SAP 10:10 Roadshow (10 SAP CoE's and 10 SAP Customers)!!!

MindTree's SAP practice came up with a promotional event called SAP 10:10 RoadShow recently. The idea was to promote the SAP practice and to showcase our capabilities & talent within MindTree and beyond.

Initial preparations for the event were driven by the Marketing collaterals that we had to prepare for the roadshow. Many minds from various projects came together and worked on bringing out the various versions of collaterals, case-studies, solution literature etc. Ravi Yadav, Srinivassa, Gautam, Deepak, Deepak MS and many others contributed largely in bringing the collaterals out.

Deepak Arora (The Khali of SAP practice) and Gautam Purohit were our main-stay and instrumental in driving the entire event. Deepak’s biggest challenge was to get the posters finalized & printed while many of us were still contemplating the design and content for posters. But for Deepak and his commitment, this would not have been possible.

We had to contend with another tricky problem – decoration of each bay. It had to be relevant, thematic and definitely not loud. All of us came up with ideas – some strange, some incongruous, some creative and yet some more just plain dumb - to decorate our bay. The one idea that pleasantly surprised us was given by Ravi Patil. We hung a spider-web on the ceiling and depicted components of NetWeaver Portal like Web Dynpro, Knowledge Management, ESOA etc. The idea would have been incomplete without the expertise of Topper Chongtham who designed the web. Thanks Topper!!

The day of reckoning had arrived and all of us were nervous & ready for it. Ashwani Kathuria, our practice head, visited all the stalls just before the event was actually kicked-off. The event began exactly at 10:10 with our chief guest Anjan Lahiri inaugurating it in grand style. The camera-man, rather woman, for the entire event was none other than our professional photographer Nidhi Neelakant – she had to jostle for space and the right angles so that she could get some nice pictures. She handled the constraints deftly and did not miss any photographic moment.

All of us were eagerly waiting for the chief-guests to visit our respective stalls and there was competition within us to get them to visit our stall first, some were so excited that they literally pulled them into their stalls. Complimentary gaze was evident as each one of them visited our stalls and exposed to the knowledgeable content. After the chief-guests left, many visitors started pouring in. The way our presenters Seshagiri K.Rao, Swaroopa Vishwanath, Ravichandran.T (to name a few) explained what SAP on the whole is capable of doing raised a few eye-brows. After lunch, we had a few visitors and then it was time for us to visit other stalls and see their content and gain knowledge about their components too.

All in all, the event was a major success that evinced a lot of interest among various communities including the Sales teams, delivery teams, and others with whose help we can look forward to scaling new heights. At the end of it all, Ashwani shared his thoughts on the success of the event and sought feedback of various people. Then came the difficulty to choose the best stall and the award went to the NetWeaver team (XI and EP). It all ended with the promise of a party to celebrate the success and mark the beginning of charting a successful roadmap for the future of the practice.

P.S. : I would like to thank Manjunath Adisesh for reviewing this article and for making some changes.

Signing Off.

Regards,
Kishan Chandranna

What is important at 23??

My target audience - people in the age group 21 to 25.

At this point of our lives, all of us will ponder on the important things to be done to lead a happy life. Here are some things we might be thinking of,

(Get ready with a pen and paper to answer the questions that follow)

What should I do to settle in life?
When will I get a boy-friend/girl-friend (if you are still single)?
What is the right time to get married?
Am I doing my job wisely?
Whom should I marry?
Am I taking care of my parents?
When should I purchase a car?
Where should a I invest my money?
etc...

I bet each one of us will have given some thought to atleast one of the above (if not all). You have to be very lucky if you have got a clear answer to each of the above and you are satisfied with it. But, do you think that it is worth thinking about all these things. I list down a few things that I feel are the most important things that deserve a thought at this point in time,

What should I do to settle in life?
What is the right time to get married?
Am I taking care of my parents?
Am I doing my job wisely?

A lot of thought process must go into it before you actually arrive at answers to these questions. If you are employed, then you have got the answer to the first question. If you are sincere and dedicated to the job on hand, then you must be convinced that it is sufficient to get settled in life.

Coming to the next question, I personally feel that any time between 27 and 30 should be the right age to get married. Be independant for sometime atleast and enjoy that stage of your life, for you will not get it again.

This is the time for us to think about our parents and take care of them. Are we giving enough time for them? I am sure that most of us would say NO. Our parents have taken good care of us till now. Is'nt it time for us to give it back to them? Spend atleast a day in a week with them. Take them out for dinner or anywhere else which makes them happy. And finally marry someone who will look after your parents well (or atleast lets you to take care of them).

The only thing that is going to take us through is.. Work. So believe in the saying "Work is Worship", work hard and be dedicated.

Coming back to the questions I left out. viz

When should I purchase a car?
When will I get a boy-friend/girl-friend?
Whom should I marry?
Where should I invest my money?

I feel that it's not worth scratching our heads on these things (I call them pleasures). All these things will happen some day or the other. The only thing in our hands is our JOB. If we do this in a sincere and a dedicated manner, all the pleasures and the rest will follow.

Hope I am successful in triggering a thought process in your minds. Thinking in the right way will lead you to the right direction.
Signing Off.

Regards,
Kishan Chandranna

Hennu, honnu, mannu thanagi thane olidu barbeku..

Have you ever heard of this very famous saying in Kannada? For all those who don't know Kannada, here is exactly what it means " Girl, money and land/power has to come to you all by itself ".

According to me, it means that you should never be desperate for anything in life, especially a girl, money or land/power. You should just continue doing your work respectfully and wait till it eventually comes to you. My friend (chose not to mention his name) over-believes this saying and never tries to achieve anything and wants everything to happen all by itself. This is a wrong notion that most people who have heard of this saying carry.

I would like to express what I feel regarding this and attempt to clear out a few doubts here. First of all, I would like to ask you a few questions,

Will you get anything in life if you don't do anything to get it?
Don't you have any ambitions in your life for which you will do anything to achieve it?

Look at the saying carefully. It has three things which are essential to each one of us (Girl, money and land). It also says that those three things should come by itself. Now, what else do you badly need in your life apart from the above three things? Nothing much significant as the above right.

These are the only things that are significantly essential for any guy. The only other thing that is as essential is - Job. When you don't try to get these three essential things and hope they would come by itself, life becomes very easy and damn boring right. There won't be any thrill in a life without any challenges. Life loses its sheen when you get everything you want and it gets even worse when you get whatever you want without putting in your efforts. Don't you agree?

One more contradictory statement - " Power can't be given, it has to be taken ".
With money comes power. Similarly, power comes with the other two things too. So, can I now say that we have to try to get those three essential things?

I agree that sayings such as these are made only after a lot of thinking has gone into it. But, mis-interpretations do occur. Believe in this statement which is an updated version of the above saying - " Don't be desperate for anything in life, especially Girl, Money and Land/Power ".

Hope I make some sense to you.
Signing Off.

Regards,
Kishan Chandranna

What not to do when you desperately want to have a girl friend??

My target readers,
If you are a guy (age >= 22) and still single, welcome to the club.
Read this very seriously.

If you are a guy, not single then reading this is not worth your time.
If you are a girl there is nothing new here, I know most of you are omniscient.

On a random day, at a random place you come across a random girl and you get an instant feeling that she is the "one" for you. In the next few mins of talk, the inevitable question comes up "Are you on Orkut?". Now that's the beginning. You take her email ID, flick her chat ID from Orkut and start loading her inbox with messages, forwards, funny mails, quotes etc etc.. You are always online for her and the moment you come online the question pops up on her window, "Hey hi, wass up?" You always go to places where there is a chance of seeing her. You try to run in to her and pretend that it was accidental. You wear nice dresses and try to look good on the days when there is a high probability of meeting her. After that you take her phone number and start calling her every day. For the first few days she picks up the phone, then slowly she starts giving the busy tone and the next stage is total avoidance. But, you always believe that she is interested in you or at least you don't want to accept the truth. For some of you the big day comes when you express your feelings to her and you don't even have to wait for her reply, it is generally, "I did not see you in that way, can we be just friends?".

Some don't even reach that stage, they hide their feelings, but in either case one thing is common, the girl's name ends up being the password for the next few months.
As soon as they realize that they have reached the "age", guys start trying to impress girls. Some try to show-off that they are smart and some have this weird belief that girls consider stupid guys as cute.

Intelligence to innocence, being introvert to extrovert, being classy to messy, strong to weak, anything and everything, every guy has his own strategy. I don't know who came up with this quote "Everything is fair in love and war", he (not she) must probably have been one of them. I don't know why guys fail to understand that girls are smart enough to understand all these and why would not they? Even before they realize that they are "girls", guys start hitting on them, one after the other, day and night, not allowing them even to breathe properly.
After reading till here some of you might be in dilemma whether you are really desperate or not. It's very easy to come to a conclusion.

Take a paper and answer the following questions in Yes or No
1. Whenever you see a girl walking on the road ahead of you, Do you increase your walking speed, walk past her and then turn back to see her face?
2. Do you become very conscious about what you are talking, when you are around with girls?
3. Do you try to be cool or someone else in order to impress girls?
4. Do you think staying clam or moody when in a group makes the girl think about you?
5. You ask a girl to join you for lunch or coffee; do you think a YES from other side is an indication that she is interested in you?
6. Do you keep staring at girls?
7. Are you ready to date a girl even if she is around with someone else as well?
8. Is "Girls" the main topic of all your discussions with your friends?

If you find even a single "YES" in the paper then YOU ARE DESPERATE.
Be a man, accept it.

Now the real question "What not to do when you are desperate about having a girl friend?"
Did you actually believe that I would come up with some solution or tips? Had I known it, would I still be single? It was just a trick to make you guys read this one. But, I have one tip though, first and foremost STOP being desperate. I know that it is difficult. At least try not to show that you are desperate. The rule is simple, "No one in this world cares for a thing that is easily gettable" and FYI girls are never worried about finding a guy and why do they have to? Did you ever come across a girl who never had a boy-friend or never been proposed by a guy? If yes, then that's a miracle, you met a "rare species" or an extinct one in this world.

If you got the tip that you wanted and don't want to read any further it's fine. But, I would recommend reading further. Trust me, keep reading.

We know that we are the ones who make the girls realize that they are important, treat them as if they are precious, tell them that they are beautiful and show that they are in demand. We buy them gifts, spend all the money we have, do their work, roam around with them all the time, carry their stuff and in the end what do we get in return? A few thanks and an offer to be a good friend. Do we need all this? If 1/1000 th of the time wasted on a girl is spent on a guy you will find a friend for a lifetime. Just play some game together or watch a movie, give him a cigarette or buy him a drink and that is it. Realize that spending a night with your friends drinking till everyone pukes, having a hangover throughout the next day is more fun than spending the same night with your girl in a pub buying her drinks, talking crap, listening crap, making some crap moves. Whatever.

I know that at some point of time in your life you might have realized all this. But, there is a need to educate the rest and also pass on the message to the future generations. I dream of a day when guys are in demand and girls start worrying about finding a guy. I hope the day comes soon.

If you are still desperate, you need a second read.

P.S.: To the girls: If you think that some guy is crazy about you and trying hard to impress you, please tell him immediately if you are not interested.