Available for Sale - 11/12 DVD collection titled: BBC -Days That Shook The World

A brand new unopened 11/12 DVD set 3 series collection available for sale. Titled: Days That Shook The World. Price: Rs. 2700. I am selling it as someone else bought a similar set for me. I am offering it at the discounted price on which I purchased it.

(click on the photograph to see the enlarged view)

(click on the photograph to see the enlarged view)

If you are interested in buying it, please contact me on 9960601324.  

What I hate about the new Yahoo Mail user experience

So yahoo mail is going into major upgrade mode with overhauling of entire webmail application UI, new features and integrating with some of other yahoo channels from a single interface. Most of these changes I believe happened couple of weeks/months back but I noticed it recently. While the overall look has become very sleek but I was surprised to see introduction and change made to some key user interaction that contradicts mental model of how a user perceives that feature and adds new learning curve while dealing with the refurbished Yahoo Mail.

Image 1

(Click on image thumbnails for bigger view)

For those who have not seen the new yahoo mail interface, the screen above shows you how the mail now looks in its new avatar. Prominent changes include introduction of lot of tab controls on top, ajax dropdown, overlay windows for actions, integration of applications on left hand side panel.

Earlier, on click of any mail, the mail used to open up in the same window. Now in the new version, the mail opens up as a separate page in a tab (see image below). For illustration example I have clicked the Jet airways mail below.

Image  2

The mail opens in a new tab as shown above. Perhaps in the 1^st instance a user doesn’t realize that the mail has opened in a tabbed format. It’s after clicking on Inbox and selecting any other mail for viewing, the realization comes that the mails are opening in tabbed format and user can jump on to the other previously opened mail without going to inbox and selecting the mail. Works really well when it is assumed that a user normally likes performing this task or that’s a normal mail surfer’s interaction pattern. What can be the implications of this tabbed view, will illustrate with another example later but from here would like to highlight a grave ‘flaw’ if I may put it in the normal interaction pattern of a mail surfer which yahoo has deviated from.

Those who are fluent with keyboard control always prefer pressing backspace button to move back to inbox. That is the mental model of any mail surfer for going back to inbox to check the mails. This is where yahoo mail blunders. Notice what happens when you click on backspace button.

image 3

On press of backspace, instead of opening inbox window, another tab opens up with a mail. After repeated instances like these or perhaps clicking manually on inbox link from the left you get to realize that the backspace button is now linked to opening of next mail below the previously opened mail. So what you get to see is the next mail in your inbox. Bad. How can yahoo assume that a user would like to view this mail only? Shouldn’t that be a user’s prerogative? IF that was not enough, the next example will illustrate on a major blunder that Yahoo has made with the backspace button.  

image 4

I clicked on the backspace button and after realization that it is not linked to going back to inbox, I manually click on inbox and now want to open that Jetairways mail again. But where is that mail? And then I realize what the buggers at yahoo have done.

Image 5

The backspace button is now linked to deleting a mail. Very bad interaction as the usual mental model that a user presumes is that pressing backspace leads back to previous page. This is the pattern followed in ALL webmails – gmail, hotmail, rediff, indiatimes and even previously in yahoo mail too. Many users will I bet not realize this also that they have unknowingly deleted their mail! 

image 6

So now that mails open in different tabs and after realization that this is the model that will happen, I decided to check what happens when I click multiple mails. Since the idea from yahoo is for letting users surf seamlessly between different open stage mails without letting them move back to inbox, with each click the open tab on top navigation panel kept increasing. Will a user click any tab to close his mail and do ‘tab management’? I hope yahoo has done some user testing around this as many people might find this irritating (clicking open tabs again & again).

Image 7

And as I suspected, this is what happened when I clicked multiple mails and didn’t bother to close the open tabs. As I was testing this feature, I was prepared to get a response like this but users who perhaps might miss the open tab mail reading concept and keep navigating through inbox link on left to read mails, might perhaps take a while to realize what this means and the entire concept of tabbed mail approach.

Like with any new rollout where major changes are made, there would be initial reluctance but over period people do get used to it. I am sure with yahoo mail also people will start adapting to the new features but if only yahoo would have not deviated from the key functionality interactions that are followed by all mail users across other sites and retained the same then it would have been perfect.  

What's the fart about?

Now this is the kind of news that can make any person like me, reeling under a late night party hangover sit and read it attentively.

Oblivion to the world fuel crisis, global recession, the Arab world renaissance, rapidly growing inflation or the even nearly approach 2012 dooms day, a small African nation - Malawi will vigorously debate in the coming week in their parliament if farting in public should be made criminal offence. Wow. I love this kind of news. Sadly this 4 column news was tucked in the World section in TOI. In my opinion this has to be the most catching and attention grabbing news to come in recent months and should have been placed right on front page! People are bored to read about the Egypt crisis, the 65 rs kilo Onion, Petrol & Beer kind of news. Now this is news. A country already reeling under poverty spending the precious little tax saver’s money to debate on issues that can in future have global catastrophic effect. As per the news…

"The government has a right to ensure public decency. We are entitled to introduce order in the country," justice and constitutional affairs minister George Chaponda told independent radio station Capital Radio. "Would you like to see people farting in public anywhere?" Since the country embraced multi-party politics 16 years ago people had felt free to fart anywhere, said Chaponda. 

"It was not there during the time of dictatorship because people were afraid of the consequences. Now because of multipartism or freedom, people would like to fart anywhere, he said. 

I completely agree with you bro. In a democratic, multi party system, people tend to fart albeit loudly – in public places, on the national media, in parliament, on tax payer sponsored foreign visits without thinking of the consequences. Now the only difference is that these are the people who run the country. But let me tell you my friend, in dictatorship too the people – especially the one who call the shots in the country do fart but the only difference is that in dictatorship the fart is passed off by the state owned media as the next perfume brand from the house of Gucci.

Not many people understand that farting is the most technical job you can ever imagine to perform. More complex than the Matrix itself. Imagine stuck in a small group or sitting in a small restaurant, or in front of your would be fiancé or gf and you get the feeling – oh yeah a fart is on the way. You have to draw upon your years of experience to convert that big bang into a silencer equipped muzzle shot so that it’s not heard. Yeah, bet the men reading this post can relate with that.

I am sure if I google, I can find many games around farting itself. If there are games already available for ipad , iphone & android, bet there should be real versions followed too. The Biggest Farter Wins. Measuring the velocity of a farter by lighting the gas behind! Speaking of which, have you ever wondered why they put up a BIG RED colored ‘STRICTLY NO SMOKING’ bright signage in all corridors of Parliament, the visitor’s gallery & near cabins of all ministers in Government establishments? Yup, you guessed it right! I had an opportunity to visit the Parliament once and if you have ever been to the visitor’s gallery, you will see the AC blower on full blast and a transparent glass screen blocking the atmospheric air emitted by our honourly politicians. While public safety measures are taken what makes these politicans immune from the self emitted every day farts that they release in the Parliament? There are 2 reasons for that. 1) These guys are thick skinned. So any molecular particle floating from a colleague’s fart just bounces off from the skin of these guys instead of settling down. 2) More importantly, all the guys who get selected to represent our constituencies go through a nose membrane transplant. A small mesh is implanted that converts the inhaled foul gas into a fresh reusable fart by the same guy. Why do you think we are the toast of all the carbon credit seeking countries? Innovative mechanisms can be seen right in the bowels of the Parliament especially if some debate is on.

By the way, there are 3 countries that can never ever ban farting. They are Pakistan, India & China.

India, we already know and briefly talked about above why. Read any bi lateral talks results between Pakistan/India or China/India and you can guess why farting can never be banned.

Pakistan has taken farting to next level. Tired of using guns, ammos, normal bombs, suicide bombers in Pakistan, fed with a gastronomic diet of Jihad are turning themselves into a live Fart Bombers. The promises to the bombers I am told are a lifetime McDonalds & Pizza Hut supply in heaven (or hell) and a complimentary tickling by the most beautiful nymph. For bombers in POK photos of Katrina Kaif are passed off as the nymph.

Now Chinese farts are quite tricky ones. You keep your ears up to hear any mumbling noise from a Chinese ass but hardly hear anything. The Chinese farts are more like Chinse whispers. There definitely is a fart but you don’t hear it and smell it a little late. Or else how can you explain this Wen Jiabo chap making an official trip to India – all armed with Hindi Chini bhai bhai scented room freshner, his aides spraying it before hand in any meeting and once he was gone, 2 weeks later you get the foul smell of the Arunachal Pradesh stapled visa issue.

But imagine if they was indeed an actual ministry, just like the Malwai chaps enforcing laws related to farting in India? I wonder what that ministry would be called? Ministry of Renewable Energies or Ministry of Natural Gas. I can think of the latter. But I bilve there is already a minstry by that name. I guess they would have made it Ministry of Natural gas – Internal & Minstry of Natural gas  - External. The internal one would focus on the ‘real’ natural gas sourced from deep inside the earth while the external will concentrate their energies on the natural gases emitted by people. While the country would be reeling under heavy inflation and rising food costs and Sharad Pawar would be grilled in Parliament, the chap managing the MoNG – E  portfolio would be quietly chuckling in one corner in the Parliament. After all the rising food cost is directly proportional to the fart emitted in air. High food cost means less people will buy fart emitting veggies like ‘mooli’ which means less of fart to pollute the air.

Back closer to work, you deal day in day out with guys who have made careers by farting. The mantra is not ‘Work Smarter Not Harder’ but ‘Fart Harder but Smarter’. Yes, in a collaborative world, every fart counts in work and you need to keep updating your repository with newer,  smarter mechanisms of farting and making customers bill you $140/hr consulting rate . After all for them it’s not just a fart. It’s a process of synthesizing efficient paradigms that involve intuitive methodologies to unleash visionary whiff of air to deliver ‘bleeding-edge’ solutions.  The same logic applies internally when you want to don the role of Arjuna – the Savior. Genuine thought process, views are taken as crap. One ‘fart-astra’ from your arsenal can quieten the most vocal or rational ones.

Should really thank the article that got printed ysday. Atleast it motivated me to put this farty post after a long time. Till the time the world is full of news like this, which I am sure it will be, it will always get me on to release some gas of my own!

All farts welcomed in the comments section :-)       

random thought waiting outside a ladies trial room for wifey to co me out

Why are almost all lingerie counters in any of the mall that you walk in managed by chinkis? :D

regards,
Lokesh Sapre
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Sent from my Nokia E71

Bsnl launches ipad data plan | my experience with the same

So finally Apple officially launched the ipad in India and as a surprise package tied up with bsnl for various attractive 3G data plan offers. The moment I read the news on one of the online sites, I quickly opened up the bsnl site to check about it. i found it a bit surprising that officially it got launched today and there was no media coverage in any of the printed newspapers. Such a 'big' news was tucked away in a corner on bsnl site with a small ipad image and a dull font data plan link. I clicked it, checked the plans, filled up the inquiry form and waited for someone to call me. But knowing that it might take ages before someone will actually call, I called up on the helpline no that they had provided in the ad. After few rings the guy picked up the call, inquired of my region and need and transfered the call. I told them about my interest in the microsim card and inquired if I can get the same from local bsnl office. The guy put me on hold again and after few minutes responded that they were not aware of the 'scheme' and perhaps I should call in evening! Pissed off to the core, I decided to hit out to local bsnl office in the afternoon.

The Yerwada Bsnl office is manned by an all female staff. The inquiry counter lady was clueless and directed me to the section officer. As expected, she also didn't have any response and came to know that bsnl has launched something like this from me only! She visited the website and while she was doing so, I parroted out the various data plans that bsnl has launched for ipad. She gave me an embarassed smile ( coz without looking at the monitor I was telling her about the various plans which she should have been knowing) and confessed she was not aware of ipad& these plans. She called up her seniors who themsevles didn't have much idea. The lady apologized to me, took my number and promised the moment they get details and the sim card, I'll be the 1st Ipad data plan customer she will hand over the sim too.

I returned back, bit amused with this entire experience but felt sorry on how bsnl is on the verge of losing a sizable market share again thanks to blotched up marketing activities. Bsnl has got the 1st move advantage and in couple of months apple will partner with other telcos as soon as 3 g network is rolled out pan India. With attractive India prices for the device, the rush for data plans will be up for sure and hopefully bsnl should gear themselves up to cater to demands.

Sent from my iPad

Obama visit - random musings

The best, rationaled, well paneled discussions on Obama visit happening on ndtv 24x7. Shekhar Gupta takes the cake on the discussion. His take on Maha Govt's 'baraati' attitude sums up the incompetencies and useless row created by them on being asked to show identity proofs.

Disappointed with BJP's official press briefing showing their disappointment that Obama didn't slam Pakistan. Grow up guys. Yeah Shekhar I agreee with you - they have lost their bearings.

regards,
Lokesh Sapre
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Sent from my Nokia E71

The Curious Case of Buzzing Light

On a long haul international flight, the most boring part besides watching the rerun of movies is standing outside the loo and waiting endlessly for your turn. On a recent trip while I was waiting for my turn, twice or thrice I saw the call attendant light outside the loo blink. Each time the attendant came and asked the person inside if everything was fine, she got a +ve reply and went back. False alarm. It was not as if the call was made by one person. I saw that pattern getting repeated with 3 different people in 2 separate loos. Curiosity took over me as finally my turn came and while the call of the nature happened, I was snooping around to find where the attendant button was. As I accidently spotted the button (yes, I was on the verge of unknowingly pressing it), it dawned upon me why the airhostess was getting called for no reason by person inside the loo. 

Take a look at the picture above. The orange colored button is placed on the left hand side. In the matchbox shaped toilet, as the person sits on the pot, many a times  in that cramped space the person tries to adjust himself in and this is when the button gets accidentally pressed as it’s too close to the arm and tucked away near to the waist level and gets missed completely by the person. It nearly happened with me too as I tried to jostle in the compact loo.

Flawed Product Design  

The above incidence serves as a good example for software & product designers. The intent of placing an emergency call button close to the person is right, but should that be the right position where it needs to be placed? Any call to action features, be it on the web, desktop applications and as my airline loo experience showed me should be placed where it’s visible and convenient for a person to use.  In that loo the button was getting missed and that was the reason it was getting accidentally pressed by people. Perhaps shifting the button a little more to the left could have solved the problem. A) The accidental pressing would have stopped. B) The button would have been more visible and in front of the eye. 

In conclusion, as a designer or a product developer it’s imperative to step into a user’s shoes and iron out these kind of potential usability issues at initial stages of design itself. Getting the product prototype tested by actual users during prototype stage helps in finding problems that are easier and cheaper to fix rather than unearthing it after the product has been released. Involve a usability consultant in the project right from the inception stage as their expertise and usability knowledge can help in shaping up the product as per user expectations and meet defined goals & business objectives.

 

Usability Testing of the Delhi Airport T3

As said by GMR in an interview:

..... airport is about people, not buildings. An airport is a very complex system," he says. That is why before throwing open the Delhi airport to the public he is testing it with "dummy passengers" - 3,000 men and women, each paid Rs 175 to come and play act, testing everything from baggage handling to security.

mobile blogging

Testing out mobile blogging through this 1st scrap posted through my business phone. If it updates instantly then you will see frequent scraps and mobile uploads from me.

Regards,
Lokesh Sapre
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***Sent from my Nokia E71***

random thought

Saw few guys in ties. Asked a question to myself. To work like a consultant, it is necessary to wear ties day in and out unless its a client facing scenario? Does wearing a tie make you feel like a consultant? Isn't it the work that you do which is more important in that sphere of your business domain rather than the appearance in office ( and remember, it's not client meetings that are to be attended). Why this false facade?  

the state of mind I am in these days :-)

and after I land on the national geo site and click on the careers section....this is the screen I get!

Oh well...it seems all restless people like me would be accessing the National Geo site. Well lemme try my luck with Discovery now :-)

Goodbye ABN AMRO

Got bit of sentimental after hearing that ABN AMRO's name would be changed to RBS (Royal bank of Scotland). Perhaps the reason is given the fact that I had been associated with ABN AMRO for the past 9-10 years or so. Not many of my colleagues know this but I was the Information Architect who was part of the design team that had created the the entire ABN AMRO net banking website.  This was way back in 2001 or something. I was working in an IT company in Delhi. We used to deal with ABN Delhi HO. This was my 1st experience of dealing with IA of a full fledged banking application. I remember the workshops that the design team and client used to have at ABN's CP office. We used to do endless rounds of white boarding & card sorting exercises to arrive on user mental models. Of course there were rounds of heated discussions also with the customer during the workshops which used to spice up our thinking process. In one such incidence we were discussing the Online Account Summary flow. The client had a 'banker's view of the same while we felt it won't work and presented end user's view point. It went on for some time. We took a prompt decision. We went down to the branch and randomly selected few users and expressed out point of view to understand what they feel and they agreed with our thinking! Bang on. The discussion was closed. The client team were a bunch of tough nuts but they accepted points when presented with logic & strong rational. When the banking website was launched, we had even created a banking site demo which used to be part of the online application for quite a few years. We had slipped in our names in the demo as account holders and shown lakhs of rupees in fictitious account number. That was the only closest way of demonstrating that we were quite rich! :-) 

When I shifted to Mumbai in 2003 my relation with the bank continued in form of corporate salary account which I got transferred to Pune when I shifted the base here in 2006. I still maintain the account and use the internet banking that I created. I have always loved ABN's services. In my 7 years relationship with the bank,I have only visited my bank once for sign verification else all my transactions have been carried online or through doorstep banking. After nearly 10 years of its online existence, I am glad to see that the core task flows and navigation of the net banking application has not changed at all. It's means a lot as it bears a stamp of users acceptance and seamless interaction & transaction that they have on the site. In fact I was told that the online site was referred as one of the best internet banking applications present in India. 

Now that the bank has been bought over by RBS, I hope the services that I enjoyed earlier would continue to be the same. It's very weird feeling calling my bank RBS now ;-) but hopefully over the period will get used to the new name now. :-)        

Foxed over flux!

I was in two minds about writing this post. This topic had been on my mind for quite some time but I was really dragging on this post. Well some personal experience around this topic last Friday triggered me to put my thoughts across – and of course some help from Sarah Palin!

Couple of the days ago, Sarah Palin called Twitter as ‘little twittering thing’. It was an innocent response to her reference to how speedily things happen on Twitter.  But what came out was the negative connotation rather than an endearing one.

Last week I was discussing an onsite project opportunity with one of the program mangers. Since they work a lot in embedded & desktop apps space, I highlighted them on how they can pitch for technologies like Silverlight & Flex in their projects which are the emerging technologies in RIA (Rich Internet Applications) space.  The Program manager replied ‘oh yeah we are aware of flex…it’s to do with UI skin & design…’. I told him it’s not just about UI skin but more to do with backend technologies which makes the interaction simple. He and his team mate reply ‘ but the flux presentation that you sent in proposal talked about that’. Which presentation I inquired, since I was managing the flex initiatives and I had never sent any prezo. The FLUX prezo – the guy replies. And then it struck me. He was referring to the new capability presentation sent by the usability practice titled: flux. I winced my teeth and politely went on to explain the bizarre branding name that has cropped up couple of months back.

The 1st time I heard about the new branding for usability team I was very surprised. I saw the branding in a team mate’s email signature and this is how it looked.       

The other variation of the branding I saw was like this: flUX which is used in document or as file name of any capability prezo or overview. It didn’t have any tag line along with it. Then I also see it in email credentials like this: flUX – The User Experience Group
 
Branding is a very important exercise and there are various aspects you need to keep in mind before going in for brand christening. Is branding needed for a usability group working in a pure play technology company – I’ll come to that part later but my 1st question to myself and to few peers around was what did flUX – the word meant to them. I was told by the mates who coined the branding that the reason behind using the word flUX is that in metallurgy flux is a chemical cleaning agent that removes oxides from the metal to be joined. Since in UX space we remove the ‘impurities’ related to ‘bad experience’ hence flUX. To add to the touch was the byline ‘flawless user experience’, the ‘fl’ from flUX stands for flawless and ‘UX’ for user experience. Neat. But do people really understand that’s how the term got coined? When put on a ppt or when sent in a document to customer/prospect/internal stake holders – will they understand what flUX means? From my last week experience I don’t think so. Intelligence doesn’t always sell. In colloquial language flux most of the times is used in negative connotation. It means ‘uncertainty’. His mind was in a state of flux over the decision. 8 out of 10 times in spoken language it will be commonly used to express a state of indecisiveness. The remaining 2 times folks in white coats would be using it. The point that I want to make is when it comes to branding, you also need to consider all these aspects, debate it out, research and then proceed. By discussing it internally with 2-3 practice guys or getting the branding feedback done from few external ex- college design friends won’t help in discovering the real issues. A brand name needs to be really thought through; researched and extensive feedback needs to be taken.    

 I know that one of the lessons in branding is also to make your brand stand out, think of uncommon brand names/acronyms, to have a recall value but you need to consider that the brand name unknowingly doesn’t give different context meanings. Also as my flex-flux experience highlighted, the brand shouldn’t get confused with something else, especially in a technology company where the word got confused with a core technology which the company is building capabilities in.  

More than often, you might not be available for any presentation or physically won’t be present when flux branded collateral would be presented or discussed. The luxury of ‘Hi we are from usability practice and our group is named as flux which stands for flawless user experience…” won’t be available. Then what?

Francois gossieaux in his article on customer vs brand advocacy says “most buying decisions happen when your people are not in the room – not part of the conversations that lead to buying decisions. So for them (your company’s marketing team) to be brand advocates is to a certain degree a waste of time. What you need is for your customers and prospects to be your brand advocates.” And this is where the 2nd important point of my whole take on branding comes in.

Should branding be done for usability team or the services that they pitch? Your customers be it internal stakeholders or external one will not recall your group brand name when they need your services. When there is a need for UI design/evaluation etc, do you think the question that will pop up in their mind would be “hey we need to call flux guys in for this”? No. Don’t be under any illusion. For your internal stakeholders, you will always be known as the ‘usability team’, ‘UI team’ , ‘UI guys’ – irrespective of any fancy name that you coin. When the call would come, the top of the mind recall would be usability, UI design, html developer and NOT flux. Similarly for external customers flux will not make any sense. They would be approaching ‘the company‘for certain services which may or may not be aligned to UI/design and not flux. Even if you send them capability branded doc all pasted with flux – their final call of action would be with ‘the company’ and NOT the branded group. Don’t expect the customer to call the company and say “ I need the flux team services for my website revamp”.

Brands need to be created in usability but these should be around the services that you offer. Create brands around your specialized offerings. Let these be the talking point amongst your internal stakeholders and customers. Your well executed work itself becomes a brand within the organization and has a better recall value for the employee and the group than any fancy brand names. Create brands around your resources who come with niche skills.  Their skills and knowledge in the specialized area would indirectly reflect upon company’s capabilities and your practice and help in getting business.

To sum up this branding discussion, signing off with a testimonial that one of the UX person recently received from an internal stakeholder.  Notice the highlighted part.

“…... Minor details on the portal in terms of graphic representation was taken care of well by co-ordinating with others in the UE (Flux?) team…”

The question mark still remains.

Tiger is back in his woods :-)

So the news is that Tiger Woods is out of Sex rehabilitation centre and trying to get back in his normal life – of course he has still not made public appearance. Often I wonder what this ‘sex rehabilitation centre’ would be like. The idea is to cure a person from his ‘disease’ which in this case his regular sexual affairs. So how do they test if the person is cured? In the 1^st place, how to they treat the person? Do they make him watch some religious discourse followed by a lap dance by some skimpily dressed gal and observe if the erection is happening and at what pace? J Or perhaps tie the person up to zillions of wires and check his beats to see if is he still getting excited by watching naked gals dancing in front of him. Let me google on what they do and hope to publish another post on it soon :-) 

Blogging sabbatical

I noticed that last year I just posted one single post! It's very surprising for me since till a year before that I was heavily blogging. This year I promise it would be different. My dear friend Sahana who herself is an avid blogger & the queen of tweets has suggested I start a photo blog. I am toying with that idea too. Very soon I'll be posting my road trip blogs along with snaps. Hope I'll gain back my motivation to write and write passionately. :)

The new tablet on the block - Ipad

Those who have followed Steve Jobs closely through his career would be aware that the king pin of Apple doesn’t sell products. He sells experience. Right from the 80s days when the famous Mac TVC brought in a revolutionary change in the desktop industry to the visual experience of seeing a notebook being pulled out of an envelope. It was no surprise that the most awaited launch of recent time – the Apple tablet bore the same aura and excitement generally you will find at Oscars. Given Apple’s panache for creating mega hype for any product launch, little wonder everyone was super excited on what Steve would produce this time. And boy, they were not disappointed. So finally we have the Apple Ipad and as expected it has created a stormy debate on blogs and technology forums. The main bone of discussion has been – where does it fit in? It’s an Iphone/Itouch on steroids minus the ability to make a call and still not in a league where it can be qualified as a notebook. So has Apple created the biggest blunder by creating a product that doesn’t fit into any category or have they embarked on a bold attempt to create a new market segment?

Experience Sells. Apple products have always been driven around experience. Be it the visual appeal or the sheer joy of experiencing the interaction on any of the apple product. Experience, like brands are not built overnight. And with Apple who has set the benchmark for interaction experience, users always expect the next product from their stable to take the experience a notch higher. If you would have seen the key note that Steve Jobs delivered, his maximum emphasis was around the experience that a user would enjoy with the product. A key aspect in all his key notes has always been the demo that Steve delivers around the product. Steve never ‘sells’ the products. His demos do the job of selling. A simple tap here, a light touch to flick the ebook on the Ipad, the rotatable bookstore, the email keypad, the rotatable browser – notice how he casually went through the key user journeys on the Ipad, as the audience experienced it in delight. Didn’t it make you feel you want to grab that product right away? That’s experience – a hallmark of all Apple products.

Experience creates demand. In Apple’s case it’s their brilliant marketing strategy that has also fuelled up any demand for their product. The sheer aura that they manage to create around any of their product launch helps in creating anticipation and the experience of the product converts that anticipation into a demand. In Ipad’s case I believe Apple has boldly ventured on a path of creating a new market segment. A product that fits between a laptop & a smart phone like iphone. The question is, will they manage to create the demand? I believe yes. Thanks to Ipad, we will see a rise of a new segment of users who would like to ride on the convergence wave that Ipad promises. Apple’s ‘tempting’ pricing strategy for ipad will ensure that conversions happen. With ipad, Apple has also blown the war trumpet against ebook hardware manufacturers like Kindle and taken the storming bull by its horn. Their venture in ebooks with launch of ibooks application in ipad is a bold attempt to walk into the ebook territory. Of course, you don’t expect ebooks addicts to buy ipad for just the books application and they would very well stick to portable devices like Kindle. Already a storm in brewing up in ebooks industry with publishers picking up sides on which side of the hardware manufactures there would like to be. Will this be another Blueray v/s HD DVD in making?.

On the flip side what I didn’t like about Ipad is the limited hard disk space that is bundled into the device. 64GB?? This device is not an ipod but has been pitched as an entertainment solution. Games, movies, photos. Load all that up plus few more softwares and very soon you will start feeling a pinch for space. Imagine, sitting at airport lounge and plugging in an external HDD to the sleek looking ipad. While ipad has provision of mini GSM card for 3G model, I wonder if they will launch 3G model in India as I am not sure if mini GSM are available with telecom operators.
Over all I feel apple has lived up to their brand name and have managed to create a storm. But they need to watch out as Google is just round the corner fine turning their version of the tablet. Already their Android platform and the decision to enter the smart phone segment have started giving Steve Jobs nightmare.

For ipad, will they manage to convert foot falls into purchases when they launch it in March? Only time will tell.

Swine flu hits my Project!!!

This had to come at some point of time. Every day I get umpteen calls from my wife, parents, inlaws - inquiring about my whereabouts (now I know why cricketers are protesting the WADA rules ;-P), instructing me to wear mask, stop going out in public places etc. Their concern is genuine as they see the media frenzy in TV - about how the virus is spreading in Pune. Just yesterday I was discussing with a friend about how parents of outstation people would be feeling concerned about the alarming situation here and in morning one of my team mates dropped the bombshell.

The team mate's parents who stay in MP have asked him to come back home immediately. The person calls me up in morning informing me that he would like to go on leave with effect from today as his parents are very disturbed with the events. Now the project on which resource is already 3 weeks behind schedule and its on critical path currently. The visibility for the project is high within the organization and the stakes are high. I tried reasoning with him that going on leave will not help and try educating your parents about the measures that organization has taken and all. The team mate comes to office in a disheveled shape. He has a mask on and wearing full jacket. He informs me that he tried his best but of no use. The AR also informs me that we cannot stop any resource from going back home in this kind of scenario. My concern was that this will have a cascading effect. But then the resource drops a bombshell. He tells me that he had been feeling feverish since ysday, had slight cold and is on medicine which has been prescribed by the local GP and if the symptoms persists in couple fo days, he asked him to get swine flu test done. As he spoke with me thru his mask - I just held my breath (hey! it's swine flu around!)but then I had to release it ;-) Immediately I asked him to go on leave :-) and rushed in the loo to wash my hands!!! (couldn't believe I did this!..and what made me do this!) Seeing him in that state I could understand why his parents were concerned. I can see similar symptoms ( worried parents tracking their kids) being passed on to other outstation resources in my team. For me & other senior members of the team - it's like a war situation here on Ground Zero. People want to go on leave and we are on acute shortage of resources. Wearing masks they keep working on- regularly attending calls from worried parents.

Which brings me to more important topic - how to ensure business continuity? people who want to take precautionary leave should have the flexibility from working from home. At an organizational level, perhaps trial versions of critical softwares needed for project should be installed in personal desktops/laptops of the resources. Daily checkin/checkouts can be committed through VPN line or the code can be shared on project ftp server and someone in office can commit the same in SVN repository. Importantly, the client also needs to be educated that given the scenario, there might be some impact to the dates of the project.