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My wife has been requesting, for sometime now, to configure one of the unused laptops at home for her. In between taking care of our two year old ever-active son, indulging in cooking delicious meals and watching over-stretched banal Tamil TV serials, she wanted to check emails, browse net and may be use a spreadsheet to budget & track household expenses.

There are two unused laptops at home – one quite old with Windows 2000 on it & another not so old with Windows XP on it. Both of them work but don’t recognize the home network and so don’t connect to Internet. I could’ve searched for drivers or tried to debug but the pseudo-geek in me overtook my senses and I decided to install one of the Linux variant. I thought, it will be a latest OS, so will detect all the hardware devices. I finalized on Kubuntu & downloaded the latest version.

Installation went smooth. As I rightly predicted, it detected all the devices and I was able to connect to Internet. Wifi didn’t work, but I decided it can be fixed later.

I did a quick test with the essential applications – Konqueror, Spreadsheet and Word. I even played a bit with the default games. It felt good.

It was time for some ego-boosting.

Only it was not.

When I observed her using the laptop and looked at Kubuntu from her eyes, I realized that the user interface isn’t polished; menus, buttons and dialog boxes appeared scaffolded rather than complete.

She didn’t like what I gave her.

I had overlooked an essential aspect through this entire process. My wife is a normal computer user and she doesn’t care if it is a superbly engineered, open-sourced, freely distributable, community developed OS (or apps for that matter). She expects a smooth experience from the time she opens the lid of the laptop to closing it. She will hardly spend more than half hour daily. If she gets frustrated at initial tries, the laptop will remain closed.

With that realization, I apologized.

She was happy to leave the laptop. She went back to cooking lunch.

Then I took the laptop where Windows 2000 was installed and tinkered with it. Soon it connected to net, in a wired mode. When I gave it to her, she was happier.

But she could be even more happier.

She had used my Mac time-to-time and that is how her desire for a laptop started. It was cruel of me to introduce her to Mac and then relegate her to Kubuntu.

“I want a Mac”, she said without saying it.

That is when the ‘feelings-side’ of my brain, which is punctured for a man by default especially when it concerns his wife, woke up with a point:

If I’m callous, I will dump her with Ubuntu; if I’m indifferent, I will give her Windows; if I’m in love, I will gift her a Mac.

Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to the Mac store.

Apple released its iPad 1 in India, just few weeks before launch of its iPad 2, leading to an assumption that Apple considers India as a dumping ground. The buzz in the social media was that, Apple is ignoring emerging markets. This meant that iPad 2 wont be available in India for a very long time.

I could have asked any of my friends in the US to buy me an iPad 2 and dispatch via someone returning to India. But too much of ‘I-want-to-help-Indian-economy’ ideology prevented me from doing it.

So I decided to buy an Android based tablet.

But there was no Android tablet available in the market. There was Samsung Tab, but it wasn’t really a tablet since it was running on Android OS meant for phones. Samsung Galaxy Tab was announced but not yet released.

So here I was in India waiting for a real tablet. Then something unexpected happened.

There is a reason Apple is the most celebrated brand now. They beat their competitors in every factor. Not only they create smooth and beautiful products, but they also devour their competition unexpectedly. One such move was their introduction of iPad in India.

Apple announced that iPad 2 will be available in India by first week of May.

Unlike the US there were no long queues in India to get an iPad. Even the shortage of iPads were attributed to shops ordering just few units.

When I went to Anything Mac for servicing my MacBook, I casually asked, if they had an iPad 2. Since I didn’t see any crowd and also the shop itself was so small, I had assumed they won’t have one. But I was wrong. They had iPads. The receptionist apologetically said they had only the wi-fi ones, which was great since I wanted only wi-fi ones.

So there I became the proud owner of iPad 2.

In a recent article in a leading online magazine, the author recounts his ‘bad’ experience in a five-star hotel and then compares that with a supposedly ‘good’ customer service at another equally starred hotel. He says that the ‘bad’ hotel didn’t extend his check-out time (they said that if he pays extra it would be possible); but the other hotel gladly did so.

I have my own experiences of bad customer service. But we need to differentiate between bad customer service and annoying customer demands.

I remember a scene from my favorite romantic comedy – Notting Hill. In that movie, William Thacker – the protagonist – runs a travel book shop. One day a well dressed customer walks into the shop and the conversation goes something like this:

Customer :  Do you have any books by Dickens?
William :     No, we’re a travel bookshop.  We only sell travel books.
Customer : Oh right.  How about that new John Grisham thriller?
William : No, that’s a novel too.
Customer : Oh right.  Have you got a copy of ‘Winnie the Pooh’?

What is expected of William Thacker? Should he do something to attract this customer again? Should he send his assistant to get the latest John Grisham thriller and hand it over to the customer as a show of exemplary customer service? Isn’t that what we – customers – demand so often?

Before you complain next time about a bad customer service, think again. Were you an annoying customer?

Image courtesy: Webshots

In the competitive software industry, if you don’t keep yourself updated, soon you’ll be outdated. Yet when swamped with hundreds of concepts, methods and techniques, it is impossible to be updated continually. There is also a risk of, being updated in a soon-to-be outdated area.

Whether lucky or smart, I’ve always worked on challenging, well-paying and emerging concepts & tools. Having reached a certain stage in my career, I’m preparing for the next stage. I’ve followed ‘learn-do-refine’ model which has worked pretty well so far. With that foundation, here is my learning model for the next stage.

My learning model is of two layers – a core layer, domains in which I want to be an expert and a support layer, domains which will help me to practice my expertise effectively.

Enterprise Architecture

Many-a-times, those in software industry asks, ‘I have an answer. Do you have a relevant question?’. But successful (read profit making) companies are those that solve a business problem by engaging technology. EA brings this success story as a practice. I’m excited to learn about EA and possibly apply those concepts in the coming years.

Customer Relationship Management

CRM covers topics such as finding new customers, selling more to existing customers, and retaining customers. Now-a-days, CRM is considered relevant even for government organizations. I’ve been in CRM domain for the past 8 years and I’ve enjoyed both functional and implementation sides. I would like to continue to learn how CRM concepts help companies (and even governments) to be profitable.

People Skills

Executive educator, Marshall Goldsmith, says in ‘What got you here won’t get you there‘, that most of executive’s challenges are ‘people related’. To achieve anything significant, there needs to be a team (composed of seniors, peers, and juniors) and it is important to develop people skills to work with and with-in teams. Having been a asocial introvert, I find that this part of the pie is the most frustrating and emotionally draining; yet a critical part to be successful.

Project Management

I would broadly term this part as ‘Getting things done’ – the execution part of the deal. I’ve worked with some of the brilliant minds who are able to place best ideas on the table, but lack what it takes to get it done. Though I like to conceptualize a solution and communicate it with enthusiasm to others, I find it satisfying to get it executed – not really bothering about who gets the credit. You know what? When you get into that attitude, you almost always get the credit!

Financial Management

This is one area where I need to start from scratch. Executives translate every action in the organization into numbers – either profit or loss. It is poor financial management that has gotten the erstwhile famous companies into bankruptcy.

…and some fun

Another critical piece to continue enjoying other pieces. Though I don’t expect to be Ansel Adams or Mark Twain or Michael Phelps, I like to pursue photography, travel, writing and swimming as they joyfully refresh the soul.

Do you have a learning model? Do you think it is worth having one and pursuing it? Feel free to share your comments.

It intrigues the movie critics; he has reigned as a “Super-Star” of the Tamil movie industry for more than three decades. It is ever more intriguing when one realises that he is not even a Tamilian. As of this writing, he is one of the highest paid actors in South-East Asia.

He is so popular in Tamil Nadu that you can stop anyone, anywhere in the state and they will know about Rajini Kanth.

Never mind that his dance sequences are not elegent; never mind that his voice variations remain the same in every movie; never mind that he wouldn’t be praised for his acting; but every movie of his is a sure success (okay, most of them) in both rural and urban areas – now-a-days even in Japan!

How did he do it?

I was constantly reminded of him, as I read through ‘Simply Better‘, where the authors argue that providing “Core Category Benefits” is the sure path to long-time success than providing differentiation.

Evaluate the Super-Star on that – he has mesmerized the audience with his fighting sequences, punch dialogues and most importantly style and he has stayed within that boundary. He has not differentiated himself with directorial ventures; method acting and so on and so forth. He provided just the core category benefits of the entertainment industry and reaped the huge rewards in return.

If I could think of one fine example of ‘Simply Better’ entertainment experience it is none other than, Rajini Kanth.