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.

Review on "Go kiss the World"..

There was no looking back after I decided to purchase this book, thanks to Giri. Giri, impressed by my blogging skills asked me to write a review on the book "Go kiss the World". So, I finally decided to purchase the book online. The book was shipped in 3 days. I couldn't wait to put my hands on the book. But I was a bit late. My Dad had already started reading the book. I thought that he was actually just going through the first few introduction pages. But later I was shocked to have found him reading the 20th page as I had never seen him read a book before.

So, I had to wait for my turn to put my hands on the book. I thought that I would actually read it after Dad goes to sleep. So I did. I read the prologue and got to know that the book actually had 3 parts in it. The first part gives you a complete picture of Subroto's early years ( starting from the day he was born ). The second inspires you to explore the making of an young professional giving the example of Subroto's life. The third however tells you how to come back after a fall, how MindTree was born, about the mid-life transition / mid-life crisis and some important lessons for a young professional.

I got off to a flying start after having read 50 pages on the first day. My Dad was soon catching up though. The first part tells you about the 'life of simplicity' of Subroto's family. It tells you how Subroto was brought up imbibing the skills required. It also tells you how he had to keep changing schools everytime his Dad got transfered and how that actually helped him to build a high degree of comfort with displacement. How displacement helps you to explore everything around you and develop curiosity. How he was mentored by his brothers and how it actually helps. He also narrates an experience where he was caught smoking beedi's at the age of 5 and was let go after his father remained silent. He tells that how not handing out the punishment when it is most expected is the best way to bring lasting repentance. He also tells you how he went on to become the "Best NCC Cadet" of India and recieved the award from The President of India at Rashtrapathi Bhavan. How the Colonel told him not to join the army, navy or the air-force which could have changed his life. How he started working as a junior clerk in the industries department of the Government of Orissa and his experiences.

In the second part, he tells you how he learned to fly after he read the book "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" and how it inspired him to join HCL inspite of a 40% cut in his salary. His comfort with displacement helped him change jobs often. He had moved from DCM to HCL and then to PSI and MMC. He tells us how he learned to fail when MMC decided to close down its computer business. He, along with Sujit Bose then decided to start a training institute called Project.21. After having had a decent 3 years at Project.21, it was actually aquired by NIIT. It was then that he decided to quit and go in search of his own destiny. He then joined Wipro where he met Ashok, KK, Partha and others who were to become co-founders of MindTree with him one day. He along with Ashok Soota, Azim Premji and others made people understand the issues which helped Wipro reach the level where it is now. He then had to go to the US to set-up an office for Wipro there. He explains how he set-up a home office and how difficult it was to run it. He then returned back to India after having spent a good 3 years of hard-work which helped Wipro in the long-run. He then explains about the mid-life crisis/transition he faced when he joined Lucent Technologies after having quit Wipro.

In the third part, he explains "The Pain of Re-birth" after his decision to join Lucent Technologies turned out to be a bad one. It was then that he along with KK started planning to start an organization. He then gives you a complete picture of how MindTree was born and how different people took different responsibilities within to help it blossom. He also explains how they had to cope-up with the 9/11 tragedy thanks to the good leadership of Ashok and the confidence of our top three customers then - Avis, Franklin Templeton and Unilever. How the deal with Volvo in 2002 changed everything for MindTree. Their effort in building the 3 kinds of infrastructure - physical, intelluctual and the emotional to raise MindTree to the next level. His belief in Servant Leadership and his decision to take on a postion of service in MindTree. He relives those moments that could have changed his life. When the Colonel, who had chaired the selection panel to choose the Best Cadet of India advised him - "Son, never join the army, never join the navy and never join the air force". Had he not ruled out these favourable options, his life would have been quite different. The incident where an old man in his eighties told him - "Never think of retiring". One more incident where his landlord advised him - "Open your mind before you open your mouth". He calls these people as Personal Angels - people who live in our midst. He then in the final chapter ( my favourite ) gives us some important lessons which he had learnt in his life. With those lessons comes the capability for all of us to Go kiss the World.

I suggest all of you to read the book atleast once and I am sure that you will enjoy reading it and feel that it's worth. Happy reading.

I will surely ask my Dad about his experiences reading the book ( what I feel is the first story book he has ever read ) once he finishes. I am sure he would have enjoyed reading it. Looking forward to more books from Subroto. Signing Off.

Regards,
Kishan Chandranna

Effect of people's curse on us..

Have you ever wondered how people's curse will affect us??

I feel that there is nothing in this world that will affect us more than someone's curse. Don't believe me?

I will prove my point by narrating a real-life story which my friend Bharath told me.

A few years back, there were two ladies( Sita and Gita ) who used to go to their college by walk. On their way to college, they used to see a guy( Ramesh ) who used to sit on a bench staring at them almost every day. The ladies were upset after seeing the weird behaviour of Ramesh. Ramesh, who was almost the same age as that of the ladies was mentally-retarded. This fact was unknown to the ladies. They assumed that he also is one among those eve-teasers.

Since this continued for a few days, both Sita and Gita decided to take an alternate route. They were very happy not to have found Ramesh the next day. So, the ladies decided to take that same route daily. But on the next morning, they were shocked to see Ramesh who again stared at them. But this time, he wasn't alone. He was accompanied by another lady( Sashi ) who happened to be his mom. This fact was again unknown to the ladies.

One day, Sita and Gita decided that they would complain about the weird behaviour of Ramesh to that lady who used to accompany him. So, they started to scold Ramesh in front of his mom. Later on, the ladies get to know the fact that the lady was none other than that Ramesh's mom. They started complaining about the Ramesh's weird behaviour towards them to Sashi.

Sashi, now upset after having heard the ladies complain against her son starts explaining Sita and Gita about the abnormality of Ramesh. She tells that her son is mentally-retarded. She also tells the ladies that they would know the difficulties faced by the mother of a mentally-retarded only when they experience it. This turned out to be curse for both Sita and Gita.

At present both Sita and Gita are blessed with a mentally-retarded child. Whom do you blame of this state of our ladies? Can you blame the ladies for this? No, right? Any female would have done the same thing as Sita and Gita.

Can you blame God for this? No, I feel God will only punish people who have done something bad. He wouldn't punish Sita and Gita as they haven't done anything wrong. Infact, he has done something good to both Sita and Gita by blessing them with two brilliant children each who at present are doing wonders in their career.

The only person who can be blamed is Sashi for her curse.

By now, you must have got an idea as to how people's curse is going to affect us right. So, I would like to conclude by saying that " If possible, do good to someone.. but don't do bad to anyone ". Beacuse, if you do bad to anyone, you will be the target of their curse which is going to prove very costly. So, let's not intend to do bad to anyone even if it comes at the cost of losing our own money as losing some amount of money wouldn't hurt us as badly as the curse.

Signing Off.

Regards,
Kishan Chandranna

A S/W Engineer's daily routine..

I must say that our typical day begins with a quick rush to the bus-stop and then a quick bite in the cafeteria before settling in our seat anticipating a hard day's work. We would then open our mail-box only to see it flooded with all kinds of mails. To have noticed a mail from either the Client or the PM would be horrifying as it signifies a good amount of work ahead of you. If you were lucky enough not to find any such mail, you would then set your hands on the good-morning messages which would be a nice time-pass for half an hour. We would then be involved in our work for quite sometime before we are ready for a coffee-break and a quick stroll.

Back to work, we will again be involved in it till its time for lunch - A good one hour to freak out with friends. After returning back and having a strong cup of coffee/tea, we would then slog hard and try to finish the remaining work by 6PM to avoid staying back. After slogging hard till 6 to have completed most of the work assigned, it will be time for us to spend the remaining half an hour with our friends at the cafeteria. ( We somehow feel that a day must begin and end at the cafeteria ).

Then, it would be time for us to rush back to the cab for a good one hour ride before we reach home. This one hour would be a nice relaxation for all of us after a hard day's work. Finally, we are back home at 8PM and it's TV time for some of us, taking care of children for some etc. We would have dinner at around 9.30 and get back to sleep at 10.30 or 11 after another round of TV.

This being our daily routine, I have a few questions for you,
Are we happy with it?
Are we spending enough time with ourselves?
Are we spending enough time with our family and relatives?
Are we keeping ourselves healthy?

Most of us will agree that the answer is NO to all the above questions. This being the case, what can be done to make ourselves happy and content?

We have to accept the fact that Work is something that is unavoidable and which will sometimes be hectic and it is going to stay that way till we retire and hence we should look out for alternatives to make our life more pleasing.

We spend atleast one or two hours travelling in a day. This time must be effectively utilized to spend sometime with oursleves. I usually meet my old friends on saturdays and my sundays are devoted to spend sometime with my parents and relatives. I jog for atleast for half an hour each on fridays, saturdays and sundays. I feel this strategy can make you a lot happier and content now that you have time to spend on yourselves, family and friends and are keeping yourself healthy.

Don't you feel that it's now time for you to sit and re-prioritize and re-organize your "things to do" list during weekends and do something that makes you happy? Hope I have succeeded in triggering that thought on your minds.

Signing Off.


Regards,
Kishan Chandranna