In life, someone always tells you what to do… in school - the teachers, in college the profs and finally when you break out of that your boss fills in those shoes- do this do that, dont do this, don't do that…
then you realize- you will be taken seriously, only if you get married.. and decide to get married.. NOW your wife tells you - do this, do that. buy this, don't buy that… and you fall back into the rut again! such is life.
My wife is constantly complaining on how i spend too much time on my car and I care about my car a lot. yes, on the surface someone might think that "my god, how can this guy love his car so much if there are scratches all over" but for the record- the dents and scratches are all caused by my parents and brother. In my 2 years + of driving my own cars, i have had the dubious distinction of not even scratching her even once. So, it comes back to what do I do to spend so much time on the car then? the Engine! pure engineering excellence… in a sense a philharmonic in motion.. i love the engine. with the twist of the key, the crank and the purr of motor sends a soothing smile… yes. Love at first crank!
My heart was set on a palio - i was looking for a car with a 100horses, and the palio proved just that. So when finally i said that I was going for a new car.. i scouted and got myself a good deal on a new palio. that was a year and three months ago.. my first new car…
What is it that makes this worth while? well.. lots of things.. the car, the presence and most of all.. its my baby! i care so much that my wife complains… but there are those rare moments… like this morning.. coming through the madhya kailsh traffic felt like a baseball bat had been swung a dozen times at your face..and missed all.. but you keep wondering - who's going to cut you next- him- no, her.. YIEKS! then you hit OMR… and you change through gears into overdrive (which in the palio is the 4th and 5th gears btw) and you cruise.. 60kmph… smooth… its like riding on air.
for those few moments, it makes sense spending time and money to change the filters, change oil and what ever can be done to keep the engine in pristine condition… just pure bliss… its you, the car and a magic carpet ride. a ride whre you forget everything .. just to enjoy the moment.. yes. that moment makes it worthwile!
Lifestage marketing has been a buzz term in recent years as a method of targeting consumers and characterizing consumer behavior. More and more companies are realizing the importance of positioning products not as products, but as something that a consumer would require at a particular stage of their life. Typically, marketers categorize consumers of fast moving consumer goods and consumer durables by social class, income, age and gender. However, discovering lifestage triggers help to identify who among these is more likely to buy the product.
In lifestage marketing, consumers tend to go through four distinct phases: Transition Stage, Early Stage, Expansion Stage and Mature Stage. From a marketer's perspective, the key questions will be: “what are the target lifestage groups?” and “Within each stage, what are the purchase triggers?” When Maruti was pitching for the 800 model car, their campaign started off with spreading the message of “Reliable and trustworthy”. This was
In 1983, when the only competition was the old ambassador and the fiat, thereby the message seemed apt. The company soon realized that the M800 was the average middle income Indian's first car. The purchase decision was taken to move up from a two wheeler, to a four wheeler, and hence affordability played a big role. The main criterion for this was lifestage. The customer, a young family man, who needed to upgrade from a two wheeler to a car, with the many commitments of running a family, put off purchase because of the “cost” of the vehicle. M800's 2599 campaign that ran in early 2003 attempted to pitch the car as an “affordable” vehicle with great success.
In April 2000, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) published a report titled “Better informed consumers”. In this report, the FSA found that in 16 per cent of cases, the primary driver for the consideration of a financial services product was event/lifestage led and that it had an influence in almost a third of all cases. It was also found that consumers were unaware of what product would best meet their apparent need. This leaves a tremendous opportunity for financial service providers to help customers identify what they need at each lifestage and thus gain business.
The very essence of lifestage marketing is: “there are events or moments in people's lives that trigger particular needs or desires.” The key is to recognize these changing priorities as quickly as possible and target customers, whether existing or potential, with the relevant products. Lifestage marketing is a good way to attract attention to the product, as it relates specifically to what is happening in the customer's life. When done correctly and used in way that is consistent with the company's brand, this type of marketing should form a highly successful acquisition and retention tool. Lifestage and lifestyle are two very different things. Both allow a company to identify and target consumers. While lifestage is event based and looks at where customers are in their lives, for example divorce or about to have children, lifestyle concentrates on how they live them.
Both methods have their uses and can be effective complementary tools. Personalization
When consumers move between lifestages, they are entering unfamiliar territory. By increasing attention at these times, companies can help when it counts, thereby building strong, profitable relationships. The result is a much more personalized process which makes the consumer feel more valued and more loyal. Technology, product and organization cultural changes are necessary.
Datamonitor's report found that centralized systems are vital to understand how a customer's need changes across all products and how best to target them. Systems also require sensitive and experienced handling. Investment in technology is necessary to receive the long-term gains available from targeted marketing. The traditional product focus of financial service providers has typically fuelled a very rigid product offering to customers. This design is not considerate of customer needs and does not reflect that people's needs are constantly changing. As part of the process of becoming more customer centric, products need to evolve and become more flexible, with the ability to adapt as a customer moves from one lifestage to another. Internal cultural change is also required, to switch from a product focus towards a more customer-centric approach.
Change involves not only becoming customer centric within departments but also requires increased co-operation between them. This is vital if lifestages are to be used effectively.
In Conclusion
It is true that lifestages are becoming less predictable. However, their use can give an indication of what people are likely to want/do. The age bands where events typically
happen are becoming more elastic and cultural changes are leading to more lifestages.
People in general actively make decisions in a very short span of time. By being better equipped to predict these decision points, for example by picking up changes to
normal spending patterns, companies can increase their chance of successfully securing business. Many of these times will be when people enter new lifestages. Thus, careful
identification of these stages might prove useful. By providing support and giving valuable advice over these periods, long term, trusting relationships can be built.
- Madan Menon
PGPM Class of 2005
Reference:
1 http://www.exchange4media.com/Brandspeak/brandspeak.asp?brand_id=37
Electrical circuits may be connected to ground (earth) for several reasons. In power circuits, a connection to ground is done for safety purposes to protect people from the effects of faulty insulation on electrically powered equipment. A connection to ground helps limit the voltage built up between power circuits and the earth, protecting circuit insulation from damage due to excessive voltage. Connections to ground may be used to limit the build-up of static electricity when handling flammable products or when repairing electronic devices. In some types of telegraph and power transmission circuits, the earth itself can be used as one conductor of the circuit, saving the cost of installing a separate run of wire as a return conductor. For measurement purposes, the Earth serves as a (reasonably) constant potential reference against which other potentials can be measured. An electrical ground system should have an appropriate current-carrying capability in order to serve as an adequate zero-voltage reference level.
The use of the term ground (or earth) is so common in electrical and electronics applications that circuits in vehicles such as ships, aircraft, and spacecraft may be spoken of having a "ground" connection without any real connection to the Earth. (from wikipedia)
So what is the solution. there are two. One, ensure that the customer does not touch the earth directly whilst operating the device, that includes wearing shoes etc, or secondly, go to the source. Ensure that there is correct earthing from the supply.
When they deny that this is a cause, and are still not doing anything, you wonder if its the right thing to do?
New Delhi: In a unique bid, a Costa Coffee outlet in South Delhi has employed ten people who can not hear or speak. A few months ago the café chain decided to employ them on an experimental basis. Today, this silent experiment has taken off on a high note.
President & CEO, Costa Coffee, Virag Joshi says, “They are a part of the society and there’s nothing wrong in them. What we can do, maybe they can do it better”.
After being trained for forty-five days, these youngsters were eased into the daily operations of the café. They now manage the show, much on their own and with a little help from their supervisors.
But are they scared of not being able to communicate with customers?
An employee at the outlet, Arti, explains through sign language, “No, not at all. We ask customers to point to items on the menu card or we ask them to write it down."
“They are very nice. They take care of guests,” says a customer of the coffee shop. Another says, “Of course they won’t get jobs easily. They are getting jobs here so that’s good for them”.
 Mr Brown said the government was working to prevent fraud |
He told MPs he apologised for the "inconvenience" caused and said the government was working to prevent the data being used for fraud.
But Conservative leader David Cameron said the government had "failed in its first duty to protect the public".
The child benefit data on the missing discs includes names, ages, bank and address details.
'Mistakes'
During a heated prime minister's questions session, Mr Brown said: "I profoundly regret and apologise for the inconvenience and worries that have been caused to millions of families who receive child benefits.
"When mistakes happen in enforcing procedures, we have a duty to do everything we can to protect the public."
But Mr Cameron said: "They will be angry that the government has failed in its first duty to protect the public."
He added: "What people want from their prime minister on a day like this is to show some broad shoulders, be the big man and accept some responsibility."
Earlier, the Tories questioned whether Alistair Darling was "up to the job" of chancellor.
Mr Darling said he "deeply regretted" what had happened, but stressed there was no evidence of misuse of the data.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Darling said his confidence had been "shaken" by what he described as a "catastrophic" incident.
''There's no doubt in my mind there have been very, very serious breaches here.
"People are entitled to trust the government to look after information that is given to it - for child benefit or any other purposes - and that did not happen here," said the chancellor.
He said the information, which was on two CDs, should "should never, ever have left the building in which it was stored".
Mr Darling denied the problem was related to the merger of the Revenue and Customs departments and staff cuts, as claimed by staff members in e-mails to the BBC.
'Difficult'
He also hit back at claims his own position as chancellor was in doubt amid continuing difficulties with Northern Rock, which has seen its share price plunge a further 15%.
"I am not going to start running away from things when things get difficult," he told Today.
Referring to the data loss crisis, he said: "It is difficult, unwelcome in every respect, but I am determined to see it through".
Earlier, Mr Darling said banks were monitoring all 7.25 million bank accounts whose details were on the discs, which contained the personal details of all child benefit recipients in the UK.
People are being urged by both the chancellor and banks to keep a close eye on their accounts "for unusual activity".
Mr Darling said that anyone who lost money as a result of any misuse of the data would be covered for losses under the banking code.
On Tuesday the chancellor told MPs how the entire child benefit database was sent by a junior official from HMRC in Washington, Tyne and Wear, to the audit office in London through courier TNT on 18 October.
The chancellor said the official had broken the rules by downloading the data to disc and sending it by unrecorded delivery.
But he reassured those affected that police had no reason to believe the discs had found their way into the wrong hands, nor did they have any evidence of it being used for "fraudulent purposes or criminal activity."
Buck questions
Bosses at the Revenue were not told about what had happened until 8 November and Mr Darling and Prime Minister Gordon Brown learned about the situation on 10 November.
The chancellor said he had delayed an emergency statement to the Commons because banks and building societies had asked for time to prepare and make sure security procedures were in place.
The officials involved waited before informing their superiors in the hope that the discs would be found.
The Metropolitan Police is leading the search, and the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which oversees the HMRC, is investigating the security breach.
A TNT spokesman said that because the discs had not been sent as recorded it was not possible to verify if they had ever been posted. He added that the company would not be responsible for any losses incurred.
Liberal Democrat Acting Leader Vince Cable asked: "Where does the buck stop in this government?"
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7104945.stm
A recent news article about the after-school program that teaches school kids football, and now gives them a change in their lifestyles - is quite touching, given the circumstances in todays news.
There are many after-school programs - that essentially work to keep the kids busy - and give them something to look forward to - either to learn music, or to study. Giving them a medium to express themselves- artistically or otherwise, does in turn reduce crime rates. Essentially since kids are off the streets.
Chennai: A group of young footballers from the slums of Chennai are gearing up to play football with the Manchester United team. The children from the slums of Vyasarpadi in Chennai- an area known for its extreme poverty and high crime rates - now have a chance to meet their football idols from the Manchester United team and train under them. The training schedule has been made possible due to the efforts of a local football enthusiast and the NGO CRY. A chance to meet their idols has the youngsters excited. When asked about his idol Dhileepan, one of the youngsters, says, "Ronaldo." Another youngster A Raj says Cristiano Ronaldo is his idol. The young players are practicing for the finals of the Manchester United League selections to be held from November 24-27. If selected, four of them will fly to Manchester to get trained by their heroes. And they owe this to Umapathi, an Income Tax department employee, who was also born in the slums. He is teaching the young protégés the power of dreams through football. After training them for free for the last 10 years he says he can see the difference. "The crime rate has gone down in Vyasarpadi. These kids now realise they have a chance to make it big. So they don't go loitering around and stealing. They play football instead," Umapathi, the football coach, says
And this is what a little hope can do to a human being. "We're all going to school now because in London they speak only English. So to be able to communicate, we need to know the language," one of the youngster Ramkumar, says. "We used to loiter around earlier chewing tobacco and playing with marbles. Now we come to train. We have hope now," Hridayaraj adds. And even all of them can't make it to Manchester the journey so far has surely been dream-like.
Programmers enjoy a reputation for being peculiar people. In fact, even within the development community, there are certain programmer archetypes that other programmers find strange. Here are 10 types of programmers you are likely to run across. Can you think of any more?
This programmer type looks like a short-list candidate to play Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings. He (or even she!) has a beard halfway to his knees, a goofy looking hat, and may wear a cape or a cloak in the winter. Luckily for the team, this person is just as adept at working magic as Gandalf. Unluckily for the team, they will need to endure hours of stories from Gandalf about how he or she to walk uphill both ways in the snow to drop off the punch cards at the computer room. The Gandalf type is your heaviest hitter, but you try to leave them in the rear and call them up only in times of desperation.
In any other profession, The Martyr is simply a “workaholic.” But in the development field, The Martyr goes beyond that and into another dimension. Workaholics at least go home to shower and sleep. The Martyr takes pride in sleeping at the desk amidst empty pizza boxes. The problem is, no one ever asked The Martyr to work like this. And he or she tries to guilt-trip the rest of the team with phrases like, “Yeah, go home and enjoy dinner. I’ll finish up the next three week’s worth of code tonight.”
Watch out for Fanboy. If he or she corners you, you’re in for a three-hour lecture about the superiority of Dragonball Z compared to Gundam Wing, or why the Playstation 3 is better than the XB 360. Fanboy’s workspace is filled with posters, action figures, and other knick-knacks related to some obsession, most likely imported from Japan. Not only are Fanboys obnoxious to deal with, they often put so much time into the obsession (both in and out of the office) that they have no clue when it comes to doing what they were hired to do.
This 40-something is a throwback to 1984 in all of the wrong ways. Sporting big hair, ripped stonewashed jeans, and a bandana here or there, Vince sits in the office humming Bon Jovi and Def Leppard tunes throughout the workday. This would not be so bad if “Pour Some Sugar on Me” was not so darned infectious.
Vince is generally a fun person to work with, and actually has a ton of experience, but just never grew up. But Vince becomes a hassle when he or she tries living the rock ‘n roll lifestyle to go with the hair and hi-tops. It’s fairly hard to work with someone who carries a hangover to work every day.
The Ninja is your team’s MVP, and no one knows it. Like the legendary assassins, you do not know that The Ninja is even in the building or working, but you discover the evidence in the morning. You fire up the source control system and see that at 4 AM, The Ninja checked in code that addresses the problem you planned to spend all week working on, and you did not even know that The Ninja was aware of the project! See, while you were in Yet Another Meeting, The Ninja was working.
Ninjas are so stealthy, you might not even know their name, but you know that every project they’re on seems to go much more smoothly. Tread carefully, though. The Ninja is a lone warrior; don’t try to force him or her to work with rank and file.
The Theoretician knows everything there is to know about programming. He or she can spend four hours lecturing about the history of an obscure programming language or providing a proof of how the code you wrote is less than perfectly optimal and may take an extra three nanoseconds to run. The problem is, The Theoretician does not know a thing about software development. When The Theoretician writes code, it is so “elegant” that mere mortals cannot make sense of it. His or her favorite technique is recursion, and every block of code is tweaked to the max, at the expense of timelines and readability.
The Theoretician is also easily distracted. A simple task that should take an hour takes Theoreticians three months, since they decide that the existing tools are not sufficient and they must build new tools to build new libraries to build a whole new system that meets their high standards. The Theoretician can be turned into one of your best players, if you can get him or her to play within the boundaries of the project itself and stop spending time working on The Ultimate Sorting Algorithm.
The Code Cowboy is a force of nature that cannot be stopped. He or she is almost always a great programmer and can do work two or three times faster than anyone else. The problem is, at least half of that speed comes by cutting corners. The Code Cowboy feels that checking code into source control takes too long, storing configuration data outside of the code itself takes too long, communicating with anyone else takes too long… you get the idea.
The Code Cowboy’s code is a spaghetti code mess, because he or she was working so quickly that the needed refactoring never happened. Chances are, seven pages’ worth of core functionality looks like the “don’t do this” example of a programming textbook, but it magically works. The Code Cowboy definitely does not play well with others. And if you put two Code Cowboys on the same project, it is guaranteed to fail, as they trample on each other’s changes and shoot each other in the foot.
Put a Code Cowboy on a project where hitting the deadline is more important than doing it right, and the code will be done just before deadline every time. The Code Cowboy is really just a loud, boisterous version of The Ninja. While The Ninja executes with surgical precision, The Code Cowboy is a raging bull and will gore anything that gets in the way.
You know those movies where a sole commando is air-dropped deep behind enemy lines and comes out with the secret battle plans? That person in a software development shop is The Paratrooper. The Paratrooper is the last resort programmer you send in to save a dying project. Paratroopers lack the patience to work on a long-term assignment, but their best asset is an uncanny ability to learn an unfamiliar codebase and work within it. Other programmers might take weeks or months to learn enough about a project to effectively work on it; The Paratrooper takes hours or days. Paratroopers might not learn enough to work on the core of the code, but the lack of ramp-up time means that they can succeed where an entire team might fail.
“Good enough” is the best you will ever get from Mediocre Man. Don’t let the name fool you; there are female varieties of Mediocre Man too. And he or she always takes longer to produce worse code than anyone else on the team. “Slow and steady barely finishes the race” could describe Mediocre Man’s projects. But Mediocre Man is always just “good enough” to remain employed.
When you interview this type, they can tell you a lot about the projects they’ve been involved with but not much about their actual involvement. Filtering out the Mediocre Man type is fairly easy: Ask for actual details of the work they’ve done, and they suddenly get a case of amnesia. Let them into your organization, though, and it might take years to get rid of them.
No matter what kind of environment you have, The Evangelist insists that it can be improved by throwing away all of your tools and processes and replacing them with something else. The Evangelist is actually the opposite of The Theoretician. The Evangelist is outspoken, knows an awful lot about software development, but performs very little actual programming.
The Evangelist is secretly a project manager or department manager at heart but lacks the knowledge or experience to make the jump. So until The Evangelist is able to get into a purely managerial role, everyone else needs to put up with his or her attempts to revolutionize the workplace.
A rather interesting article on IHT, the parallel between the french revolution of the 18th century and the current state of the world.
Much as George W. Bush's presidency was ineluctably shaped by Sept. 11, 2001, so the outbreak of the French Revolution was symbolized by the events of one fateful day, July 14, 1789. And though 18th-century France may seem impossibly distant to contemporary Americans, future historians examining Bush's presidency within the longer sweep of political and intellectual history may find the French Revolution useful in understanding his curious brand of 21st-century conservatism.
Soon after the storming of the Bastille, pro-Revolutionary elements came together to form an association that would become known as the Jacobin Club, an umbrella group of politicians, journalists and citizens dedicated to advancing the principles of the Revolution.
The Jacobins shared a defining ideological feature. They divided the world between pro- and anti-Revolutionaries - the defenders of liberty versus its enemies. The French Revolution, as they understood it, was the great event that would determine whether liberty was to prevail on the planet or whether the world would fall back into tyranny and despotism.
The stakes could not be higher, and on these matters there could be no nuance or hesitation. One was either for the Revolution or for tyranny.
By 1792, France was confronting the hostility of neighboring countries, debating how to react. The Jacobins were divided. On one side stood the journalist and political leader Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville, who argued for war.
Brissot understood the war as preventive - "une guerre offensive," he called it - to defeat the despotic powers of Europe before they could organize their counter-Revolutionary strike. It would not be a war of conquest, as Brissot saw it, but a war "between liberty and tyranny."
Pro-war Jacobins believed theirs was a mission not for a single nation or even for a single continent. It was, in Brissot's words, "a crusade for universal liberty."
Brissot's opponents were skeptical. "No one likes armed missionaries," declared Robespierre, with words as apt then as they remain today. Not long after the invasion of Austria, the military tide turned quickly against France.
The United States, France's "sister republic," refused to enter the war on France's side. It was an infuriating show of ingratitude, as the French saw it, coming from a fledgling nation they had magnanimously saved from foreign occupation in a previous war.
Confronted by a monarchical Europe united in opposition to revolutionary France - old Europe, they might have called it - the Jacobins rooted out domestic political dissent. It was the beginning of the period that would become infamous as the Terror.
Among the Jacobins' greatest triumphs was their ability to appropriate the rhetoric of patriotism - Le Patriote Français was the title of Brissot's newspaper - and to promote their political program through a tightly coordinated network of newspapers, political hacks, pamphleteers and political clubs.
Even the Jacobins' dress distinguished "true patriots": those who wore badges of patriotism like the liberty cap on their heads, or the cocarde tricolore (a red, white and blue rosette) on their hats or even on their lapels.
Insisting that their partisan views were identical to the national will, believing that only they could save France from apocalyptic destruction, Jacobins could not conceive of legitimate dissent. Political opponents were treasonous, stabbing France and the Revolution in the back.
To defend the nation from its enemies, Jacobins expanded the government's police powers at the expense of civil liberties, endowing the state with the power to detain, interrogate and imprison suspects without due process. Policies like the mass warrantless searches undertaken in 1792 - "domicilary visits," they were called - were justified, according to Georges Danton, the Jacobin leader, "when the homeland is in danger."
Robespierre - now firmly committed to the most militant brand of Jacobinism - condemned the "treacherous insinuations" cast by those who questioned "the excessive severity of measures prescribed by the public interest." He warned his political opponents, "This severity is alarming only for the conspirators, only for the enemies of liberty." Such measures, then as now, were undertaken to protect the nation - indeed, to protect liberty itself.
If the French Terror had a slogan, it was that attributed to the great orator Louis de Saint-Just: "No liberty for the enemies of liberty." Saint-Just's pithy phrase (like Bush's variant, "We must not let foreign enemies use the forums of liberty to destroy liberty itself") could serve as the very antithesis of the Western liberal tradition.
On this principle, the Terror demonized its political opponents, imprisoned suspected enemies without trial and eventually sent thousands to the guillotine. All of these actions emerged from the Jacobin worldview that the enemies of liberty deserved no rights.
Though it has been a topic of much attention in recent years, the origin of the term "terrorist" has gone largely unnoticed by politicians and pundits alike. The word was an invention of the French Revolution, and it referred not to those who hated freedom, nor to non-state actors, nor of course to "Islamofascism."
A terroriste was, in its original meaning, a Jacobin leader who ruled France during la Terreur.
I could feel his joy - like the tortoise in the race between the hare.
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