Category Archives: management

LEAP Motion – my final comments

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I am one of those early adopters who was very excited about the LEAP Motion technology and the potential. I started playing with LEAP on August 14th 2013 and finally i returned the device today. LEAP Motion is a good device but probably not for me at this time.

Here are top 3 reasons for me to return the device.

1) Free Apps: There are 23 Apps on the LEAP App Store (called AirSpace) for both Windows and Mac. I would not use some of them and I don’t want to buy apps. I have spent $70+ for the device and I am not ready to pay for the Apps. My favorite game “Fruit Ninja” is $2.99 on Windows. Unfortunately, in the era of the iOS and Android Apps ecosystem, I never paid more than $.99 for an App. I enjoy most of the Apps for FREE. In that context, paying anything more than $.99 is a burden on me.

I believe LEAP (or partners) should have created more Apps before this launch. I like to explore but without lot of FREE Apps, my options are limited.

2 )New HCI Paradigm : Of course, LEAP is all about the new human computer interaction that potentially creates multiple opportunities. It took me a while to get used to the hand gestures and how i control the screen.

No wonder, Steve Jobs is the genius to understand the users as well as the business sense when he introduced the iPhone and iPad. The user interaction is pretty intuitive, starting from 2 year old kid to 90 year old grand ma. The usage of the finger to accomplish any task on iPhone/iPad is the trick. Everything just works.

With LEAP Motion, I was not able to get the same intuitiveness and it just feels odd. Also, i work mostly on the laptop and it becomes very cumbersome to keep Leap on your lap and do hand gestures. Perhaps this is designed for people using the desktops.

3) Usecases : After playing couple of FREE games, I did not know what ELSE to do. Can i control my whole Windows 7 experience? probably not. Unless, i launch the AirSpace to start the App, I cant not do anything. Perhaps, I may have tried to explore more if i had more Free apps????

So ???? : As a Computer Science engineer and a MBA, LEAP Motion is freaking cool technology and has some cool usecases. Usage of the cameras, infrared sensors to create the 3D space and manipulating the apps is great. But, I (as a user) was not too sure what i can do with this device.

I would definitely imagine there are lots of use cases in the 3D modeling space. Especially in the Construction Industry, this can be used to do the BIMs (building information models) and model them collaboratively. I can also imagine the use of LEAP Motion in Education/Schools/Medical Schools, for kids to touch and interact with the virtual body parts. In addition, they can build great FREE Apps for kids. My daughter would love to interact with the objects in the air and dress up Dora and all her favorite princesses.

I will definitely re-visit LEAP in couple of months and hopefully I can find some compelling usecases. But for now, it’s not for me!

Gesture Recognition Leap In Action Leap Motion App Gallery

Now you have an MBA. So what? and what’s next ?

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This is a classic question many people kept asking me in the past 3 months. Its a frustrating question to react to but a very valid question that must be answered by every graduate. Some people asked my directly on how i am going to use my MBA at work and others asked me very politely that they assume that I have a promotion or a pay rise in the coming months. Many felt there is no use of my MBA degree if i don’t do that “next” thing. This blog is like my journal and I thought of reflecting some thoughts on the big question of what’s next.

Why I did my MBA : 

  1. As a technology guy with computer science background, I worked in various industries and not always understood how it “all worked together”.
  2. I had no idea why economists, accountants, financial analysts and statisticians are critical to businesses and organizations. As silly as it may sound, I never understood difference between Accounting and Finance topics 🙂
  3. I could talk and think about the technology and i felt it might give me a good chance to succeed if I knew how to talk and think business.
  4. I could not make much sense of the technology, business models, innovation, customers, markets, international marketing, micro and macro economics, marketing mix, M&A, org. behavior, HR and CRM.
  5. I had 2 opportunities to go independent and start a company and i did not have the confidence to do so (and of course, i did not understand if MBA would help)

What I learned from my MBA :

  1. Think; Decide; Do it; Get the results; Learn; Move on.
  2. How to ask right questions and connect the dots with the answers.
  3. I don’t need to have all the answers but i should know all the people who can answer my questions
  4. How you decide and what you decide are equally important. Use the right set of tools and methods appropriately and practice the decision making process repeatedly.
  5. A right or wrong decision is not absolute. Decision making process is relative to what information, data and goals you have at that time.

Is it worth it ?

It could be a million dollar question. But to make it simple, i would say an affirmative and positive YES. When i look at what I learned in my MBA class, they are applicable to personal as well as professional life. They build confidence that I know how to connect the dots and problems can be solved one way or the other.  While the take home lessons from an MBA degree could be different to different people, I think its mostly to do with how you apply your lessons from MBA and make them a habit in life.

“Knowing and not doing is not knowing”

Not talking too technical here, I feel, I can better analyze and solve problems, find my way out, understand the power dynamics, understand the customers and markets that everyone serves to.

So what ?

This question is hard to answer. If a third person does not feel a difference with you before and after MBA then there is a problem. The problem many people face is when they try to “showoff” business degree knowledge when they talk to others. Instead, i have seen many successful people who mixes business knowledge and human touch to the problems.

Hopefully the MBA graduates do better in their jobs and think about the business responsibility to the society. Ultimately prevent any future Enron, Worldcom, Freddie Mac and likes and hurt the confidence on the economic systems in our society.

What’s next ? 

I have no idea at this point of time on what’s next. I am currently on vacation in India and really not thinking about this next thing in my career. But i am sure I will think about it eventually and do something. I still don’t know what, why and where. I have lots of unanswered questions. While this phase of my life is the most difficult and frustrating one, this probably has meaningful end result.

“Keep looking and don’t settle” 🙂

I definitely hope to write a Update to this story and see “What i did next ?”

Is it love or branding?

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I have been stacking up the iPhone and iPad packaging for a while. Each time I take them to throwaway, I am so in love with the packaging, I keep them back. That’s called Branding and emotional attachment 🙂 How can companies make products and dreams that would make you keep the packaging? The more I think about it, the more I appreciate Apple to lead the way for other retailer and tech companies.

For any product manager, this is a very complex problem to solve and everyone wants to live up to create that brand. In my view, there are couple of things that Apple does very effectively.

  • Focus on 80% of the use cases and find simple solutions (not on the other 20%)
  • Manufacture the need and love for users (be it iPhone or iPad)
  • Do something audacious (market research is not always the answer. Market research can only provide ways to incremental innovation)
  • Provide integrated marketing experience (emails, Apple Stores, Apple Website, TV Ads, Billboards, Blogs)
  • Provide the human aspect of the problem (and don’t focus on the product itself)
  • The end-to-end user experience counts (product information, demo, packaging, website, buying process, insurance, warranty, service and others)
  • Provide use cases that user has not thought about (provide endless possibilities and make customer appreciate the design and thought process that has gone into the product)

I follow Google very closely and I use many internet products from them. I think What Apple if for Hardware, Google is for Software. I really hope there are more companies who takes care of the customers, design and the integrated experience.

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Be mindful of types of people and behavior in your life!

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People are people! We deal with variety of people in our community, work place, family, friends and many other random places. While we know some people close enough to get around the unpleasant nature, with others we get into trouble because of unmet expectations. A topic of interest for me is how people behave and why they behave in a certain way.

Why should you care? Each of our tolerance levels vary and we all are vulnerable to ill treatment by others. We want others to treat us with respect and dignity and vice verse. While we can not totally avoid “bad behavior” people, realizing them early in the game helps us to minimize the losses (emotional, psychological and economic).

Below is a summary of types of people that I encountered. Of course, some people might have a mix of several characteristics embedded in them, but for the sake of clarity, I want to distinguish each. If you see other types of people not in this list, please contribute. I want to learn too.

1) People who are always with you no matter what happens to you
2) People who are with you only when you are happy (or celebration time)
3) People who are always with you when you are in need. These people give you emotional help. They are there with you days and nights when in need.
4) People who are always with you and want to see you regress (or downfall)
5) People who are praying for your downfall from behind you; You don’t see them. But they are watching you.
6) People who puts you in trouble. They are smarts who always know how to escape a situation to put you in the hot seat.
7) People who brings you out of trouble. These people differ from #3. They suggest you what to do and may also work with you to bring you out of trouble.
8) People who praise before you and bitch about you from behind. These are dual personality people who you would not even think tal bad about you. But shit happens.
9) People who always hates you no matter how nice you are to them. Dont know why but they are there.
10) People who think you are good and want to see you grow personally and professionally. They believe in you and they stand by you.
11) People who are role models for you in some categories of life.
12) People who use your relationship (with them) to get their work done. They neither like you nor hate you but you are a means to their end 🙂

Surprisingly there are many good people who pass around the positive aura. So, don’t get depressed about negative people. Remember that just you being positive is not enough and will not sustain for a long time. You need to choose your company (of people) wisely.

Stick to your values; Be Happy; Do Good;

Startups in India – a report

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A country’s culture and background (a predictor of course) pretty much decides the direction of the growth in this modern world. India is a risk-averse country and people are not ready to take risks. The younger generation is coming out being more entrepreneurial but still it lacks the big impact on the society. I only wish that the politics and government policies become more open to embrace the modern infrastructure and standard of living. This will hopefully encourage the brain drain and helps smart people to stay back and for Indian origin people elsewhere in the world to go back to India. I am hopeful!

Below is a wonderful study and results on the Startups in India.

UC Davis GSM : Classes that made a difference to me!

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OK, now I am done with my MBA, many current students asked me about my personal preference of classes at UC Davis GSM. I have posted all of them in “UC Davis Class FAQs” and for those who like to see it in a single place, see below 🙂

Markets and the Firm (Victor Stango) – I never studies economics before and Victor brings in many many practical examples in the class from various industries. I only wish it was a case study based class but never the less, his class really was my foundation for future classes and I apply the basics everyday.

Data Analysis for Managers (Roger Edelen) – Simply put this is a statistics class. But with a twist of how to represent the numbers in spreadsheets and present it to senior management. I like the practical aspect of using the spreadsheets and getting things done. Don’t miss the Bayesian concepts : it just becomes so important as a manager.

Organizational Strategy and Organizational Behavior (Gina Dokko) – Covers the fundamentals of the strategy and human behavior and biases. This class is case oriented and this makes it much more lively and enjoyable. Everyone in the class has a different opinion. That’s OK. There is tons of reading and there is a lot to learn in this class. In my view, this strategy class is foundation for anyone going into (or planning) general management.

Negotiation in Organizations (Joseph Radzevick) – Negotiations is part of everyday life and this class makes you aware of various techniques. Irrespective of who is teaching this, the material and the class interactions makes it worth. At least when i took it, every class had at least 2 negotiations with fellow members using the techniques that i learned in previous class. I highly recommend (again, if you don’t practice it’s of no use).

Mergers and Acquisitions (David Petroni) – My time and money was well worth for this class. David is a industry veteran with a lot of M&A experience and brings in the financial, organizational, cultural, legal and industry aspects to M&A. He brought in many speakers who lived through M&A and that was very insightful. Most interestingly, I was involved in two M&A teams after that.

Executive Leadership Seminar (Jim Wundermann) – This class is very different compared to what we have in GSM. This class has two parts to it. First part is to make you realize your strengths and leadership style. Second part is that you get a perspective on various industry leaders. CEOs from various industries (DELL WYSE, PG&E, Virgin America, Silicon Valley Bank, Citi Bank California, etc…) talk about their leadership challenges and experiences and you get a chance to ask them questions too.

Product Management (Marcus Lowe) – This class needs a *lot* of work. Pick a good group that you can work with. This is a highly analytical and quantitative class and a must for anyone who wants to do product marketing, product innovation (R&D) and new product introductions. Though i do product management for work, the markstrat simulation puts you in various phases of product life cycle that one many not always gets exposed to.

Multi-Channel Marketing (Rubel, Olivier) – Olivier is very knowledgeable and one of the very few professors who presses you to think “as a decision maker”. I have got a lot out of his multi-channel marketing class.

International Marketing (Peters, Kay) – This is a very interesting class for people working with international firms and looking for global expansion of products. This is a one unit class and Kay provides a wonderful framework to think about the international product marketing. This could be a three unit course and get into more details of the nuances of the international marketing.

Technology Competition and Strategy (Hemant Bhargava) – People get what they want to get out of this class. Due to the inherent nature, the class discusses a lot of technology companies and products. This is a must class for anyone building the technology products in startups or corporations. The modern nature of the platforms (internal or external) and network effects makes it much more challenging for the survival of the technologies and this class addresses exactly that. This class provides a framework to think about when building products. Its difficult to appreciate this class if you have not faced any challenges to promote your product or standard in your firm.

UC Davis GSM – Incoming class 2012 – Student Panel

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Today I was at UC Davis Graduate School of Management San Ramon campus as a part of the Student Panel for the incoming class. I was part of the student panel addressing their questions and advising them on the 3 year journey.

Below is summary of my advise to new students.

=> Priotize, Focus and Act – Beginning of the MBA program we all want to do our best and get all A grades. Soon you realize that it is important to balance life and not go crazy about your grades. Make sure that you choose the important tasks in your life and prioritize them. Focus on the tasks and make sure your act on them.
=>Your MBA grades does not matter. No one is going to ask for your overall grade for a job. As long as you are learning and applying the concepts at work, you will do wonderful.
=> Make sure that you are doing MBA in a good eco-system. You boss or your super boss should not see you as a threat. If they do, thats going to be end of your career. Be careful in the way you message based on your boss.
=> Work for an organization that values your MBA. If your present organization does not value your MBA, then move on. Life is too shot. You dont wnat to convince them.
=> Before convincing your family and peers at work, convince your self about MBA. It must have a strong reason for doing MBA. Dont do it just to get a raise or a promotion.
=> Make sure that you let your family and friends know about the expectations. Your readings, assignments and group discussions take time and your people should know about it. Make use of technology – use google calander and share it with your spouse.
=> Relax – You are going to go through this journey for the next 3 years. Dont stress. Make it fun for yourself and family.
=> Keep in mind the end goal. You are going to get the MBA degree at the end of these 3 years. Hopefully you learn a lot and meet wonderful people.
=> If you have too many things happening in life, make use of the short break between each quarter. Go for a 2-3 day break away from your daily routing and just focus on your family. It helps a lot to bring back sanity to your life.

5 simple questions for a better Feature Prioritization.

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A major part of #productmanager ‘s daily life involves a lot of communication, decision making and feature #prioritization among many. With multiple product lines and time pressure, the feature prioritization decisions could become very subjective.

Here are the 5 questions every #productmanager should ask before making a decision.

– Is there a lost revenue if this feature is NOT made ?
– Is there any other opportunity that is more worthwhile than doing this ?
– Did customers ask for this ?
– Does this capability bring you #differentiation in the market ?
– Is the benefit of developing this capability > the cost ?

As +Prod Mgmt group, do you have any other suggestions ? Any other best practices ?

Google TV – Customer’s Dilemma [Updated]

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I am planning to do the below Market Research for my Marketing class. Any takers ?

Topic : “Google TV – Customer’s Dilemma”
Abstract : Every year $70 billion is spent on the ads alone in US and 4 billion users world wide. Google TV integrates the traditional TV and Internet for a seamless user experience. With ever increasing user generated video content on the internet, Google TV would like to capture the ad $ by marrying the TV an Internet. In October 2010 Google inters the market via hardware vendors Logitech and Sony. Soon enough, customers are thrilled about the capabilities and at the same time they are confused thinking where does the Google TV fit into their current home entertainment.
In this market research and presentation, we will focus on the various aspects where Google, Logitech and Sony would have done better to segment and position the Google TV.

I will post the research results by the end of March 2011 for sure.

Below is the update on March 4th 2011. This presentation is done at the UC Davis marketing class by my group.

Does your Bank make you happy ?

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Do these Banks and Financial Institutions make you happy ? They are such a suckers… aren’t they ?

I got a PayPal credit line for $500 in June 2010 and they raised my credit line to almost 5X and here is the message i got in the statement.

They talk about the PURCHASE POWER delivered to YOU. It is assumed that YOU also understand the PAYBACK PERILS.

Which means, i can buy more and increase my debt… if i miss a payment – they charge more and a lot more…

Wow… thats the defunct fundamental of Economics that says…

Consumers want to be Happy;

Business wants to make Money.