...which translates to "5 things I wanna do Before I die".
Yes..its been a while...and No ...I havent been extremely busy, tied up or any such excuse of an excuse....Yes... I'm back now...and No..its not cos I felt the sudden urge to go back to my literary roots or whatever....
Baba aka Nikhil is reponsible for my typing the 288 characters till now.
(u might wanna count..)
I'm listening to the title track of Bachna Ae Haseeno as I blog...and "yeah, baby when you see me coming! yeah, you better run for cover..." and yes.. nice, super lil track..would recommend...But I digress (which is as expected)
I think by the time I was 10 years old I had pretty much done 99% of all things a Human would do before he passed away. As you, my intelligent reader, would have realised by now...by plotting the number of unique human activities completed (y axis)against a human's age (x-axis)...the graph would represent an Beta curve.
For the Not-Quite-The-Einstien-yet readers, what I'm trying really hard to get at is this: In the universal set of unique human activities, I'm done with almost all of them. So the pessimist in you would say that I'm done living a full life.
But of course, we all know that the remaining 1% of the number of unique activities, when put in absolute terms, is still a sizable number. And I definitely intend to atleast try and ensure that the graph never touches the x-axis..ever.
So without much ado here are the top Cinco Things I wanna do..
Uno: I wanna hit the exosphere. Yep, space travel has to be THE THING to do. I hope I live long enough (and stay in a good enough condition) to undertake a low-fare commercial space flight (it might even be called Space Deccan or something)...
Dos: A smooth, uninterrupted ride on the German Autobahn in my Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren (with wifey of course and bachna ae haseeno title track in the backgroud), stopping only to pick up my KFC bucket from a drive thru inn.
( Yes..I am cheesy..and unapologetically so )
Tres: Time Travel. Dude..need I say more? While going back in time it seems is not feasible, it seems travel into the future is a theoretical possibility. There are only the nuances that need to be worked upon..In any case, I'll be first to line up for the low-fare time travel trip (Deccan Future ..anyone?)
Quattro: I wanna visit every country atleast once and ensure I fly every available airline. I want to experience every culture, taste all different types of Pizza, KFC, McD and Coke, experience every kind of in-flight entertainment (or the lack of it) available and collect all the available visa stamps on my passport.
Cinco: And lastly but not the leastly, I want to discover the one theory/idea/concept that will change forever, the way you, me aur hum, look, listen, feel, touch and taste the universe around.
Babaaa! your tag has unleashed the poor sense of prose in me. Never again..
Buhaha to one and all
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Will the real Democrat Nominee please stand up?
Now seriously, lets get real about this. Hillary ought to win the Democrat nomination and there shouldnt even be a contest around this. At the end of the day, this isnt really about the media hype, the bitching and slandering and the quotable quotes between the 2 democrat candidates. This is simply about the right person running the world's most powerful country - and running it right.
The Tata tea ad kinda puts my point across. Our steroptypical India politician, all smiles and grins, with party workers and bodyguards in tow walks upto and interrupts the breakfast of our not-so-typical Indian protagonist. The politician "demands" his vote for the upcoming elections. After serving up some of the tea being advertised to the politician, our protagonist goes on to ask the politician what his qualifications are. The politician, mildly amused, tells him that he has "been around" in this field for N number of years. To which our man asks for specific experience in construction, administration, etc etc.. and reminds him that he has applied for an important job. Our politician is ruffled and his party workers protest. Amused and outraged he mockingly asks our man, what he meant by "job". To this our hero delivers the curt punchline - the job of running our country.
I would go for 3 things when it comes to nailing down someone for the job - credentials, contacts and chutzpah. Credentials - do a wiki on both profiles and you know its Hillary who's got the depth and breadth of experience needed for the job. Not to forget, she was at a vantage point during her Hubbie's presidency giving her that one addl unique experience. Contacts - Essential to win consensus on various decisions she would need to take as President. Apart from the several years she has spent in this field and therefore a larger network base, the fact that she was first lady having had a former prez Bill as hubbie can only help in this regard. Chutzpah - Here's where a seriously subjective aspect creeps in. On the face of it, its hard to judge who's got the Audacity and courage needed to taken on the reins. I'd place my bets on Hillary, simply cos its like she's written the CAT exam twice - almost been there, almost done that. Sure Obama may have the Audacity of Hope - but I can see the feet of inexperience from under him crumble, given the eco-political juncture the US is in, in the global context.
So to cut a long monologue short, its time the Amreekan public got real and elect the right person for the job - the job of running THE country.
The Tata tea ad kinda puts my point across. Our steroptypical India politician, all smiles and grins, with party workers and bodyguards in tow walks upto and interrupts the breakfast of our not-so-typical Indian protagonist. The politician "demands" his vote for the upcoming elections. After serving up some of the tea being advertised to the politician, our protagonist goes on to ask the politician what his qualifications are. The politician, mildly amused, tells him that he has "been around" in this field for N number of years. To which our man asks for specific experience in construction, administration, etc etc.. and reminds him that he has applied for an important job. Our politician is ruffled and his party workers protest. Amused and outraged he mockingly asks our man, what he meant by "job". To this our hero delivers the curt punchline - the job of running our country.
I would go for 3 things when it comes to nailing down someone for the job - credentials, contacts and chutzpah. Credentials - do a wiki on both profiles and you know its Hillary who's got the depth and breadth of experience needed for the job. Not to forget, she was at a vantage point during her Hubbie's presidency giving her that one addl unique experience. Contacts - Essential to win consensus on various decisions she would need to take as President. Apart from the several years she has spent in this field and therefore a larger network base, the fact that she was first lady having had a former prez Bill as hubbie can only help in this regard. Chutzpah - Here's where a seriously subjective aspect creeps in. On the face of it, its hard to judge who's got the Audacity and courage needed to taken on the reins. I'd place my bets on Hillary, simply cos its like she's written the CAT exam twice - almost been there, almost done that. Sure Obama may have the Audacity of Hope - but I can see the feet of inexperience from under him crumble, given the eco-political juncture the US is in, in the global context.
So to cut a long monologue short, its time the Amreekan public got real and elect the right person for the job - the job of running THE country.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Without the fear of consequence
1st March, 2008 - 60 days post-wedding and life's still the same. If one were to discount the total shift to junk-free diet, having to talk more than I was ever used to (communication is the key..they say), and an overall loss of a sense of that vague word called freedom, life's just the same as I had left it on the 30th Dec 07 ( and of course the phone bill's reduced by abt 400%).
This post isnt about my married life. The opening para is misleading. But then again, this aint a GMAT passage either..if you get the drift.
Ok here are some of my arm chair thoughts:
1. In a few years, India's + China's population will comprise close to half the world's population. In other words, every second person you meet, will most likely be one of the above. Chinese will have a larger ageing population and Indians, vice versa. Combine this with the fact that these guys are the seriously upwardly yuppie kinds and we have a whole new world order in place. Implications :- are you kidding me? I'll bet my laptop, Mckinsey have a whole team working dedicated to this one fact alone.
2. In a larger context, Laptops are the Pagers of this generation. Get ready for its mobile phone equivalent. Look around you. The seriously successful, DONT CARRY LAPTOPS....duh! Is it blackberrys then, you ask? Wrong answer. This also explains why I willingly bet my laptop.
3. A green revolution is around the corner and I dont mean agriculture. Hybrid cars, zero emission vehicles, bio fuel automobiles, and the like. Renewable energy is on the cusp of reaching desirable efficiencies. Implications: Invest in companies taking a lead on this.
Missus is serving lunch. I have to leave...but this aint the end. Muhahaha!
This post isnt about my married life. The opening para is misleading. But then again, this aint a GMAT passage either..if you get the drift.
Ok here are some of my arm chair thoughts:
1. In a few years, India's + China's population will comprise close to half the world's population. In other words, every second person you meet, will most likely be one of the above. Chinese will have a larger ageing population and Indians, vice versa. Combine this with the fact that these guys are the seriously upwardly yuppie kinds and we have a whole new world order in place. Implications :- are you kidding me? I'll bet my laptop, Mckinsey have a whole team working dedicated to this one fact alone.
2. In a larger context, Laptops are the Pagers of this generation. Get ready for its mobile phone equivalent. Look around you. The seriously successful, DONT CARRY LAPTOPS....duh! Is it blackberrys then, you ask? Wrong answer. This also explains why I willingly bet my laptop.
3. A green revolution is around the corner and I dont mean agriculture. Hybrid cars, zero emission vehicles, bio fuel automobiles, and the like. Renewable energy is on the cusp of reaching desirable efficiencies. Implications: Invest in companies taking a lead on this.
Missus is serving lunch. I have to leave...but this aint the end. Muhahaha!
Saturday, July 21, 2007
"No one said it would be easy......"
Back after a long hiatus....
Its been abt an year since I joined P&G from Gillette. Looking back, its been undoubtedly a really tough year. Integrating and adapting the Gillette value chain into that of P&G....shipment issues, import issues, deployment problems, people issues...topped by managing a plethora of marketing initiatives..... the list was endles. The challenges were immense esp for an inexperienced and young team comprising of Ani, Kal , TeeYuan and myself.
But it wasn't in vain...the Gillette business in India bounced back and kicked some serious a**! :) We outperformed and outshone our competition through the year. There was blood everywhere...(and i'm talkin abt the "tonite, we dine in hell!" type :) ) Nothing could have made us feel better...knowing that we played a major part in this rampage...
So perhaps it didnt come as a surprise,when about a month back, the India supply chain leader nominated the 4 of us for the annual P&G India supply chain excellence awards - for our work in stabilizing the Gillette value chain....along with 6 other nominations from the other traditional P&G business units (like laundry, haircare,etc) and corporate functions ( quality, logistics, operations, etc) -each for their superior contribution to improve service, cost, cash and quality.
The awards would be given away at the annual offsite, which would be attended by the india and multi business unit supply chain partners.The award would be based on the presentation given by each team on the work they did. The selection process was rigorous - Each presentation would be put to vote by the attendees, and also critically evaluated by the Leadership team. The combined score of highest votes and evaluation score would determine the winner.
We knew we had done a good job. But convincing our partners and the other nominess about this wasnt going to be an easy task. The Gillette business was new ...not everyone undertstood its complexity. During the last year, our team silently dealt with all the operational issues....Business was never impacted...and so no one really knew that there were quite a few sleepless nights a few ppl were spending to keep things working. Hence our work remained fairly invisible except to those who worked with us.
We knew we had to do 3 things in our presentation in order to atleast have a fighting chance:
1. Clearly explain the scale of the integration, the Gillete SC complexity and the business impact if things didnt work out.
2. Very simply explain the topline supply chain interventions we made in each quarter of the year in a CAR format (no data and numbers overkill)
3. Get creative in order to engage our audience - Audio visuals, humour and the like (and this i'm good at :) )
The presentation took us a week to create. Fortunately, we had a good flash presenatation, which I had helped develop for our team in singapore earlier this year. The concept fit in very well with our presentation. That gave us the much needed mind-blowing opening. The rest of the presentation was abt the work we did...all presented in movie format..with good background music, visuals and the like.
The real presentation-making actually started the evening before D-day. By the time we were done with the presentation...it was past midnight. We had to wake up the same morning at 5am to catch the bus to Aamby valley where the offsite would be held. After we finished, we decided to head for our homes and catch up on some much needed sleep. We figured that since we were fourth in the order of presentation, we would have some time to do the dry run the following day.
The following day...we reached Aamby valley around 11am. After the leadership's presentations, lunch commenced at around 1400. We were hoping to have a quick lunch and then spend the rest of the time practising. On telling one of the managers that we wanted to skip the first 3 presentations, in order to practice our prez...we were told we couldnt do that. At almost abt the same time, we were informed that we had go first as the original first team had some last minute issues due which their presentation had to be postponed.
We spent abt 15 mins doin a dry run...and then hit the stage. The AV started... and there was no lookin back after that. Having done endless dramas, movies spoofs, ad zaps, presentations etc on stage through my school and college days, I've come to recognise one thing -- I know when I've got the audience attention...I know precisely what the audience mood is...whether they are enjoying what are they are hearing and seeing....or not.
In this case, 5 minutes into the presentation....I knew we had the audience and we had them real good! Laughter, claps, smiles...this gave the 3 of us (TY's based in singapore and couldnt attend) the confidence to present even better.....as it usually happens.
The presentation ended.... all we heard was thunderous applause...and handshakes flying at us...
Kal and I had to head back to mumbai the same day. Ani stayed back for the rest of the 3 day offsite. The presentations continued through the rest of the day and the following day as well. There were some really good presentations and we were hoping to be atleast among the top 3. We were the underdogs really and the underdogs from the erstwhile Gillette company had managed to convince our partners that we did a good job. But whether the claps and handshakes would translate into votes....we didnt know. And frankly, it didnt matter as much. What mattered to us was that one year of work had got its fair share of voice and visibility.... and that was good enough.
The next night was the rewards night...... I was at home by 8...back from a tough day at work....we were having a serious import issue again. The rewards night would have started I thought to myself...and then promptly proceeded to eat dinner, browse the net and channel surf oblivious to everything else....i needed to take my mind off work......At about 10, as I was watchin TV, I get an sms from Ani ......
"We won first prize congrats! Will call later"
It took a few seconds...and then it hit... We had just been declared, in effect, the supply chain champions in P&G India for the year 06-07 !
The feeling has sunk in now. I lived in the moment for the rest of the night...Friday morning, the congratulations started pouring in. Friday afternoon, I was deeply embroiled into the import issue. Friday evening, I sat back and thought... 0708 is gonna be tougher...need to get moving.
And today, its back to business as usual.
I want to thank one person who coached and helped our young team through most of last year. Without his help, there's no way we would have made it - neither workwise nor emotionally. Girish Mittal has been the bedrock of this success and this recognition really goes to him. Girish was in a transition role in P&G and had left about 2 months ago to join as SC head for Guardian - a pharma retail chain. He's doing well there....and on telling him the good news, he was very happy for us.
All in all, a fantastic year.....
I'll sign off with this quote I came across....
"No one said it would be easy. They only told me it would be worth it..."
Its been abt an year since I joined P&G from Gillette. Looking back, its been undoubtedly a really tough year. Integrating and adapting the Gillette value chain into that of P&G....shipment issues, import issues, deployment problems, people issues...topped by managing a plethora of marketing initiatives..... the list was endles. The challenges were immense esp for an inexperienced and young team comprising of Ani, Kal , TeeYuan and myself.
But it wasn't in vain...the Gillette business in India bounced back and kicked some serious a**! :) We outperformed and outshone our competition through the year. There was blood everywhere...(and i'm talkin abt the "tonite, we dine in hell!" type :) ) Nothing could have made us feel better...knowing that we played a major part in this rampage...
So perhaps it didnt come as a surprise,when about a month back, the India supply chain leader nominated the 4 of us for the annual P&G India supply chain excellence awards - for our work in stabilizing the Gillette value chain....along with 6 other nominations from the other traditional P&G business units (like laundry, haircare,etc) and corporate functions ( quality, logistics, operations, etc) -each for their superior contribution to improve service, cost, cash and quality.
The awards would be given away at the annual offsite, which would be attended by the india and multi business unit supply chain partners.The award would be based on the presentation given by each team on the work they did. The selection process was rigorous - Each presentation would be put to vote by the attendees, and also critically evaluated by the Leadership team. The combined score of highest votes and evaluation score would determine the winner.
We knew we had done a good job. But convincing our partners and the other nominess about this wasnt going to be an easy task. The Gillette business was new ...not everyone undertstood its complexity. During the last year, our team silently dealt with all the operational issues....Business was never impacted...and so no one really knew that there were quite a few sleepless nights a few ppl were spending to keep things working. Hence our work remained fairly invisible except to those who worked with us.
We knew we had to do 3 things in our presentation in order to atleast have a fighting chance:
1. Clearly explain the scale of the integration, the Gillete SC complexity and the business impact if things didnt work out.
2. Very simply explain the topline supply chain interventions we made in each quarter of the year in a CAR format (no data and numbers overkill)
3. Get creative in order to engage our audience - Audio visuals, humour and the like (and this i'm good at :) )
The presentation took us a week to create. Fortunately, we had a good flash presenatation, which I had helped develop for our team in singapore earlier this year. The concept fit in very well with our presentation. That gave us the much needed mind-blowing opening. The rest of the presentation was abt the work we did...all presented in movie format..with good background music, visuals and the like.
The real presentation-making actually started the evening before D-day. By the time we were done with the presentation...it was past midnight. We had to wake up the same morning at 5am to catch the bus to Aamby valley where the offsite would be held. After we finished, we decided to head for our homes and catch up on some much needed sleep. We figured that since we were fourth in the order of presentation, we would have some time to do the dry run the following day.
The following day...we reached Aamby valley around 11am. After the leadership's presentations, lunch commenced at around 1400. We were hoping to have a quick lunch and then spend the rest of the time practising. On telling one of the managers that we wanted to skip the first 3 presentations, in order to practice our prez...we were told we couldnt do that. At almost abt the same time, we were informed that we had go first as the original first team had some last minute issues due which their presentation had to be postponed.
We spent abt 15 mins doin a dry run...and then hit the stage. The AV started... and there was no lookin back after that. Having done endless dramas, movies spoofs, ad zaps, presentations etc on stage through my school and college days, I've come to recognise one thing -- I know when I've got the audience attention...I know precisely what the audience mood is...whether they are enjoying what are they are hearing and seeing....or not.
In this case, 5 minutes into the presentation....I knew we had the audience and we had them real good! Laughter, claps, smiles...this gave the 3 of us (TY's based in singapore and couldnt attend) the confidence to present even better.....as it usually happens.
The presentation ended.... all we heard was thunderous applause...and handshakes flying at us...
Kal and I had to head back to mumbai the same day. Ani stayed back for the rest of the 3 day offsite. The presentations continued through the rest of the day and the following day as well. There were some really good presentations and we were hoping to be atleast among the top 3. We were the underdogs really and the underdogs from the erstwhile Gillette company had managed to convince our partners that we did a good job. But whether the claps and handshakes would translate into votes....we didnt know. And frankly, it didnt matter as much. What mattered to us was that one year of work had got its fair share of voice and visibility.... and that was good enough.
The next night was the rewards night...... I was at home by 8...back from a tough day at work....we were having a serious import issue again. The rewards night would have started I thought to myself...and then promptly proceeded to eat dinner, browse the net and channel surf oblivious to everything else....i needed to take my mind off work......At about 10, as I was watchin TV, I get an sms from Ani ......
"We won first prize congrats! Will call later"
It took a few seconds...and then it hit... We had just been declared, in effect, the supply chain champions in P&G India for the year 06-07 !
The feeling has sunk in now. I lived in the moment for the rest of the night...Friday morning, the congratulations started pouring in. Friday afternoon, I was deeply embroiled into the import issue. Friday evening, I sat back and thought... 0708 is gonna be tougher...need to get moving.
And today, its back to business as usual.
I want to thank one person who coached and helped our young team through most of last year. Without his help, there's no way we would have made it - neither workwise nor emotionally. Girish Mittal has been the bedrock of this success and this recognition really goes to him. Girish was in a transition role in P&G and had left about 2 months ago to join as SC head for Guardian - a pharma retail chain. He's doing well there....and on telling him the good news, he was very happy for us.
All in all, a fantastic year.....
I'll sign off with this quote I came across....
"No one said it would be easy. They only told me it would be worth it..."
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