Thought Garage

IT Outsourcing, a couple of years back, literally meant  shifting Product Development, Software Implementation and most of  back office management to India (from US and major European countries). But when Nandan Nilekani of Infosys said 'The World is Flat', he did not mean moving work to Bangalore alone or India in general.  In fact he was hinting about  the future of Outsourcing, the out sourcing 2.0. "Any thing can be outsourced to anywhere in the world." (Following  the same tenets of outsourcing : price, time and knowledge) Facing serious problems of attrition and salary increases and increasing competition all over, Indian IT companies are fast expanding to rest of the cheaper and better world: Mexico, China and a few other third world countries. Time is fast approaching for Indian IT engineers to start discussing about  loosing their jobs to their cheaper counterparts in the rest of the world.  While expansion to Mexico, China an...

On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future.   I thought for a moment, what difference would it make, if every blogger writes something about the issue? I remembered the Starfish story. If every blogger take one single action along with writing their ideas about the issue on thier blogs, it would make a huge difference.  "The Starfish Story” by Loren Eiseley Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work. One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up. As he ...

Short answer, because it's kind of  a blue print of my own dream phone . Some time around August last year(2006), I started blogging about Cellular Lifestyles , exploring the new lifestyles today's smartphones are creating.   I drew a raw picture that capture my idea of dream mobile phone (you can guess that I am not a graphic designer, and it doesn't take more than a minute with powerpoint). I also expressed my frustration and pain of carrying multiple devices available at that time in more than one article and eagerly waiting for the domination of smart phones (multi-function).  What I really want in a mobile This is that crazy simple picture showing all the functionality that I always wanted in a mobile phone. I received over 100 emails, some of them  criticizing that I am being foolish to combine everything into one device or some nicely put it as the swiss army knife approach is just not smar...

Forbes Special Report : India at 60 Indeed, India today is nothing like the nation of its great liberator, Mahatma Gandhi--free but also buried in poverty, and very much an underdeveloped country. Now, by virtue of pressure from some visionary entrepreneurs and links to global telecom networks, India has emerged as one of the half-dozen most dynamic economies in the world. Its stock market is surging, a new middle class is developing and the nation is anticipating the moment when the vast bulk of its population begins to enter the global economy. That's the real challenge for India, and the rest of the world: a billion more people suddenly driving cars, heating and lighting their homes and setting ever higher aspirations for themselves and their children. Rediff Special Series : India at 60

Dental Tourism, just another form of outsourcing. Who says 'price' is not a factor when it comes to healthcare? At least 2,544,000 people around the world will search the internet for dental treatment abroad this year, according to Reva Health Network. In June alone, 636,155 dental tourism-related searches were carried out globally by 212,051 unique users on Google, Yahoo! and MSN search engines. ( | Via RSS Feed | Link to Article | )

2008 Olympics is quite an advantage for China, to channel more funds to technology and infrastructure. And that may act as the largest differentiator when compared to other Asian powerhouses, like India.  China's strategy is definitely paying off. In 2011, China will lead the world in IPTV subscribers. The massive size of the population, combined with the government’s technology emphasis for the 2008 Olympics, are the principal reasons for the growth. Revenue, however, will be driven by the United States. ( | Via RSS Feed | Link to Article | )

   Product Workshop on -What & How to build Challenges of a Product Business NASSCOM presents a workshop  on “What & How to build Challenges of a Product Business”. The NASSCOM Product Forum has identified the need to guide entrepreneurs who have business ideas in the software product space and are striving to get those ideas off the ground. This workshop would contribute towards creating a software product ecosystem in India, learning from the experience of Silicon Valley, Canada, Israel and other technology centers. This Product workshop will be led by experienced people from technology, business and venture funding backgrounds who are keen to contribute to aspiring product entrepreneurs, Product Companies, Product teams and Incubating companies.  Venue/Date : 9:00 AM To 5:30 PM 01 September 2007, The Royal Ball Room, The Leela Palace, Airport Road, Bangalore Click on Event Page Link  for more.

Excellent visual showing almost all Apple products. I did not know most products. I haven't even heard of most of them except a very few.   Evolution of Apple's Products | created by Edwin Tofslie   A visual I created to show the evolution of most all Apple products created over the past 30 years.This was created to show the evolution of the form factor and industrial design of the products, not to show every single model or upgrade Apple has launched. Click here to view big Source: Apple Product Evolution

Another book on the block that is vehemently complaining about internet and its ill effects on Culture.   The Cult of the Amateur: How today's Internet is killing our culture    I remember an earlier discussion about Wikipedia, complaining about its amateurish mob made content compared to so called validated and trusted expert content from famous encyclopedias. Whether there is any truth in that matter or not, first website I and most of my friends and collegues refer to when in doubt is undoubtedly wikipedia. On subjects we knew in depth, we compared the quality of content and found no truth in those allegations.    Coming to key arguments made in this book, here are few exceprts (taken from 37Signals post, linked at the bottom of the page, highlights by me) Mr. Keen argues that “ what the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis, shrill opinion rather tha...

Quite an interesting innovation and very promising for all of us. Whiteboards right on the refrigerator.  No more stick-its and post-its on the regrigerator. Go head scribble your thoughts on the refrigerator itself. When GE launched “Imagination at Work” as its new slogan to replace “We Bring Good Things To Life”, the most eye-catching part of its online campaign was a virtual whiteboard that visitors could sketch and scribble on. Apparently, someone at GE had the smarts to transfer the ad’s essence to the gleaming white surfaces of GE’s appliances. White goods + whiteboard…? Witness the birth of the sketch-a-fridge. Currently only available in Brazil, where it is sold as Risque Rabisque (roughly: Scrawl & Scribble), the refrigerator is covered in a special coating similar to dry erase whiteboards. Replacing the age-old practice of sticking grocery lists and children’s drawings on the fridge, missives can now be written directl...

Excerpt from Bill Gates commencement speech at Harvard: Don’t let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives. You graduates are coming of age in an amazing time. As you leave Harvard, you have technology that members of my class never had. You have awareness of global inequity, which we did not have. And with that awareness, you likely also have an informed conscience that will torment you if you abandon these people whose lives you could change with very little effort. You have more than we had; you must start sooner, and carry on longer. Knowing what you know, how could you not? And I hope you will come back here to Harvard 30 years from now and reflect on what you have done with your talent and your energy. I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you have addressed the world’s deepest inequities… on how well you treated people a world away who...

Frustrated with multiple web silo services (about 20 different websites I regularly use and ofcourse I hate to manage 20 different logins and bookmarks), I have started moving to 'All Google' services. With a single sign-on, I can access most services and the most interesting benefit is an excellent integration between different services. And, I really did not know until today that Google has acquired Feedburner. That makes my moving to 'Everything Google' camp little closer than I thought.   Google has acquired FeedBurner  More » We are happy to announce that Google has acquired FeedBurner. For more information related to the acquisition, read our FAQ .   Source: FeedBurner With feedburner moving to Google camp, all web services I use(except wordpress and central desktop)  are now Google services.  Search Engine: I rarely used any other search engine so far. (except for proving my point ocassionally) Google Reader : This is the secon...

Its quite unusual to see a book like this in India.  In US, if some one is successful in one venture, then their second venture is to sell that (so called) success formula. He/she spends the rest of their lives in selling that success through books, seminars, merchandise.. any thing that can be sold. I don't believe that  if you read those and probably follow them you will succeed. But it is good to see what their success made them to believe in. It is quite unusual to see similar books in India. Don't know why, I don't find (m)any books where Entrepreneurs and successful Indians wanted to share their stories. There are so many untold stories and unsung heroes. One of my friends, who share a similar mysterious belief, sent me a link to this book to prove the point that times are changing. It also has its own website to promote ( http://www.ithappened.in/ ). I The book is sold online through futurebazaar.com. But, the website shipping options only a...

A recent report by  Kauffman Foundation infers that there is a strong correlation between educational attainment and entrepreneurship. A report released by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation that tracked the educational backgrounds of immigrant entrepreneurs who were key founders of technology and engineering companies from 1995 to 2005 shows a strong correlation between educational attainment (particularly in science, technology, engineering and math) and entrepreneurship. Click image, above, to read Education, Entrepreneurship and Immigration: America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs, Part II . Click image, above, to read America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs (part 1 of the study). But before jumping to 'any' conclusions about  role of Educational Attainment to Entrepreneurship, (which I believe is construed and a misquoted wisdom), consider the following points from the report itself: The report  studied only Technology and Engineering companies....

How are many of the Web2.0 companies (hoping of) making  money out of their products? Quick and honest answer is : 'Nobody knows for sure, including the companies'. And predominantly there is only one business model: a free service and place ads on the pages. Here is nice study on current Web2.0 business models, from  VTT - Technical Research Centre of Finland : PDF File Social media is becoming more and more attractive to Web users. However, the majority of social media services do not have a clear business model. Typically an innovative idea gives birth to a service, which people can use free of charge. The most common way to create revenue is via advertisements: Google ads appear in many services. In the long run, however, social media has to adopt alternative means for making money. Why most web2.0 services are free? I think, despite the hype in the media, many web2.0 companies (excluding a few) are NOT looked as providing any VALUE to its users....

I never intend ' Thought Garage ' to be a source of information on H1B visas. But regular readers of my blog and frequent visitors made it a prime source of information for H1B visas this year.  One of my colleagues left a message that Thought Garage tops Google search results for H1B 2008 ahead of the most famous immigration portals including Murthy.com. I looked it up on Google and below was the screenshot of the search results. There is no reason for my blog to appear at the top of Google search results for information regarding H1B visas, without your turning to my blog to get the updates and sharing your experiences for the benefit of other guests. I understand for some of you, getting a H1B and working in US will be a turning point in your careers and I am quite thrilled that you considered Thought Garage as one of your sources of information.  Thank you all. I could not answer all questions asked by you on posts concerned with H1B 2008 Visa process, ...

One of my colleagues forwarded this amazing Cat fish (real) story. Read on. Fish Story A guy who lives at Lake Conroe (50 miles north of Houston ) saw a ball bouncing around kind of strangely in the lake and went to investigate. It turned out to be a flathead catfish who had obviously tried to swallow a basketball which became stuck in its mouth!! The fish was totally exhausted from trying to dive, but unable to because the ball would always bring him back up to the surface. The guy tried numerous times to get the ball out, but was unsuccessful. He finally had his wife cut the ball in order to deflate it and release the hungry catfish  You probably wouldn't have believed this, if you hadn't seen the following pictures..

Seth Godin shares about his recent visit to Indian Consulate in Newyork and its bizarre state of affairs. Thats not a big surprise for me and fellow Indians who have been living through it for years. But it is quite interesting to read his fresh suggestions to treat it just like a business and leverage the unique opportunity and maximize benefits. He argues that problem is not lack of ideas to change but lack of a mindset to do so. The problem is that this bureaucracy, like most bureaucracies, has an attitude of minimizing, not maximizing. They want to minimize expense, not maximize benefit. There isn't a single person there who has as part of his job, "change systems to increase the satisfaction of people we deal with." Nobody who is charged with, "increase revenue opportunities for us and for the people we work with." Or even, "employ more people in Delhi." Same thing happens at my village zoning board, at most schools, at many churches and even...

Wow!! Another cool feature from Google. Now, You can personalize your Google page with a theme that changes with you, precisely your time and climate. Another simple concept that defines what personalization could mean and why you can't ignore Google.     >> iGoogle It is raining in Dallas and here is what my theme looks like. I will update this post tomorrow in the morning, so you will see the difference. See you tomorrow then. And a Big Thank You to Google ! Here is how the theme looks today morning. Funny that I missed my cute girl in red in the second one. I love it. The theme always looks fresh and quite refreshing. Here is another theme. This is wonderful in bright colors. Did you observe the Bagles and Coffee in the picture? Ofcourse, it is breakfast time. Technorati tags: igoogle , google , inspions , personalization , themes

Interesting campaign to create a technology dream for Girls.  Share the word and make sure you work with atleast one girl to encourage to go tech.  The Girls Go Tech campaign aims to encourage girls to develop an early interest in math, science, and technology and, ultimately, maintain that interest to help ensure a more diverse, dynamic and productive workforce. Girls Go Tech campaign! - TV Ads       --> GirlsGoTech Website --> Adcouncil 's Page Technorati tags: ad-council , gotechgirls , girlscouts , girls , technology , inspions