts of the website, which just doesn’t give your customers the best impression of you and your business."

I fully agree with the above. We are simply bad in copywriting. We don't care what our users are going to read when they are using our application. 

Our applications might have a solid back end programming but it will look like a crappy software because of bad copywriting and design. It simply shows how much you care for your users. This is simply not acceptable. 

I am proud to say in my company we don't play the volume game as explained in point 1. As a matter of fact, we have finished projects earlier than the estimation given at the start. But we do have issues mentioned in point 2 sometimes. I am working on that and it is improving.

So if you are an Indian programmer, you have to read following article and further discussion on Hacker News.

He is partially wrong today, let's prove him completely wrong now. 

10 Nov 2011

What we can learn from Dan Lewis' "Now I Know" Newsletter

Dan Lewis runs a successful newsletter called "Now I Know". I came across it from this article on avc.com.

This newsletter is one of the very few I have subscribed and I must say it is pretty cool.

Dan is doing an amazing job and we can learn a lot from the way he is running it.

Let's see what he is doing right: 
  • He comes up with interesting things to share always. Without doubt this is the most important part. I am sure he is spending a lot of time finding the right things to share with his audience.
  • He writes it really really well. He almost always tells a story which is worth reading and grabs your attention instantly. 
  • He has a small little note section on top using which he communicates with his audience. I like it a lot and I think it is novel way to speak to your audience.
  • He encourages subscribers to reply his newsletter email and I am sure he replies all of them back. So it is very easy to say something to Dan.
  • He does not send newsletters on weekends. This way he keeps himself free and does not create unnecessary expectations from his readers.
  • He does take occasional breaks on public holidays which he conveys well in advance. Once again not creating expectations from his readers to deliver on holidays.
  • He introduced "From the archives" section recently and that makes subscribers visit his old articles, which otherwise were unnoticed. So now he makes money from those articles as well. 
  • He earns money mainly via Amazon Affiliate program and I am sure he does take time to find out good products related to the topic he is sharing. Though I am not sure how many are actually buying those stuff.

Recently he has redesigned the newsletter and have added lot of banners. I am not sure how many subscribers are actually clicking them. I feel our eyes are trained enough now to ignore the banners. There is a room for improvement over there. I may be completely wrong here though. It would be nice if Dan shares some statistics about it.

At the end I would like to say, if you are not a subscriber of Dan Lewis' "Now I Know" newsletter, you are missing a lot. 

21 Oct 2011

Do you know Photoshop?

A recent article written by Mahesh Murthy has become one of my favorite articles because following lines struck me and they struck me hard.

This was brought home to me some time ago when one of the managers at a company I’d invested in—a bloke who studied at an IIT and worked at one of these IT giants—hired some graphic designers for his team whose work turned out to be ugly crap. After repeated client rejections of work we dived into the matter and I happened to ask the question “So what criteria did you use to hire these people?” And the answer came back “proficiency in Photoshop”. To clarify further, I asked “And if you need to hire writers, would you use the criteria of ‘proficiency in Microsoft Word’”? He hesitated for a moment and then it struck me—the truth was probably yes, he would.

He is talking about why we don't have great products coming out of Indian IT companies. He is talking about the society and cultural aspect overall.

It got me thinking on what do I do while hiring?

Yes, the truth is, I will also ask "Do you know Photoshop?" while hiring a designer.

I have become a narrow minded person like that IIT guy in hiring. Because I am running an IT service company, I have very few options. I have to get people start earning as soon as they are hired. I can't train them in tools. But it is hurting me and the people I hire one way or the other. 

I agree with Mahesh that things are slowly changing but it still might take a while. 

Please do yourself a favor and read the full article.

If you are a designer or a programmer, the question to ask yourself is:

"Do you understand design?" or "You know Photoshop?"

"Do you know programming?" or "You know Visual Studio / Eclipse / .NET / PHP / Java?"

21 Oct 2011

Indian Internet Era?

I am amazed by the number of .com commercials on TV. All of them are in buying and selling things online.

Some of the commercials I see are of

I am just wondering, is this the start of Internet Era in India or an upcoming bust?

I am sure flipkart.com is here to stay but not sure about others.

Remember similar trend happend few years back with all the VC money pouring in to real estate portals such as 99acres.com etc. Where are all those portals right now?

It seems VCs are interested in buying and selling things online now.

What do you think?
13 Oct 2011

Are you living someone else's life?

The demise of Steve Jobs was kind of a shocker for me. He was too precious human being to die this soon. 

But it made me ask this question to myself.

"Am I living someone else's life?"

Because if I am, it is too sad as life is short and unpredictable and you get only one shot at it.

If you don't know what I am talking about, you need to watch this video:

For those of you, who have watched it, you should watch it again, for Steve's sake.

Well in my case I am sure living my life the way I wanted to. 

I have a wonderful family, wife and two lovely kids.

I am running an enviable company with 3 of my best friends. People working for Digicorp are amazing.   

Well I am always short of money but I guess that's ok. I am sure I will have enough one day!

Yeah, I have great brothers-in-law too! I play cricket every Saturday / Sunday evening and a match on Sunday Morning!

These all makes my life complete and worth living. I am glad I am not living someone else's life. 

Are you living someone else's life?
4 Oct 2011

Options

I am reading Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman to improve my business skills (hopefully!). 

I am liking the book so far because for the first time in my life I understood what is the "Option"! Well at least conceptually.

The simplest example for understanding option is a "Movie Ticket".

Yes, "Movie ticket is an option!"

So when you buy a movie ticket, you reserve your place in the cinema hall. Now no one else can buy that place now. But that does not mean you have to go watch a movie. If some better opportunity comes up such as having dinner with Warren Buffett, you still have an "option" to skip the movie! 

I still have to relate this simple example to the real one in the world of finance but I guess I will make it this time.

Read more about option here:

30 Sep 2011

Is Facebook Bigger Than I Thought?

I was losing interest in using Facebook. I really thought Facebook is going to disappear very soon and will be replaced by smaller but niche social networks eventually.

But one interesting observation in my recent trip to Orlando made me think about Facebook all over again.

The hotel I was in Orlando had a computer in the reception area. It was open for all guests for browsing Internet.

Now whenever I was passing through reception, I observed what people were browsing. Almost every time I saw Facebook! Not Google+ nor Twitter nor Gmail nor Yahoo, only and only 
Facebook. 

I myself almost never used Twitter during the trip. I checked Emails, Techmeme and Facebook!


That made me wonder is Facebook bigger than I think?

Based on the recent changes they are doing to the profile and hearing about Project Spartan I must say I am now more positive for Facebook than ever. 

What do you think? How much time do you spend on Facebook in a week? Do you think Facebook is going to stay here for long?
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