Motivation, Research, Innovate, Repeat

Motivation is the fuel in an individual. Without motivation nobody takes a step forward. A simple example, without a motivation no software engineer will learn a new programming language on his own. The motivation could be as simple as moving from one organisation to another. But somehow everybody miss the fact that if day to day activities are carried out with a motivation to bring change or learn new like a design pattern etc.; it would yield great results, not only for an individual but also to the team and in-turn to the organisation. So, the question is then, whether just having motivation is sufficient to achieve great results? The answer is a big NO.

Any motivation should lead to learning new things so that it can be applied when a situation arise. So researching in line with the motivation become a key tool to gain new knowledge over a period of time. Many individuals lacks confidence whether they will ever grow in an organisation as they feel stuck in day to day activities and they have made themselves accustomed to usual way to writing code, usual way of manual testing and usual way of many things that matters. But research for some time in a day with a motivation to try out a different method to accomplish a task can become very useful. For example instead of manual testing whole bunch of code, by introducing unit testing with simple mocking could it add value? Or instead of tracking all tasks in excel sheet which has become cumbersome, why not try a Kanban board? Unless one research for available options, there is no way to find a new way or a better way to do something. Is finding better ways or different options will be sufficient, the answer is again a no as its application brings the innovation that all of us want.

Innovation - is a term which scares because it feel that it must be something big, it should put a dent in the whole world. But unfortunately it is not true in all cases. If a software engineer can start writing effective unit test cases that itself is innovation because it is new in the table and brings value to the team from quality point of view. If senior management brings in Agile practices to collaborate across team in an organisation that is innovation because the result of it is improved efficiency. The organisation who cannot bring a major changes to technology stack can use Agile process to bring innovation in smaller steps. Innovation need not be always big bang, it can be baby steps when it results in a measurable outcome.

So start with a motivation to bring a change, back it up with research to find different options then find an option which suits the needs and start the application of it in smaller steps to bring the innovation that is required and then REPEAT to continuously bring change. This will help an individual as there is a constant learning and measurable outcome; no more feeling scared of growth; similarly organisation can see the progress in the changes that is in the need; no more fear of impact of big bang approach. Hence Motivation, Research, Innovate and then Repeat.

Why UP skilling is important during lockdown?

When the news of Corona virus started and the tensions were spreading around, I was wishing only thing, give work from home and no need to come to office. The reason for this, no need to end up in traffic every day and no need to get in the risk of exposure. But when work from home started, it was really different when compared to work from home which were taken once in a week or once in two weeks. Generally, people relax, enjoy that bit of time not being stuck in traffic or do some catch on online streaming TV shows. Because you know that you can go to office the next day in a fresh mind and cover the lost work. But in this case, there is no going to office tomorrow, you need to stay back and continue to show results as if you are working from office.

Lot of my friends and well wishers, I have spoken with, one common thing comes up - there is time but nobody knows what to do with it. What is this extra time? No need to get up early to take bath and get ready early to avoid traffic or no need to make sure your son / daughter get's ready on time to go to school or you don't need to drop them on the way to work and no need to worry to start early from office to avoid traffic and many other things that we generally take care in our day to day routine. For that matter even on weekends, no need to worry to take your son or daughter to extra curriculum activities or summer camps or attend a party or attend a family function or catch up with your friends or plan for a family trip or go for grocery shopping or go for having fast food and many more.

So what is that one thing you can do in this time, which helps your career aspirations. In my opinion is UP SKILL. Why this is the best time? But wait...

The moment I say up skill, and the moment I say, online courses, the reaction is that who will pay for the course fee? And next thing is, I will anyway not use it in my day to day activities, hence what is the benefit I get out of it. Well, this is exactly the opposite of UP skilling.

UP Skilling does not real mean that you need to learn something that is completely different from what you do. Up Skilling means that you learn some thing that is relevant to your job. The companies who are serious about it, they put lot of investment in Learning and Development team who can help the resources up skill which will aid their day to day work. That means that you start gaining knowledge because of which you can start doing work smartly and effectively. There is a very simple example for this - many developers do not understand how to write unit test using mocking framework. Every one knows the benefit of writing unit tests using mocking framework; this is something you can do every day; you can start adopting Test Driven Development and immensely increase the quality of your own work.

Given that the idea of UP skilling is clear, hopefully, let's look at some options to solve the problem of course fee. Let's say you are not too sure how you can start taking online courses, many websites provides an option to review the course material without paying anything. This mode will give you access to all the material of the course but you will not have access to some of the material which are related to gaining the certificate. There are other websites which allows you to pay for specific stages of the course and gain a certificate only that part. There are web sites like cognitiveclass.ai which are completely free courses. Hence in my opinion, fee should not stop you to get started. There are many modes of taking a course and once your are sure and you can manage the fee only then pay; do not pay upfront.

Next, how to chose the course - my opinion chose something which will help you to do things better in your day to day activities. Like you want to automate some manual activities, so you want to understand scripting or you want to build micro services but don't know what is the industry approach or you want to design but don't know how to apply design thinking process or you want to introduce Scrum in your organisation or department or team, but don't know how to start. Ask question what you do will help you to work smartly and effectively. And then use the course classification - Beginners, Intermediate, Expert level, start from beginners as it will give you that quick start and confidence. Always remember start small and which you can finish quickly. If you chose a course which takes 2 months to finish, you will never complete it and loose the confidence that you can complete any. Many popular learning websites have filters for duration of the course - my suggestion chose 1 to 4 weeks; it gives less pressure and you can sometimes finish it in 2 to 3 weeks. The idea should be to feel confident that you can take out some time and finish the course. If you are too enthusiast about learning new things, only then chose course which helps you to gain completely new skill.

Another important suggestion, UP skilling does not always have to be to go through elaborate courses. If you want to understand how industry is changing, what are new features are developed, then attend webcasts, webinars that are conducted on regular basis. These will vary from 1 to 4 hours in a day and generally early in the day. So, you can attend online before you start your regular work. in case you want to listen to it again, all such webinars / webcasts share the recording within a days time. Recently did you know, Google had a 3 day webinar about all of their cloud technologies and features! They even provided a participant certificate. There are so many such events are taking place on line which adds lot of value, especially how some open source technologies are emerging and how it could benefit your team and business.

No doubt lockdown is a painful process, but amount of time that you are able to get and peace of mind you are in, the results of attending courses, webinar / webcast will also be effective and when you eventually go back to office, you go back with lot of smart ideas to execute. If you are successful in executing it, then you get recognised and lot of things could change which could eventually help your career aspiration.

If you have further thoughts on this please leave a comment.

Why sometimes whatever you do it is not enough?

In few situations, you feel that, what did I do wrong? You would have put all the efforts, genuine effort, but still, it does not yield the required efforts. In some cases, you would have shown a genuine concern, there is nothin wrong but the other person never understands it. Either there is hatred all round or it just continues until you feel that, whatever you know about yourself might be wrong.

It is difficult to sometimes take something and throw it away and forget about it. But why there are people who do not even attempt to do it. It may not be easy, but if one is able to do it, there will be peace all around. Otherwise I feel, those unwanted things keep coming up every now and then.

In relationships, there are situations which cannot be changed, it happens for a reason. The reason could be anything, but it happens and no one cannot change it. But, the uncontrolled situation keeps coming up in every discussion no matter how hard you try to keep it away and no matter how hard you look the other way. It causes only pain nothing more.

There is a saying "If there are things under your control, why worry about and if there are things that are not under your control then why worry at all". It simply means there is no need to worry at all because if there are things are really under your control, then you would have give it 200% and if there are things that one can't control, then irrespective of how much you like to control it, you can't and you will end up in desperation and frustration. Why this simple feeling is not understood by many?

There is no conclusions to this topic! until the feel of one another understood and people don't learn to forget and move on and never look back and unless people live in the present and enjoy every second of it and unless people appreciate the genuine nature of concern, well being of other and unless people appreciate what they have instead comparing with others and unless people don't realise that they can live happily by forgetting and ignoring few situations. There will always be situation which you may not like, but you can't expect every one to be perfect. That is the reason, every one of us should learn to forget and not have grudge about anything and simply leave it to fade away from the memory and use the precious memory to learn new things, live happily.

Long lasting Friendship

Everyone needs a friend, everyone wants to cherish the moments that they spend with their friends. What was the best way to start of 2020 is spend some quality time with my most admired friends. We were meeting after 1.5 years, but still the same josh and same commitment towards the friendship that was formed ages ago. We cherish all those moments of school days, which are just unforgettable.

We remember our teachers, our mentors, our best friends. Everyone one of us have a story to tell; everyone of us have something to remember. And every time we meet, a new warmth gets created, which helps us in keeping one promise - be friends for ever.

We remember our friends, whom we could not meet on this day; we remember our friends, who are not able to coupe up with the promise of friendship; we remember those friends, whom we are unable to reach; but we remember them every time. It is a promise, it is commitment, it is our world. We create and we cherish.

We share our well being, we share our sorrow, we share our learnings, we share our gestures. Sharing ones experience, with friends gives a sense of happiness, as nobody will judge you. They know who you are, where you come from, among friends there are no judges, they are there for you only. There is no pressure, there is no force, it is just pure form of friendship.

Friendship is one thing that everybody needs - among friends you will get a shoulder to cry, you will get shoulder to support, you will get that fantasy world that you dream off. Because of friendship, you get a sense of belongingness. You can have parents, wife / girlfriend, kid(s), colleagues; everyone of you has an expectation from you, everyone says that you need to do this, that and so on. But friends are the only ones accept you the way you are. They will work their ways to be with you.

I am happy that my new year 2020, started with spending some quality time with my friends; whom, I am never going to lose, no matter what happens. I am happy that, I too have friends, who are there to say some kind words but don't judge, just accept who you really are... A thumbs up for friendship....!!!

Saying good bye to 2019

Year 2019, started with a solo trip.  This solo trip was special, as it was the longest distance, that I have ever driven all alone (600KM). I had resigned from an organisation, which I had cherished for 12 years and I had made a commitment to myself to start to work on my dream.

January 6th 2019, an awesome day - bright sunshine, fantastic view of the beach; with one of my favourite drink, started working on a plan to implement my commitment. The commitment was to develop two games and release it in Google Play store by end of year 2019. This was my first step to come out of being a hobby game developer to an entrepreneur.  I wrote sample code, sample games, started exploring few ideas and so many things. By sunset, I had few approaches and it was time to dive into the beach. This went on for couple of days.

On, January 8th 2019, started back to home. And on January 11th 2019, with a heavy heart, I said good bye to my wonderful team, friends, colleagues.

On January 14th 2019, new organisation, new people, new environment, new expectations. With bit of uncertainties, I started off my innings. Days passed quick and it was one month already. I remembered one of my special friend - spoke for a while and had a memorable chat over the phone. In mid of all this, I had met my old friend. We were remembering good olds of college. It is his presence which made a huge help to get adjusted to the new environment - remembering the college days was one of the best thing that happened. It reminded lot of memories.

Anyway, in February 2019, I started implementing my first game with a target to complete by August. I had to learn many new things. It was a joy ride and fantastic experience. With continuous discussion my friend, I kept going and finally in June 2019, I was ready to release my first game. It was just amazing experience when I hit the button "Release to Production" in Google play Console. That sense of satisfaction was too good.

Suddenly from no where, another friend of mine, reached out and a magic happened. I got an offer from a new company and decided to leave the current organisation. July 11th 2019, I said good bye and on 15th July, joined the new organisation. The first day started off with meeting some of old acquaintances and from no where, I meet close colleague with whom I had enjoyed working - this is something, I never expected.

August 2019, was time to start second game and to complete it by December. My new organisation welcomed me with a series of trainings and followed by a fantastic opportunity to work on Big data technologies. I got to do some fantastic research. Days passed without any control. In November, I released my second game. Both of the games, put together, had an overall of 300 downloads.

Year 2019, was one another most happening year. I could fulfil my commitment and got to work on newer technologies in IT industry. With a huge responsibility coming in my way and with my new commitment to become one more step closer to entrepreneur, I say good bye to 2019.

Impact of food aggregator

There was a time when I used to go back to home with an assurance that my mom will cook something. After a long day in office, having home cooked food always gives that sense of calmness. Whenever I get opportunity to travel outside country, I always carry Rice and Dal. After a long day in Customer office, come back and cook - it was giving that good feeling which is just not explainable.

I remember, irrespective of whether my mom is sick or not, or she has to get ready to go to a family gathering or catch up on her TV shows; she makes sure that food is prepared, ready to eat. It was an assurance that home food is always available. Sometimes, I wonder how my mom makes time to cook and do other things for home and catch up with TV shows and gossip with neighbours!

Couple of days back, my mom and dad travelled out of station to attend a family gathering. She was not there for 4 days and 3 nights. In these 3 nights, I ended up ordering my dinner from one of the food aggregator at least twice. None of us had time nor the energy to come back home and cook. We had to rely on food aggregators. I wonder, why none of us could spend 30mins to cook something very simple to eat. Is this simply because the food aggregators has made ordering food so simple? Is it because food aggregators provide us with so many options at one place? Is it because that new generation families has lost the taste for home food?

Today, food aggregators can get you even diet food. Some are even  preparing the food based on the workout routine a person is following. The apps that these food aggregators provide shows comparison, ratings, price range, discounts, royalty points, cash back and many more across restaurants. Are we getting attracted to these food aggregators due to these perks? Are the days gone, where husband and wife cook together, talking about everything in the world? Are the days gone, where kids will ask their moms to cook that favourite food that only his / her mom can cook?

I feel, that day is not far, when the food aggregators will provide an option to schedule ordering food based on work timings, or based on the festival season or based on holiday season. I feel, that day is not far, when the food aggregators will say what food should I eat, which food I need to like.

No doubt that food aggregators are helping people who are in need of something to eat and they just don't know how to get there. They are helping those IT professionals who work late night and their office cafeteria does not provide proper dinner. They are helping many others in many different ways. This is one side of the coin. But on the other side of coin, how it is impacting, what changes it going to bring to the next generation, is something can't be imagined today. Or this is just because of advancement of technology? I wonder....

If you also have similar thoughts, please share your thoughts in comments section on impact of food aggregators.