Reflections

Off the winding roads on to the dirt,

A path still to be carved, 

an adventure still to be explored,

The unknown and the fear of the known, 

Life is an explorer and your choices the driver. 

Destination unknown.

Live with the excitement of the explorer, 

Trade with the caution of a keeper, 

Surrender to the sail only to trust the wind, 

Sensibility and sensitivity be the guide, 

No matter how choppy the tide, 

Destination unknown. 

Never for the shore nor for the city, 

The explorer is for the journey. 

Living for it and lost in it, 

Only to start one thinking many more to come, 

It's not how you reached but how you traveled, 

Destination unknown. 

Traveled but not accompanied, 

Found only to be lost, seen but forgotten, 

A meaningless tryst the greatest explorer, 

Not without a compass but with a story teller, 

To share the twist without the turn, 

Destination unknown.

Not to be alone but only to be cherished, 

Paddle on the wheel,

Not to be pushed but only to be guided, 

Holding on to the road only to be closer to the

Destination unknown 

Europe Vacation with a todler & a 6 Year Old - An Indian Family Saga : Part 1

Family Vacation to Europe

There is a lot written out to there to help plan an itinerary to places to visit and I am sure they will have done a far better then i ever will. This is my first trip to Europe add to that the first trip with my family on such a long journey.

We are traveling with a 2 year old and a 6 year old. You can imagine the butterflies and the excitement. While I am relatively frequent traveler and so is my family. This by far would be our longest journey. Am I sounding anxious definitely I am.

Let me begin with my planning, I booked myself on JetAirways from Bangalore to Paris via Abu Dhabi carefully using all our miles returning London to Bangalore via Delhi again JetAirways. I preferred the Indian Airlines over the other options purely from the fact that they might just understand Indian Travellers better but it remains to be seen. I booked the rest of the trip mostly for hotels and Visa through a travel agent Trip Factory. I think i could have done a better job than they did but guess didnt want to take the risk and responsibility to make sure everything is right. I realise that its only better that you do things on your own and talk to people you might know who have traveled to plan your trip then these agents. You definitely cant plan everything and you definitely dont think you can research it all. But as they say some plan is better than no plan.

UK Visa has to be first if you are planning Europe with London. For the Visa make sure that you have enough documents and make sets of at least two. VFS offices make a killing out of even photocopying papers and documents. There is absolutely no use of paying to them for an SMS service. Thats water down the toilet DO NOT OPT for it. Once done apply for Schengen Visa again there is no SMS and tracking charges for the Schengen Visa, they keep updating you on the status and its very fast. You get the visa in less than 4 working days. But again carry multiple sets of insurance, tickets and other paper work to ensure that the process is smooth.

We are a vegetarian family add to that my wife is very particular about food. We are carrying one bag of ready to eat meals for the trip easily upto 23 kgs. The anxiousness is only growing as we draw close to the travel dates. First the luggage, you are allowed only 2 PCs of checkin luggage per person and it cannot be more than 23 kgs each. I thought I could carry 83 Kgs and it would a breeze. Pack everything in one bag and  carry two smaller bags for everything else. Guess what you cant do that. You have to carry 2 pc of luggage for each passenger and keep it under 23 kgs. This only means that you will travel with more number of luggage and a stroller for your young one. The plan from an original 3 suitcase (1 large, 1 medium and 1 small) all gone for a toss. We had not add two more pieces which means that now my travel is already very exciting given that i am traveling on Thalys from Paris to Amsterdam, a high speed rail experience. They have very little information on stoppage time and they close the gates 2 minutes before departure so you need to be ahead of schedule but
you cant reach the station too early because track and other details are displayed only 20 minutes prior. But I guess you need to face what comes. Manage kids and load everything on the train and guess that you don't be anxious. My neighbor who travels frequently to europe threw a last minute spanner saying you need Car seats or you wont be able to travel by cabs as it is mandatory for travel. I freaked for one I dont have one and even if I did have one how do I carry the car seat a monster in itself. The kept me awake through the night, researching. Finally to conclude that public transport is the answer and wherever you are using cabs you need to request for family vans rest I can tell you only once I have completed my travel. Indian Kids used to jumping around in the car no seat belts this is going to be interesting. I am preparing myself mentally to keep calm and believe this will be one hell of a team building activity for my family. We are in the final moments of packing and to set off on this memorable journey. 

Hriedaya - Gia - My Heart & My Soul

This has been stuck in my head for a while now but I couldn't get around to write it. Thinking of where to begin.

Gia, I am not sure how should I be as a father. I read many things and get many advice from people on how I should behave around both of you. Then I have my own conflicting Views on my way of handling in my head. I  just want you to know that i am trying hard. I aspire to be a reasonable, loving and most importantly a father you are proud of. Hopefully you see my anger as my inability to control my emotion and not your failure. I Love you and I know that I am hard on you at times in trying to bring positive impact. Not sure how successful I am. You are very good at expressing your views and often my voice scares you but you know that I am not shouting at you but at myself for not being able to control those anger pangs. I am trying hard and would continue to try and do better than I did yesterday. We have all seen changes around us and one of them is your little sister. I have seen your love for her but her health demands us to work together. I am asking a lot for my 6 year old but we have to now show care for each other and look out for each other. Hopefully in years to come you would be able to see the care and love for each other and not a bias for one over the other.

Hreidaya, my darling, your doing pranam every now and then and your throwing tantrums every now and then melts and boils me at the same time. We have to all learn new way of living one that has more control on our emotions and one that can help us all to be together stronger than ever. Would always want to see you smile .... 

2015- New Milestone year in our life

As the calendar changes to reveal, a new year, its so many memories that go to the books this year. We started the year expecting a new member to our family. And there she is a beautiful angel "Hriedaya" born in March.

Life came a full circle, it just seemed yesterday that Gia was so small and now Hriedaya she reminds me of Gia as a new born. This feeling is very hard to describe Gia & Hriedaya both truly represent my heart and Soul. Though we never planned their names to be like that but Now that it is. I so like to say its Nature's way to show you how it conspires to get you what you want. With its bag of happiness this year also brought in mixed share of worries, fights & opportunities. As a couple we both are beginning to act stupid certainly all signs of an aging wine. Some bitterness and awesome flavors when it settles, but we sure are getting there. The whole Oracle Incident still haunts my memories. Petty organisational politics and no respect for loyalty is increasingly becoming a norm. What's the point in this bickering when I know that there is no ears to employees no matter what the truth.

I loved our Family Photographs this year, we have to do this every year. Its such a feeling, Cant wait to get the next one when all of us are together.

Natural Justice & Fair Treatment: A Case of wrongful treatment to an Employee J

TCS Firing: A news that questioned a lot of unfair practices and poor employee grievance redressal systems in the Indian Corporate scenario. We might be part of the educated and organised job scene but the treatment we face in the case of termination and/or unethical treatment in case of disputes within the organisations in India; is no where close to any employment standard anywhere in the world. Even global MNC's with offices in India make the most of the current loop holes in the system.

Even though most companies have ethics helplines and Grievance redressal sytems in some form or the other but it is only because of compliance and not to actually any resolve issues. There are hardly any statics on how many cases have been reported and how many been have been resolved and its any body's how many are in favour of the complainant, that are being published. I dont think all complains are genuine. But there are a few cases that I am sure we all know or have heard which deserves the merit of a fair treatment, before being decided in favour of the management, however out of the fear of retaliation most of these cases have never even see the light of the day.

Recently, a very close friend of mine narrated the plight he went through in his organisation and how scapegoats are found to save a few on top. There is no question of fair treatment. I will let you decide and hope that some day sense would prevail and there would be some logical answers and punishments for those abusing the position of strength.

THE CASE

An impromptu Career discussion meeting (Calendared 30 mins before the meeting with CDM as the subject) is called for with all the stake holders (reporting manager, Group Manager, HR and the person. During the meeting it is informed (not discussed) to the person, that the business has decided that he would be best suited for a role which is at a lower level than the one currently being held(same level as he was 7 years ago and to pacify him they add its not a demotion). This decision is based on feedback from the team and previous engagement and other inputs and that the concerned person needs to accept the role effective immediately. On seeking specific reasons for this decision and requesting for documenting the Minutes of the current meeting it is mentioned that there was no need for it. (Its a business decision so we wont need the minutes documented and its to inform). On insisting for reasons and basis which the decisions was made vague reasons are highlighted and an corroborated by the HR (in the form of some due diligence conducted by them) without taking into view or giving an opportunity to the affected person to explain or defend their position. Lets for a moment look at the reasons on which  the so called decisions was made to get rid of the person.

1. Skills Set  - (No area specifically mentioned apparently a skill set check was conducted across the org and the person did not fit the job requirement. The effected person has never taken any skill assessment as claimed)
2. Unable to Handle Stress (How they came to this conclusion again the basis is not shared)
3. Feedback (From different people against the person)

On asking specific questions.
Why does the change have to be made immediately ? As there are timelines to meet it has to be immediately come into effect
What is the new assignment/options does he have for the new role? Nothing has been thought and it has to be explored and something will be assigned shortly.

Assume for a moment that all the accusation made against the person are true, even then Nature Justice and fair treatment would recommend that a fair warning is issued, a memo raised, Skills reinforcement done, regular course correction and review done on the progress. If the person fails to meet the criteria inspite of all the efforts taking the business decision or even firing makes a lot of sense. NO, none of it is followed. All that is done is that the person is told that it is decided take it or leave the organisation (the ultimate goal, which could not be accomplished because of lack of paper work to support it).

I dont want to influence the above scenario with my own observations but its important to highlight that this person has been with the organisation for almost 9 years. Managed several responsibilities, excelled in previous roles and now almost after close to a decade with this company they decide without giving an opportunity to explain or even correct the wrong, take whatever is thrown at you or get out.

What should be the Natural Justice ? What would be a fair way to handle this situation ?

Does the employee stand any chance when the entire management gangs up against one person? How do you let the truth prevail?

Disciplining a Todler

In a bid to discipline to our child or to get her comply with what we are saying we fail to get her to execute what she has been asked to. This mean we often loose our cool and end up shouting, raising hands (not hitting but no less either) and actually spanking. How do we find a middle ground and discipline our child without having to hit or scream or yell at the child. She is not an obtuse but my fear is we would end up making her one with the way we are dealing with her. I dont want her to end up with a low self esteem or become a rebel.

There is no denying the fact that we have failed miserably in trying to get to a common ground as a couple. Our fights have become even more painful and louder than it ever was. I cannot bear the thought of someone hitting my child. I wont say that I have never been tempted to hit my child because of her non compliance and often ignorant behavior. The anger always gets the worst out of us. I stop at showing her a slap and nothing more than that. But when i see her cry and sob I break into millions of pieces inside and the pain is louder and shreds sharper then nails to prick the hell out of me.

I am feeling so helpless at this moment and wondering how can I find a solution that all of us can agree and live with.

Corporate Licenses: A thought on STM Sales model for Corporates

With a few years of content selling experience in India to both academic and corporate I thought this is a good time to pen some of my thoughts and experience of selling scientific literature and tools in India. In this blog I wanted to capture some of my experience and challenges in selling content, specially to corporate in India. These are my experiences purely based on interactions with the companies that we have been working and trying to capture. In my role today I manage corporate sales across India selling into pharma, semiconductor, IT & Manufacturing companies. From PSUs to contract research companies. In my contact rolodex you would find Product Engineers, Scientist, Solution architects, HR L&D, Training heads & CTOs.

Let me present my perspective of Research by Corporates in India? Who is research in Corporate India? What does research mean in India?

In India Corporate research can easily be compared with re-engineering, Low cost engineering, reduce cost engineering. If its pharma except for a couple of pharma companies most pharma companies are API, Bulk drug or doing contract research. When it comes to selling content to them its a story to tell and I hope I am able to do justice to this.

For starters lets look at life in a day of an Engineer at a R&D Centre, this is a typical captive R&D in India, these guys work on projects with a very specific task assigned and leaving very little to his imagination except for doing what he is told. This though is changing as Engineers are not willing to give in to the tasks alone, you see increasing number of patents filed from India as a testament to this but a lot more is desired. The other end of the spectrum is Indian Engineers are very happy doing what they are doing and not really worried about reading or staying update, most people not willing to invest in themselves to keep themselves updated and often ending up doing job below their skill level. People seem to become so comfortable with the 10-15% hikes they get every year that they dont want to even look beyond. At the far end of the spectrum is the Management, so what do they want. They want people to take initiative yet they dont want to give them any freedom. For every idea to be selected you have an internal bureaucracy to win and there is very little scope for failure. They want to maintain the control on who is doing what without cutting any slack. Cant blame them we are not very disciplined when we are left free ?

What happens in Pharma is even more fun to highlight, I like to quote a very senior chemist/scientist once who said "When you mix two chemicals the reaction will automatically happen whether you know chemistry or not. We really dont need to read a lot but know what we shouldn't do. And to do this we look at who else has done it and how. Hence we rely on patents and molecules that we have been told to identify and work". I understand this do what sells dont worry about the unknown someone will find a solution we will try to find an alternate and do it cheap.

There are many other such examples of what are we researching and to produce what. From most of my interactions I hear very similar lines. I have only 12 hrs of work time and in that most of the time goes in fire fighting where is the time to read? So then how do we sell content?? Is no one reading? I would very wrong if i remotely indicate this. We are..and if we have to go by footfalls on website and number of unique visits to publishers website I am confident that India ranks among the top 3. But what needs to be understood is that numbers do not mean anything in India. We are a 100 Billion plus and counting so numbers dont matter to me. What matters is out of the number of visits how many finally continue to return and bring more with them. I am sure that the returning numbers to website would be a relatively smaller number and in that if we are looking at regular visits that number might still be the smallest (as it would be in any other country as well but when you look at the ratio it would certainly be smaller than all others). What I am trying to get is the model in which most content is being sold in India to corporates. Buy pick n choose or buy collection of articles with minimum spend or enhanced licenses. If you ask any Content sales person in the industry today he/she would simply say corporate selling is challenging.

Why this view, yes it is challenging but the selling model is also questionable. For an engineer on the ground he has cost pressure and asking for any resource that will help him in his work would also mean adding cost to the product which neither his manager or his management is very keen on. Why spend on a notebook if you have give an ROI on every page utilized by the end user. People will start find new places to write if you ask them to explain the ROI on every page used. We cant ration everything if we do that people will find ways to steal and thats exactly what happens in content sales. My understanding of the industry and academia collaboration is my engineer will come to your library let him use the resources. My engineer friend is doing Mtech i will take his help to get the paper. Lets find if they have individual membership one of the team leads will become member and if we need one or two papers we will use his ID. All manifestation of a wrong model. We cannot have an ROI on a notebook.

So what do we do ??? Apart from the fact that most of the content, like this blog is becoming free, open source and that people are unwilling to buy new content whatever be the reason. While there must be millions of discussion out there on open source and not so open source I strongly believe that the sales model has to evolve.

Here is what I think may be the future sales model for most STM publishers. Tools to deliver tangible research or Sell reusable content at premium (similar to Standards/compliance reports). I have to believe that the content itself will become irrelevant but the outcome from the content would be Gold and that has to be charged. You cannot use all open source content and make millions from others. Just like in software if you make money you have to share the fruits with others (Android). If I am publishing and the company wants an affiliation sure why not.. The fees for company affiliation will be different and will be defined by the technology in question. I want to file a patent and the patent refers my papers, the patent is owned by the company so the company has to pay for the referral. What will be the pricing model ? How will you identify the opportunity and demand money from companies? This is the next billion dollar answer