What they don’t teach you at Engineering College ? : Part II

Continued from my previous post….

Art of Marketing:

Oh no, don’t raise your eyebrows !! I know, marketing is not a technical subject. I’m not talking about teaching full fledge economics or stock market thesis or something. What I mean by “marketing” is, how to market your talent, your product, your know-how, yourself? This idea may not seem obvious at first sight, and you might wonder that this is asking too much , from the course . But seriously, if you look at this skill from practical point of view, marketing oneself, does not come naturally to all of us. I know so many talented people languishing in anonymity. Grad students should be taught specific people skills to enhance their marketing capability. A course on this subject will complement the “Communication Skills” subject in the current curriculum.

Consider this, if you have an idea, and this one idea could really revolutionize the project/product/whatever-that-you-are-working on. But what if, you couldn’t convince others(read: your supervisors, your peers), make them see your vision? What if…… you already have a kick-ass product, but nobody knows about it ? Just because you couldn’t market it well. A friend of mine once told me ” Those who shout the loudest, get heard”. The art of marketing, will give us that voice to shout the loudest, to tell the world that we’ve something worthwhile to say, something worthwhile to contribute. So,honing the marketing skills at graduate level, will definitely be beneficial to the students passing out.

These are the few values, that I’d like the engineering course should inculcate in students. If you ask yourself, how much impact does the current course have on our professional life ? Little..maybe very little. I’ve forgotten almost 60% of what I learnt in engineering. Why ?? Because most of the curriculum was outdated, irrelevant, not enough to equip us to face practical problems. The students (ideally) should be primed with knowledge which matters the most, which’ll help them adapt to real life challenges easily. I’m also aware that it’s easier said than done. And at this point, the only option left to an engineering student is to proactively instil these skills to empower themselves for the real job in the real world.

What they don’t teach you at Engineering College ? : Part I

image source: Chema Madoz

It’s been almost 3 years since I’ve completed engineering. I hold a graduate degree in Computer Science. To be frank, I didn’t learn half the things at college that I practice today in my professional life. As a matter of fact, I had to un-learn many skills that I picked up during my engineering course. Real life work is so much different, than the petty assignments that we laboured on, at graduate level. I have few things to share to ameliorate the college education and to prepare students for the real world.

No Bulleted Presentations :

Presentations during those care-free engineering days was something we ought do as part of our assignment. We used to create a presentation using powerpoint with lots of bullet points, loads of information on the slides, gaudy pics in the background to grab attention. The final outcome was one painful journey for the listeners, who, most of the times were bored to death by the presentation.
But, in real world, presentation is all about communicating your idea, your views to your audience. And take it from me, presentations are taken very seriously by professionals. The art of presentation involves understanding your target audience, preparing slides with great visuals(which must fit the context) with minimal text, large fonts and most importantly: no bullet points. At college, nobody taught us that when you give a presentation, what matters most is, what you say and how you say it. The slides are required to support your talk, and not to talk for you. So, don’t cram your slides with information that you’d otherwise dispense verbally.

One of the best examples of disciplined presentors is: Steve Jobs. He engages his audience till the end without ever losing tempo. He builds up to the conclusion so effectively that you end up buying his idea, no matter how wild it is. His slides are simple, elegent yet powerful in its message and content.

Correct presentation skills should be infused into students, so that they’re ready to present, when they come out of grad school.

( Requirements) Change is Constant:

Requirements specification document handed to a developer, at the beginning of a project is the biggest illusion ever. In my 3 years of software engineering practice, I’ve come to terms with one bitter truth : Requirements always change. This fact is conveniently hidden from students at college level, which I think is not fair. They study software engineering concepts with blissful ignorance of one fact that can have huge impact on how they should design their systems. They must be taught to design systems which can handle the vicissitudes of spec change. Training them with skills to deftly handles changes in the spec will enable them to deliver a product of very high quality.

Design Matters:

Look around you, the hottest selling product is also the most elegant, most gorgeous looking product. iPod, iMac, Merc, BMW, Ducati, Google apps etc. People are ready to shell out more money, if they think it’s worth it. Great design is the soul of all great products( s/w or otherwise). But, I’ve never seen a single chapter in my college course extolling the virtues of Design. This must change. Concepts of good design, and ideas about how to base one’s work centred around design excellence, should be hammerred into a students psyche. This will empower him to create killer-apps or products, which’ll change the world.

To be continued…..

How to manage a Programmer ??

How does one come up with an answer to this quandary ? To compose a definitive answer, let me elaborate the question first. I’m a full time computer programmer(part-time blogger) working for one of the best IT companies in India. I am generally happy with my job, but sometimes, I dislike the way my company treats me. I feel, they don’t see any difference between a sales-executive job profile and my profile. My question above can be translated as: How should an IT company effectively manage an IT professional, to get the most out of him ?

Why :

If you are wondering, why should we even bother ourselves with such a ludicrous question? Let me convince you otherwise. From my personal (and my fellow programmers) experience, I can see a doleful trend emerging in the behaviour of a typical IT organisation towards its knowledge workers. I am not targeting the current work culture, rather I’m trying to point out the prevalant fallacy in managing Computer Programmers. Coz a dissatisfied, frustrated programmer leads to a equally dispirited product with millions of bugs. There’s more to management of Computer Programmers than maintaining excel sheets and offering free Pizzas for staying back late.

Assumptions:

I have taken the liberty of presuming a Computer Programmer as a creative individual with a knack for solving problems. He’s a nerd, who gets excited everytime he sees his program execute successfully, and frustrated when it doesn’t. He is passionate about programming and spends(or would like to spend) most of his waking hours in front of his computer.

Here’s a guideline/tip to successfully manage a Programmer:

Entertain Geek Fashion:

A typical geek hates to wear formals. He feels suffocated, when he wears a tie. And a properly tucked-in shirt with striped/plain pants…Yuck. Geeks are more comfortable with informal-laid-back clothes like jeans, round neck T-shirts, unkempt-hair. This doesn’t mean, they’re trying to act rebellious or smart or something. The reason for their affinity of such attire is simple.They consider their profession as an art and want to be as comfortable as possible while crafting their code. If you give them the freedom to wear anything they like, to work, they’d really appreciate this gesture and might reciprocate by working harder for the project.

Give them Space:

This might not be as intuitive as the above tip, but it literally means “Don’t micro-manage them”. Don’t pester them by soliciting minute to minute update on the project. Don’t squander their time, by holding status meeting everyday (One status meeting in a week should suffice). Geeks absolutely detest micro-management. They just want you to give them the requirement spec, and they’ll get back to you with tentative deadline. Negotiate the deadline, if you can. But don’t bother them any further, trust them to complete it within the agreed deadline.

Blend Work with Play:

Google does this best. If you’ve seen pictures of Google offices around the world, you’d know what I mean. Google employees have a ball at work. They get free food, free massage, free hair-cut, they can play pool, tabble soccer etc , bring their pets along at work. So, Google gives its employees enough reasons to stay within it’s colorful office walls(Here’s GooglePlex in action). I’m not coercing you to go that far, but you can try to imbibe some elements of “Make Work Fun” philosophy in your current work culture.

Do not restrict their internet access too much. Blocking porn is reasonable, but blocking anything else is blasphemy. A quintessential geek likes to play games on-line, visit forums, solve Sudoku(or some puzzle), read tech-news. If you think, by restricting the internet access, you’d avoid wasting the programmers productivity, then you’re gravely mistaken. Give them freedom of choice, trust their discretion and they’ll turn in quality work. They look up to internet for inspiration, for information, for friends. To deny these things to them could be harmful in the long run. The biggest advantage of unrestricted internet access is, via surfing the programmer knows what’s hep n cool on the internet. What do the users like, what do they dislike, what works and what doesn’t. They’d understand their users more and keep track of the evolving trends on the Web, which in turn will help you and your organization to make/change strategic decisions on your up-coming product.

Flexi-working hours :

Probably, this tip would be the most controversial of all. Let the programmers decide their working hours. Today, almost all IT companies follow the 9-5 pattern, but this does not suit everybody. It’s like forcing everyone to wear the same size uniform, irrespective of their body size and width; The uniform will fit some people perfectly, it’ll be too loose for some or too tight for others. I’ve used this analogy to explain the dilemma of todays IT professionals. They are expected to show up at eight(ish) and leave at six( preferably late). The problem is, this paradigm doesn’t suit everybody. Some people feel that they’re more productive in the morning and would prefer to start early and leave early, whilst others might feel that they’re more productive at noon and would like to start late and leave late. Relax the rules on work time and it will eventually lead to rise in productivity.

To conclude, treat Geeks/Nerds/Programmers differently. They are artists( at least that’s what they’d like to think), and therefore they abhor restrictions. They’re inclined to be unhappy if asked to follow a bunch of company policy rules. Give them enough liberty, entertain their eccentricities, encourage their wild ideas and you’ll end up with a kick-ass product, created by a bunch of inspired, motivated programmers.

Chip in your comments and let me know if you agree/ disagree with my views on how to manage a computer programmer. Adios !!!

Surfing Snippets

Problogger has a very neat article on how to market your blog in 2007. It’s also worth checking out Ben Yoskovitz Blogging:one relationship at a time. Read/Write Web talks about Software Mutation and Web2.0.

Wikipedia search engine WikiSeek has been launched. Google is providing real time quotes for free. And How to annoy people using instant messaging ?

I’ve signed up with Ning. Let’s see what do I come up with ?

Don’t wait for the muse

One of my friends was curious to know how could I write posts so frequently on my blog. My reply to him was that I just sit down and start typing and ideas start flowing. He shared with me that he’s interested in writing poetry, but doesn’t feel inspired enough. I know many people like him, who have potential to be writers, poets, painters but they just wait for some motivating phenomenon to bestir them. In other words, they wait for the muse.

But most artists, writers, poets( I know), on the contrary dive into their work instead of waiting for the muse. They believe that when you start working on your topic of interest, muse just glides into your mood. Then, it’s just a matter of completing the task with more enthusiasm and vigour. If you wait for the muse, more often you’d be squandering the precious time, you could’ve otherwise spent wisely. For e.g. another friend of mine loves drawing. I admire her work, she is really good with colors and brush. I enquired about her source of talent. Her response was ” I am not talented, you know. I like drawing, and I don’t think much when I decide to draw or paint something. I just clip my drawing paper on the board, pick up my pencil and start sketching; Shapes, form, structure and inspiration follow suit.” And, I could totally relate to her. I am not good at writing either, I just blurt out my random thoughts on the keypad and they become words; Words become sentences and sentences become a story before I realize it.

So, if you are ( or want to be) good at something, don’t wait for that special “muse” to inspire you, it won’t come to you. You have to go to it. How do you do it ? Just begin your work and the muse will follow.

Apple has done it again

image source: Apple.com

I repeat: “Apple has done it again”. Few years back , they redefined the music industry with their revolutionary product iPod. Now they are changing the rules of the game for the phone industry by introducing their most innovative product yet : iPhone. Check out the MacWorld Expo keynote address by Steve Jobs. It’s a trademark, worldclass presentation by Steve, the master of presentations. Don’t miss the stylish unveiling(rather introduction) of iPhone by Steve.

iPhone is unbelievably cool. It has already got people talking about it. My opinion: It IS one of the coolest gadgets I’ve ever seen. The best part is, there are no physical buttons and no pesky touch-pens involved in its operation.Everything is software now, all you need is your finger to operate it. Apple has expanded the screen width and exploited the multi-touch technology to perform all actions previously carried out by buttons. It has got all of Apples trademark features: simplicity, elegance, ease of use, awesome design, no-clutter-no-nonsense user interface. iPhone has definitely redefined the cellular phone. You’ve got to see the MacWorld Expo convention video to believe how cool it is.And yes, finally I’ll be able to see my mails and websites on my phone the way I check them on my laptop. iPhone’s internet connectivity features handle rich-text html emails and Ajax websites. What more? It has all of iPod features.It has Yahoo ‘push’ email facility, Google earth and Safari browser and lot more. So, it’s an iPod, mobile and PDA, all bundled into one sophisticated, yet easy to use device. No wonder Apple has filed 200 patents for this chick gadget.

The important question is : Will iPhone dominate the cellular market, which already has big players like Nokia, Motorola, Sony etc ? Time will tell. It has definitely out-done all its competitors in terms of features . Will it persuade users to dump their current expensive cells/PDA/Palmtops and buy an iPhone( that costs $499 for 4GB, and $599 for 8GB phone) ? The only disadvantage(according to me) is that you can buy an iPhone only via a 2 year contract with Cingular mobile service. This considerably restricts the phones user base. But ofcourse, this will change in future as more cellular service operators will collaborate with Apple to support iPhone.

Other than that, iPhone Rocks !!! I can’t wait to get my hands on one.

IM vice

Webworker daily ran an article on how IM’s are better than emails for work-life productivity. Well, even though IM’s have their advantages, the two most important disadvantages which, I believe overshadow the advantages are:

1.IM’s are one of the biggest distractors, they make you lose your train of thought and force you to multitask, which drags down productivity effectively. What I mean is, suppose you are completely focussed on one task, and someone pings you( inspite of the fact, that you’ve set your status to Busy), you’re forced to pay attention to the IM message, that leads to context switch, which is counter-productive.

2. IM messages cannot be archived properly, so, IM’s cannot be used to make business decisions. Even if the IM client can store messages, its difficult to scour through the chat history, to find the relevant conversation.

I don’t find IM’s useful, other than having a quick chat with my friends online.

Beyond Google

This NYT article about the “Race to Trump Google” made me think about the number of startups in the Silicon Valley who are struggling or hoping to grab a slice of Internet search market. It is obvious that Google is the Goliath and others are tiny Davids trying to out-seat Google from its top spot.This is not an easy job considering the fact that currently Google handles more than half of US Internet search traffic. Also, remember that Yahoo and Microsoft have been trying for a long time now. To topple Google, the competitors should be better than Google in the following areas:

1. Better Search Technology.

2. Better presentation of search information

3. Stronger and more powerful business model.

So I digged even more and found out about the following search engines which you may or may not be aware of.

Better Search Technology:

To overthrow Google, the contenders are perfecting two strategies a) Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processsing b) More people-specific search, against Google’s original PageRank algorithm.

Hakia claims to have better AI. I searched for “Who+killed+JFk” in both Google and Hakia and the results turned out to be more or less the same. But, Hakia doesn’t allow “Vertical Search” which means unlike Google you can’t search only for “blogs”, “videos”, “news”. So, Hakia still has a long way to go.

Digg and del.icio.us fall in the people -specific search category. The advantage is that you get highly filtered search. The disadvantage is, the searches are ranked on the basis of what most people find popular.

Better UI:
Snap and Microsofts Live Search have made considerable breakthrough in this directions. But, how does showing previews of the search result impacts user experience cannot be determined at the moment. Also, even if this idea takes off, it won’t be long before Google catches up with better way of displaying its search results.

The other criteria to look for is Clustering your results. To demonstrate what I am talking about, enter a search query in Clusty. This will return results clustered under various sections/tags. Infact, I found this feature very useful, since it restricts my attention to fewer search results. If developed and advertised properly, this feature can be a definitive edge over Google’s search results. But then I found SearchMesh, which is apparently Google’s lab graduate. SearchMesh has an interesting switch which displays only the headlines of the search results. It also classifies the search unders various verticals lke blogs, videos, wikipedia etc.

Better Business Model:

I can’t emphasize this point more, anybody who wants to go ahead of Google should not only focus on technology but should also try to develop a better business model. The technology improvements can be imitated by Google, but if you want to win this race, you’ve got to have a striking business model, wherein you link search results to something lucrative, something that adds value to both your company and your users. If you can innovate in this area, you can definitely have an edge over others. This ofcourse, doesn’t undermine the importance of “Better Technology” and “Better Presentation”. If they are the pillars of your company, a better business model will give you the Brand advantage, which Google currently enjoys.

I love Google, they are the best in the business now, but so were Microsoft. To Quote Randy from the NYT article:

“It is hard for me to believe that anybody thinks they can take Google’s business from Google,” said Randy Komisar, a venture capitalist who was once known as Silicon Valley’s “virtual C.E.O.” for his role as a mentor to scores of technology firms. “But to call the game over because Google has been such a success would be to deny history.”

The race to beat Google is definitely on.

Happy New Year

Just a quick post to wish all of you a very Happy New Year, before the new year becomes old. I’ve been lazy for the past couple of days and have procrastinated writing a post. But here’s looking fwd into 2007, a new beginning to everything you ever wanted to do.

2006 in Review :

2006 has been one helluva ride for me. I got engaged, travelled to UK, triped through Europe. But still, the high points of last year were the moments I’ve spent with those who are close to my heart: my best friends, my fiancé and my folks. I’ve also made some horrible mistakes last year; I would (probably)laugh at them later. Lost a good friend and found a lost friend. I think I’ve got the bestest friends ever.

Things I’ve learnt last year:

1. When your worst nightmare comes true, when you think you’ve lost everything, just hang on a li’l more, have faith, good things are in store.

2. I have learnt that to really learn something, first unlearn it.

3. If you have really messed up, talk to small children, they look at things in a very simple and unbiased way. You will find a way to get around your mess.

4. And finally, never stare at a couple kissing each other, even if they’re just 2cm away from you. They feel intruded and you may run the risk of getting hit by the guy .

Well, there you go, this is officially the corniest post I’ve ever written. All the best for the new year 2007, may you follow through all your last years resolutions this year(at least).

Ta, Anup

P.S: The above image is taken from Shinybinary.com( the sites got really cool images).