Blogging: who has initial advantage Boy or Girl

Blogging is just an example of several things where boys and girl have initial advantage of their own. I needed some medium to put my view through so choose blogging. Read few lines and later I will explain the context of this with the topic. When we happen to ask something from someone which has no material value then we find prompt answer as Yes, but in reality granter take more time in deciding to give this and most of the time end up not giving/keeping his word. Whereas if you ask something of material value than it became lot easier for granter to decide based on his/her reasoning/constraints and say Yes or no respectively. Now why we fail to give someone something which is of no material value to us? It does not have material value to you but it might means a lot for the seeker. Remember seeker was asking your time which only you can give and no replacement of any sort will help. Hence I can try and answer why most of the time granter fails because his judgment is based on importance. He value to other stuff in life more than the aspirant. Of course there can be several reasons in against and for. But the reason provided above about importance qualifies to be considered valid.  This is also ideal scenario where you can as well reconfigure your importance list. Bear in mind you cannot ask someone of fishery department to help you in civil engineering design but when your help is regarding the use of common sense then expertise does not matter. Common sense is something beyond expertise and everyone has it. Hence everyone can spare some time for you.

Source: internet

With context to blogging I believe girls have the initial advantage in terms of getting readers or fan following. Now please don’t say that you believe in equality and opportunity is something we get by hard work etc. As the message as well as context is entirely different here. In fact girls have initial advantage in this internet world. If you still don’t believe me then try putting your snap and ask your girlfriend to post her snap in social networking site and openly ask for people to like. I am sure even your friend will miss an opportunity to hit like on your snap but on other hand you will find the like numbers have swollen from unknown faces as well. Never try this as open challenge as you get just one chance to spoil your reputation so keep it for better time. This is purely my wisdom to suggest you since even me have never tired this and will not dare to do in life.

Let’s look from Indian point of view, now in India we do not have any legal/proper dating sites except matrimonial ones which is primarily visited by groom/bride family members. So imagine a girl writing a blog and she happen to write on different forms of marriage and at the end she just put a sentence that her family is also looking for someone to arrange her marriage. What you will see next day? Any imagination will be helpful? The comment section will be over poured with lot of messages of concern, love, even proposals as well as good/bad comments on different forms of marriage. She does not have to look for reader to grab attention. No jealousy but that’s the beauty of being a girl so her advantage is well justified. So boy now do you agree or not? If still you have faith in your capability just think if she happens to post her beautiful snap and write on topic Solitude. I am well convinced that she will get more comments and hit than what I have got on my blog 4 i.e. Solitude A social pain. Don’t smile I know you have conceded defeat and you in agreement. Well done!

What I wanted to convey was that always support your known once by sparing some time however busy you are, when he/she is starting/daring to discover new thing. As it does not cost you anything but helped the darer a lot. It also gives a sense of feeling that they have right circle around them. If you fail than the importance list which I had disused in the beginning get reconfigured and you are downgraded. It takes a lot of time to be someone’s favourite then you consider someone as your favourite. I have come across this situation many times as I always like to give a try in life. I appreciate the joke/fun/feedback I get when I approach someone to validate on my new venture as more they laugh more determination I get to do it perfectly. This is my 10^th blog but I remember when I used to approach people to spare time to read my blogs and everyone used to say yes but only those who really cared managed to write few lines or at least read the blog. Writing is not an individual task it is treated complete only when the reader reads it and writes whatever critique they like. I have got good number of regular readers and this helped me to reconfigure my importance list as well.

Thank You!

Satender Kumar Mall

Twitter: satenderiiit

Integration Projects : Key areas of focus! From Developer’s desk

Integration project are never simple and is always complex in terms of management, development and entity integration. Support activity of such project is intricate. I am sharing my experience as I was fortunate enough to work in both development as well as support activity of an integration project. The views presented are primarily for fresher who are gearing up for new challenges in IT industry. No technical jargon, simply an useful tips from hand on experience at work.

Integration process : Source: Internet

Few key areas of focus are as follows:-

  1.  Functional Knowledge: - This aspect is must not only for integration projects but for all kind of projects. Technical knowledge of an IT engineer fetches project entry but functional knowledge provides longevity in projects. One should use every opportunity to gain more of functional knowledge about the domain of industry they are carrying out projects. In context to integration projects this helps a lot to single out the faulty system when in issue/error. 

    2. Core systems in integration: - Since integration projects are combination of various systems. Being aware of other systems at least in context to kind of data they receive/provides will be useful to enable complete functioning of the project. You may be involve in one aspect of the system but for its functioning complete grasp of other dependent systems are required. It not only reduces the time of analysis but also spotting the origin of an error.

      3. Input and output data: - To evaluate an integration support issues we should master input and output data. One should be acquainted with complete flow of data i.e. what is fed as input followed by its flow in various systems in between for data interaction to final stage of data output. This common concept is widely missed by engineers in support activity which led them to confusion during the major issues in production. The fire-fight become difficult as support engineers tries to escape from the initial analysis phase for obvious reason of the timing. There are several tools available which has been integrated in project to help and visualize the error which we should be aware off. 

      4.  Key contacts of system owners: - The bit of successfully resolving issue also lies in the kind of contacts list you have in place for a projects you are involved in. Issues can be multi-layer in nature where to progress in your analysis you might need help from your dependent system. So you should know whom to call or as a result of your analysis you found that next level of analysis need to be carried out by other core systems in project. So always update your points of contact in such projects.

      5. Asking right questions to yourself: - Whenever you are assigned task or problem/incident ticket remember to ask some key questions to yourself such as which area this issue has happened? What is kind of input and output is expected? How can your responsible system would help or diagnose the issue? What should be the starting point? Now all this questions will have answer within you only when you have successfully completed step 1 to 4. People in IT industry who are no way responsible in fixing the issue happen to ask smart questions so in order to satisfy them all the above questions answer should be made available by you.

         6. Patience: - Over and above your programming and functional knowledge you have to have a quality of being patience. I can tell from my experience that however good the project management is and with the use of better tools such as trace tracking, error management etc. along with use of software development/management life cycle processes such as SCRUM, AGILE you are bound to be assign with incident ticket which is not yours. As the person assign the ticket is someone from helpdesk who does not necessarily bound by any of the above 5 steps. Patience why because if you have to support 24X7 then you usually get call in midnight. The responsibility does not end saying either you do not understand the incident or it does not belong to your system area of access. You have to attend the call as well as need to carry out necessary analysis to provide base to your both above statement with valid reasoning. 

         7.  Leadership skills: - This skill is essential as most of the time you need to take lead to bring all party on table to explain and help in identifying faulty system. Leadership skill not necessarily means that you need to be manager or above all I want to convey is you should have courage to take incident head on and try to resolve although it is not your system incident. This will really shine your personality in long run. Though you manage one system but incident manager will always prefer your point of view in other problems as well. That means you will occupy GO-TO man place in project.

Guys if you are interested to know more about IT soft skills please visit below sites. They are really useful going forward.

http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/

http://www.guerrillaprojectmanagement.com/

Thank You!

Satender Kumar Mall

Twitter: satenderiiit

Love

Hardly we will find anyone who does not know what love is? But writing this blog was the toughest of all so far.All in the universe wants to be loved by many and want to share love as well. Love is a phenomenon in which person feel complete in all aspect. It exists in all kind of relation one can think of. We should be proud of our Heart, it's been played, stabbed, cheated, burned and broken but somehow still works. What I say about love, it is just one form of love definition in millions which exists on every individual mind. Love is something which is gift of God and readily available in abundance in this universe. Love has lot of forms:  it is beautiful, painful, awesome, thrilling etc. Now I am not going to describe what mother love is? Since most of you fall under youth category so let me put some interesting aspect of thrilling/awesome/painful love. Be careful that love demands no explanations hence in our life; we don’t need to explain how much we love a person. It depends on them, how they appreciate the efforts that we do for them to be contented.

(Source: http://sayingimages.com)

When one is in 100% love from his side but no idea on other hand can be termed as thrilling because your love is counted with passage each seconds. When you first fall in love it's so thrilling, you can't wait to throw yourself away and make this new wonderful twosome. The awesome love is something when both lovers fall in love with each other and continue to spend their life with no hesitation. One thing is common that beauty is equally experienced in both thrilling and amazing love. One question before I march further Do you really want me to describe painful one? As it is the toughest job since pain cannot be quantified and believe me magnitude vary from person to person. So I will wait for your view in comment section. And will decide based on that. However let’s get on ride with what we have i.e. thrilling and awesome!! Remember Falling in love is not a choice.  To stay in love is.

Someone has rightly said ‘Trust the one who can see these 3 things in you: Sorrow behind your smile, Love behind your anger, and Meaning behind your silence.’ When I evaluate about my sensation of love till date then to be honest, it was my eighth love with whom I got married to. If you go by count then you may end up imagining that there were 7 failures but you will be surprise to know that all those love were either thrilling or awesome once. Between thrilling and awesome there is also called infatuation. Most of the time we misinterpret infatuation as love but when the time passes we all realise that not worth continuing the same. This phase is harmless as both parties are not serious. Few of the count of 7 can be termed as infatuation. Some were thrilling that is one sided, where I think I am in love and vice-versa they thought I love them. But I enjoyed each moment as whenever I felt strong about love, It has always helped me to work hard to achieve my goal or in studies. The saga of facing reality never really impacted me but in turn it made me strong and more mature. I believe that should be the motto of love that you rise out of it but many takes literal meaning of love that is ‘fall’ in love. Once lover can became a very good friend if the desire of settling for any reason does not met it end. As both of you selflessly always wanted to see other in best of times. Can you imagine a better friend you can get than this? But yes once friend then one should be mature enough to follow friend dharma. I consider myself lucky that all of whom I once thought that they were my possible love or infatuation and vice-versa are best friend of mine. Only one of them was missed as I never got in touch on any platform when I left that city. Who know we can become friends in case she is reading this blog. Both boys and girls please remember losing someone who loves you is easiest part but it is very hard to find someone who loves you beyond all your imperfections.

The message which I wanted to convey and I am sure you will agree to it that love is above the barter system of give and take. The ultimate goal should not be getting your love by all means but the goal should be just love. Because when you get into give/take business than comes the social agent such as family, society, status etc. which you don’t have control off. If this entire factor falls on your side then your love is a joyful ride. But does everyone is expedient of same fate? No prize to guess; the answer is NO. Remember Lord Krishna also during his incarnation just loved Radha but he did not attempt to get her as he was aware of his power. They did what both had in their hands. If I am anywhere near where youth of today get this message then the experience shared above is fruitful. And we can save lot of time/energy/money/life which are possible recipient of abjure.

A quote by Angelina Jolie an American actress ‘We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.’ 

Thank You!

Satender Kumar Mall

Twitter: satenderiiit

Recession: On Funny Note!

Recession: a word which youth loves to hate. By this blog I wanted to share few common experiences which were funny aspect of recession. Today 7^th Feb 2013, I formally got my MBA degree from Cardiff University as a part of my planned goal in life. Now this not funny it was my hard work. I remember one joke on MBA that’s goes like this ‘there was one sandwich seller whose business was doing so well that he managed to get his son complete his MBA from America. As a recession gift his son lost his job and came to assist his father’s work as an alternative until he find new job. He advices his father to cut cost so he should restrict to minimum to use of sauces as it is recession, he reduced vegetable quantity from sandwich indicating recession and in due course of time his father business decline and virtually got shut down due to downgrade of sandwich quality. It was not because his son was MBA but his son’s over response to a calamity called recession.

Waiting to be called...

Myself at Graduation ceremony on 7th Feb 2013 at City Hall Cardiff UK

When I was in Bangalore from 2008 to Feb 2010, we managed to hold our house rent increase citing recession as main reason to our landlord. Except workload and worry of losing job every other thing was in diminishing mode. If you happen to speak to someone those days to weigh their point of view they make use of word recession multiple times in normal communication. College fresher’s had got better reason to explain their placement pitfalls. Lots of cost cutting measures were on peak in almost every field, of course except our political class. They gifted us best of scams during recession or near around period such as 2G spectrum, Common wealth Games scam, inflation etc. I am sure we all Indian are well aware of lot more. But the question is will we go for change in 2014?

We know that ‘picture tell it all’; so I am sharing some snaps collected from various internet sources to add humour to your reading, I swear they are not my inventions at all. I can just hope if they were mine.

Impact on Currency itself, which impacts world's economy.

Heath care impact: Doctor advice to beat recession sting

Not sure who has NO money, Is it Bank or myself.

Recession impact on Bollywood

HOPE : 5 year later, we still end up with hope that ‘the end is in sight’

Let’s not forget about few things which were boon due to recession; No more bank salesman offering credit cards at company door; Most people have released that there is no shortcut to double your money via bank derivatives (one of the main causes of recession); Price check on land/ property prices to some extent (I know many might not agree to it including me); belief on skill set and last but not the least everyone released law of vital few i.e. one MBA jargon of Pareto principle ‘20% of people adds 80% of the value’. Don’t smile I am sure you fall under 20% category.

Thank You!

Satender Kumar Mall

Twitter: satenderiiit

Argument : Is it worth winning!

Reader must not mistake debate as an argument. Debate is a broader form of argument and it is well organised but here I want to share our thirst on day to day argument and perception in its outcomes. Person in heat of argument will always tries to win as his/her belief overshadows wisdom. Why do we always ascertain that volume will succeed when science of reasoning won’t? I can assume that we all are on agreement that winning such argument always leaves a nexus in the relationship. It is also very difficult to draw a line where argument should freeze as there is no boundary in friendship. In contrast it becomes easier with strangers. If we happen to evaluate the situation in leisure then we will find ourselves always at losing end as we might have lost potential friend/well-wisher in stranger. For time being we can contend by saying that we don’t care stranger but life may have its own plans to arrange another meeting between both.

Cartoon source is internet. Not mine.

I am not suggesting that we should completely avoid argument but I am sure we all should not create it a prestige issue while putting our point of view. Argument is part and parcel of our life. We engage in several arguments with various people such as friends, Cousins, loved ones, spouse, parents, boss, colleague at work and strangers as well. Argument topics could be anything; I leave this to reader’s imagination. Everyone has interest in some subject/fields and when one happen to challenge the same from another angle it is the best opportunity for both parties to argue and sharpen/broaden the knowledge repository. I personally have lost few friends for sake of winning an argument but was lucky enough to gain them back when meeting them in different forum. May be we both realised that if we really want to part away then we can look for better reason rather for minor reason of argument outcome.  I realised that gaining them is more valuable in terms of moving ahead in life. It was not worth at all losing someone on argument behalf. This is also not a suggestion that we should compromise with our values just to keep our friends intact but we should not misinterpret argument outcome as our values. Friendship is something which is stronger than blood relation; it is only because part of our values system; character and a feeling of completeness is mirrored in another person who is called as ‘FRIEND’. So this relation should only get break when any of these parameters decline.

Our ancestor had told that person become mature in earning bread phase when he/she hits life reality. This is the phase where one’s wisdom is judged as it is broadly unwrapped from all sides. During this stage individual decisions are rarely challenged as it used to be during teenagers. Do you remember ‘As you sow, so shall you reap’ it means ‘something that you say which means everything that happens to you is a result of your own action. If we keep ourselves tied up for argument sake and busy handling its unpleasant consequences then we are missing lots of other opportunity which we might have created or grasped. We have heard Silence is golden but why we always miss an opportunity to apply it. Argument is best place to apply once you feel that you have put across your point politely and other party in no way inclined to accept then Silence is best medium to avoid aftermath consequence. You will soon realise that everyone is coming to a conclusion of some sort. But more we speak murkier it gets. Also it was rightly pointed by Thomas Carlyle ‘a man lives by believing something: not by debating and arguing about many things.’

Now another angle to look at argument is in form of constructive and destructive. If we are smart enough to judge the on-going argument status then it is win-win situation for all. However it is very hard to realise in middle of argument when to cease. From my past experience, what best I can suggest is to go in silence and listen to what other party is saying on culmination that no one is appreciating your view. You can pacify yourself with inkling that either you have piled up ideas which you can easily demolish with counter arguments (remember Edison quote from my previous blog Failure:What is it!) or you really have reaped some good points. In all ways you will be the winner. I remember a famous quote of Edward Koch ‘You punch me, I punch back. I do not believe it's good for ones self-respect to be a punching bag.’ Let’s not demolish our self- respect for argument sake.

Thank You!

Satender Kumar Mall

Twitter: satenderiiit

Job Threat : How much should we be worried!

Companies downgrading its work forces; thousand to lose jobs due to global recession; Pink slip talks; Thoughts of job threat give a sleepless night to many. What about those who face these entire factors all at the same time? I (it well include my colleagues) was lucky to face and fight out these entire factors at early phase of my career. Trust me it was lot exciting as I did everything except worrying about job threat.

Source: http://www.thedetail.tv

I remember the late winter month of January 2009 in India, Worlds great minds were worrying about recession and experts were pouring in their views about possible duration and its recovery. In all of these the industry I belong i.e. Information Technology (IT) was busy in cutting variable pay, freezing pay hike and promotions to make lot out of these situation. However let’s get back to business, I arrived Bangalore after spending a sort winter vacation from my village in northern India. I had wonderful 2 days journey of train, as I had made some good friends in train who were from my neighbouring country Nepal. As soon as I arrived at Yeswanthpur station, I was greeted with news that ‘Did you saw the news today! Satyam is in news for scam, our job is in threat’ from my friend who happen to call me since she was aware that I am arriving to Bangalore. Needless to mention that the period was of global recession; Job cut was on peak and recruitment was on decline. Hence the entire worst possible factors were on our side. In fact the news was not shocking to all Satyamites because we were receiving email notifications from our CEO’s & MD about failed business deals and corrective measure they are talking. Well the fact was that now we were working in a company where we were not sure at end of each month about our monthly salary. Let me clear your doubt that we did received our salary paid every month. Needless to remind about continuous downgrade/malpractices in our 4^th pillar of democracy i.e. Media.

Let’s jump to the excitement part to keep the motivation. When I arrived office for business as usual there I got chance to meet all biggies of our company whom I had never seen in last 2 year of my job except knowing them by name through the email we received on regular basis. Every day we get to see one or the other big personality who come to address or to be specific console us with message that ‘we are fighting back, soon things will be normal etc.’ Then in Feb 2009 comes the news that the client for which I was working has planned to shift to IBM. The reason they provided was ‘No doubt about Satyam resource capability but we have taken a hit in our north America business where IBM is helping us out.’ Now you will agree that these words were no anointment to our wound. Our project manager told us not to worry about this development and let’s focus on knowledge transfer (KT) to IBM. Do not take any decision of quitting company we will bounce back. First time daily Cab was assigned to us to travel to client’s ITPL office where both party will meet for KT. Hence in recession I was travelling in pick up cab unlike via crowded BMTC bus service of hay days. This continued for 2 months. After KT formality, I happen to see that most of the leaders who were advising us to stay have already boarded IBM boat to sail through this crisis. I declined to move to IBM. No offense to other who moved as I am sure they must have really strong reason compare to me. Client kept us for 2 month after the KT to sum up all kind of current business. During this time I happened to join Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP: an Indian nationalist party) IT cell to contribute in campaign for 2009 Parliamentarian election. Less/no pressure of work helped me to actively learn and meet people of Bangalore city and apprehend this garden city of India more closely. I tried hand on my cooking skill and used to bring different north Indian variety to lunch from my friend who stayed post KT saga.

 

All good things comes to an end so is the election joy, Cab ride, cooking and honeymoon period of KT. Satyam issued notice that as a part of iteration process they will be relieving people from job (pink slip talks) who are not in project for last three month. Lucky me I still had three month to go. Satyam was good place to stay but as reality check I brushed my java concepts and polished my resume (company had given me the tag of Java developer). With courtesy to my friends I managed to get 4 interview call arranged. Market was already flooded with Satyam resume and other companies were hiring us because we were the cheapest one in the lot. 1^st one I failed spectacularly, 2^nd one offered me the same salary as of Satyam (which was minus of variable pay from 6 months), 3^rd one I made them look miserable by passing their all rounds and rejecting their package argument that was less due to my company Satyam status. 4^th was CGI, pleasant company which honoured my knowledge and I their requirement.

So to justify my topic to my reader’s  i.e.  You, all I meant to say is our approach of looking at crisis should be different. Whatever is going to happen will happen, whether we worry or not. I found an opportunity in disparity. I learnt a lesson that one should always be loyal to work/skill not to a company. Many Java/.Net/DBA/Management gurus were thrown out of Satyam during crisis. So love your job and ensure you do not fall in love with company. Don’t blame company/managers for not providing an opportunity. As this will just create frustration among us and it will impact work which in turn impact our behaviour. Is this reason enough to change our character? Of course NO; Wake up and prove one by yourself. This experience helped me in resigning from CGI (to know more read my blog on Hesitation) in later part (though CGI was offering everything that one 3.5 year experienced engineer would expect) to pursue my career abroad. I also became longest serving college fresher who got his first promotion in 2012 in Accenture UK, whereas I joined IT in Oct 2006. But people will best tell you about my work and package with whom I have worked and currently working. When I look back to evaluate my life, I find it is as per plan and at par with current competition. Must listen to Steve Jobs 2005 Stanford university speech, what he has said when he was thrown out of his own company Apple. We are in 21^st century see below what Santi dev, 8th-century Indian Buddhist scholar at Nalanda University told “If the problem can be solved why worry? If the problem cannot be solved worrying will do you no good.

Thank You!

Satender Kumar Mall
Twitter: Satenderiiit

Solitude : A social pain!

Solitude most commonly termed as loneliness in our day to day vocabulary medium. A day can be termed as well spent if one has not experienced even a pinch of seclusion. Solitude is not a pain in itself but the form in which we receive makes the difference. If we define solitude in its best form then it is a state in which one is happy without being in company of any one. Solitude is best form of freedom one can ever achieve. But one should not strive to attain solitude for longer duration as there is high risk of solitude concept getting blurred to loneliness, hence the pain begins.

The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved. -Mother Theresa

We are living in universe of multi-billion people, ideally with this fact thought of being loneliness should never get invoke in our minds. But we are experiencing just the opposite. In today’s world millions lives in loneliness or ultimately give up as they could not cope with it. Let’s try and find out what form this loneliness exists and how one gets into this marshy land. Is there any self-mechanisms exists to get out of it? To try and name few forms of loneliness caused due to extreme emotional stimulation; social segregations; too fast rise in status via inappropriate means; and most common is due to character swap. These causes are the creation of loneliness wall which builds around you in place of bridge which symbolizes togetherness. Obviously there are many more form/reasons you have in your minds which I would love to see in comments section if you happen to read this blog. Among the mentioned few origins most common according to me is character and status reversal. We also cannot deny that the lifestyle we are striving for is also a silent contributor to loneliness. From India point of view, we are rapidly moving toward nuclear family system unlike previous joint family system. Even though this remodelling is reasonable with valid/justified reasons such as economic or behavioural/attitude changes to glorify this diversification. But a fact is that human being is getting physically and mentally isolated from their loved ones with the passage of time. Now this separation can be termed as temporary by inference with availability of all other modern communication technology means to keep in touch and feel like home though not physically available. I am in no sense justifying that current is not good compare to later but to do justice with the topic I need to bring all possible contributor of loneliness.

All forms of lifestyle are good and valuable when in good time. But emptiness becomes our unwanted guest in bad times. That’s where we start feeling the needs for our relations, friends and loved ones. The hurried expansion of concrete jungle is sign of our development but the way it is happening or should be happening is something to worry about.  We have to brood over the by-products it is generating such as sense of individualistic, solitude in multitude, we know thousands of people across the world by internet but unaware of our neighbour, we reserve our courage to stop nonsense happening at street but actively gather for candle march. Honour for wealthier one who has zero character value but no time for watching street plays message. Concrete jungle is full with ideas of generating wealth but none to suggest what’s the right path is. All the above expositions clearly suggest that self-mechanism is missing to get out of loneliness.

Human is social animal and it needs another human to help him/her look beyond its minds. When one grow high in status due to unsocial means always end up in emptiness in due course of time. Climbing high should not be your destination but it should be just one of the goals because if you become too ambitious then there will be no one among your loved ones except clam loneliness to appreciate you for getting there. Read about famous ‘mayonnaise jar and 2 cups of coffee’ tale. And Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.

We can best avoid loneliness by being in company/close to of our loved ones as they will never let you fall prey of malpractice and thought of your love toward them will keep you safe from misbehaviour/misdeed. Hence you would have firm control on character and status rise. Thus end up spending life as well spent life along with pleasure available in this universe.

Thank You!

Satender Kumar Mall

Twitter: satenderiiit