Ideal Blog

Vancouver these days is gripped with Winter Olympics 2010 fever. I took time out to visit the Olympic grounds and had the opportunity to take the Olympic torch in hand- thanks to some generous players who let the public touch and feel it

When you see a game like Olympics what comes to your mind: Personal Excellence- years of training, perseverance and endurance are all put to the test. The sportsman has to be “in the zone”, what is called the “peak performance”, “now or never” type mindset. I was listening to the summer Olympic swimming gold winner -Michael Phelps who broke all sorts of record and created history by winning 8 Gold medals- his words “take it one game at a time”. The words stayed with me- bigger goals have to be broken into smaller ones and a picture perfect execution is required all along the way. It is very important to have a game plan in mind and then take all the games seriously.

One game at a time, treat it as a marathon and not a sprint, consistency is the key, no cutting corner will work here.This is what peak performance is all about, to try to do your very best whenever occasion demands, there is room for zero unforced errors, iron clad discipline, concentration and so much more. When a player fails to do all this , he is said to be not in “form” and makes silly mistakes, overwhelmed and quickly defeated in the competition.

There is a great deal one can learn from these players. Actually not just sports, there are many areas where personal excellence comes into play – film actors, musicians, singers, movie directors, media personality- these type of people are institution in themselves. Take for example Tiger Woods, up until his sudden fall from grace, he was the unequivocal symbol of success- peak performance, discipline. Billion dollar companies signed him up to be their brand ambassador including Accenture, Nike etc.

You are probably also aware of the moving story of Joannie Rochette, who won a bronze in 2010Olympics in figure skating just four days after her mother died of heart attack. My thought goes out to her and her family. Normally it is not easy to overcome such grief and compete in any kind of endeavor. One is well advised to back off and come back again after they have had a chance to overcome their grief( although can anyone truly overcome loss of a loved one?). Read her story here, and here is a direct quote from the article “figure skating is not a sport that takes kindly to emotion. Skaters must bottle up their nerves, their fears, their doubts, even their grief, to complete their jumps and spins that require such total physical and mental control.”

Well said, set aside your fears and hopes and doubts , look only at the end target and execute brilliantly- that is what I call Personal Excellence. Ok, so why am I talking about individual peak performance when for the most part the software business I am in is all about team work? Well the answer has to do with my other passion- the high risk world of finance! Personal Excellence, zero unforced error, trading in the zone, peak performance…traders live and die by it…oh boy a lot of skill to master and excel

A new startup called Bloom Energy took the media by storm when they were featured in the CBS 60 minute with a potential breakthrough in clean energy. This new technology promises to use cheap ingredients like sand ( which is available in abundance) as a energy server- something which can store energy when in surplus and produce energy when demanded. The bloom energy runs on flex fuel, renewable biogas, natural gas even solar energy and produces very little pollution (clean) or in some cases totally carbon neutral ( when using renewable biogas). The details of the technology can be seen here.

I have been passionate about energy conservation and cleaner/ sustainable sources of energy for a long time. This announcement today in a press event in San Jose came to me as a pleasant surprise. The details of the press event can be obtained here. The technology has great potential but still needs to overcome many potential challenges. The biggest one is going to be bringing down the cost to affordable level, otherwise people will continue to use the older cheaper dirtier way of energy consumption. The second challenge would be to scale this thing beyond its current experiments in California alone. A true disruptive technology should be useful across the continent- be it Asia or Africa or America. The third challenge as I see it is making the ceramic durable enough so that they last long enough for a reasonable payback.

In other words there is a long way ahead for this technology, but hey even it fails , it is going to leave behind valuable lessons for its successors. This is how we progress, nothing ventured, nothing gained and not to forget the great quote from Issac Newton – “If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulder of giants”. I am also proud that founder of Bloom Energy K R Sridhar is a fellow Indian who now calls North America his home. Sridhar, keep doing the good work, if you succeed you will create history, if you fail, you will be the shoulder your successor would have stood on to go further!!

Toyota recently recalled 8.5 million vehicles for safety issues! This is the biggest ever recall in the history of automotive industry. So what are the underlying issues for these recalls? If you believe Toyota it has to do mostly with sticky accelerator pedal, a mechanical problem. As much as I want to believe Toyota evidence is pointing out otherwise. Of all the uncontrolled acceleration cases reported by consumers, 70% of them did not happen in the cars under recall. What does that mean? it is simple there are other issues in play here , beyond the apparent reason Toyota has provided.

Per this article suspicion is mounting against the automakers complex electronics that runs the car. Toyota executive were called today for Congress hearing, the executives tried to put on a brave face but the message was loud and clear- fess up and come clean- deal with all the issues- electronic, mechanical, computer…here are some notable quotes form the hearing and I will let you decide- are Mechanical issues the only one to blame?

“A number of lawmakers said, openly questioning Toyota’s insistence that the problems are mechanical, not linked to the vehicles’ sophisticated electronics. “

“Tracking down an electrical problem can be far more difficult, expensive and time-consuming than finding a mechanical problem. Electrical problems can have more than one source, and they can come from inside or outside the car. Mechanical problems often leave clues such as physical damage, where electronic troubles can be hidden in software or leave no trace at all. ”

“Congressional panels are asking whether computerized modern automotive electronics designed to make cars more efficient can sometimes make them less safe. “

I rest my case. I let the reader decide if a simplistic explanation of sticky pedal is enough. The consumer deserves to know better. It is clear that rampant cost control to keep the vehicle prices down and market share up has resulted into a poor quality product. Toyota are you listening, a lot is riding on how you come out of this crises. I hope stronger, I love my Toyotas

Recently I read a review of a book called “Surviving Uncertainty” by Lane Wallace.

“Here’s an old riddle: There were five frogs on a log. Four decided to jump off. How many were left?…..Five. Because there is a difference between deciding and doing. Most people are like those frogs. When the time comes to take a big step, they never quite get from deciding to doing. Something always seems to hold them back. If it’s time for your big step and you need a push, this book will give you all the stimulus you need. It will invigorate your intentions and translate them to action.”

Name of the reviewer is Mark L. Feldman, Author, Five Frogs on a Log: A CEO’s Field Guide to Mergers, Acquisitions and Gut Wrenching Change.

In these recessionary times, the advice make sense. Now is the time to take that leap, take the action you have been planning on for years, don’t put it off any further…kind of the Nike tag line-”Just do it“.

So, consider this blog post as a call to action, time to welcome some dissonance in life, getting out of that comfort zone and taking the big leap…once again wishing you a Happy New Year!!!

This is from an unknown author, stumbled across it somewhere and immediately found it resonating with my life and my work.

“Eternal God, who can make all things new, we humbly bring before you the record of our lives in the year now ended.

Where life has been good to us, do not let us take more of the credit than we deserve.

Where we have been good to others, help us to forget all thoughts of honor and reward.

Where we have fallen short, forgive us, and free us from brooding over what is past.
Cleanse us by your mercy, guide us by your truth, fill us with your love, and lead us forward in your all-conquering hope

All this we pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen”

Happy New Year dear reader, I wish you a wonderful year ahead!!!

Month of December is shaping up to be a very eventful month, whereas normally you would expect things to wind down by holiday season. Nope, not for me. A storage product on Linux we have been working on for a long time is finally seeing the light of the day. We are very excited to release this cutting edge product to the market place. I have mostly worked in proprietary technologies- Microsoft, IBM, Novell, NetApp, EMC and so on. No wonder the move to the open source world of Linux was initially fraught with uncertainties, but actually turned out to be a pleasant experience. Most of my fears, of sitting through endless development cycle, marathon testing, rework , customer criticism etc turned out to be unfounded

I can’t believe how far open source movement has come in the last few years. Working on the Linux environment , all my apprehension about not finding the right tools, right documentation, turned out to be untrue. It is pretty well documented for the most part, albeit some projects which I really needed to draw inspiration from where abandoned in 2003, which left me scrambling for answers. Anyway, we survived through all this and now can stake our claim in the Linux’s world!!

of all the Linux variants, Ubuntu Linux had the best desktop experience, whereas SUSE Linux (SLES) and OES2 from Novell gave me a good taste of Server class Linux. Needless to say, the developer community has really pulled together very well and I see good future ahead for this Technology. In fact some of the hottest gadget of 2009 run on Linux- think Kindle, Tivo and so on.

Our new storage product leverages the web services architecture – SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), scales very well and virtualizes Tera Bytes and Tera Bytes of data… where is Peta Byte..bring it on

Stumbled across the following poem on teacher, which the poet compares to a force of nature.

“A teacher is like Spring,
Who nurtures new green sprouts,
Encourages and leads them,
Whenever they have doubts.

A teacher is like Summer,
Whose sunny temperament
Makes studying a pleasure,
Preventing discontent.

A teacher is like Fall,
With methods crisp and clear,
Lessons of bright colors
And a happy atmosphere.

A teacher is like Winter,
While it’s snowing hard outside,
Keeping students comfortable,
As a warm and helpful guide.

Teacher, you do all these things,
With a pleasant attitude;
You’re a teacher for all seasons,
And you have my gratitude!

By Joanna Fuchs “

I have been both a student and a teacher, and yes some time I do get praised by my students, and I realize this happens when I pour my heart into it, when I start talking passionately about the subject…teaching could really be a joy..if you love the subject

Deewali is great festival of India which celebrates win of good over evil. The festival has universal appeal and is celebrated across this diverse country including Hindu’s and Sikhs. Deewali is the festival of light when Lord Rama returned to his kingdom after spending 14 years in exile and conquering the evil ruler of Lanka called Ravana. This is all according to Hindu mythology and is celebrated to this date with all the enthusiasms. The last few years I have seen White House celebrating this festival,this year was no different with President Obama inaugrating the Deewali celebration in White House. This speaks of the growing influence Indians are having in US politics. You can watch Obama’s Deewali message here.

Deewali brings up fond memories of my childhood. I grew up in coal mines where my dad would head coal mines with 1000s of people working under his leadership. we would have three days of non stop festivities, one day for orchestra , the other day for what is called Kawwali and a third day of Kavi Sammelan or something similar. The night would light up with fireworks, happiness in the air everywhere. I do plan to go to India one of these Deewali’s , may be next year..it’s been a while…really..over 13 years now and celebrate it with mom and dad!!!

Continuing the chain of thought with my type A behavior, if you thought the Calgary flight is the only flight I missed..you be down right wrong!!! On the other hand I have gotten lucky more than once, in being the last person in to the plane….This happened recently, I was flying from San Jose to Seattle. As usual when I left for airport in the morning, I thought I had all the time in the world, and I can afford a little luxury, take my time and so on. This despite a friendly reminder from a buddy of mine to leave early. I reach the airport and guess what, big lineup for security checkup..people snaking all the way up to the curbside ..I started thinking, where the heck are these people going, I was expecting a smooth sailing here…

Finally reached the departure gate and I hear the announcement “last and final call for Niraj Prasad..”, my heart starts to beat little faster, I am almost there, but can I make it? Actually there was one other guy running late, so that made two of us. The air hostess at the gate, radioed the pilot can he take these two (latecomer) guys? To our luck the pilot said yes and I literally found myself running into the tarmac! I expressed my thanks to the staff to let me in…literally minutes prior to the take off. …And then there was that other time, yours truly had to catch a plane from San Francisco to New York, by the time I reached the gate and asked the staff, the plane was already on the run way making its final run

Well that’s life and if one plane is missed , another one will come, what is the hurry…right? It is far more important not to miss the crucial planes in your life and I don’t mean in literal terms but in figurative terms..in that sense plane is just a microcosm of life…you don’t let the plane get away from you… similarly you don’t let the life get away from you. In that vain, I would like to add lets not let the life drift away, let us do something meaningful, something worthwhile, something you will be fondly remembered for..long after you are gone…agreed?

Yeah did get a breakthrough this month, a better handle on some of the things which were long pending. This was not easy though, had to stay the labor day long weekend home and catchup on work…whereas I could have gone to million places and had fun. Not only the labor day weekend , the weekend after that was the same deal…catching up on backlogs.

Are things looking better now…you bet, is the “to do list” empty now..not by a long shot. It is like the US government deficit, just keeps growing:-) One of these days, yeah one of these days , my “to do list” will really be a short one and it will say…..go NP…take a break, a well deserved break. I am already planning a cruise from Los Angeles to Mexico this Christmas break, in fact planning this trip together with a family friend of ours..!! The sun and the sand..and some ol’ lil’ frns’..woohooo!!