Mandar Vaze’s Posterous

Following is taken from the RAQ - Rarely Asked Questions page of Paul Graham's Website. I could not have put it more accurately myself, but it resonates truly with my sentiments.

The pointy-haired boss is a manager who doesn't program. So the surest way to avoid becoming him is to stay a programmer. What tempts programmers to become managers are companies with old-fashioned corporate structure, where the only way to advance in salary and prestige is to go into management. So if you want to avoid becoming a PHB, avoid such companies, and work for (or start) startups.

I never had to manage anyone in our startup, even though I was the president. The other hackers were my peers, and would have given me the raspberry if I'd tried to "manage" them. We operated by consensus. And the rest of the company reported to our experienced COO, who was also more of a peer.

Why be a manager when you could be a founder or early employee at a startup?

This person isn't from IT field, and uses computers just to get her work done (Doesn't everyone these days)
You need to understand this background to appreciate how a non-techy person would describe their experience with MS-DOS

The other day, I was talking to her about the days (during my engineering college) when I used to work on DOS. Conversation went something like this.
The text in parenthesis are my thoughts, it isn't part of the actual conversation

me: Do you know what is DOS ?
her : Disk Operating System
(wow, I didn't think she would know)
me: How did you know ?
her : I had to study about it, but all I know is the acronym
(Thought so)
her : Do you mean MS-DOS ? Ohh, I remember now, it was so boring
(why boring ?)
her : There were no colors, just a boring black and white screen
(Hmm, you have been using computers only post-windows '95 days, no wonder you find DOS boring)
her : All I remember is that it used to show - see, two dots, slanting line and greater-than-sign -

She was trying to explain the MS-DOS Prompt "C:\>" (Now read the description again, to make sense of it)

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In the Wellness Program I attended few weeks ago, I gathered several useful pieces of wisdom. Here is one such gem. Enjoy !!

We have all heard about "Laughter being the best medicine". Personally you ask me, when you really need medicine, you are in no position to laugh about it. A better version would be "Laughter is better way to avoid medicine". But we aren't talking about laughter here. Sure there are laughter clubs all over India (if not world) but I'm talking about Smile. Surely you know the difference :)

During the period in between two sessions of our Wellness Program, I over heard this conversation.

Student : I have this constant headache.
Counselor : That is because you don't smile. I haven't seen you smile even once during last three days. What are you worried about ?
Student : I'm not worried about anything, I'm having a good time. But I'm not a kind of person who smiles for no reason
Counselor: Then you should. Seriously. Force yourself to smile. Since you are frowned all the time, you build up this tension. You forehead is always wrinkled. Just smile physically, even if you aren't feeling like smiling. This will help relieve the tension.

I never go to hear the aftermath, whether the student did take up smiling (I did see her smiling at least couple of times during rest of the program, so I guess it went well)

But this advice stuck with me. Whenever I'm feeling low or angry (and I'm alone) then this advice comes back to me. I have tried this several times since the program, and I must say that it has worked every single time.

It is funny really, that I am really angry, boiling mad at something (or someone) but I'm physically smiling. As soon as I smile (OK, may be not as soon as, but soon enough) my emotional state changes to far better mood.

Till few days ago, I used to think emotional state of happiness brings out smile in people. But now I have realized that a forced smile, also brings up emotional happiness.

Please try this, and let me know if it works for you.

Smile Please !!!

This is another story I heard during one of the personal development courses I attended recently. You can read the previous one here

Once upon a time in a small town in India, there was a temple. Several devotees visited it both in the morning and in the evening. After a while, one of the very poor person from some nearby place came there. He had lost everything he had. He collapsed outside the temple. People being very nice, helped him with some food, water. He started getting better, but he had no where to go. He setup his bed under nearby tree. Passersby started giving him some money. Eventually, he got better, but by now he had become comfortable being a beggar. He did not try anything else, since he was doing OK just begging.
People did not like having a beggar outside the temple, but they continued to offer him small change out of habit, and out of their goodness.

After a while, the beggar died. People arranged for his last rites. Then they decided to clean the beggars place so that there won't be any more beggars outside their temple.

They cleaned the place. But then the decided to just dig up the place while they are at it, and just be absolutely sure. After a few strikes, they hit something. After careful examination, they found a pot full of gold coin. (They used it renovate the temple)
Poor Beggar, he was sitting on a pot of gold his whole life, but never realized, and continued his life begging to people for his day to day survival.

Several of us go through life unknowingly sitting on a pot of gold (our skills, unique abilities) never realizing it.
What can we do to uncover the hidden potential, so that we don't end up like the beggar in the story ?

Please share your views in the comments.

I heard this story during one of the personal development courses I attended recently. I think it is worth sharing with you all.

There was a man who constantly complained to the God that there is so much misery in the world, and that the God is not taking care of the World he created in the first place. The Man just complained and whined and nothing more.

Then one day, The God appeared to him in his dreams. The man complained "in person" to The God. After all, how many times does one get to talk to the God, even if it was in your Dreams. The Man made full use of it. The God listened and He smiled. He Said : "I created the world. Sure there are unhappy people in the world. But I also created You"
That was it. The Man woke up from the Dream. God always speaks in mysterious ways. The Man had no clue what the God meant. He was just happy that he could complain to the God Herself.

Days Passed. The Man was back to his routine on whining. After after a few days, there was another dream.
The Man saw that there was a wounded Fox, who could not hunt for food. The Fox was weakening. The Man thought : "I was right. There is so much sadness in this world. The God isn't doing his job". Then he saw there was a lion(ess?) who had hunted a dear. The Lion ate just the portion of his kill, and left. The wounded fox was near by. As soon as the lion left, he quickly approached the carcass, the ate rest of the dear.
Now the God appeared, and said to the man : "I created this fox, who is now wounded. But I took care of him as well. I made sure that even in his physical condition, he gets to eat."

The Next Day, the man decided that he need to do anything. He just strolled around the house. Did not go to work. The day passed, he got hungry. But no one served him the food. He was sad. Since he had not eaten through out the day, he felt weak, and dozed off.

In the dream, the God appeared to the Man. Man started complaining again : " God, I trusted you. Yesterday you told me that you take care of everyone. .. and today, I had to go hungry the entire day. That is not fair"

The God smiled and said : "I did not make you the Fox. I made you the Lion"

I think this is very thought provoking story. Lot of us go through the life thinking that someone will help us. But how many of us realize that "We are the Lion" ?
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

I came across a blog article which captured the the trend in "Indian IT industry" accurately. The article talks about how the senior person in a role of a developer is considered "Stuck" coding. It does not come easily to folks that it could be by choice.

One of the reasons I quit Avaya (as a manager) was because I was not enjoying my work, solving people problems (non-technical) For a "techie at heart" person like myself, it was not at all satisfying.

There was a time, when one of the VP (from US) visited our Avaya office. He was comparing his Senior Technical people with what we call "Senior" Technical people in India. In US, the senior person was at least 10+ yrs experience. He/she has to interact with person with experience of  3-5 yrs, as their peer. Add to that the fact that most of those people (or their colleagues) were losing jobs, due to economic down turn, and it was as clear as a day light, that friction was inevitable.

In my own experience, the senior tech leaders in US had a very frustrating time dealing with their Indian counterparts. (Unfortunately I was stuck in between solving the "people" issues on both sides)

I was told (back then I wasn't a manager) that things are bound to change, and we'll see real technical jobs in Indian IT industry requiring higher experience.
I think things are changing a little, but it takes people like you and me, to ensure that when some organization is looking for senior technical person, they have a choice from a pool of talented engineers with 10-15+ yrs experience.

After quitting Avaya, I joined another org as "Software Architect", unfortunately even here, they are trying to make me a "manager" just due to number of years of experience. So currently I am pushing back with my management, and trying to stay "hands on" person.

Here is the link to original article : http://pindancing.blogspot.com/2009/04/stuck-in-code.html

Please share your views in comments.

I came across this article in New York Magazine, which talks about how US President Mr. Obama is talking to "everyone", not just the "regulars".

The following quote from the article is worth pondering :

spending too much time in the company of like-minded people serves only to exaggerate your own views and make you less tolerant of differing opinions.

Read the full article here

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Today I came across an interview with Posterous founder Sachin Agarwal,  I remembered that Navin Kabra of PuneTech had posted some blog entry from posterous. It wasn't his regular blog site. At that time I kinda ignored that fact thinking, must be one more "free" blogging platform. But after reading the interview with Sachin today, I realized that Posterous is more than just a blogging platform. So I decided to create a Posterous account.

I'm sure everyone can think of USP for Posterous, but for me it is that fact that I can use email and Posterous folks will take care that my post "looks good". Now I would not have believed it otherwise, but considering that the founders have worked 6 years at Apple, I have a certain confidence in them making things "look better".

While my other two blogs are focused on a specific topic(s) (at least initially) I'm not going to restrict my posterous site to anything in particular. I think that is liberating. Past several days, I was thinking about a blog post, that did not fit into any of the two categories I blog about (Technology - Open Source to be specific - and continuous improvement) I think Posterous is very good place for this.

As noted by Posterous founder - it's main strength is in publishing the media easily, and to make it look good. I'm not much into publishing photos and videos online (just yet) but who knows, posterous might change that.

Why Posterous rocks !!

• Email is easy, natural
• Email is omnipresent - While I still can't email from my mobile (speed issue than capability of the device) the day isn't too far. In that case, I'm not restricted to publishing a post only when in front of a computer. I already tweet from my cellphone (and love it)
• Most email clients are very powerful, and have at least basic HTML editing capabilities. So your post wouldn't look like post from '70s. (and on top of that, Posterous promises to make it look good anyway)
• I can focus on the contents. Seriously. Lot of times, when publishing on Wordpress, I keep focusing on "looks".
• With Add ons like Zemanta, I can also add "value" to my emails. When Zemanta first suggested Addon for the browser, it didn't make any sense to me. I was using it as plugin for WP till then. But now, it makes a lot of sense. Seriously, if you haven't used Zemanta, you should give it a try.
• With Gmail's latest addition of typing email in Indian languages, I will be able to blog in my native language as well (and hope that Posterous renders it properly)
  

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