Awesome Mysooru City Dasara lightings

Today, I was home a bit early; had plans to go around the city to see the lights. My parents were waiting to join me. [Shruthi and Yashas are in Chickmagalur for Yashas's Dasara vacations :( ] On my way I picked my granny from her place and we all set out to view the lightings.

I saw the distant Chamundi hill's outlined lights. It was looking as though an elephant has kneeled down to carry Godess Chamundi on its back (could see the temple on the elephant's back) This was my imagination though, but the lights on the hill are splendid.

We followed the lights starting from JLB road (from Hyundai showroom) and we reached the City Railway station. I feel, this the first time the city has more lights than every before. The Railway station circle lights were very beautiful.
We entered the Sayyaji Rao road and this road was looking magnificent; five columns of serial lights were hanging over the road. It was truly a majestic feeling !!!!
Though its a Mysore road, the traffic made me feel as though I'm in Bengaluru !!! It took me 20 mins to reach the end of that road.

From there we crossed the palace, opp to Dasara Exhibition ground and reached Harding circle. We turned left and drove in front of the Balarama gate of the Palace. The circle lights (opp to town hall) were not so special so also the KR circle lights.

From there we headed towards DD Urs road. The showrooms on the road were specially decorated with disco lights and all kinda fancy lights !!! When I was heading back to JLB road, I remembered my friend telling me, therez a chaat mela at the Metropole hotel. I told my dad we can try out something and it would be fun to have chaats when its raining. When I went inside the hotel, I came to know that the chats would be served only between 5 to 8:30 PM and it was 8:40. With a disappointed heart (appetite rather) we came out of the hotel and headed towards Saraswathipuram.

We heartily ate at the road side chaatwaalah (my regular hang-out) and turned towards Kuvempunagar double road. The trees on the road were also lighted and the bright green light in the middle of each tree was an anomaly to a cherry on an ice-cream bowl :)

It was 9:20PM and we decided to head towards home. This drive was truly memorable to all of us :)
Heading back home, I was praying to God - On this Vijayadashmi, let everyone be Victorious over the evils like H1N1 and over this crazy recession !!!

Be Victorious !!!

Paperized with Papers

The literal meaning of Paperized is getting married, so you may ask me whoz marrying the papers ?!!
In India, many offices / people working in them cannot live without paper. Forget about govt offices, the so called ITans use paper for their referrrrenccce !!!
I'm working in an pvt IT co. (laid out in its factory campus) and people maintain papers in all the departments as RECORDS. You apply for leave on a paper, take permission to go out ('coz its a factory campus) on a paper. LTA application, make your travel claims, apply for additional hardware items etc etc ...all on papers !!!

Imagine even having so many automated systems at the office, finally you have to take printouts of the final FORM, get signatures from multiple people (on multiple copies for multiple departments) and submit !!!
Lets come to govt offices; the project I'm working on, is for govt utilities. Can you imagine the final output of the product? PRINTOUTs (filed) !!!! of all the reports generated from the system.
The govt office maintains all the reports (duplicated from the server database) in the records section. Off-course, the utilities want to produce some of the reports in the court (if required) as evidences. To avoid / prevent these people to take so many print-outs, we in turn tried to make convert the reports into records by providing digital signatures / date and time stamps with watermarks in the reports, so that the utilities can take printouts of the only the required reports (which would be used as evidences). But the utilities DO NOT care about this.
We are now trying to put more data in a single report (by changing the format of the reports) to avoid the reports spanning to multiple pages.

The IT revolution for creating automated systems and paperless offices remains a Myth (to some extent - I can say, atleast 50%).
Why we should care so much about this...
Here are some typical calculations on the number of trees cut to make the papers.
1 ton of uncoated virgin (non-recycled) printing and office paper uses 24 trees.
1 ton of 100% virgin (non-recycled) newsprint uses 12 trees A "pallet" of copier paper (20-lb. sheet weight, or 20#) contains 40 cartons and weighs 1 ton.
Therefore, 1 carton (10 reams) of 100% virgin copier paper uses 0.6 tree.

So now you can imagine the number of govt agencies, different departments are responsible for cutting trees / forests for their RECORDS

The only way I feel to stop this deforestation is by changing the attitude of these people, so that these people can change their way of working.

So next time you take a print-out, you do mind for the trees !!!

Try to unmarry / unpaperize the papers !!!

Matching behaviors

I am not sure whether this particular subject has been explored / discussed / debated upon. If not this might be a very interesting psychological subject. Though I am not a student of psychology, this particular subject fascinates me a lot. I’ve often observed and wondered when I see people having among commonalities in their physical appearance and their behavior.
You might agree with me on this that you have observed many people resemble each other on their looks / physical appearance. But have you observed they also resemble the behavior and attitude they carry!!!! Yes, it is true!!!! I have seen people resembling on their behavior and attitude.

If a person is a stranger to me… or recently if I have acquaintance with him / her…

I try to match his / her behavior with people I am close with or known from long time. This helps me a lot to predict the persons behavior and also guess his / her thinking.

Sounds interesting… explore more on this and let me know what YOU feel. Start matching the behaviors !!!!!

Make you team feel valued

How you manage your human resources and handle their conflicts and goals directly influences the company climate. When companies recognize employees by offering tangible rewards, the business becomes more productive and better at retaining talent. In addition, setting policies that make employees want to stick around is cost effective. Besides boosting profits, a stable staff cuts the costs of recruiting and training and avoids downtime and irate customers.

The route to making employees feel that they matter takes some attention, which, of course, will pay off for you. Here are some proven strategies:



Recognize the individual: Let each team member know that their individual contribution (how ever small) to overall output makes a difference

Be responsive:If you solicit ideas from your team members on any subject like team work or how to do a particular task in a different way, follow through. Don't just ask for feedback or suggestions and then simply ignore it. If you are unable to implement their suggestions, do explain them about it.

Tap your top performers as teachers: Have your team share their expertise by training or mentoring their colleagues Along with improving the skill sets of the team, this knowledge sharing will make the team member feel more important and valued.

Interact with the team:Once in a while stop and chat with your team instead of rushing through the door and immediately heading for your desk. This will go a long way in building rapport with your team.

Give comfort zone to your team mates:Create an environment of comfort and ease so that your team feels free to approach you. This will not only make you a popular leader by also inculcate team spirit.

Create an atmosphere of trust: Team members don't like secrets or surprises. Don't spring things on them or make changes without communicating first.

Don't turn into Super manager:Ask for help. Brainstorm with the team and ask for their input to solve problems or develop strategies. It might help take a bit more time, but you'll end up with a happier, more productive team as well as some great ideas.

Appreciate: Do appreciate your team members for their contribution. There is an adage - praise in public for reprimand in private. Reprimanding your team in front of other teams / managers can be counter productive.

Criticize the act, not the person: Do not criticize the person but criticize only the act like don't say you are unprofessional instead say the particular act is done in a very unprofessional manner. It will send the message without ridiculing the person.

All these acts would help you build a better and productive team :)