Want a root canal with that?

You must have heard "want french fries with that", if you didnt then you must have been living under the rock! I think it was McDonnalds who introduced this famous quote thats used as the defacto lingo for cross-selling products. In simple terms, just through a simple statement a salesperson can increase a company's revenue by selling additional items related to the primary sale.

Since this blog is about me and my experiences, here's whats gotten me all worked up. Recently I had the opposite experience of being sold something. I am a LinkDotNet ISP subscriber. It has the ugliest looking website for one, but hey the internet was fairly decent for the past year. It had its hiccups every now and then but I was fairly satisfied.

Then came the odd event, my phone line tone goes dead (those who live in Pakistan and have DSL know this to be a common occurrence). For some reason, some moron engineer in the exchange swaps out the phone line/configuration which causes the data/DSL to continue to work, but causes the voice service to go dead. FYI - Pakistan's phone lines are run by a monopoly called PTCL. It went through "privatization" a few years ago, which was marred by under hand deals and was sold to Etisalat, a UAE based telco. Lets just say, ME based firms arent really known for good governance, and selling a white elephant to a firm with weak governance background is a disaster recipe. Thank you Musharraf, you continue to haunt us!



Back to my story, I called up PTCL (the land line provider) and asked that they fix the dead tone, which they did pretty promptly. However my DSL stopped working as soon as they "fixed" my voice service. I then called up LinkDotNet assuming these guys would be able to get my DSL working even faster, after all they're a private company with lots of competition........ I was wrong. After a few days of following up, I was told to "go to the exchange, and get a written statement that your line needs to be shifted to our (LinkDotNet) switch". Hello? Are you in the 21st century. Me going to a telephone exchange, wasting my day trying to figure out who to speak to (PTCL probably has the highest ratio of employees to consumers - which happens when brain dead politicians rule and state owned monopolies exist).
I politely stated that hell would have to turn cold before I go to an exchange just for getting my Internet to work, after all I didnt have to go to an exchange when I signed up for LinkDotNet. They said its a PTA (regulatory body) regulation, to which I responded that the regulation (similar to how its in the US) is to ensure consumer rights. And its so that the DSL providers cannot be changed without getting the consumers consent. Since I've been on LinkDotNet for over a year, why should I be required to submit this paperwork - to the contrary they ought to complain to PTA about PTCL not providing them access to their consumer's telephone line.
I even went to the extent of emailing a C level officer at LinkDotNet, but havent heard back. I've tried my best to "educate" the CSR's at LinkDotNet about how they should facilitate their consumers by working with the telephone exchange directly and if any paperwork is needed, they should do so on their consumers behalf. All to no avail.

The subject of this post may make sense now, if McDonnalds introduced a great cross selling technique, LinkDotNet knows all about loosing consumers. I've decided to move on ...... to PTCL DSL! Yes, its bad of me to go to a monopoly, but hey they dont require me to visit any exchange. Just call 0800 80800 and you're done! Let this be a lesson to LinkDotNet, dont act like a monopoly if you're not!

Management Meetings

I have a meeting with my direct reports once a week (managers and architects). Its a tradition I've been following for a number of years. Only recently have I had to think about its usefulness or possibly lack there of, given some interesting questions on its value raised by my business partner.

Since most businesses, specially mid to large size firms in the US, are guilty of having too many meetings, its a very important question one needs to ask and continue asking over time. Most firms did not start out with having half the working day wasted on meetings, they became that way because bit by bit the working sanity was lost and the environment evolved that way.

A number of executives and processes try to counter the culture of having too many meetings due to their impact on productivity. Some notable ones being:

• A ticker in a meeting room showing the cost to the firm of having the individuals in one room and not doing "work". All attendants enter their calculated hourly salary as they enter the meeting and as soon as the figure hits a large threshold, the meeting needs to be disbanded.
• People to remain standing ie the stand-up meeting. The reason being that people will get tiered quickly and would not want to extend the meeting any more than its actual usefulness.
• Having a few days in the week as "no-meeting" days.
• Getting employees to work from home on some days, goes to the previous point.
• Resorting to asynchronous forms as primary modes of communication ie getting people to use IM, email or SaaS based sites like yammer.com since it does not break the thought momentum that someone may have when interrupted

That said, what are the positives of a meeting, specially that of a group that shares a common manager and little else (my current headache). So here goes:

1. Enables an agile organization capable of quick turnarounds to larger threats. Its important for individuals who are in mid management to have a context as to the challenges being faced across the firm. An agile organization is better driven in an environment where major problems relating to organizational opportunities and threats are known at most organizational levels. It allows for interesting and unique solutions to be thought out even before executives realize its a major problem.
2. Helps job satisfaction. Knowing you're part of the larger decision making, not only in your own team and department, but across the board helps increase employee morale.
3. Ensures a snapshot of the organization progress is known every week, which may be difficult to reach with one-to-one meetings with all reports. Broad meetings typically take precedence over a lot of other work which isnt the case with one-to-one meetings as they may frequently get cancelled or delayed due to impeding priority work.

That said, the pinch of salt being to keep such meetings under an hour. In the worst case if they do start getting boring, its not a huge burden. Another is to change the environment of the meetings every now and then, take the team out for a working lunch!

The Green Future

For those of you who follow the venture capitalist, this may not come as news to you - the world needs an eco friendly energy source ASAP! I am pleasantly surprised as to the number of efforts involved in bringing this to fruition. The good news being they will make economic sense and will not just be sold to the environmentalist in us. Anything short of economic sense is just not viable at a mass scale, so I'm glad the industry is aware of this. Some of the interesting initiatives are given below:

1. Green revolution - Agriculture productivity is important, but agriculture based ethanol seems to be doomed since a significant portion of the world is still under the famine line.

2. Wind Turbines - Intermittent energy, and they occupy a lot of space and are known to produce sound pollution, which is an issue that can lead to extinction of certain breeds of animals from their habitat

3. Solar Panels - Intermittent energy, and just haven't delivered to date. And God knows the pollution they're causing somewhere in China where they're being manufactured on a mass scale!

4. Nuclear Power - The traditional nuclear power plant uses an extremely rare isotope, which makes waste disposal extremely complicated and political. The big jump in this industry will come from using the common isotope and thereby turn the waste of existing plants as its fuel! Check out Bill Gates talk at TED on the subject.

5. Energy Cells - check out the Bloom Box, as covered by 60 minutes.

In summary, a major (r)evolution in energy awaits us (it must, as there is little hope of a bright future in its absence). I get a warm and comfy feeling thinking about how cheap energy will convert our lives and make this a better place for us to live!

Children Growing up

A major milestone for any parent. First day of school for their child!
I've just had mine start a few weeks ago, and its a life changer. From waking up early in the morning (I own up to pressing the snooze button on a daily basis and hence the reason for being late to office) to getting the child to do their homework.

But contrary to my expectations of "miserable school days", I'm actually loving it! Nothing beats seeing a child take up on learning and be excited about it. The only unfortunate taint to all this is the rat race that we set for ourselves. I need to keep reminding myself that I will NOT put a "parent of honor child" sticker on my car or push the child to "excel" in sports that I like rather than what he/she likes. Or so I will try!

iPhone and market creation

So its old news now, but I got mine! Or was that a month ago, time does fly when you're having fun!

An iphone is no engineering revolution, the technologies used in it were not founded by Apple, they've existed prior to the iphone coming out. What apple was able to do was think out side the box and create something that created a market for its own, or how my business partner lovingly refers to his recently read book 'blue ocean strategy'. No sales person at nokia (the current king of cell phones) was screaming for such a device, or if he was then it wasnt loud enough.
Nokia's high-end phones are still clumpy compared to the iphone and even the newer android based HTC phones. This reminds me of a book I once read called 'the innovators dilemma'




From being a fan of nokia, I've gone to writing them off. And it does make me wonder how being part of a mid size software firm, we need to be thinking outside the box. Pushing all sacred limits. I'll post more on this later

In pursuit of perfection

Why do some men go the extra mile and make sure their work is picture perfect? Thats a question thats kept me from sleeping tonight as I write this blog laying in bed. The related question being why do other men work as mules, requiring a whipping to complete and just barely makes the mark?

It is obvious that motivation plays a role, but something makes me doubt it as the key role. I've had work done by entrepreneurial mechanics (who own their shop, and I assume that should be motivation enough) and have been left pulling my hair at the outcome. Just recently did I get my 5KVa Enpower generator fixed by an independent mechanic/electrician. And its blowing smoke even though I specifically had its engine valve heads replaced. All that was required was for the moron to test run the generator and figure that it needs tuning, fixing, whatever but alas I ask too much of a mere mortal!

Sidenote: be warned, Enpower is the worst generator company out there ...if hell is hot and humid, its because AC's there dont have electricity as Enpower's probably provided the generators!

Or is it training? Can training be the differentiator between beauty and ugliness. Again, I had the sad experience of getting an AC installed by a crew that I am certain had training and plenty of experience. What I'm left seeing in shock is an AC thats tilted (the split's bracket was drilled in at an angle!). The electric wire crawls like a snake across the wall and black tape patches two wire pieces to increase the length for connecting to the power socket. And yet sadly they had done all the hard work of connecting the pipes and all. If only they had spent 10 minutes to make a clean finish, I'd remember them tonight as angels rather than bums.

So with a sleepy head, I conclude it must be the upbringing and environment! Humans are like chameleons and when surrounded by incompetence, they take it on as the gold standard. But when surrounded by excellence, they strive to go further than ever before.

I'm back!

Its been some time since i last blogged. The last few weeks being hectic would be an understatement. Getting involved in projects in a more tactical manner, children getting sick with flu and all sorts of things I never heard of before, hosting visitors, car accident ..... (and the list goes on).

But life is good and even when things seem to be getting a little too hectic, its important to appreciate the moment. From the Internally Displaced People (IDP's) of Swat/norther areas to those who have lost their jobs in the ongoing recession, its unnerving to know how easily one can be unemployed or underemployed.

That said, I am planning to return back to writing a few blogs every week. Its important!

Sidenote: If you're in the lahore region, you MUST try out Hyperstar (chain of Carrefour) in fortress. They're the first to truly bring out customer care concept in Lahore and possibly Pakistan. I've done a ton of shopping there and have returned a few items as well (which were either not working or not upto quality). It was a breeze doing so, specially in comparison to horribly return policies in chains like Makro etc, you know what I'm talking about!!

Ok, better get going and take my family out (for whats left of the weekend).