A Few Things To Do Before I Die

Chanced upon a banner of eBay’s new campaign “10 Things to Do before you Die!” while I was on my way to the office. The promotion invites people to bid for 10 once-in-a-lifetime experiences starting atRe.1/-. The advertisement reminded me of a list of things I wanted to do given that I had Rs. 10 crore with me. For the record it was only an assumption that my finance lecturer gave us to work with as part of an assignment while I was pursuing my masters in management. But there are so many things in life that I want to do and Rs. 10 crore is too small an amount.

Assuming that there is no dearth of money, here is a list of things (will keep adding to it) that I would like to do (as of now) before I die. Here they are (not in any particular order):

1. Travel into Space

 

2. Pilot a fighter jet

 

3. Drive a Ferrari and a 1000 cc bike on a F1 track

 

4. Play at the Lords cricket ground

 

5. Visit the North and South pole

 

6. Write and direct a movie

 

7. Build a state-of-the-art hospital

 

8. Establish a world-class educational institution

 

Interesting links for more Things to do before dying

• 50 things to eat before you die




• 100 things to do before you die




• 1000 films to watch before you die




• 1000 places to see before you die




• 1001 books to read before you die

 

What do you want to do before you die?

Filed under: Blog, Life, People, Strategy , 10 Things to Do before you Die, 1000 cc Bike, Books to read, Die, Direct a Movie, eBay, F1 track, Ferrari, Fighter Jet, Films to watch, Lords cricket ground, Marketing Campaign, North Pole, Places to see, South Pole, State-of-the-art Hospital, Things to eat, World-Class Educational Institution

All That Tech

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III: The 21.1 Megapixel Camera!

Source: Canon

What do you think you would do with a camera that comes with a whopping 21.1 megapixels? Shoot everything in the world. You can do that now with Canon’s latest ground-breaking camera the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III. And for all of you who are interested in photography read more about this impressive technique High Dynamic Range Imaging to create beautiful HDR pictures.

Non-Windows Operating System From Microsoft!

While the battle between Yahoo and Microsoft gets hotter with the former trying to wage a proxy war to acquire the latter, Microsoft has put forth its Non-Windows Operating System codenamed Singularity. The project is an attempt by Microsoft to build a more reliable and robust operating system from scratch putting to use all the advances in programming languages, compilers and system level programming. Still in its early stages there isn’t any commitment yet from Microsoft on any commercialisation plans or status of Singularity.

500 Million Firefoxes and a Free Online File Converter

Source: Mozilla

Happy to note that Mozilla’s Firefox my preferred browser has been downloaded 500 million times. Zamzar is the place where you can head to when you have trouble opening that latest file format without the appropriate software installed on your system. Zamzar provides a free online file converter that allows conversions between a variety of file formats.

Filed under: Business, Reviews, Strategy, Technology , Microsoft, 21.1 megapixels, Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, Canon's latest cameras, High Dynamic Range Imaging, Yahoo, Microsoft's Proxy War, Yahoo Vs Microsoft, Non-Windows Operating System from Microsoft, Singularity, Mozilla Firefox, Firefox Downloads, Free online file convertor, Zamzar, File Formats

Books, Reading And Me

Reading is something I have been loving from my childhood. I used to read anything and everything that I could find. Starting with the usual self motivation books I slowly graduated to books on management and now to books on a variety of topics.

I was quite lucky that where ever I went books were in abundance. My school, college and my first employer probably had the biggest collection of books. As luck would have it and to my liking, the first job I had required me to read a lot.

I am just trying to recollect how many books I might have read by now. Hopefully, I can also include a brief about them sometime soon. So here I go:

1. Priceless by Diana Lasalle
2. Made In Japan by Akio Morita
3. The Bombardier Story by Larry Macdonald
4. The Art of Deception by Kevin D. Hitnick
5. What Clients Love by Harry Beckwith
6. How Customers Think by Gerald Zaltman
7. Use What You’ve Got & Other Business Lessons by Barbara Corcoran
8. The End of Detroit by Micheline Maynard
9. John Chambers And The Cisco Way by John K Waters
10. The Maverick And His Machine by Thomas Watson
11. How To Influence People And Win Friends by Dale Carneige
12. Count Your Chickens by Arindham Chaudhari
13. The Magic of Thinking Big by David J Schwartz
14. The Art of War by Tsu Zau
15. Icon Steve Jobs by Jeffrey S. Young and William L. Simon
16. Iaccoca by Lee Iacocca and William Novak
17. Inscrutable Americans by Anurag Mathur
18. Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat
19. It Happened In India by Kishore Biyani
20. The Google Story by David Vise and Mark Malseed
21. Lexus The Relentless Pursuit by Chester Dawson
22. The Road Ahead by Bill Gates
23. K.mart’s 10 Deadly Sins by Marcia Layton Turner
24. Fish by Stephen C. Lundin
25. The Crow Chronicles by Ranjit Lal
26. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
27. Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
28. Congo by Michael Chrichton
29. Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda
30. The Fisherman and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
    
31. How to Sell Anything to Anybody by Joe Girard
32. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
33. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
34. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
35. The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien
    
36. The Monk Who Sold his Ferrari by Robin Sharma
37. Black Friday by S Hussain Zaidi
    
38. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J K Rowling
39. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J K Rowling
40. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J K Rowling
41. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J K Rowling
42. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J K Rowling
43. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J K Rowling

List to be updated …

Filed under: Blog, Books, Life, Reviews, Strategy , Aeroplanes, Autobiography, Automotives, best sellers, Birds, Books, Business, Computers, Customer Service, Hacking, Harry Potter, Indian Authors, J K Rowling, Lexus, management books, Marketing, novels, reading, Retailing, self motivation books, Strategy, Technology, Trend setters

Time For New Rules In Test Cricket?

Though i am a fan of the Indian cricket team, I have to say that I really hate to see cricket matches especially test matches end without a result because of bad weather conditions. There should be a method to at least credit the team which has played well so that it can help improve its chance of winning a series if all the matches end in a draw.

In today’s match between India and England at Lords, England clearly outplayed the Indian team with the famed Indian batting line up of Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Ganguly and Laxman with no one being able to put up a decent score in the two innings. Rain gods have favoured the Indian team this time (it hurts more when India is denied a win because of bad weather conditions) from losing the match with only a wicket left.

There should be some kind of rule like the Duckworth Lewis method used in ODIs to decide the fate of matches which are drawn because of bad weather conditions. The method should at least allow the team which has played well to get a credit (probably by awarding points based on some parameters customised to suit test cricket) which can help it clinch the series if all the matches are drawn.

With the one day version of the cricket already becoming competitive with more stringent rules, its high time that even test cricket gets some new rules. This would not only increase the competition in the game but would add more pressure for teams to play win and not drag the match with defensive tactics. The new rules could help by:

• Awarding credits to the team which has played well based on its performance like number of runs scored, wickets lost, run rate etc
• Crediting the team which has played well over the other team
• Giving the audience more decisive results based on the teams performance
• Providing teams and bodies that manage the teams a better yardstick to measure their performance
• Allowing the teams to win the series in case of drawn matches
• Boosting the teams rating in the ICC Test Championship provided ICC considers the credits to award points to the teams

Let me know your thoughts on this.

Filed under: Blog, Cricket, India, Rants, Strategy , Cricket, Duckworth Lewis method, ICC Test Championship, ICC Test Rules, India, Indian Cricket Team, ODI, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Test Cricket, Test Cricket Rules

Google’s Gobbling Spree

There are a few companies like Google which can match its grown rate. Offering most of its products and services free of cost, Google still makes billions. Already having quite a lot of services and products and still adding to the list, Google looks hungry even now.

So what all things does Google have on offer?

• Search
• Blogs
• Videos
• Social Networking
• Digital Photo Management
• Document Creators
• Telecom, Wireless
• Internet

It has acquired more than 47 companies till date. This is in the period from 2001 to 2007. Google looks right on target to become a dominating force on the internet. It is making the right moves at the right time with the right business strategy to make most of what it is spending.

Google still generates a major chunk of its revenue from advertising. This might or might not be the major revenue stream in the coming years but will provide it with the necessary financial strength.

While it keeps giving nightmares to established companies in various sectors including, Software, Telecom and Media etc., Google still allows millions of people use its simple but powerful products and services for free.

Filed under: Blog, Business, Strategy, Technology , Blogs, Google, Google's Acquisitions, Googling, Microsoft, Netizens, Search, Social Networking, Strategy, Web Productivity

Eternal Service

I often wonder where customer service fits into the overall picture of a company’s growth.

These are two real-time personal experiences that I had with two banks. I had been to a branch of SBI at NFC in Hyderabad to deposit some money for my dad. First of all being located in a central government company’s premises, it has a lot of traffic (employees of course). The first thing that you notice is that there are no clear signs of what service is provided at the counters.

The other one which I had been to was the HDFC bank branch. to close an account (a dangerous proposition for any bank) of course the account wasn’t being used by me for a said amount of time. But the branch is clearly signed and you know whom to approach, single window multiple services. I just had to give my name and sign and presto my account was closed in a jiffy – what more they even returned back a balance of Rs 71 which was there in the account and no questions asked. I was just wondering what would I be doing for the same in any nationalised or public sector bank. Probably run from pillar to post to know how to close an account.

Filed under: Business, Hyderabad, India, People, Rants, Reviews, Strategy , Account Closing, Bank, Branch, Customer Service, HDFC, Hyderabad, Private Bank, Public Sector Bank, SBI, State Bank of India