Leadership

The universal topic to anything and everything. Either it's business, it's politics, revolutions, military and everything else. Good leaders are rare to find and Great leaders born in centuries ones a while. So what is so difficult about being leader? If I would have know this, I would have been the greatest of them all!! :). This is about what I learned in my journey of running this organization. It might not be the guide on how to become a great leader or something like that. It's just what I've done wrong and could have been done better!

Leadership is the force, the way and the direction which drives the organizaiton in right direction, I believe. And yes, leadership can not be learned or taught, it's something that people born with. Though I believe circumstances effect the way leaders work.

Leader must have ethics. Any unethical leader will be wiped out of history sooner or later. To make an impact on society as well as on organization, leaders should be highly ethical and moral. TATAs are good example of 150 years of ethical and moral business as well as leadership. The day some crook comes into the business, it's bound to fall.

So I've talked much about what and how of leadership. Let's take some real leaders. I'll take examples of leaders who have worked on Technology - Computer Technology in specific.
The conclusions I'm coming to is based on four books I've read,
1) The Road Ahead - By Bill Gates
2) Bad Boy Ballmer - By Fredric Alan Maxwell
3) iCon Steve Jobs - By Jeffrey S Yound and William L Simon
4) Planet Google - By Randall Stross

All these four - Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Page and Sergey Brin are greatest of them all in Technology. They have changed the way people use the technology. They all have different styles of leadership and yet they have made success. But one thing is common in all of them - They all are college dropout!!!. Let's check them out one by one. 


1) Bill Gates
The person who brought PC mainstream, in mass public usage and made it super successful. A college drop out who started Microsoft Corporation. He is all arrogant, nerd and control freak. One employee explains in his words " If you don't hear at least three times that whatever you've done is rubbish, you'll be surprised". So was his arrogance. But he predicted the future right in case of computer technologies - only failed in case of prdiction of the powerful internet - and still Microsoft is such a giant any company can only dream about. 

2) Steve Jobs
The Great Showman of our era. Technology was all about nerds before he came into business. A Stanford drop out. At the age of 20, he started business with Steve Woznik - A real nerd behind Apple. Steve Jobs is the best example of dictator like leadership. Employees literally hide from him. One example of his arrogance and dictatorship in business is " If you get into the lift with Steve Jobs, you might be get fired before lift hits the ground". That was his style, but yet he is visionary, user centric and all about beautiful technologies. The technology products got facelift in the sense with the introduction of awesome Macs, Macbooks, iPods, iPads and all other products Apple has introduced. He got fired from his own compay and yet he made come back. That's a determination of a leader. He's my favorite. 

3) Larry Page and Sergey Brin
And who doesn't know the Google? The founders, with interests in search technologies, started Google back in 1998 (or so). They were engineers at mind and innovators at heart and that still replicates all over the Google. Their style of leadership is innovation centric. Taking the team along with them. Talking to your buddies, listening to them and applying what is good. They don't impose anything, they collaborate. And I've learned that, leaders can be very normal species too!!

That's all for today. More to come folks. Keep reading!

Team Collaboration In An Organization

Meaning of collaboration, as can be seen on wikipedia,

Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals

To achieve a goal, whether it's stratagical, financial, social or personal, we need to work together and in synch. Collaboration is from my perspective is "Many Minds Thinking In Same Direction". Whenever I've chance to talk about collaboration, I generally give one simple example. The difference between simple light source and lesser rays. Many sources of simple rays combine together to make lesser rays and everybody knows the power of it. In similar ways we as an entity of organization can achieve impossible looking goals with combined power and hard work.

How you can achieve collaboration in an organization? The question seems very simple but has tough implementation. I believe, collaboration starts from the leadership. As a leader of an organization, one has to think clearly of goals organization wants to achieve. Either they are short-term goals or long-term goals.

The first and foremost goal of any organisation to achieve is customer satisfaction. To achieve customer satisfaction, we need to provide services or products which is above par to the customer requirements and affordable. This can be done only by employees of organization as they are the one who are working on the product or service and to do that collaboration is the key. Communication is the way to bring the people together. Events, quizs, Q&A sessions with employees are effective ways to start the collaboration.

There is also another dimension to this collaboration and that's personal. Personal growth is as much important as organizational growth because organization is formed by personnels. To achieve personnel growth leaders should give enough breathing space to the employees. Also appreciate whenever possible to any employee who has shown excellent talent. Even monetory appreciation is also advisable.

These small steps can lead us towards larger goals of organization as well as personnels. Collaboration is the key to all these and should always be in improvising mode.

Why Design Is So Important In Software Development Life Cycle?

On the other note, I would say, if design is failed, software is failed. No software can be built or can evolve without a good design first. Today I was discussing necessities and importance of Design in SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) with some of our new joinees. Reply was stunning. Some chuckled and some nodded in typical Indian style where you can not derive whether they are affirmative or other wise. Their thinking was "Design is important but not that extent I am thinking and pressing about it". Coding is the most important part for any software development as per their belief. I don't blame them. Here in India, you don't learn much about the full SDLC and especially design and its importance. Ok, let's dive deeper into the design fundamentals.

The important phases in the designing are Architecture, SD[Optional], HLD and LLD. Architecture describes how the software will work at very broad level. How each module will work from the user's perspective. How business logic will talk with data base and vice versa. Ones architecture is done right with riagorous discussion and debate over funcationalities at top level, next phase is SD (System Design). SD can be skipped for smaller projects where HLD ( High Level Design ) is managable without SD. But for large scale projects, SD is must and should not be ignored whatsoever. Then comes the HLD phase. In HLD phase every module is detailed with its corresponding class level design. Each class's funcationality is definded and also interface with other classes. Any abstract interface also is defined in HLD. Ones HLD is finalized, LLD should be prepared. LLD consists functional level design along with pseudo code as well as necessary variable definitions. Function states should be considered upon completion. After LLD is perfected, coding can be proceded. This is very abstract level discussion of design in SDLC. I'll keep posting about each level of design in details periodically.

Social Networking Websites And Corporate World

Ok we're back with little bit discussion on social networking sites and it's effects on corporate world. Though this is off-topic for technology discussion, I should put it forward in the discussion room. Social networking have spread across the world like a virus!!! Recently I was reviewing policies for our company regarding internet access for our employees. I also discussed with some senior colleagues about the ban on social networking sites in our organization. They were happy with the ban, as employees don't do timepass at the expense of company. But I pressed myself little bit more and thought about the such blockage of social networking sites. In todays fast paced life where employees are working round the clock to make clients happy, why should not we think as an organization to make our employees happy!! It was logical. At times when you don't have time to meet everybody personally, social networking sites play a vital role help communicate ( if used properly!! ). Though I personally get irritated with the unwanted updates on Facebook (Horoscopes, quizes, IQ test etc.) I believe social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut, Twitter, LinkedIn should be used for personal communication and not for time-pass activities. So, finally we offered 1 hour of unblocked access to internet and thus social networking sites. We love our employees, as much as we love our clients.

Updates on StressBust V1.0 and further plans

It's been a while I have updated about the workings at UBpine and StressBust on whole. StressBust application is nearing a release. I would like to see it coming out in sunlight(!) asap.
Let's talk about the new learning while working on StressBust.

I wanted to make a splash screen for StressBust which shows credentials for the software and all sort of thing. I used winform for the same. That winform gets hidden when the main window of the StressBust appears on screen. showDialog method will invoke main window.

To count the time and show progress bar during the break I used progressBar component which uses Timer eventually.
The toughest task was to make the application appear in the taskbar of the window. For that I used Hide method of the winform. More about this task in subsequent post.

About UBpine Inc, we are working on some cool technologies. The main development is in the Web vertical. Web is being more and more competitive space and you need to be always updated for latest technologies. For latest web and technology updates I generally read GoosPoos :: Web, Software and Indian Startups. A very good and regularly updated blog.

At UBpine, now a days we are working on iPhone application development. Let's see whether Apple will allow our iPhone applications on their app store.

For more updates keep watching this space.
Happy coding...!!!

Cheers
Rajiv

StressBust V1.0 :: Stress Buster application from UBpine Inc (Free...!!!)

Now this is something we are talking about technology. From last month or so, I am playing with Microsoft visual studio 2008. For the guy like me who is working on UNIX, Linux C/C++, Visual Studio is altogether new experience.

The beautiful interface, helpful IDE and much more things will attract you towards VS. And specially when you have been working on those rugged VI editors in UNIX and Linux...!!! Lots of commands to be memorized, no use of mouse and not a single word of help for the language I am working with(Specially in case of Unix).

And when you start working on VS IDE, it's like driving Ferrari. After working so many years on Unix/Linux like Ambassador motor cars, you suddenly land up in all equipped Ferrari car. You have power steering, night visions, road maps, air bags and what not.

But suddenly you feel, weather I am driving the car or the car driving me...???

But overall it's good experience working with VS 2008 IDE. I am basically working on VC++.

I have started from making a small winforms application. I've given it the name StressBust. Working in IT industry is one health hazardous task. You will be starring to the monitor more then you stare at beautiful gals. :D Sitting in the cushioned chair for hours at a stretch. and you complain about your fat belly. Anxiety, stress, strain in eyes are common problems seems to be installed in your body...!!

What will you do first thing to fight with these things? Search on Google... :P what else? And one application from ThreadBuilder (threadbuilder.co.uk) named Stress Buster came across the e-way..!! Truly a good application with break reminders and customizable preferences, but with 60 day trial period...!!! Stress is free but Stress Buster is not free :P It costs 36$, but where to buy, ThreadBuilder's website is down (threadbuilder.co.uk)

So I decided to work on that. And make this stress buster application free from UBpine (www.ubpine.com). Yes really it's free. And surprisingly(!!!) inspired from ThreadBuilder stress buster application, but with more user friendliness.

StressBust application will remind you from time to time to take breaks, whether its short pause, short break or long break. You can set time preferences for break times.

It's very useful because you won’t know from how long you have been working since you have ate your last sandwich or drank that coffee from the Coffee day coffee machine staring at that beautiful HR to get attention...!!!

My further posts will discuss the programming logic in VC++, the inbuilt classes, the tricks to achieve some specific tasks etc.

Eventually I will release the Beta version of the StressBust to be used. So you can download it and use it. Any further functionality will be provided in subsequent releases. Till then sip your coffee...!!!



Happy Coding....

-Rajiv

Vote India :: A initiative by UBpine Inc

Though this blog is meant to be Technology Blog,
we have decided to take initiative for the Indian Elections.
Because what is good for country, is good for our organization.
As a social responsibility, we are saying loud and clear
"Wake up and Vote or Don't complain".

Pictures are the best way to tell this, here we go...



Inspired by iPod...!!!




Google searching...!!!




License to...!!








YouVote..!!










Read the message too ;-)


Happy Voting

-UBpine Team