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We live in a consumption economy. The whole digital revolution seems to built on the premise to offer the contents (in the form of news, updates from friends, images, videos etc.) to us as effortlessly as possible. We now have smartphones that are 24x7 content broadcasting machines. As a result of this, human beings are always in content consumption mode. While access to information is good in one way (it has made us more aware) but largely it has also robbed conciseness from the day-to-day communication. The emails tend now to be longer, verbal updates muddled up and our white-boards more busier than they have ever been. One of the pieces of writing that recently inspired me was the blog-  Create less, Consume more  by Tanmay Vora. Sharing couple of pieces of advise from this blog: Consume mindfully by  having right set of filters  that help you decide if something will *really* add value and increase your ability to create.  When you consume mindfully, less is...

There are many things that world’s renowned management schools don’t teach you. It might take a book to list all of them here but in this post I want to focus on one of them. And it is about  conducting meetings effectively. I don’t believe in the school of thought that proposes that meetings are useless. Meetings themselves aren’t unproductive but meetings run unskilfully are indeed unproductive. Meetings are necessary for collaboration and collaboration is foundation of everything good that happens in the organizations. As much as meetings are necessary, conducting the meetings effectively is one of the most underrated skills, something that doesn’t get as much attention/training as it deserves. While writing this, I got reminded of this tweet from Vala Afshar that truly conveys the universal negligence around meetings. Having said all this, its not that people, organizations and thought-leaders have put in ample efforts to fine-tune meetings in the organizations. One such effor...

To Quote Tim Minahan, Chief Marketing Officer @ Citrix: Citrix Synergy 2018 is all about showing the world how Citrix powers a better way to work. It’s about unifying our vision and providing creative solutions to give our customers the security, choice, and experience they demand. Citrix Synergy 2018 was an awesome showcase of technology that defines the future of work. David Henshall, CEO @Citrix delivered a powerful, super-energetic keynote that was followed by cool demos aptly showcasing the future of work. So, what were the announcements made ? Do catch-up my sketchnote summarizing the key messaging from Citrix Synergy 2018.

At the Citrix Synergy 2018, one of the most prominent announcements made was the unveiling of Citrix Workspace. Citrix Workspace provides the next generation user experience for accessing any application- SaaS, web, mobile, virtual and reliable accessing any content. This awesome blog by Jeroen van Rotterdam explains the technical goodies behind Citrix Workspace. Citrix Workspace: Embedded Browser vs Secure Browser Service vs Secure Browsing If you want to catch-up with quick snapshot view of technical working of Citrix Workspace, here's my sketchnote:

Recently came across this wonderful podcast between Ravi Venkatesan (former CEO of Microsoft India) and Pankaj Mishra (CEO of factordaily.com). This conversation revolved primarily around how careers of future will evolve. Summary of conversation: Rebooting the Core Career Principles: New world requires core career principles to be rebooted. What are the new principles?     1.        The reason we were born on earth is not to have a job; most of us are searching for the reason as to why we were put on the earth. The job is only a means to that bigger end.     2.        The biggest obstacle to your success is you. Learn to get out of your own way.     3.        Be the CEO of your own career.   You better take charge of your career because nobody else will.     4.        Don't get fooled into thinking that you have a lifelong ...

Further to my last blog and continuing my quest to decipher the learning habits of most influential leaders, I stumbled upon this extraordinary article by Michael Simmons (Titled:  5-Hour Rule: If you’re not spending 5 hours per week learning, you’re being irresponsible .) While i provide a brief summary below of what i learned from this as below in a few points,  I would highly recommend reading through this article   1. The founders of the five largest companies in the world—Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Larry Page, and Jeff Bezos— All have two uncommon traits. a. Each of them is a voracious learner. b. Each of them is a polymath. 2. A voracious learner as someone who follows the 5-hour rule—dedicating at least five hours per week to deliberate learning. When you become a voracious learner, you compound the value of everything you’ve learned in the past. 3. A polymath is someone who becomes competent in at least three diverse domains and integrates them into...

I read these 2 things recently that resonated quite well with me in the midst of the world being redefined rapidly by technological forces: 1. Technology usually takes away professions, not jobs. 2. We won't run out of jobs, We will run out of trained people.[Credits: Abhijit Bhaduri ] I found the second statement profound majorly for the reason that it is progressive. It does gives confidence that with right kind of (and timely) training and learning strategy, it is possible to approach the future with great vigor. Learning is no longer a tactical function or should i say organizations that take learning as tactical stands to reach obsolescence sooner than later. The organizations that treat learning as a strategic function stands a great chance to beat the multiple forces (technological and beyond) organizations are dealt with. In my quest to figure out learning strategies for the future, i ran into some wonderful content by Jim Kwik,  founder of Kwik Learning, is a world ex...

I recently blogged about this in detail, but for those of the readers who prefer brevity, here is a concise version of the blog. This speech got a sizable traction in social media with 15000+ views on LinkedIn and 500+ on YouTube. The key points that I shared during my speech are summarized below, followed by a Sketchnote. 1. Stay in the present "Just block all the future thoughts and bask in the glory of current moment." "Embrace this time with all your senses." "Seize the moment." 2. Think Big: "Let this not be the defining moment of your life." “Educational Qualifications are not the ends in itself, they are the means to achieve something greater.” 3. Embrace Non-linearity "Skills do have an expiry date and this expiry date is shortening by the day." "Continuous learning is not a differentiator anymore, it is a mandatory." “If we do not change the way we teach, 30 years from now we will be in trouble."- Jack Ma "L...

I recently got a chance to speak at Illinois Institute of Technology's Graduation day.  Sharing thoughts at an event like a graduation ceremony is usually the reflection of one's own lifelong learnings and experiences. But this post is not about my speech. This is about the speech of my friend and mentor Tathagat Varma (TV), which I found quite inspirational. The detailed speech can be found here , but sharing quick summary and a sketch note as below. His top three advise for graduating class were: 1. Be a Learner    It is important to be a lifelong learner. If we sit on the laurels of the past, we are eventually destined to become irrelevant.    The real "learning" will only happen when you start putting all that to practice and realize that there are things that you don't quite know, or you begin to question what was taught in the classroom. 2. Be a Maker    If you want to continue being relevant in your careers, make sure you discard the charms of...

Consider some of the recent challenges faced by Facebook- 1.     In 2017, Facebook admitted that the suspected Russians were paying to boost posts in the US to influence 2016 presidential elections. Facebook has millions of advertisers and buying ads just needed a FB page and a credit card and some trivial details. 2.       Facebook recently admitted that nearly 10% of its 2.1 billion user base are the fake accounts, arguably a leading source of fake news. 3.       In the event of you forgetting FB password or accounts being locked, Facebook needed to ask users to email the copy of the photo ID and do the verifications offline. In all probability, to deal with these challenges, Facebook recently acquired identity origination platform company- Confirm.io. So what does Confirm.io do?  Based on thecurrently available information, Confirm.io- offers to existing customers an API that lets companies verify the authenticity of governm...

Sometime back I read about why Mark Zuckerberg wears the same t-shirt to work every day and the reason he gave has stayed with me. He does so to avoid something called as decision fatigue. All of us have limited will-power during the day. An engrossing event like decision-making sucks up the will-power. And a routine event like deciding what to wear, often consumes the diminishing will-power. Not only Mark Z, but the likes of Barrack Obama, Satya Nadella and many successful personalities have such tactics in place to cut-the-decision making crap and focus their limited energies on the right areas. As the fastcompany article revealed , Jeff Bezos is a big believer of streamlining the decision making. He has even instituted a 4 step process: Decisions that are reversible, can use a light-weight process. Don’t wait for 100% information before making decisions. 70% is just-about right. Waiting for 90% information to be available usually slows down decision-making. Stakeholder alignment is ...

In the last 4 weeks, I endured and completed: 1. Ultra Marathon : Bengaluru (50 Km) [7th-Jan] 2. Mumbai Full Marathon (42.195 km) [21st-Jan] 3. Oxfam Trailwalker : Bengaluru (100 km) [2nd-Feb] With many marathons over the years, i have deciphered that- "Runs end, Running doesn't". Each run teaches you something about life. Here, I am sharing this reflection from my recent runs. Following are usually the phases one goes through while going through the marathon- 0 km: I know I can do it. 21 km: It's getting painful. Did I make the right choice choosing to do it? 30 km: Why the hell did I start? 38 km: I am close to giving up. 40 km: I think I can push a little 42.195 km: Never experienced a high like this. Does this cycle sounds familiar with anything insurmountable you have attempted? The cycle begins by taking a high risk, bringing in high energy, dealing with (often) self-created doubts, questioning the very reason to start, almost giving up, and while on the v...

Redux builds technology that uses vibrations to turn surfaces of phones or tablets into speakers or provide haptic feedback. Haptic as an adjective means "related to the sense of touch." Simply put, this technology- could potentially turn phone surface to speakers could eliminate the need of having any buttons on the phone. The technology uses signal processing algorithms to direct tactile sensations at specific touch points throughout a device's display. Actuators then deliver different effects to different fingers simultaneously, with the result being a "feeling of pressing a mechanical button or moving a slider control underneath your fingertips on the screen with button click effects coming directly from the display." What this could mean for future is-   Future phones could be even more compact. No need for micro-speakers and releasing valuable internal space for extending battery or other components. Google gets the lead when in future instead of wifi soun...

I do believe that note-taking is an underrated skill and doesn't get as much importance as it deserves. In context of most work related situations, we are bombarded with sea of information and are often left to try and make sense of it. Embracing efficient ways to take notes helps us deal with the information overload in many ways- 1. It helps us visually represent information. 2. When the information is available in front of us visually, it adds to the overall clarity of thoughts. 3. In absence of notes, the information floats around in mind leading to less overall recall when needed. Of late I have been experimenting with the alternate approaches to note-taking. One of the approaches that i found useful and creative was the sketch-notes. The beautiful thing about sketch-notes is that it goes beyond just words and adds a lot of visual elements that helps to simplify the process of comprehending notes. I went through a bit of learning process around getting comfortable with sketch-...