CSU India had an eventful offsite…

 

It’s a rarity to have the CSU team take time off their routine to do something together. We managed to do just that in CSU India Offsite and it definitely was worth the while. The amazing combination of Bowling, Bacardi and Biryani kept all the people engrossed for the evening.

                Aligning CSU team’s calendars to have them together was a task. We started with planning to have the event before Diwali and eventually it happened in the last week of October. After the location as Blu-O and menu was finalized, the team was given heads-up to clean their calendar for the evening of 31st October from 4:00 pm onwards.

          It was heartening to see people respond positively. CSU members rescheduled calls and tasks to reach the venue on time. We started with the “Happy Hours” and then moved to the star event for the evening – Bowling. With a dedicated area only for us, CSU team bowled through the evening. We found few stars in the blowing lineup, some with even 3 consecutive strikes!!! After, bowling people moved the other game options available i.e. Foosball and Snooker.

          Then started the main attraction for the evening Karaoke. People sang through the Hindi movie classics, some in tune and some out of sync too. However the spirits were never down and people sang with no qualms. The dinner was served and people had it at their own leisure. Karaoke continued to entertain people till late in the evening.

          The event had something for everyone who joined. From the quite snooker guys to the hyper active bowling ones, people found their liking in the event. It was a great way to kick-start the 2014 events for the CSU team and waiting for much more to come…

          A special thanks to Upendra Sahu and Menaga Pillay for organizing and making this event a huge success!!!

 

                                                    ~~Sanjay Ishwarlal Upadhyay

 

 

         

Let's Go Fly A Kite from Saving Mr. Banks

Let's go fly a kite
Up to the highest height!
Let's go fly a kite and send it soaring
Up through the atmosphere
Up where the air is clear
Let's go fly a kite!







Amazing Movie.. Amzing Song -->

"Let's Go Fly A Kite," a beautiful song from the movie "Saving Mr. Banks," originally featured in Mary Poppins by Walt Disney, composed by Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman.

Saving Mr. Banks movie is about Author P.L. Travers who gazes upon her childhood after reluctantly meeting with Walt Disney after avoiding him for years, who seeks to adapt her Mary Poppins books for the big screen. She remained unimpressed all the time until this song arrives.

Lyrics:
With tuppence for paper and strings
You can have your own set of wings
With your feet on the ground
You're a bird in a flight
With your fist holding tight
To the string of your kite

Oh, oh, oh!
Let's go fly a kite
Up to the highest height!
Let's go fly a kite and send it soaring
Up through the atmosphere
Up where the air is clear
Oh, let's go fly a kite!

When you send it flyin' up there
All at once you're lighter than air
You can dance on the breeze
Over 'ouses and trees
With your first 'olding tight
To the string of your kite

Oh, oh, oh!
Let's go fly a kite
Up to the highest height!
Let's go fly a kite and send it soaring
Up through the atmosphere
Up where the air is clear
Let's go fly a kite!

Diwali Explained

Diwali Explained

Diwali also known as Deepavali and the "festival of lights", is an ancient Hindu festival celebrated in autumn every year. The festival spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, good over evil, and hope over despair.

 
Below is the festival explained for the uninitiated:

 

Happy Diwali and a fantastic New Year Ahead :-)

Navratri Festival Explained

"Nava-ratri" literally
means "nine nights." This festival is observed twice a year, once in
the beginning of summer and again at the onset of winter.

What's the Significance
of Navratri?

During Navaratri, we invoke the energy aspect
of God in the form of the universal mother, commonly referred to as " Durga ," which literally means the
remover of miseries of life. She is also referred to as "Devi" (goddess)
or "Shakti" (energy or power). It is this energy, which helps God to
proceed with the work of creation, preservation and destruction. In other
words, you can say that God is motionless, absolutely changeless, and the
Divine Mother Durga, does everything. Truly speaking, our worship of Shakti
re-confirms the scientific theory that energy is imperishable. It cannot be
created or destroyed. It is always there.

Why Worship the Mother
Goddess?

We
think this energy is only a form of the Divine Mother, who is the mother of
all, and all of us are her children. "Why mother; why not father?",
you may ask. Let me just say that we believe that God's glory, his cosmic
energy, his greatness and supremacy can best be depicted as the motherhood aspect
of God. Just as a child finds all these qualities in his or her mother,
similarly, all of us look upon God as mother. In fact, Hinduism is the only
religion in the world, which gives so much importance to the mother aspect of
God because we believe that mother is the creative aspect of the absolute.

With pictures in the explanation below:

Ganesha Festival Explained 2014

Ganesha Festival Explained  for the unintiated...

How will I feel about the decision when today is over?

I wrote sometime back about making decision as aggregate... Hope you enjoyed that...

Today, while scanning through the net, I stumbled across a unique idea of decision making..

Asking yourself before you decide... How will I feel about the decision when today is over?

 

Interested??? Read On..  

The End of the Day Philosophy By Leo Babauta

I’ve been making my small decisions throughout the day, recently, with a simple question: How will I feel about this when today is over?

If I have a choice right now between reading social media and news articles, or writing, I know what the answer will be: at the end of the day, I’d be much happier if I’d chosen writing.

If I am faced with chips and pizza, I might be mightily tempted to eat them right now, but I know that later in the day I’ll be sorry I did. I inevitably feel bad after I eat greasy foods, though I always forget that before I eat the food.

At the end of the day, I won’t regret having spent a little time with my wife or kids, but I will regret watching videos online or wasting my time by playing games.

I won’t regret having done my workout, but I will regret sitting all day.

I’ve learned these answers through repeated observation, but you can learn your own answers by asking the question before you do anything, making a hypothesis (“I won’t regret this later”) and then seeing if you’re right by reviewing the results at the end of each day.

Have a daily review before you go to bed, even if it’s just a mental review. Were you right? Do you regret any of your choices? If so, don’t feel bad about being wrong — be happy that you’ve learned this.

Then make a better choice the next time.

What are you going to do next, after reading this? Will you be happy with that, at the end of this day?

Always remember what Bill Watterson said: ‘If your knees aren’t green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life.’



Actual article at: View article...

​If Barack Obama has time for Wellness so do you!

​

No matter how challenging your job may be, it is surely dwarfed by the pressures of the U.S. presidency.

Last week a video of Barack Obama went viral; in it we caught an intimate glimpse of the President working out early in the morning fighting back sleep and trying to keep his yawns at bay. The President was traveling abroad (jet lag anyone?!) and yet he awoke that morning determined to start his day with some “me-time”. Surely if the President of the United States has time for wellness so do you!

Facinating, Isn't it...

Read the Full Article Below by Leixa T. Molina

Last week a video of Barack Obama went viral; in it we caught an intimate glimpse of the President working out early in the morning fighting back sleep and trying to keep his yawns at bay. The President was traveling abroad (jet lag anyone?!) and yet he awoke that morning determined to start his day with some “me-time”. Surely if the President of the United States has time for wellness so do you!

What holds us back from investing in our health and making “me-time” a priority? We live in a technology-connected fast-paced world, trying to crunch-in our million to-do lists in a 24 hour period. We wake up tired and on auto-pilot ready to tackle the day ahead: Emails to answer, bills to pay, projects to complete, home responsibilities such as child or elder care…no wonder we feel overwhelmed. Yet we can not accomplish any of this without our health and well being, but more often than not, they take a back-seat.

So how then can we go from “want” to “do”?:

1. Map out your journey

What brings you joy? What inspires you, moves you or makes you smile? Be it spending more time with your kids, eating healthier or reading a book, think about what you would like to do and where you would like to be. Write it all down, clip pictures that motivate you, and map out your journey. Keep this “map” as your constant reminder and inspiration.

2. Chart the course

Yes I would like to run a marathon, sail around the world and grow my own garden, but not all are likely to happen; at least not all at once. Be realistic about your well-being and start with the basics: Scheduling that dental appointment you’ve been meaning to go to, calling your old roommate from college you just found on Facebook or checking a book out from the library. You don’t need to climb Mt. Everest, especially if you barely take the stairs at work. Start small but don’t lose sight of your long-term goals; you have a lifetime to accomplish them.

3. Embark on your well-being

Keep your map and charted course handy and make a “me-time” commitment AND a priority. Yes, you still have 500+ emails to read, errands to run and projects to complete, but actually having lunch away from your desk and turning off your smartphone for some technology-free time will make you even more productive! Your well-being is as important as any other item on your to-do list. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you must carve out that time, big or small. Cut yourself some slack, enjoy and celebrate your accomplishments, however minute they may be. These little things can bring you joy and help you continue down your Journey. Tweak your map as needed and enjoy the ride!

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140609004653-130302406-if-barack-obama-has-time-for-wellness-so-do-you?trk=object-title

Management Lessons from Football or Soccer

​If you are following Foot-ball world
Cup you'll know..

Football is arguably the most popular sport in the world. It
attracts millions of fans in and out of stadia. In some countries like Brazil
soccer is part and parcel of every day life. During the world cup the
atmosphere of the world changes to reflect what is happening at this major
sports event. When you look deep into the economics of football or soccer as
many calls it, you will realize that football is not only a game but a big
economic activity. Economists estimate that football is an industry worth
billions of US dollars.

Here is my tribute to the biggest show and a great sport:

Management Lessons from Football or Soccer

N’joi the world cup!!!

 ~~Sanjay Ishwarlal Upadhyay

Six Sigma Journey: Quality was never such fun

Six Sigma Journey: Quality was never such fun

 I just completed my Six Sigma Black Belt process improvement project. And contrary to the generic perception of Quality, it’s a lot of fun. 

Interested to know more. Read on...

 Jack Welch once said: “The big myth is that Six Sigma is about quality control and statistics. It is that—but it’s a helluva lot more. At Six Sigma’s core is an idea that can turn a company inside out, focusing the organization outward on the customer.”

The journey started like in May, 3 years ago when we had the 2^nd batch of Six Sigma training. The training highly instigated my engineering genes as we as engineers have a natural inclination for Statistics. The next step was selection of a project for process improvement. It was surprising to find that so many of processes were not yet base lined (i.e. we do not know the average time taken for the activities).  So I selected 2 processes that were a pain-point for Production Readiness (PR) Items and Cross-Release Merge Items.

What followed after, was the DMAIC rigor of Six Sigma which led to Statistical Analysis, Process Analysis, Brain storming and Solution implementation. DMAIC are 5 steps of Six Sigma being Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control.

Six Sigma Project #1:  Production Readiness (PR) Items:

The handling time of PR items was large at ~25 days and was not base lined at all. The delay in handling Production Readiness Items added additional risk to the Release deployment. He established the handling time bench-mark as Median at 23.806 days. The target now was to reduce this time by 10%.

The DMAIC efforts crystallized together and the rigor worked as it should leading to timeline gains. The outcome was the reduction in handling time of PR Items by 4.77 days i.e. 20.03 %( target was 10%). Also was defined the Control plan to sustain and exceed this reduction in PR items time. Reduction in PR Items turn-around time meant that we had better UAT testing of those items and lesser risk to production.

Six Sigma Project #2:  Cross-Release Merge Items:

            The original % of Cross-Release Merge items outside 7 days target of Turn-around time was 22.4% which poses potential risk to production and therefore needs to be reduced. The goal is to reduce % of Cross-Release Merge items outside 7 days TAT from 22.4% to 15% by April 2013.

          The DMAIC efforts  led to Reduce in % of Cross-Release Merge items outside 7 days TAT  from 22.4% to 9.3% (Exceeded target by 24%) leading to Saving of 1.14 MM/year.  Reduce in Cross-Release Merge items due to Versync CR - Saving of 2.42 MM/year and Total Ongoing Savings for Account of 4.60 MM/year

 

I urge people to go for the Six Sigma project, as not only is it a professionally enriching experience; it’s a lot of fun too J

Management Lessons from Narendra Modi's Victory

Anyone foloowing India's political scene will know:



The world largest democracy gave mandate to one and only Narendra Modi

A clear majority and full support to the new government..



Here is my tribute:



Management Lessons from Narendra Modi's Victory

​If President Obama Can Get Home for Dinner, Why Can’t You?

​If President Obama Can Get Home for Dinner, Why Can’t You?

No matter how challenging your job may be, it is surely dwarfed by the pressures of the U.S. presidency.

No matter how many vacations they take or how much they exercise, presidents seem to visibly age faster than other people; among the White House staff, there’s frequent talk of burnout leading to turnover.

The president-Obama has a strict 6:30 time for dinner with his family, and it’s pretty much inviolate.

Facinating, Isn't it...

Read the Full Article Below by Harvard Business Review by Dan McGinn

In her 2012 book “The Obamas,” New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor offers an unusually detailed account of how the Obamas tried to maintain a sense of balance even as they moved to Washington. They’ve maintained the same loyal network of friends, stuck to disciplined diet and exercise regimens, eschewed the Washington social scene to spend time with their children, and kept a raised eyebrow at some of the pomp and privilege that comes with the presidency. HBR asked Kantor what C-suite executives might learn from how the First Couple deals with one of the world’s most stressful jobs. Excerpts:

Your book contains rich detail on how hard the Obamas worked to preserve a sense of normalcy when they moved to the White House. Why was that so important to them?

I started covering the Obamas in 2007, so I watched their transformation. They very quickly went from being the sort of parents who dropped their kids off at school to being president and first lady. Their change in status was so extreme — normally in politics and in business, people rise slowly and pay their dues. When they got to Washington, they really tried to preserve as sense of normalcy, but that’s almost impossible in the White House, which is a combination museum, office, residence, and secure military compound. In the business world, even the most public CEO still has a place he or she can retreat to that’s out of the public eye. That’s not true for a president.

Today more executives avoid relocating their families when they change jobs, so we’re seeing more commuter marriages. In your book you note that until he moved to the White House, Obama had never lived full-time with his family.

That’s true — he’d commuted to Springfield and Washington as a state senator and U.S. senator, while the family stayed in Chicago. In fact, one of the most surprising things I found out while reporting the book was that Michelle Obama initially considered not moving to the White House in 2009 — she considered having their daughters finish out the school year in Chicago. To me that’s a story that shows both how naïve and how wise Michelle Obama was about the presidency. On the one hand, it was naïve to think the country would have accepted a commuter first lady. At the same time, it showed that even though Mrs. Obama was new to politics and to Washington, she instinctively knew that living in the White House was not going to be easy, and the demands on her family (including her children) were going to be enormous. While the business world does have the concept of the “corporate spouse” who may play an important role in social events, it’s still really unusual for a CEO’s children to become involved — they’re generally off the hook.

In 2012, Sheryl Sandberg told a reporter she leaves her office every day at 5:30 pm to get home for dinner with her family, and it started a big debate over how executives set limits on their workdays. What did you observe about how Obama sets limits?

One of the details in my book that people react most strongly to is that the president has a strict 6:30 time for dinner with his family, and it’s pretty much inviolate. He’s willing to miss dinner twice a week, but that’s it. That’s very unusual for a president. It limits his fundraising trips to the West Coast. It limits his outreach to Congress. I’m not suggesting that he’s remiss for not doing those things—I’m only noting it’s an unusual approach. For CEOs, I think it raises the interesting question of how far you’re willing to go [in setting boundaries]. Especially in light of CEOs’ outsized pay packages, is it okay to say ‘If it’s after 6:30 pm, I can’t do that?’

Sheryl Sandberg also says that choosing the right spouse is the single most important career decision someone can make. Do you see Michelle as unusually vital to Barack Obama’s career?

I don’t think Barack Obama would be president without Michelle, for both practical and psychological reasons. The practical reason is that he was a newcomer to Chicago who needed to become not just a politician, but a black politician in a new city. He had an unusual background and no roots there. Michelle Obama provided those roots when they married. From a psychological perspective, Mrs. Obama always had a very elevated sense of who her husband was. She talked about how he was not like other politicians, and that influenced his own self-image.

You provide vivid descriptions of the First Lady gently teasing the president, of “puncturing” the pomp around him. Why is this dynamic important?

One of the dilemmas of being the spouse of someone who has a ton of responsibility—whether it’s a president or a CEO—is knowing when you support and console, and when you speak truth to power. When your spouse comes home, you don’t want to say ‘I really think you could have handled that meeting differently.’ But on the other hand, you can have tremendous influence and arguably a moral duty to use it, to prevent or fix problems where you can. We have a whole literature about presidential marriages—we know a lot about the Adams, the Roosevelts, the Clintons—but I’ve never seen research into CEO marriages, and how spouses influence CEO decision-making. That could be a fascinating area for research.

Last year was especially difficult for the Obama administration. When things aren’t going well, do you have the sense that the president puts in longer hours, or is he able to maintain a sense of balance and perspective?

It’s really hard to tell. Aides are constantly trying to present an image of the president as cool and unruffled by what’s going on around him. At the same time, there is a sense that he works incredibly hard—for instance, he’s known to pull all-nighters, especially when writing big speeches. The bigger question for me isn’t the workload but how presidents deal with the psychological pressure. The decisions they make are just so monumental, particularly during times of war and economic struggle. So many of us worry about having an outsized degree of anxiety about jobs where the stakes are relatively low; what can learn from people who’ve served in really high office?

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/03/if-president-obama-can-get-home-for-dinner-why-cant-you/

Whom Will you Vote For ?

I recently asked my friends’ little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up.
She said, “I want to be the PM of India”.

Both her parents, staunch Congressmen, were standing there.
So I asked her, “If you were PM, what would be the first thing you would do”?
She replied, “I’d give food and houses to all the homeless people”. Her parents beamed.

“Wow...what a worthy goal”, I told her. “But you don’t have to wait until you’re PM to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, sweep my driveway, and I’ll pay you Rs.500. Then I’ll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the Rs.500 to use for his food & house re-building.”

She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the Rs.500 directly”?

I said, “Welcome to the BJP”.

Her parents still aren’t talking to me.

Why social media “likes” say more than you might think...

I love TED talks and this is one of the reasons Why

Why social media “likes” say more than you might think??

Much can be done with online data. But did you know that computer wonks once determined that liking a Facebook page about curly fries means you're also intelligent? Really. Computer scientist Jennifer Golbeck explains how this came about, how some applications of the technology are not so benign — and why she thinks we should return the control of information to its rightful owners.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_golbeck_the_curly_fry_conundrum_why_social_media_likes_say_more_than_you_might_think?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TedtalksHD+%28TEDTalks+HD+-+Site%29

 

 

This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxMidAtlantic 2013, an independent event.

By Jennifer Golbeck

Computer scientist

As the director of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland, Jennifer Golbeck studies how people use social media — and thinks about ways to improve their interactions

 

<iframe src="http://embed.ted.com/talks/jennifer_golbeck_the_curly_fry_conundrum_why_social_media_likes_say_more_than_you_might_think.html" width="854" height="480" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>

 

 

Do let me know if you went and liked the curly fries page on Facebook to prove  you're also intelligent :-D

 

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Curly-Fries/155822071102492

 

 

Amdocs India Wins 2014 Global CSR Excellence & Leadership Award

Great Acheivement!!!



Amdocs India Wins 2014 Global CSR Excellence & Leadership Award

Social Media Lessons from Rise of Aam Aadmi Party AAP

​Social Media Lessons from Rise of Aam Aadmi Party AAP

Anyone who has been following the political climate in India would know,

the metorical rise of new Aam Aadmi Party, popularly known as AAP.

What contributed to the Rise...

Have a look :-)

A day off Grid…

A day off Grid…

                Sounds like a Si-Fi movie title doesn’t it… Let me assure you it’s not. It’s actually what we as normal people could do on a regular basis. Every day we are surrounded by enormous number of electronic connected gadgets which track each of our moves from the time we are awake to when we sleep.

          The day starts with checking mails on Black-berry to social contacts-Facebook, Twitter etc. on iPad or iPhone. The calendar of activities is managed by calendar in either phone. The daily calls for personal/work aspects starts early morning and does not end till late night. So much are we dependent on these machines (read smart phones) that we won’t even leave for lunch on time if the reminder for the same does not appear.

·         So, what are we proposing? Simple aspects… Leave the reliance on the smart phones for a day and go “Off Grid” 

·         How do we do it? Simple… On a non-critical week-end i.e. when you do not have production of UAT crisis, simply switch off the phones and enjoy life…

·         Shocked!!! Does this idea sound shocking or revolting to you, then it is just right for you.

 

As revolting as the concept might seem, there is a wide-spread acceptance like: National Day of Unplugging

You can watch videos of the same at:

·         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUIZx3OWZh4

Or

·         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LReU9FSeyzc

Try it… It will give you time to do things you craved for in life like reading a paper-back, or spend time with your kids or loved ones…

Try it once and I’m sure it will change the way you look at your smart phones!!

I have Learned...

I've learned... By Paulo Coelho
Compiled By Sanjay Ishwarlal Upadhyay

Bitcoin Explained

Bitcoin Explained...

Bitcoin is the new buzzword now a days..

For the uninitiated, below is an amazing explanation and video

Bitcoin is a proof of knowledge peer-to-peer payment network and digital currency based on an open source protocol. Bitcoin was introduced in 2009 by pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin is called a cryptocurrency as it uses public-key cryptography. When paying with bitcoin, there will be no exchange of digital notes or tokens between buyer and seller. Instead, the buyer requests an update to a public transaction log, the blockchain. This master list of all transactions shows who owns what bitcoins currently and in the past and is maintained by a decentralized network that verifies and timestamps payments. The operators of this network, known as "miners", are rewarded with transaction fees and newly minted bitcoins. Bitcoin makes use of a public transaction log which makes it easy to trace transactions

A short video looking at 'Bitcoin', a decentralized digital currency.

Directed, Designed and Animated by Duncan Elms - duncanelms.com

Written and Voiced by Marc Fennell - marcfennell.com

This project was done between other jobs. Therefore some of the stats are not up to date. For more info please see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin