There are times when one is absolutely clueless, there are self-doubts, there are fear of failures. Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or worthlessness, we are almost impervious to fear. Thus, a feeling of utter unworthiness can be a source of courage. Now that one has reached such an ebb (s)he can only go up. Attach a purpose with your goals. Think big. Dream about about being there. It helps.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Governance lessons from System Architecture
Frequent terrorist acivities in the country have created a widespread panic among people and has sabotaged the peaceful development process in the country.
The brighter part of these blasts is that we as a country have matured over the period of time. It is not hard to remember that in not so distant past such activities would cast its shadows in seemingly unrelated parts of the country for e.g. a blast in Mumbai would call for heavy deployment of police forces in Varanasi because of expected communal tension in the city. Today, terrorists have grossly failed to create such disharmony among various communities and related distrust. This has largely relieved the administration to focus on public safety and welfare rather than creating walls within the city to protect them from each other.
From systems perspective I find an oft repeated 'Stove-Pipe' anti-pattern found commonly in enterprise systems, where the high level vision and policies are not implemented properly. It is common understanding that there are myriad of agencies at center ans state level which largely or entirely restricts the flow of information within the organization to up-down through lines of control but inhibits or prevents cross agency communication. This leads to duplication of effort and, in extreme cases, unhealthy competition between different agencies. It is high time we shed our stove-pipe mindset to bring efficiency and answerability into the governance. With the sixth pay commission in place there could be no better time to introduce a culture of openness and supportive style of administration among agencies and their relation with common citizens.
Also, I take this opportunity to state my views unequivocally that we need;
The brighter part of these blasts is that we as a country have matured over the period of time. It is not hard to remember that in not so distant past such activities would cast its shadows in seemingly unrelated parts of the country for e.g. a blast in Mumbai would call for heavy deployment of police forces in Varanasi because of expected communal tension in the city. Today, terrorists have grossly failed to create such disharmony among various communities and related distrust. This has largely relieved the administration to focus on public safety and welfare rather than creating walls within the city to protect them from each other.
From systems perspective I find an oft repeated 'Stove-Pipe' anti-pattern found commonly in enterprise systems, where the high level vision and policies are not implemented properly. It is common understanding that there are myriad of agencies at center ans state level which largely or entirely restricts the flow of information within the organization to up-down through lines of control but inhibits or prevents cross agency communication. This leads to duplication of effort and, in extreme cases, unhealthy competition between different agencies. It is high time we shed our stove-pipe mindset to bring efficiency and answerability into the governance. With the sixth pay commission in place there could be no better time to introduce a culture of openness and supportive style of administration among agencies and their relation with common citizens.
Also, I take this opportunity to state my views unequivocally that we need;
- to entrust our policing agencies with greater power (stringent laws) to help them help us.
- to make them answerable and courteous to citizens, so that the common citizen is not afraid to ask for help from them.
- to provide elaborate safety net for the welfare of police families.
- to give respect and decorate our policing staff at par with defense services to boost their morale.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
5 things I learnt today
today i met an achiever in life, a person who went ahead against all the odds walked up to the horizon to reach the skies... listening to her story i want to learn;
- perseverance matters, no matter how hard the nut is.. if one fiddles with it continuously for long, it will ultimately break
- tame your learning curve, it any ways does not lasts longer than 1-2 months.
- learn to have neat fun, make good companions, always
- do ur job religiously and respect ur holidays
- learn to cook 'functional' food and stay fit
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Work starts@home to innovate
Thanks to information technology revolution in the country I have a comfortable job which allows me to dream about a bright future ahead. Often I find it difficult to imagine if there exists a better profession than my own which bestows such great powers to change the face of the society. Having said that, I still face the frustration first hand when I visit places like banks, govt offices etc. Just imagine it took me three hours to complete trivial activities at the bank, I would not name the bank because it will be gross injustice to their employees commitment to work.
My observation was that some how the whole computer thing is a cosmetic entity, as much of the work can still not be done the e-way. There is a greater need for creation and integration of systems.
Over the years, we as Indian software industry have stepped up continuously from a back office service provider to prime time solution provider. Today there are voices raised from all corners for us to innovate, create new product ideas but then this seems to me has certain degree of challenges because of our predominant attachment to solving problems of the rest of the world. We have historically focused on export market and almost ignored home requirements. It will only pay for us to look inwards. This comes from my own experience while working with US/European telecom companies and for Indian telecom majors. I found myself to be better aware of the exact requirements, the existing inefficiencies in the system and could better predict customer expectations and their behaviors being a consumer of those services myself. It was more satisfying to solve problems and shall I say easier to innovate.
There is so much to do all around us in all spheres and at all levels to make the life simpler even for the common people. May be the brighter side to all this is that we have a clean slate available to us, as far as IT applications are concerned. We can therefore use this opportunity to create similar efficiencies in to system from grounds up and recreate the magic of 'One Rupee - One India' from telecom experiences.
My observation was that some how the whole computer thing is a cosmetic entity, as much of the work can still not be done the e-way. There is a greater need for creation and integration of systems.
Over the years, we as Indian software industry have stepped up continuously from a back office service provider to prime time solution provider. Today there are voices raised from all corners for us to innovate, create new product ideas but then this seems to me has certain degree of challenges because of our predominant attachment to solving problems of the rest of the world. We have historically focused on export market and almost ignored home requirements. It will only pay for us to look inwards. This comes from my own experience while working with US/European telecom companies and for Indian telecom majors. I found myself to be better aware of the exact requirements, the existing inefficiencies in the system and could better predict customer expectations and their behaviors being a consumer of those services myself. It was more satisfying to solve problems and shall I say easier to innovate.
There is so much to do all around us in all spheres and at all levels to make the life simpler even for the common people. May be the brighter side to all this is that we have a clean slate available to us, as far as IT applications are concerned. We can therefore use this opportunity to create similar efficiencies in to system from grounds up and recreate the magic of 'One Rupee - One India' from telecom experiences.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Make your ERP applications SOA compliant
With all the big drum beat about Service Oriented Architecture there are different degree to which people appreciate the value that SOA bring to the business. It might quite well be discarded a new found 'fad' or as the new found 'silver bullet' by the over enthusiastic and that has panacea to almost every type of business problem. Also, often people confuse it with a technology rather than an enterprise architecture design style or merely a label associated with a bulk of technologies. Much in the same way the ERP systems were described a few years back.
The problem with such description is that it makes it difficult for the business users who has stakes in his IT infrastructure difficult to objectively understand the basic need for change and/or understand the short comings with its own application which might be plugged the SOA way. Hence, much of important decisions are taken based on the political affiliation of participating organizations.
In not too distant past, ERP helped the industries control the chaos by establishing industry best practices. They provided those functionalities out-of-the-box. However, they attempted to solve the problems in an 'All-or-Nothing' manner. That is, even though they brought tremendous value to business through standardization of processes but they also required complete over-haul of the organization leading to unrest(to people) as it required a dramatic shift in the organization culture. Also, in case an organization does recognizes a 'particular-process' which differentiates it from the rest of the world and 'want-it-their-way' implementing that would amount to uncontrolled complexities creeping into the system thereby making them costly to maintain and upgrade with time.
SOA allows an organization to mature its IT infrastructure and application to increasing levels at their own pace while keeping them in control of the cost and complexity. It allows organizations to have 'their' processes implemented 'their' way and also allows them the agility to change them as deemed necessary. Again, the idea to drive home is that the SOA based applications are designed to absorb change (which is in turn is constrained by our abstraction of the system). Further, with the advent of new delivery models like SaaS in a multi-tenant scenario you may only pay for the portion of services which you consume which may be very well be monitored by utilities based upon Autonomic computing techniques thus giving you greater visibility and efficiency to your enterprise system.
The crux of the matter is pick the right solution for the right application and when it matters model it the SOA way and stand out from the crowd!
The problem with such description is that it makes it difficult for the business users who has stakes in his IT infrastructure difficult to objectively understand the basic need for change and/or understand the short comings with its own application which might be plugged the SOA way. Hence, much of important decisions are taken based on the political affiliation of participating organizations.
In not too distant past, ERP helped the industries control the chaos by establishing industry best practices. They provided those functionalities out-of-the-box. However, they attempted to solve the problems in an 'All-or-Nothing' manner. That is, even though they brought tremendous value to business through standardization of processes but they also required complete over-haul of the organization leading to unrest(to people) as it required a dramatic shift in the organization culture. Also, in case an organization does recognizes a 'particular-process' which differentiates it from the rest of the world and 'want-it-their-way' implementing that would amount to uncontrolled complexities creeping into the system thereby making them costly to maintain and upgrade with time.
SOA allows an organization to mature its IT infrastructure and application to increasing levels at their own pace while keeping them in control of the cost and complexity. It allows organizations to have 'their' processes implemented 'their' way and also allows them the agility to change them as deemed necessary. Again, the idea to drive home is that the SOA based applications are designed to absorb change (which is in turn is constrained by our abstraction of the system). Further, with the advent of new delivery models like SaaS in a multi-tenant scenario you may only pay for the portion of services which you consume which may be very well be monitored by utilities based upon Autonomic computing techniques thus giving you greater visibility and efficiency to your enterprise system.
The crux of the matter is pick the right solution for the right application and when it matters model it the SOA way and stand out from the crowd!
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
... nothing wrong being clueless
The term means ‘to have no idea, to be ignorant, not have an inkling, to be baffled, mystified, at a loss, to not have the faintest/foggiest/slightest.'
Very often we are clueless about things happening with us. We are clueless about the possible outcomes of our actions, spoken words or deeds. We are clueless about our future. We are clueless about the task at hand and what ways possibly it can add value to me. More often than not it all depends upon ones perspective and as perception is a powerful tool. Believing there's a limitation can sometimes create that limitation. The clueless who don't know about the limitation, well, it's as if it doesn't exist. Belief matters. Not everywhere, not in everything, but more than we give credence to.
The good thing about being clueless is that you approach things with a hopeful perspective in an attempt to understand the subtleties of doing a task rather than accepting the reality.
Possibly a way to master the art of cluelessness is to prepare hard for your planned activities and persevere. As Hardy says, your luck is nothing but marriage of your preparation with your destiny... way to go!
Very often we are clueless about things happening with us. We are clueless about the possible outcomes of our actions, spoken words or deeds. We are clueless about our future. We are clueless about the task at hand and what ways possibly it can add value to me. More often than not it all depends upon ones perspective and as perception is a powerful tool. Believing there's a limitation can sometimes create that limitation. The clueless who don't know about the limitation, well, it's as if it doesn't exist. Belief matters. Not everywhere, not in everything, but more than we give credence to.
The good thing about being clueless is that you approach things with a hopeful perspective in an attempt to understand the subtleties of doing a task rather than accepting the reality.
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