U Me aur Hum

To cut it short, its better if you see The Notebook instead. Well, it was a Saturday night and we desperately wanted to see a movie on the Sunday ... considering my last movie was an abysmal movie, I had to get over that one.

So off we went for the movie, and lo behold ... Fame Adlabs gives a decent price off on the morning show, black leather sofa seats (lazyboys baby!!) at a cool 100 bucks.

The movie starts on a pretty decent note, with some good acting by Ajay Devgan and most notably Kajol. The funny part is that I do not have the slightest idea how the movie ends.

PS - Please see this movie with a loved one.

The bigger they are ...

I have hit the mother lode here ... the jackpot. Till the last month, I was convinced that I was a very logic oriented fellow, and the big L word will never happen to the likes of me ... I had decided to use only my mind and only that for all the decisions of my life.

Until recently, when I fell head over heels for that someone special in my life :-)

More will follow. Till that time, you can page me on 9th heaven.

You are what you listen

Do you identify with your genre of music?

What I mean to say is that when you are listening to a particular genre or an artiste, then do you feel the emotion of that song within you?? Sometimes I think that most of the bands which have shot to fame are not simply because they write good melodies or great lyrics ... its because their target group can identify with the emotion underneath the song.

Do you not want to listen to a specific genre depending on your emotion?

Think about it in this way ... a fan of Marilyn Manson, would most likely be wearing gothic makeup, would have had a troubled teenage life, feels unduly wronged ... a fan of DJ Tiesto or Paul Oakenfield would love to dance to a good tune and definitely loves a smooth life ... Linkin Park listeners would have a pent up frustration within themselves, occassionally wanting to shout out against the system. Or have I wrongly analysed the situation?

So whats your groove?

69

This is my 69^th post.

And it has been a fubar day so far.

Ironic, no?

Pink Slip!

Our recruitment advertisement that we had put in TOI got the Pink Slip Award for best recruitment ad. Kudos Ethames!!

Customer Orientation

One day after a good satisfying lunch, Don and I hitched an autorickshaw back to our office. The road on which we got the ride is a one-way and the autowallah was reluctant to come along, saying that his children will have to wait. We assured him that we knew a shortcut (that we did), and we would walk the rest of the way ensuring that he gets to his kids on time.

On seating in his auto, I noticed seat belts (yes, seat belts!!) on both sides of the auto. In Hyderabad, upto 6 children are allowed inside an auto. So, in order to maximize revenues, a lof of these drivers have put in a small wooden bench on the opposite side of the seats. This one was cushioned, and to take the cake with a seat belt. Although I seriously wonder, which thin kid must be seating in that position. Watching this, we decided to strike a conversation with the driver. The chappie was a friendly fellow who seemed to be genuinely concerned about the kids.

In a market, where the customer is the king, how many service providers really go the distance and take pains to ensure that the end-customer is happy? The autowallah in this case has gone a step further than norms (and peers) and has tried to re-assure the customers (the parents) about the safety of his end-customers (the children). If the driver can do it, then why oh why cant all the bigger service providers follow suit?

Google meets Salesforce

Just came across this.

Now Google Apps premier users can avail of the famous Salesforce CRM, at a nominal price of course. Its an alliance of sorts to stave of the big bad monster from taking on the individual firms. To be honest, it is a one place solution for a lot of SMEs for a simple and yet effectively managed enterprise system.

Effectively, Salesforce and Google Apps are combining their users for a joint Go-To-Market, adding more value each other's product offerings. De factor internal messenger for this would be the Google Talk gadget, which works like a charm.

For Google Apps basic users, who know that paying $60/user/year is slightly over their IT budget, they can use SugarCRM which comes absolutely free of cost!! Knowledge of XAMP is solicited before going ahead with SugarCRM.