Appa, please drive slow….

Our 4yr old daughter has acquired this awareness that if I ever drive a little faster, she would realize and tends to caution me. I am not sure how she got this attention these days, it is probably because she has observed a lot and started noticing cars pulled over the shoulder, and she has started recognizing the cars with a note “Police.”  She appears to be more concerned about 2 things:
a. be cautious so not hit anyone or anything
b. (in her words), police will come and take you away

We, as good parents, started explaining her the role of the police officers and not really have the false fear. Be proud of having those officers around who help the community be safe. The role helps the community, the children, the people around be safe from any adversities and accidents. Help people around if they need help on roads.

I believe she has started to have the sense of awareness and building up the sense of being cautious and go by the structured rules or lay out a plan/structure along the way. Well! I must admit, these things are only by her own will and not necessarily apply for everything, like throwing the play toys, books, and beads all across the house, until I say I am going to pack all these stuffs and put them in the garage.

Other cautious things she observers while driving:
a. mommy/appa, we should not drink (in our case water ) while driving
b. daddy are you looking at front while driving? please do not turn towards me while driving.
c. I don’t want to bump to another car or a curb.
and so on…

Host’s role in setting the stage…

it does really matter to have a great host in any events – specially for presentations. All this while until a few years ago, I thought Host/Hostess at the presentation would only introduce the speaker and end the meeting as appropriate. However, Hosts do a lot beyond this. What other things Hosts perform.

–> Ensure the lighting is right for both presenter and the host
–> ensure speaker’s accessibility needs taken care
–> welcome and greet both speaker and the guests as they enter
–> talk to few early birds at the meeting, about the speaker
–> when presenter is already inside the room, ensure to give all the time he needs and not steal away their time
–> Provide absolutely great credibility to the speaker. The way people listen to the presenter, most of the time, also depends on how the speaker was introduced at the first place
–> after speaker ends the presentation, make a decent transition to either another speaker or if the meeting is being ended, help speaker make a great exit from the podium and conclude as appropriate

I started thinking about these more and more due to a recent experience at one of the events. These are the things the Host did and it was very very distractive to the audience. Most people in the audience also expressed their (dis-)satisfaction after the meeting that the host was wasting a lot of time on podium.

1. Laptop computer: Being technical savvy is great. having a computer in hand might make you look great. But it was at the same time very distractive. She had her introductory lines typed in. I am not sure if she was promoting Apple mac-book there As she would come to the podium, she would also bring the computer over and try to adjust the microphone set so it doesn’t blocks her view to the computer screen. No, the computer was NOT used to project anything while she was at the podium. She would scroll down her notes, and apparently scroll down too much and not knowing where she had stopped and going back and forth before hundreds of people in the room.

oh, after introducing the speaker, the person would take the laptop aside and sit on the staircase and start doing something with computer again. I don’t know if that person realized, but since the room was dark except the podium spot, audience could see the host/hostess’ facial expression while being worked on the laptop computer there.

Moral: Technical gadgets are great, but ensure it does not distract you or the speaker and the audience

2. Being Nervous: Yes, not everyone was born with a boon of not having the stage fear. pretty much everyone has the butterflies in their stomach when they get on the podium. Audience was able to sense that the hostess was nervous a bit – and the self disclosure/disclaimer was also made about nervousness, but it doesn’t have to be told every few minutes the host/hostess is on podium. It only emphasizes more while he/she is on podium and takes away other thoughts and the flow while the nervousness keeps lingering in the mind and only those words are repeated over and over again.

Key: It is ok to disclose about nervousness once, but do not repeat the same again and again.

3. Time on Podium: Understood it is a great opportunity to be on stage before hundreds of people. But if you are a host, ensure you are not taking as much time as the speech would take. Do not spend too much time on the stage. K.I.S.S (Keep it Short and Simple)

5. Smooth Entry and Exit for speaker: Keep an introduction to an extent of providing positive credibility to the speaker and not make it pages and pages or hours and hours to it. Ensure there is an arrangement made to take the speaker from podium safely. There could be darker ambience towards the sides of the stage and speaker might need some help getting off from the bright light to the darker side.

6. Personal Stories: Give out your personal stories if it is appropriate or if it is absolute necessary and if you would like to share personal stories that provides credibility to the speaker, and your positive experience with the speaker or if it is some humor that you would like to share while speaker is on the way to the meeting, so that audience can be engaged with some entertainment.

7. Q&A: Facilitate question and answer session. At times Speaker might prefer to take questions offline and so mention about it. But do not take away the Q&A session and replace with your photo session with the speaker. Oh, Yes! this has happened at this recent event. Host was busy taking pictures with the speaker on the stage, and audience were left out, audience were disappointed for not having the Q&A session. Their response was, at least 2 to 4 questions would have been great instead of hosts taking pictures for 15 minutes on the podium. A short Q&A would have taken approximately about 10 to 15 minutes depending on the context.

It makes me think about these other perspectives now that I have been involved in Toastmasters program more and more and really helps to understand such Do’s and Don’ts for some of the meeting etiquettes.

Get to the Synergy of being first …

My 4yr old has learned about being First. So, now comes the conversation around this at home for pretty much every task we all get to right from the time we all wake up. And now a days she wants to wake up at 7am (or 7’ish). She would get upset if it is before or after. Well, in a way, her biological clock has been working that way for a past week now. she is mostly up either early 7am or around 7:45am. And here comes the challenge of here needing to sleep early, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t sleep until around 10pm or beyond, and that’s when she realized she would not be able to wake up around 7’ish if she sleeps late (well, that’s probably programmed by us, by saying she wouldn’t be able to wake up 7’ish if she doesn’t sleep early),

V: (not slept yet although feeling sleepy) what’s the time now?
Me: 10:40pm, 11:10pm (whatever it is at that time but certainly beyond 10)
V: now, she thinks about next morning – and with full of tears, “i wanted to sleep first to wake up at 7, now i would not be able to wake up at 7am” cries continues…
Mommy: consoling her – “it is ok, just sleep now and you can still wake up at 7am” .. and more consoling goes …
v- finally sleeps with having 7am in her mind …

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Being First: She wakes up around 7’ish, if she notice both parents are awake, then comes comes another problem. Scenario when I‘m still on bed and both mommy and daughter wake up around the same time. Now, V- wants to brush first than anyone else, V- wants to drink milk first. so all these starts through out the day, and several conversations happen around this context.

Well, what I have noticed in past few days is the SYNERGY that she is on to. She wants to be first, and at the same time she doesn’t want her parents to be last either, (thats probably because I started resonating her words of being first), so now it goes,

V: I‘m first
me: I wanted to be first this time
V: Thats ok, ‘m First-First, mommy is second-first, and you are last-first
me: what? (I go blank with wide eyes and mouth open, and trying to comprehend what she just said)
V: hahahaaahhaaaa !!

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Rounding Currency…

It is often interesting how the UI screen validation goes, and not all the scenarios completely thought of when the applications are released to public.  Here is an example, although my screenshot was taken a long time ago, it was misplaced and couldn’t get to it back then. Anyways, The minimum payment due on my account was $3/- while my statement balance due was $2.59/- Why should I pay $3/- when I owe less.

 

Agreed there are three options and I could choose to pay what I owe with the 2nd option and proceed further, but it is apparently misleading the customer saying “your minimum payment exceeds the amount you owe!”

another observation: why should the default be at the minimum payment Due when the statement balance is less. Agreed, there is a note “payment must be at least $1.00 and cannot exceed your current balance” , however it would be a better user experience if the default was set to statement balance when it is less than the Minimum payment due. I don’t know how MinimumPaymentDue calculated, it is probably at least $3.00 or percentage of the balance due. But this assumption conflicts with the note of “at least $1/-“

just a thought! There is an opportunity to improve in the way we communicate to the customers. The way build the relationship with customers. The way me make the life simpler to the customers and not complicate with unnecessary ambiguous messages we provide on our sites.

Technorati Tags: Software User Experience

Toastmasters: speech #10

wow! 9 speeches under Competent Communicator series are complete and one more to go to complete the Competent Communicator program with Toastmasters. I have been with Toastmasters.org for several months, it is really awesome that you would tend to learn so much about public speaking and moreover it also helps to gain the confidence and overcome the stage fear that we often develop as we grow up. Agreed, there are handful of people who fly out without any fear, but majority of us have those little butterflies in the stomach soon after we get on to the podium. Anyways, tomorrow is my 10th speech, and this will be part of a speak-a-thon that we have organized at our club. Series of speeches in a two-hour slot. this will be fun…

 

Technorati Tags: Toastmasters,Public speaking

Did We Miss It?

… There is always this notion in software/application development, that if a defect found in a phase after the previous phase, people in current phase are always looked as if something bad has really happened already, in a way, even before the complete analysis, we tend to take a decision as, “Did we miss it?” and several follow up questions pop up;

“Did we miss it?”
“Why did we miss this scenario? “
” How did we miss this scenario?”

and pretty much all “Wh” questions are posed and pointing the finger at you, essentially.

if there was something missed out in Functional document and defect passed down to Design/Coding phase, then it was missed by an analyst capturing the required information. Similarly, if a defect was found in User Acceptance or during the application deployment, then a test team has missed it – so they are the victims.

I think it is the question of Attitude and their Thought Process? Why would they always think that way? Why not look at the problem first and see WHAT can be done in that situation and then further analyze if the scenario or the defect was really missed or if it was due to something else? I think we need to grow up and stop blaming or pointing figures. We need to learn to be Pro-Active, we need to really Respond to the situation in hand rather React to it. 

Can you hear me… hellooo…

… I work with regional teams at work and obviously tele-conf calls have been a routine. Most people would tend to dial in from their computers which makes perfect for VOIP conference calls, however, I think there is still a lot of room for improvement in VOIP space, in terms of call quality, noise reduction, latency, etc. I have noticed that we often spend 10 to 15 percent of our 45minute conference call in –
> “Can you hear me?”,
> “you are breaking up”,
> ” you need to speak a bit louder please” ,
> “it is feeble” and so on…

and most funnier of all “Oh! sorry, I was on mute and the VOIP conf call window was lost on my computer” .. —> talk about multi-tasking going for mute/unmute option, conf call application gets hidden in bunch of other open applications on the computer.

Technorati Tags: VOIP,Communication technology

Surprise all day!…

One morning, a few weeks ago, 4yr old came up to my bed with a song – ” happy birthday to you…. happy birthday daddy, …. !! ” woke up with a surprise – she gave me a big bear hug.

We were about to head out to work/school, my wife said, she was going to be a little late to work and asked me to leave my cell phone, since her phone had stopped working the previous day. 

While at work, I didn’t go directly to my office, but worked from a different building to be able to get the work done and we were behind on our deliverables. I received few greeting emails from my team. Well, it was not usual in our team, but interesting to note the change. I received one IM enquiring about my lunch and if we could go out for lunch. I had to gracefully refuse since I had to catch up on my tasks. Not that i was excited about these, but a skeptic mind says, what’s happening?

Stopped by the school to pick up my daughter later that evening. My wife was at the school as well. We all came home, as I stepped in, it was so good to be surrounded by the aroma of ambode, sabbakki payasa and so on. Proceeding further, there was a beautiful wall note “Happy Birthday”.

 

 

 

 

  Hover my eyes around and noticed a beautiful cake on the dining table with strawberry toppings. (my 4yr old had picked up all the strawberries by the time i took this picture). It was a delicious home made cake.

Apparently L’ had taken a day off and prepared bunch of these for me. I was caught by a surprise.

So, that’s a “Cut the cake” moment. Happy Birthday song again.

 

While eating the cake, Mom and Daughter gave me a big box neatly wrapped with a gift wrapper and insisted me to open right away. Obliged and opened it and to my surprise that I had never expected, there were these. Although I knew about the shirt/trousers, but another little box hidden underneath was a fabulous Canon DigitalSLR Black – [link] my favorite, a toy that I have always been longing to buy, but never had made up my mind to buy one. 

 

 

 

 

     Linking to picture on canonxs-site: http://www.canonxs.com/canon_xs_files/canon_xs.jpg

 

 

 

 

Now the dinner time, apparently i don’t have the pictures of all the food, it was yumm.. delicious. On top of all these, there was also a plantain leaf, so we eventually had our dinner on a plantain leaf after a long time.   It is very rare that we find this leaf around here.
(picture from wikipedia: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/Lunch_from_Karnataka_on_a_plantain_leaf.jpg/230px-Lunch_from_Karnataka_on_a_plantain_leaf.jpg)