Last week we had a very interesting event on “Blogging and Beyond” featuring three of the top bloggers in the world – Guy Kawasaki, Chris Pirillo and Ramit Sethi.   It was a discussion which revolved around their experiences, when and how they started blogging, why they blog regularly, what it means to them, tips on blogging, how to make money off your blog and how to attract traffice to your blog.  In my opinion, Chris Pirillo was the most entertaining and informative, sharing his personal experiences and humoring the crowd.   The thing that struck me most was that Chris was very honest, straightforward and open about his achievements, ad more importantly it sounded like one fun ride.    Chris has been very kind enough to mention me in one of his blogs, which has in turn helped me get some awesome traffic.   Thanks Chris!

To add to the SIPA excitement for the week, I volunteered over the weekend by manning the SIPA booth at the Fremont Indian Independence day festival.  It was an intriguing experience meeting people from different walks of life, and explaining to them the mission and goals of SIPA.  We got a large list of people interested in becoming members and/or attending future events.   One observation I did make though is that most people coming to our booth definitely had something to sell back to us!

‘Why’ is critical.  It is the most important question you can ask.  It is the question which will give you complete understanding of someones thinking.  It does not matter if the thinking is related to technology, education, movies or just a plain thought.  If you can ask the correct whys, you will have an undrestanding beyond everyone else.  People who have the guts to learn and understand why, are the ones who will make a change to this world. 

I was shocked to find that in my current job most people in this company do not understand why things have been done.  And they dont care!  I ask, how can you drive imrovement in a product without understanding why in the first place it was designed how it is?  I can see some people get very frustrated when I keep probing them with ‘why’s, but I dont care! 

For me it is a need to know why?  Why this design, why did you chose to be a teacher, why did you like this movie, why do you want to go to business school, why did you do what you did, why do you want to go to Brazil, why is India poor, why the Indian cricket team never wins crunch games etc etc. 

Always remember to ask why in addition to what and how.  Don’t be scared to ask why, it’s your right.

In my current job I am amazed to see totally diverse individuals working towards one common goal.  It is just amazing how truely diverse people work so well together.  They are diverse in every sense – origin, color, religion, professional backgrounds, age, education, experience and most importantly in their thought process. 

Someone mentioned this to me once and it got me thinking, so I want to share it with you.  Consider there is a project and there are 2 teams working on it.   One is a group of people all with similar backgrounds, education, upbringing and experience (group 1).  And the other group is a group of diverse people (group 2).  Which group do you think performed faster and better?  You will find that the  group 1 will reach a consensus much sooner than group 2.  But the results produced by group 2 will be astounding.  They will surpass all expectations and requirements and reach untouched skies.  The primary reason for this is – a diverse group of people bring in ideas from different walks of life, and after some brainstorming produce results and solutions which have been tried and tested in contrasting environments.

Diversity is critical and is the best thing that can happen to you.  My goal is to try and diversify as much as I can.  May it be in my education, my work, the people I interact with, the food I eat, what I read, where I travel or my friends.   It makes me a wiser person and helps me see things in a new light.  Life is too short to stick to one thing all your life.  This does not mean lose track and one day be a chef, next day an engineer and the day after that a movie star.   Stay focussed, but look at life from the bigger picture. 

What I love most is to meet people from different walks of life.  I know many people who only enjoy hanging out with people from their own profession.  Why is that?  Because it is too easy, their thinking is the same and they get an ego boost talking about stuff they know.  It’s fun, but does not do too much in your overall sef-development.  But meeting people from differnent walks of life gives you a whole new insight into how others think.  I always jump on to opportunities to try and have a meal with a fashion student or a lawyer or an investment banker or a teacher or a physiotherapist.  Anyone who has experienced life differently than I have.

BOTTOM LINE: Diversify, it is critical to success.

But bottom line is decisions are crucial and only a person with great decision making skills can be successful.  YOu see all the best leaders have great decision making skills and almost always make good decisions.  (One of a million reasons Bush sucks).    But the important question is how did they become good at decision making?   Were they born that way, did they inherit it or did they work at it?   Yes you can work at being a good decision maker. 

I frankly do not know if I am a good decision maker.  I have had to make some difficult decisions already.  I am happy with most, but there are some I am not 100% sure about.  And I have been ecstatic about others.  It is very easy to go back and say how good or bad a decision is, what is difficult is to forecast its effects.  In my current job the most important thing I do is make a lot of decisions – that is my job.  It’s difficult, but I stick to them and learn from not very good ones.  

2 Questions to think about – 1) How to make a good decision?  2) How to improve your decision making skills?

Both the questions may sound the same, but they are not.  Answer to question 1) could be to get as much data as you can,   interpret the information in it, weigh the tradeoffs, determine the impact, determine the urgency, determine the duration of impact and most imprortant MAKE a decision.  No decision is worse than a bad decision. 

Answer to question 2) has a subtle difference.  How do you improve, not how you make good decisions.   Critical:  Make more decisions.  The more decisions you make the better you will be.  A point in time will come where every decision will be a good decision.  Learn from experience and any bad decisions.  Never make the same bad decision twice.  That is a failure.  Another way to improve is to learn to ask a lot of questions and more importanly ask the right questions.  That will come with experience too.

BOTTOM LINE: Make more decisions, only way to improve.

People in development (for some reason) consider themselves the Gods.  They are the “creative” bunch who want to make the coolest products not caring about the quality or whether it will run in a large scale environment.  It should just be functionally cool.   They act like movie directors who have an unlimited budget, no deadlines and a plethora of resources.  The true “geeks” if i may.   Thoughts: I am so geeky

QA are the ones who fight and try to stand up for quality.  They try to repel the overwhelming force of the developers.  They are the editors who get absolutely no credit for finding bugs, in fact they are hated for doing their job.  If they dont find the bugs, they are hammered from the other side – operations.  They have a very limited set of  tools, are satisfied by nature and always idolise developers.  They can NEVER make developers, operations and management happy.   They are the targets in a game of dodgeball.  Thoughts: WTF am I doing.

Operations are a completely unique breed.  They dont care a damn about how it works, as long as it works.  If it doesnt work they hammer down on QA first, then on developers.  They are like the distributers who dont care a damn till they lose money and business.  The developers dont think too highly of operations, but QA is in awe just because of the scale.  They are like the postal service – don’t notice them till your mail goes missing.  Thoughts: Who cares, I hate this shit.

And then there are the program managers … the producers.  Allocating resources, budgets, time and people.  They work with each of the above, but are frowned upon due to the emphasis on “process” and bullshitting.  Thoughts: I couln’t be a developer, but I am so cool – almost a businessman.

There are of course exceptions who as developers concentrate on quality, as testers …they can’t do much to improve their position, as operations try to understand what the hell is happening and as program manager are just plain good. 

First step in cracking an interview is to change these thoughts into something like these prior to going in  - what will I ask them?, is this the right job and right company for me?, do they deserve me?, I will nail all the answers, what is the job exactly?, how are the people I will be working with?, they need to convince me why I should join them, this is one of my many options, they are more in need of an employee than I am of an employer, I have XXX qualities which make me unique, I have done this before a million times, if i got this far they already think iIm smart, I have nothing to lose, this is going to be fun and a great learning experience. 

Get the postive go get attitude,  be passionate and confident.  Passion and confidence can take you places you could not have imagined.  Getting into the right frame of mind is the single most important step in preparing for an interview – not studying a whole lot of material.  You can prepare for technical and behavioural questions all you want, but I can guarantee that what you answer is not what you learnt in the preparation, but how you have been thinking for the last 10 years of your life.  You cannot change how you think and what you know in a week or so.  That is what makes you unique – your thought process.  Spending time to start thinking right is way more important.   Prepare a bit on the study front, but spend more time studying the job profile, your resume and the company you are intervewing at.  

Sell yourself.  Take every opportunity and every question to highlight all your previous achievements.  Make the interviewer feel that you exactly know what your strengths are, and more importantly know how and when to leverage them.  Highlight how you are different from the pack, and what makes you unique.  Divesity in background and experience are a few of the most critical criterias you need to satisfy.   ALWAYS GIVE EXAMPLES. For everything.  Just stating qualities and achievements does not buid any credibility.

Be concise.  Don’t beat around the bush.  Answer to what is being asked, not what you think is the question you wished they asked you.   Summarize at the end, to  press your point.  Look to see when the interviewer starts losing interest.   Try using numbers and facts.   That gets across the point much quicker and has more impact. 

Follow the STAR model (situation, task, achievement, result) for all your answers.   You can never go wrong.  Know your resume inside out.  NEVER LIE.  Honesty and integrity are the two key traits every single company requires.  Once the interviewer starts probing, an innocent lie can cost you the job.

Grill the interviewer.   Yes not the other way, and I have not gone mad.  By personal experience, this is one tactic which works like a dream.  Be bold and ask him questions, questions, questions.  Asking questions is the most important part of the process, and surprisingly this is the part where most interviewees miss out on.  The more questions you ask the more you impress the interviewer.  Ask questions about what you have heard from him and other interviewers, a set of prepared questions related to the company, job and people.   And always ask this one critical question – ” Why should I join your company?”  My guarentee this will blow away the interviewer and make him think – I really want to hire this guy!  Remmeber intervewing has 2 aims – the employer finding out more about you and you finding out more about the employer.  Its a 50-50 process.  Also the more questions you ask, the more you make them feel like you really want the job, are very passionate about it and a great learner.

What should you do when you cannot answer?   Is it the end of the world.  NO WAY.  A good interviewer should break the ice and go to the next question.   See if you can ask related questions that will give you some clue.  If not, then nstead of just making up a story, just say “Sorry, I do not have the answer to that”.  Don’t make many excuses but if there is a genuine reason as to why you don’t know state that.  (for example its a tool you used in the past, but havent in a while).  Most importantly stress that you are a very quick learner.   And once again support your claim with an example from the real world.

Use management and resume words - led, team, individual, created, developed, managed, drive, critical, achiever, go getter, passion,  motivated, cross group collaboration, enable.  I think you got the idea.   But be very careful to back up your claims.  Don’t say you are a team player when you have never worked in a team.  Say you are a team player as has been shown in many of the projects (examples) where you worked with diverse teams.

At the end of the interview thank them, reiterate how excied you are about the job and summarize why they should hire you.  But be careful not to ever look too needy.  Once an interviewer finds out you are desperate you lose a few points straight up.  

And one last tip – ENJOY, SMILE and be OPTIMISTIC.  Everyone wants to work with people who are fun, good natured and happy.  Would you want to work with a grumpy pessimistic person? There is your answer.  

Now go and nail that job!  It’s a  piece of cake. 

2) Bouncer at the entry in a club – This dude must be getting paid close to minimum wage but thinks he’s the king of the world.  Stopping you for no reason, showing attitude, kissing hot girls. 

3) Customer support (for example at Dell) – How much ever he helps you, you will always curse him.

4) Pharmacist – Is he a doctor?  No, then why do I need to wait 1 hour to pick up my prescriptions.

5) Valet - Why am I paying this guy to drive my awesome car for 0.00001 miles?  Am I handicapped?

6) Receiver/Seater at an expensive restaurant – I have my reservation at 10pm but why am I still waiting till 10:30pm?  That dude showed up way after me, and he is almost done eating. 

7) Bartender – That f**** who only serves hot chicks, and doesn’t even look at you.  And then you tip him and he doesn’t even acknowledge.

8) Reservations when there are no tickets/rooms – Instead of helping and consoling you, these dudes must be definitely getting sarcastic pleasures. 

9) HR – So nice on your face, viscous behind your back.  Do all the dirty work in the world.

10) Person whose voice is in the automated recordings on the phone – why is she talking so slowly?  Just get me to customer service! 

11) Security personnel: Act as if they rule the world.  Make you feel like a terrorist every single time.  And seriously one instance of a shoe bomber, doesn’t mean anyone is putting bombs in their shoes.

12) Air hostess: OK some look hot, but really they have other duties also.  2 hours for a drink is really not acceptable.

13) Cameraman at any wedding: Get the f***ing lights off my face!

14) Weatherman: Do we really need somone to explain that 100 degress is hot, 35 degress is freezing, those things that look like rain drops are infact rain?

15) Fashion critics (example at the Oscars): Just one thing – Get a life!  Only people worse are the ones that watch that shit.

16) Guards at the museums: This has to be the worst of all jobs.  I feel really really bad for these dudes.  I almost feel like making their life more exciting by going touching those paintings.

17) Bartenders in India – They will almost always put less alcohol or give you warm beer.  In the US, they have different issues as I listed before.

18) DJs in a wedding: They will always ruin the fun either by repeating tracks or playing at least one song which is totally out of place and kills the atmosphere (for example “I will Survive” or “Summer of 69″, dude those are the last songs you need to hear in a wedding)

BOTTOM LINE: However well they do their jobs, they are still assholes.

• How many people would have got laid earlier had their name been Michael or John instead of Dick or Shengyong or Laloo or Dwight? 
• Why do Indians and Asians in the US have American names?     
• Why do companies have acronyms?  And not called by thier names like Bavarian Motor Works (BMW) or Cable News Network (CNN) or Internation Business Machine (IBM) or Southwestern Bell Company (SBC) or Hewlett Packard (HP). 
• Why do people have nicknames and petnames if names are not important?  Why have 2 or 3 when even 1 is not important?
• Why do we instantly hate or like people we meet for the first time if we know someone by that name?
• Why do companies spend millions of dollars doing research and figuring out which name goes best with the product and names people like most and will use most?
• Why is branding so important?  Whats with the top 100 brands of the year and stuff?
• Why isn’t Google called World’s Best Search Company?  Or why isnt it called Page and Bryn corp? 
• Why are streets named after people and places?
• Why do people change their names – for fun, after marriage?
• Why do you visit websites like cnn.com, google.com, yahoo.com, msn.com and not searchenginesaresometimesfun.com or iwantthelatestnews.com?
• Why do we take 20 minutes to decide our email id or username?
• Why do we then take months to name our children and dogs and other pets?
• Why do some strange people name their properties – like computers, body parts, cars etc?
• Why do we prefer seeing movies which have names like Gladiator, Braveheart, Chocolat or Xmen rather than Phat Girlz, Car 54, where are you? or the Shaggy Dog (yes these are all real movies)?
• Why arent bars called bar1, bar 2, bar 3, bar 4 etc?  Or rather all of them just called bar?

Is the name the only thing that matters?  Of course not.   But it is definitely a part of what we perceive about a person, place, company or product.   Its who we are.  Our identity.

One thing we all should understand that it is just fine to let some opportunities go.  You cannot grab everything.   When the correct one shows up you will know – the time will just be right, you’ll have a clear mind and direction and you will be excited about it.  Just because your parents or friends tell you its a great opportunity, it may not be true.  You more than anyone what it is a great opportunity for you.   I know its hard to watch opportunities slip by, specifically when you retrospect.   What would have happened if I asked her out or if I took up that job.   It’s good to think about this stuff a bit since it gives you a clearer picture of what youre looking for going forward.  Treat it like a learning experience.

A different random thought altogether – Why is it fine to cheat on your employer but not on your girlfriend or boyfriend?   People do it all the time in the work life.   They are always looking for career opportunities, “cheating” on their employers and betraying their trust.   People are even looked upon if they switch jobs, increase salaries and move up the chain by switching.   Morally isnt this the same thing as cheating on your spouse?   It is as selfish, cunning and heartless.   And no, Business is Business is not a good term to explain this.  Business is always personal.  While one is looked upon as selfish, dishonest, unfaithful and untrustworthy, the other is looked upon with new founded respect.   The world and society are mysteries which are impossible to solve. 

You probably just go to school or work.  So how long do you work?  8 or 10 or even 12 hours a day.  You sleep 6-8 hours, that still leaves at least 4 hours every day.  And all of the weekends.  The only reason the person does not call you is that you are very low on their priority list, they have very bad organization skills and need a calendar or they are just ignoring you.

I have a very busy job.  And I have very busy weekends.  But I still make it a point to return all calls and emails, even from people I am not particularly fond off.  BOTTOM LINE is never say you are too busy and have no time.   It can never be true.  Give a more plausible reason or reschedule.  You’ll end up having much better relationshiips and friends for longer!