Meenakshi R Gairola

My mistake: I bought a HP laptop

2010-08-27T01:50:00.000-07:00

Yup, my mistake I bought a HP Pavilion Dv6 2020AX laptop. The specs were very tempting and hence opened my purse strings. But that was the beginning of all my agony.

Guess what after showing off the laptop to my kids and telling them how magnanimously I would give them my old one, I sat down to work on it and obviously wanted to check my mails. While replying to a mail,I realised that the SPACE BAR just wouldnt work! Small problem I thought, and was sure that it was soemthing to do with the MS Windows 7 OS problem. My trust in HP was strong and was sure that it was some s/w glitch and started contacting the HP online support.

One Mr. Debayan came up on HP chat and as I was chatting my laptop's spacebar started working. Mr. Debayan was very happy (he did nothing). However I was unsure and asked him what I should do to ensure that it continues to work. And he started sending all the sugary sweet "thank yous" and links on how I should improve the system performance of a 4day old laptop. To my query that I should probably pray to God that it should work, he replied that it might be a good idea. But obviously the next morning it wouldnt work again. Mr. Debayan can you pray for me!

Yet I was sure that it was a s/w issue and got back to HP online chat hoping that Mr. Debayan wouldnt show up again. Thankfully Solomon Yvette came to help me and thankfully again this person understood my problem. He helped me with a couple of patches and told me that incase this didnt work I should take it to the service center. Alas, the patches didnt work.

So found out about the HP service center at Jaya Nagar and after a long wait of an hour cried on the service engineers shoulder. He assured me that they would get back in 2 days. So afterall it was not Microsoft's mistake but HPs!

Its been 15days since I bought my laptop and guess what donno when I will ever get to work on it. My day goes in calling all these people, chasing HP customer service at times and at other chasing Maha Electronics, HP authorized service center. Guess what they want to replace the keyboard (did you know that keyboard is called an accesssory in a laptop!) and the part is not available in all of India but they found it in Chennai after my pestering. I better brush my Geography now!

Anyways I shall continue blogging from my old laptop and updating...40k anyways gone down the drain :(

BOTTOM LINE: Never Ever buy HP laptops...Yuck!

I dont want mobile internet to invade my life!

2010-08-26T10:15:00.000-07:00

These days have you noticed people are more interested and keen on maintaining relationships far and distant than the ones near by? Have you noticed how people who once used to converse with you over the restaurant table are now happily keying into their mobile phones and smiling at their mobiles and pleasantly taking the physical person in front for granted?

Yes, I am bugged with the Blackberrys and E71s & 72s of the world. Office mails get replied instantaneously 24x7. Friends in California, London and Australia are aware where you went for vacation and what you did there and how you celebrated your kids birthday but the next door neighbor has no clue of the same. They realise that their neighbour must probably be out as the newspaper isnt being picked!

Hello! get back to the physical world....virtual world in truth is "virtual"!

To cut the long story short, yes FB, Twitter, blogging, rapid reply emails are great ways of communicating and doing wonders to the world but nothing is more real and important that the people around you. Do not get addicted to these modern gadgets, they are for a purpose and dont get carried away by them.

You and I can INNOVATE for big corporates!

2010-08-12T00:09:00.000-07:00

As parents or students, the label of “Scientist” has always been appealing. Every single student as he/she steps into an engineering college or design school or medical college or biotechnology institute, aspires that someday he/she would hold a product or process patent. All these aspirations come crashing as there is never ever a company recruiting for their R&D division.

Competition has been the answer to many a question. Organizations are having to continuously innovate to stay above the rest. The life of car which used to be a good 10-15 years in the good old days is now less than 5years. That being the case, where do the R&D houses run for ideas all the time? Corporates have woken up to the “Wisdom of Crowds”. They have realized that they need to strengthen their R&D houses with the wisdom of the entire community (end users, retailers, distributors, suppliers etc.etc.). You and me included.

But that’s much easier said than done. How does a corporate reach out to the entire community? A physical outreach program to that magnitude would burn a huge hole in their pockets and make the entire exercise non-profitable. The internet has come handy in this scenario. Did you know that organizations like NASA, P&G, Pepsi, Unilever and many more are using this technology to reach out to you and me. This is where Open Innovation comes in. Open Innovation is a process by which organizations reach out to the vast public for their needs. A lot of Open Innovation platforms (Ideaken, YourEncore, Innocentive) are successfully up and running and reaching out to you and me for their various clients. They ask for nothing more than the urge to INNOVATE and INVENT from us. The organizations also provide REWARDs for the most suitable solution.

So don’t let those aspirations wander away, internet has been a boon to many such aspirations and here is yet another vent.

Have you ever seen a Sardar beggar?

2010-04-12T08:21:00.000-07:00

Read this in one of those forwarded mail trails and couldnt help sharing and noting the same in my blogs:

We all love Sardar jokes. But do you know that Sikhs are one of the hardest working prosperous and diversified communities in the world. My friend told me about the following incident which I wish to share with you. It has had a deep impact on my vacation, his few friends came to Delhi . They rented a taxi for local sight-seeing. The driver was an old Sardar and boys being boys, these pals began cracking Sardarji jokes, just to tease the old man. But to their surprise, the fellow remained unperturbed. At the end of the sight-seeing, they paid the cab hire-charges. The Sardar returned the change, but he gave each one of them one rupee extra and said, ''Son, since morning you have been telling Sardarji jokes.. I listened to them all and let me tell you, some of them were in bad taste. Still, I don't mind coz I know that you are young blood and are yet to see the world.. But I have one request. I am giving you one rupee each. Give it to the first Sardar beggar that you come across in this or any other city.' My friend continued,* ' That one rupee coin is still with me. I couldn't find a single Sardar begging anywhere.' MORAL: The secret behind their universal success, is their willingness to do any job with utmost dedication and pride. A Sardar will drive a truck or set up a roadside garage or a dhaba, put a fruit juice stall, take up small time carpentry, ... but he will never beg on the streets.

Hope this always remains true...crossed fingers!

“3 IDIOTS” – Parents, Teachers and Society, certainly not the children!

2010-02-01T20:09:00.000-08:00

Wouldn’t one and all agree with me if I say that “3 Idiots” was a colossal hit because it pulled a string somewhere in our minds? Controversies apart, Chetan Bhagat’s, “5 point someone” does form the basis for the story and it is sculpted well thereafter for better audience acceptance. The movie did get a lot of us thinking.

All through our childhood we hear that it’s a big bad world out there and that one needs to be prepared for the rat race, it’s an extremely competitive world!! But tell me have you ever heard of a person committing suicide because he didn’t get promoted or because of a bad appraisal or because his/her pay package is not as good as that of a colleague? Obviously NOT! Sounds ridiculous to end life for such things, right? Then why is childhood so burdened?

But on the other hand, how many kids hang themselves or consume poison post their X or XII board exams? Or like that bright kid in “3 Idiots” who hangs himself after soulfully singing “Gimme one more chance!” just because he was more creative and had an idea. Are marks and competition more important than the learning itself? In “India Unbound” Gurucharan Das says how America created a nation of fiddlers and hence is ahead in product innovation. Out there schools have a separate class called “workshop” where they fiddle around with different things. Bala Chakravarthy of IMD, Lausanne through his article in TOI wished India, “Happy new product innovations!” on the occasion of her 60th Republic Day.

Isn’t new product innovation the next right step for the knowledge economy? This in turn means that children, instead of writing verbatim answers of various questions in their tests, need to be quizzed about the application of such information. How many of you think that the right procedure for admitting kids into IIT should be through their projects and viva and not a written test?

FOG AND FLIGHTS: A case in crisis management

2010-01-27T23:26:00.000-08:00

Year on year, come January and this news definitely appears in newspapers and news channels about how various flights and trains got cancelled due to bad weather/fog. Usually, I am one those newspaper readers who read this news with delight as me and my family would have just made it back from Delhi post the Christmas vacations, just in time, before the fog set in. However this January wasn’t to be the same and after ducking the fog for a good 5 years we were one among the many passengers who were stuck in the chaos post cancellation of flights.

Our flight was the 8pm one and by 10pm they told us that they had had to cancel the flight due to bad weather/fog. So as the men went about getting our flight rescheduled, me and the kids sat down in the lounge (squatting in the newly built Delhi airport lounge) playing word building. What ensued was the worst case of disaster management and more gripping than a Hollywood thriller.

It was saddening to see the way passengers were behaving and the plight of the flight officials. It was absolutely unruly. Infact some passengers started shouting “Kingsher Hai! Hai! Murdabad, murdabad” in true Delhi style!!! And some wanted to make sure that the next day’s flight would ferry them and not the passengers booked on those flights ! brilliant!! What is the point in taking those poor souls to task when its weather that’s playing foul. Would they dare do this in a foreign airport? The Mumbai passengers got around to bullying the Kingfisher officials as another flight had announced the departure of its Mumbai bound flight. The officials (illogically) relented and boarding was announced. We learnt later that the other flight kept taxiing on the runway only to de-board their passengers later in the night. So much for mob wisdom!

Isn’t there a lesson that we need to learn from this? Cannot the airline carrier issue a warning/ guideline (in Bold) in the tickets, that during this month there is a possibility of flights getting cancelled due to bad weather and that the airline will respond by rescheduling the tickets in the next available flight or refund the amount. They can possibly guide passengers by giving them numbers of nearby hotels. And airline folks, kindly learn to communicate clearly and have personnel to back your own men/women.

Medical insurance, Simplify please!!!!

2009-08-16T22:31:00.000-07:00

We all understand the importance, the need and the benefits of medical insurance. There is absolutely no doubt in any citizen's mind about this facility called medical insurance. With the rising costs of medical care it makes utmost sense to insure ourselves and our families against any medical emergencies. So when the public is so clear about it why does the insurance industry make it sound like rocket science?

Just imagine how wonderful it would be if servicing a medical claim was as easy and "happy" as buying a pair of shoes at Zappos. Zappos is a breathtakingly beautiful piece of marketing where the focus point is customer experience more than the product itself. The company sees its core area to be "customer service" and to ensure this they bring in "happy employees". How ironical is that? Shouldn't a shoe company be focusing on style, size and fashion? You know the answer if you have spoken to their sales assistant on the phone.

Insurance is usually invoked when the family is already going through a difficult time coping with a sick member of the family. At that moment it becomes intolerable when one has to go through the clauses and sub clauses of an insurance policy. Instead of ordering for a CBI enquiry into the eligibility of the claim, would it harm the insurance company to come out with a more humane face and talk to the customer about the problems they are facing and use their vast knowledge base to suggest ways to cure the medical condition and extend a benevolent ear? We are certainly not paying thousands in premiums so that one fine day a customer service agent at the insurance claims department talks to us like we are lesser mortals in need of his/her magic wand! A patient hearing and a sweet good wish will go a longer way than actually picking the claim, or refusing it.

Also the language, when I hold my insurance policy in my hands it possibly sounds like the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between two nuclear countries. All that the insurance policy is to communicate is, "we are with you in sickness and health".

Indians shine!!

2009-05-18T02:01:00.000-07:00

For all the poverty and low educational levels(Slumdog Millionaire) attributed to India, the 14th Lok Sabha (2009) elections has brought in that much needed ray of hope and pride. I know that there would be several million blogs regarding the same but I just have to capture the same in my blog and not miss this momentous moment.

The results were preceded by exit polls and astrological predictions that talked of a hung parliament. But the results were that of a populous that wanted fast and progressive reforms that wouldn't be held to ransom by any ally with a couple of seats. Giving Congress a majority and clearly stating that it's leaders like Dr. Manmohan Singh that the country wants, is a sign of democratic maturity. With demand slumping and economy showing signs of slump what we need is the muscle to push in reforms like the epic 1991 reforms by Dr. Manmohan Singh. And no person better than Montek Singh Ahluwalia to do the same. I hope sensibility prevails over Congress and ensures that politics takes a back seat and Mr. Ahluwalia takes on the Financial reformers role.

This weekend (May16-17) has been historical for more reasons than one. Not only did India get its much needed stability but neighbouring Sri Lanka also heaved a sigh of relief with the total wipe out of the LTTE and ensuring the end of Captain Prabakaran. No one can ever forget how Rajiv Gandhi was mercilessly assasinated and this weekend brings that sad feeling also to an end. The Gandhi family must be proud for both these reasons. Rahul Gandhi assured in a new wave of politics in India where politics didnt mean personal gains. He also ensured that the biggest state in India was not submerged in caste politics.

Its like after a bad night with horrible nightmares of seeing Mayawati as the PM of the country, I jolt out of that to see that things are actually going the right way. I just hope my second wish of seeing Mr. Ahluwalia as the FinMin also comes true :-)

Maverick

2009-03-06T04:09:00.000-08:00

Thats the name of the book I recently read and is written by Ricardo Semler. He is a second generation businessman from South America. One thing that really struck me in this book was how facts or well propounded theories turn into myths. Take for example, "economies of scale". We have all accepted this theory ever since Henry Ford said that about the Black Car.

So bigger effectively means better and factories turned into huge black boxes where men and resources go in and finished products through several quality checks come out. Several managers and supervisors and vice presidents are hard at work to ensure that things go on smoothly. We do time and motion study and every second on the shop floor. The premise being that workers are not qualified and not capable of being trusted and that they don't want to think either. But it is probably the monotony in their jobs that always causes the unrest. (hey, before the service industry gives that grin that it doesnt concern us, please think again)

Okay, the winner as far as Semco and Semler are concerned is that all this was turned on its head. The basic funda that man needs to be respected and appreciated was brought to fore and the swipe machines and foremen were done away with. Workers were made responsible for their plants and they went to the extent of changing the process flow and moved to manufacturing cells from individual lathe machines and grinding machines.(not because some process consultant told them, but because they felt the need). All that was possible only when they had the courage to DISREGARD - "economies of scale". A plant and its workers, they reasoned, looses its identity once it crosses the 500 mark. Which means to keep the plant thinking and agile the strength of the plant should not exceed 500. That meant splitting facilities which were bigger than the said number and duplicating all the support functions at the new place. Does that make sense to you? Were people happier and more productive, were the economies of scale offsetted by productivity and innovation? Well given the colorful economy that Brazil has, Semco made best of the worst. So read on and be ready to wonder if what you learnt in your Bschool was worth it at all.

Okay now my pearl of wisdom whoever dared to read all of it---> it doesnt take long for facts and theories to turn into myths. I am not going to say, change is the only constant thing (its too cliched). But when you put on your thinking hats dont take refuge under well propounded theories. You might be making one yourself.

SMS abuse/use

2008-09-29T05:10:00.000-07:00

How often we get these sms-es that market something or the other that we just don't want. Spams have really brought the "ugh" factor to our technology gadgets and media that we own. That unnecessary call from a bank selling a personal loan or credit card (thankfully they have reduced ever since the Lehman and others started tumbling), sms-es selling anything from a service to a product are some of the examples of spams that we encounter in a day. And the distaste we get when we open our email box- the lesser said is better.

But one fine evening, around 9.30pm I get this sms from a friend mentioning about a kid who was in desperate need for O negative blood. And there at 9.30pm, immediately I send out the sms to all the contacts in my phonebook and the same I guess, is being carried out by all the other people who got this message. Suddenly out of nowhere, the chain reaction brings alive a community who is worried about this unknown child and without the slightest hesistation the message is spread around. Did the kid benefit, did some donor turn up at her door, will there be a smile on her parents face are some of the thoughts with which I go to bed accompanied by a small prayer for the child. Also a smile, that the "sms" medium was put to good use by some good soul.

Sports...

2008-09-18T23:51:00.000-07:00

God! what a revelation it has been to me!!! Running behind a tennis ball or a squash ball and ensuring that every muscle in my body is pleading for relief is actually giving me a high! Have I gone nuts......no, i have just learned that sports in itself can teach me what they taught me in my MBA. Hey! thats a good title .."Sports degree as good as an MBA". Probably sports cant teach me micro economics but it didnt go into my head then as well!

But jokes apart, honestly, this is the first time I am playing in all earnest and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I am very sure now that I want both my children to definitely learn atleast one sport in all earnest. This makes life so simple for me as the child learns loads of things on court with the slightest resistance. While on court I cant think of anything other than the black or yellow ball. Slightest loss of concentration and I have missed a point. The path that the ball takes is a parabola, and one should not hit it on the rise but on its fall. The various angles that I can hit the ball at. The weaknesses of my opponents, vis-a-vis my strengths and weaknesses. Make space between the ball and body, dont overrun. Understanding the ball's bounce and its nature is utmost important. Your body and racquet are your secret weapon. Woah! life's lessons all rolled into the racquet and ball. What more can I ask for!!!!

So go out there and sweat it out, nothing much left behind a TV. Let us ape the Americans and the Chinese in their love for sports and bring that zing in our life...

Sunday evening at Ragi goda

2008-09-14T22:53:00.000-07:00

This Sunday evening was a little different and we set out to a Hanuman temple in Jaya Nagar called Ragi Gouda. I donno if am spelling it right or what it means. Its basically a Hanuman temple on a hillock. In Chennai the streets leading onto the temple are usually very busy ones with tonnes of shops and a lot of buzz. This one was unlike that (probably becoz it had rained heavily) and we could drive down near the temple.
At the gate of the temple was a stand that had several bags on it. These were for putting our chappals (padarakshaka's) and depositing it in the place for the same before proceeding to the temple queues. This certainly was impressing. And if you started wondering where to wash your hands post the padarakshkas, there were 2 steel basins waiting to resolve the issue. Was terribly impressed with the simplicity and efficacy of the arrangements. It seemed like a temple which saw a huge rush of devotees and hence there were well made queue regulators. First halt was at a Ganesha worship place. Here people bought a small bag of rice and after praying to God, deposited it in a big steel container. The Ganesha was huge and was flanked by Sun/ Surya god on one side and Parvati on the other. Then we reached the top of the hillock. On one side of Hanumanji was Shivji and the other side was Ram, Lakshman and Sita. Again the arrangements were very good and offerings could only be dropped at the hundi. Once outside you could sit and reflect on God for a few minutes and take tulsi prasad which was kept outside. The good part of going to temples with children is that they will surely request for laddoo prasad and this way you can surely have one as well. Other than the ladoo they were freely distributing some chundal (boiled dal with seasoning). On the whole it seemed the best way to start a week. Children happy with the outing and adults at peace.