I recently got to know about Twitter. I went to the web page and read about it. My first reaction was that it was a "stupid" thing to do. Who would want to read one-liners about what people are doing? I also read that a lot of people had similar reactions at first and then changed their opinions later.
Being very intrigued about the following it has, I wanted to know more. My search landed me to sites like "Twitterholic", "TwitterBuzz", etc. I went in to Twitterholic, which was supposed to contain the list of Twitter'ers with the most followers. The first on the list was Kevin Rose. He has 75,302 followers. I went in to find out what was it that caused so many people to follow him. I am pasting his most recent posts below.
1. making the turkey! http://vimeo.com/2365809 about 9 hours ago from twitterrific
2. Reading: 4 Reasons to Eat (or drink) Pomegranates - http://tinyurl.com/6ea26l
3. Also, our thoughts and prayers are with those in Mumbai. abo
4. Happy Thanksgiving all! Today I'm especially thankful for family/friends, football, beer, and tcp/ip
Well you have it folks. These are his twitters and this is followed by 75000 readers!!
I learnt some more.
Further reading took to Ffwd , Flikr and StumbleUpon . I read here that all these can be linked with Twitter. So if you view a video of Ffwd, then it will make a Twitter notification on your behalf. If you post a photo, the same goes. So now you can set yourself a ghost who will keep on looking at all the things that you do and send a tweet for to know. You can even send a item to your RTM list from Twitter!!
The tweets of the guy with the most followers coupled with the very "I will follow you to death and watch you dying" capabilities have certainly not yet made me change my view completely.
But I did find some other more "useful" applications and variants of Twitter. Will comment on this in my next post.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Social Capital
Today I had a chance of seeing some new-age Social Capital build and utilization at close quarters.
A friend of my took to blogging, networking and making his online presence felt more seriously. He registered himself at various fora and started giving his views/opinions/advice at a number of places.
At one place, he advised someone who had an issue with his current employer. So that person added him into his Friend's list. A few days later, the guy with the problem wanted an HR Software (looks like his current problem was solved with my friend's advice???? maybe). And lo-and-behold, my friend looks at this and informs his new-friend about his software.
It is another matter on whether his earlier advice (given with no expectation) would help him now. But it has definitely allowed him into the permission space of his friend. (my interpretation of Seth Godin and Permission Marketing, although Seth Godin does not use this term anywhere).
So my friend built some amount of Social Capital and was able to help himself with it.
This may look like old-hat. But hey folks, remember, I am new here and also seem to be learning quickly. ;-)
A friend of my took to blogging, networking and making his online presence felt more seriously. He registered himself at various fora and started giving his views/opinions/advice at a number of places.
At one place, he advised someone who had an issue with his current employer. So that person added him into his Friend's list. A few days later, the guy with the problem wanted an HR Software (looks like his current problem was solved with my friend's advice???? maybe). And lo-and-behold, my friend looks at this and informs his new-friend about his software.
It is another matter on whether his earlier advice (given with no expectation) would help him now. But it has definitely allowed him into the permission space of his friend. (my interpretation of Seth Godin and Permission Marketing, although Seth Godin does not use this term anywhere).
So my friend built some amount of Social Capital and was able to help himself with it.
This may look like old-hat. But hey folks, remember, I am new here and also seem to be learning quickly. ;-)
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Learn to write!
I read an interesting article today. The article said that volunteering to speak was one of the best ways to learn.
I also remembered Dr. Raja Ramanna an eminent scientist who we heard at a guest lecture in college. He had said that he had an assignment to teach a new subject and he started out on the assignment by writing a book on the subject.
I completely agree with this thought. To be able to write a blog or speak on a subject, you would need to know "enough", to be confident and be able to form an opinion and articulate the same to your audience.
My personal journey on this blog (I have started only recently as you can see) has been proceeding on these lines. I have realized that I need to read / listen and speak even more to be able to properly communicate with my audience and one of the best ways to do this would be read more blogs and write more on my own!!
I also remembered Dr. Raja Ramanna an eminent scientist who we heard at a guest lecture in college. He had said that he had an assignment to teach a new subject and he started out on the assignment by writing a book on the subject.
I completely agree with this thought. To be able to write a blog or speak on a subject, you would need to know "enough", to be confident and be able to form an opinion and articulate the same to your audience.
My personal journey on this blog (I have started only recently as you can see) has been proceeding on these lines. I have realized that I need to read / listen and speak even more to be able to properly communicate with my audience and one of the best ways to do this would be read more blogs and write more on my own!!
Friday, November 14, 2008
SaaS - Your time has come!!
I read an interesting article on cnet news today. The headline read "IDC lowers IT spending forecast for 2009". As the headline was all doom and gloom, and this was the current flavour of the season, I had to read it and so I did.
The article mentioned that worldwide IT spending would grow by 2.6% as compared to IDC's earlier projection of 5.9%. The forecast also says that "With the exception of storage, hardware will be the hardest hit by the spending cutbacks, while software and services will be relatively safer". The spending is expected to be back to 6% by "2012". So now you know when you can take that vacation again!!
Which brings me to another different but unrelated article. In a survey done by Thinkstrategies / Cutter Consortium, results have indicated there is a distinct surge in the market for SaaS products and a rise in Customer Satisfaction indices.
This again brings the focus back to SaaS. With its low setup costs, short implementation time-frame and ability to walk-out easily if not satisfied, the model is steadily gaining acceptance. Now more and more vendors, products and organizations are crossing the bridge. After being on the fringes for quite some time as ASP and SaaS now, it does look the time and environment has become quite conducive for SaaS to be adopted in a big way!!
Note: As as a strong believer in the SaaS model, our organization has released our flagship Leave and Payroll on a SaaS platform. More details are available here.
The article mentioned that worldwide IT spending would grow by 2.6% as compared to IDC's earlier projection of 5.9%. The forecast also says that "With the exception of storage, hardware will be the hardest hit by the spending cutbacks, while software and services will be relatively safer". The spending is expected to be back to 6% by "2012". So now you know when you can take that vacation again!!
Which brings me to another different but unrelated article. In a survey done by Thinkstrategies / Cutter Consortium, results have indicated there is a distinct surge in the market for SaaS products and a rise in Customer Satisfaction indices.
This again brings the focus back to SaaS. With its low setup costs, short implementation time-frame and ability to walk-out easily if not satisfied, the model is steadily gaining acceptance. Now more and more vendors, products and organizations are crossing the bridge. After being on the fringes for quite some time as ASP and SaaS now, it does look the time and environment has become quite conducive for SaaS to be adopted in a big way!!
Note: As as a strong believer in the SaaS model, our organization has released our flagship Leave and Payroll on a SaaS platform. More details are available here.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Recession - India?
The "R" word is being touted everywhere. It is now acknowledged that the US is officially in recession. It was also commonly believed that inspite of all indicators, India would still grow at around 7-7.5%. But current data seems to indicate to the contrary. Sales, Tax Collections, etc., have not only shown no growth, but have actually fallen. So the 7% growth projection looks fairly optimistic.
As every company would now try to conserve as much cash as possible, they would try and make fewer purchases. Same with consumers. This adds further to the problem.
How do we cope? Some common "ways" touted by "experts"
- Reduce Expenditure
- Reduce Sale price and see if customers would buy more
- Offer to share the risk of the customer while making a sale - You benefit "if" he benefits
- Conserve Cash
- Talk to employees
On the funny side
- Apply to and keep more credit cards - you never know when you will lose your job
- Apply for more loans so that you have more cash
- Do not deposit the money in the bank: you do not know if it will still be functioning tomorrow - do not keep at home: crime increases because of recession. The safest way: spend it.
- Be friends with the Sales guys - if they are living then you know what will follow
- Act busy and brown-nose your boss even more - hope you have not been very frank with him in the past - Ofcourse, this is assuming your boss is going to survive this.
- Network more
- and lastly, dust your blog and start blogging.
As every company would now try to conserve as much cash as possible, they would try and make fewer purchases. Same with consumers. This adds further to the problem.
How do we cope? Some common "ways" touted by "experts"
- Reduce Expenditure
- Reduce Sale price and see if customers would buy more
- Offer to share the risk of the customer while making a sale - You benefit "if" he benefits
- Conserve Cash
- Talk to employees
On the funny side
- Apply to and keep more credit cards - you never know when you will lose your job
- Apply for more loans so that you have more cash
- Do not deposit the money in the bank: you do not know if it will still be functioning tomorrow - do not keep at home: crime increases because of recession. The safest way: spend it.
- Be friends with the Sales guys - if they are living then you know what will follow
- Act busy and brown-nose your boss even more - hope you have not been very frank with him in the past - Ofcourse, this is assuming your boss is going to survive this.
- Network more
- and lastly, dust your blog and start blogging.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Leak of Salary Information in an organization
I had a call from a friend of mine, who runs a small organization. When we were discussing Payroll and its operation, he asked me if he could do the Payroll processing himself. On enquiring the reason (as generally his accountant handles it), he informed me that he is really bugged about the leak of information, comparison of salaries and the subsequent heart-aches and effect on morale.
Why does this happen in almost every organization? Inspite of the best efforts of the management to keep this information confidential, how is it that people have the information? This is a question that really amazes me.
Which brings me to another point. Should it or should it not matter to a person on what his peer is getting? Here are some points that describe various views:
1. Why should two people performing a similar job get different salaries?
2. Why can't the employer be fair / knowledgeable when they recruit?
On the other side
1. Why should an employee feel bad - he was the one who negotiated his salary when he joined?
2. If an employee was unhappy about his salary, he could have approached his Boss for a review. Why should he feel bad after knowing that someone else is making more?
3. What happened to "My work, My salary"? Why does someone feel more strongly that they should get higher after learning someone else is getting more?
My opinion is that it should not really matter what others are getting. If I think I deserve more, then I should ask for it. Else, if I am still unhappy, then I should quit here and move on. If neither of the options are possible, then I should learn to feel happy with what I am getting.
Does any of the below mentioned facts influence my opinion:
- I run a small company
- The current economic and Job scenario.
An interesting survey and discussion on a similar topic can be seen at this article on the BNet Blog.
Why does this happen in almost every organization? Inspite of the best efforts of the management to keep this information confidential, how is it that people have the information? This is a question that really amazes me.
Which brings me to another point. Should it or should it not matter to a person on what his peer is getting? Here are some points that describe various views:
1. Why should two people performing a similar job get different salaries?
2. Why can't the employer be fair / knowledgeable when they recruit?
On the other side
1. Why should an employee feel bad - he was the one who negotiated his salary when he joined?
2. If an employee was unhappy about his salary, he could have approached his Boss for a review. Why should he feel bad after knowing that someone else is making more?
3. What happened to "My work, My salary"? Why does someone feel more strongly that they should get higher after learning someone else is getting more?
My opinion is that it should not really matter what others are getting. If I think I deserve more, then I should ask for it. Else, if I am still unhappy, then I should quit here and move on. If neither of the options are possible, then I should learn to feel happy with what I am getting.
Does any of the below mentioned facts influence my opinion:
- I run a small company
- The current economic and Job scenario.
An interesting survey and discussion on a similar topic can be seen at this article on the BNet Blog.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Selective Access to HR Policies
We are implementing our HR solution for a fairly large organization (2000+ employees). We had just gone live on the Leave module and a lot of employees were applying online for Leave. A number of employees were getting a message of "Leave Not eligible" even though they had a balance in their account. The organization had a fairly complicated Leave Policy and most of the employees were not aware of the full policy.
I was speaking to the HR Head of the organization and informed him of this problem. I also told him that this could be addressed by publishing the Leave and other Policies online. His response was "Other companies will then become aware of our Policies and the benefits that we provide and will copy them. So we would like the info to be confidential".
Does it really matter that you are giving a Car to a person at a VP Level and the knowledge of this is a competitive advantage? Or that you are giving a Study Leave to employees of "X" category and no other organization would know about this or implement this?
Even withing an organization, does it cause intense distress to an employee to know that his Boss is entitled to a Toyota Car and he is entitled to a Maruti 800? Will it be judged the same way if the benefit is money and not a non-monetary benefit? Can it still be made public? The question is open!
There is another interesting article on this at the Evil HR Lady blog.
I was speaking to the HR Head of the organization and informed him of this problem. I also told him that this could be addressed by publishing the Leave and other Policies online. His response was "Other companies will then become aware of our Policies and the benefits that we provide and will copy them. So we would like the info to be confidential".
Does it really matter that you are giving a Car to a person at a VP Level and the knowledge of this is a competitive advantage? Or that you are giving a Study Leave to employees of "X" category and no other organization would know about this or implement this?
Even withing an organization, does it cause intense distress to an employee to know that his Boss is entitled to a Toyota Car and he is entitled to a Maruti 800? Will it be judged the same way if the benefit is money and not a non-monetary benefit? Can it still be made public? The question is open!
There is another interesting article on this at the Evil HR Lady blog.
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