choose yourself – AppiVa Software Pvt Ltd

September 20, 2019

Task Management and WhatsApp

Effective Task Management Process and WhatsApp

Recently there is a growing trend to use whatsapp collaboration as a task management app. I was talking to one startup that deals in delivery services, they have around 40 employees and they have 20 whatsapp groups to manage coordination among employees and delivery persons for successful delivery of products to consumers. I asked them how do you manage such big number of groups? They said, though they have problems in managing all groups but they don’t have any alternative. Hence, the problem is can WhatsApp be used for managing tasks? This is not the problem with this company but others too.

A task management needs to have a todo with time, a task and then a supervisor and owner who needs to see if task is completed. A task also need to remind the owner just before task started. For a group task, it needs to remind all participants and help them communicate with each other like whatsapp does. Whatsapp is a communication platform and it used to communicate between people. And one part of task management process is to have an effective communication and thats where whatsapp comes into but the core of an effective task management process is not only communication but also timely reminder, monitoring too. The good part with whatsapp is that number of people using whatsapp quite quite large, that makes it a de facto way of communication and collaboration. You can communicate with people immediately who is on whatsapp and has net connection. It does not give you reminder or snoozing the task. It also does not give you freedom to repeat the task. With growing trend of using for a task collaboration among people is self detrimental, it makes more complex. Objective of any task manager app is to save time, collaboration effectively and timely reminder. It needs a specialized application that would help on these activities. Whatsapp would be solving on portion i.e. communication, but other factors those are more important in execution are completely missing. In fact by using WhatsApp for team collaboration is not going to help in long run. Instead of optimizing time, it would lead to spending more time managing tasks. If any communication has some important information then user need to search and there is a high chance that you miss it giving the volume of data exchanged in whatsapp.

The other important factor that I feel which is missing from whatsapp’s feature list is real time status update and push notification whether a task is completed or not. If a task has multiple subtasks and you have shared the task with your peer and need to get real time status update on sub tasks then you need to better use a task manager that would help you on this. And planning is completely missing.

In summary, for a better planning, collaboration, communication and execution you need to use a task manager that gives you these features, instead of using a communication tool like whatsapp.

June 12, 2019August 13, 2019

A tale of two trees

This post will tell you how the environment and your immediate surroundings have great impact on your growth and well being. Many times, we think that we are independent and we are not bothered about happenings in our surroundings. But this is not true, we are nurtured by our environment, friends, neighbors and surroundings. My office at Diamond district, Bangalore is almost 500 mts from the place where I park my car. I have to walk through a busy surrounding of offices, footpath vendors to my office.

Recently BBMP or some local people, not sure has planted some saplings in the footpath. This is indeed a noble work. The green cover of Bangalore is depleting in a alarming rate and such initiatives in large scale would definitely help in bringing back lost glory of beautiful weather of Bangalore. I everyday cross two cassia sapling on my way. One of the cassia sapling was planted opposite to a wine shop- top left side plant and another cassia sapling was planted opposite to a tea stall where people from nearby offices come, spent time smoking, gossiping. In the beginning two plants were growing properly, and we quite healthy – for first 2 weeks. The plant opposite to tea stall is always poured with water, no litigation, grows properly. As you can see the plant opposite to wine shop, neither there are water and people also took out the remaining leafs. Some other day, some one has broken its branch. So the point is our growth and wellness is heavily influenced by our surroundings. Most people come to wine shop – an open bar are mostly daily workers, rickshaw pullers and I can see some time there are altercations, some people even out of sense lying in the footpath. They might have broke the plant, plucked leafs. Where as, the other tea stall has people from nearby offices, blue collar/ white collar executives. They understand the importance of a tree at current situation, that helps to pour some water and the plat grows. Similarly, One need to be with good people. That not only increases the effectiveness of your collaboration with your surroundings but your growth too. Collaboration is always two sided and equally participated by both. If you cannot take care of a poor plant why should you expect anything in return be it oxygen or shed from sun.

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June 4, 2019

How to be successful: stop these 7 things

I come across this post from linkedin. As an entrepreneur, we keep on doing things like to please others, keep following people, though they never care – These are just waste of time. We need to have our own way of doing things and we should not be a story of someone else’s pen. Let it be our pen to write our story.

I could not stop myself than adding all points in my blog.

7 things to STOP right now if you want to be SUCCESSFUL. Get that JOB and KEEP it ! 1. Stop being loyal to people who are not loyal to you.

2. Stop worrying what people think and say about you – hardest lesson to learn.

3. Stop trying to please everyone because you can’t.

4. Stop reacting and start responding” – Buddha – another hard lesson to learn !

5. Stop wasting time on people who do not care, there are so many who do – lost money can be found, lost time is lost forever !

6. Stop letting others dictate how you should live your life – “When writing the story of your life don’t let anyone else hold the pen” unknown

7. Stop doubting yourself. Don’t think you deserve the job ? Apply anyway. Don’t think you will do well on the interview – go to it anyway ! Don’t think the recruiter will respond to your email ? Send it anyway – do not self-reject. Failures do not kill dreams – doubts do.

September 20, 2018January 17, 2022

Managing Disruptive Technologies in business

Disruptive Technology

Every company in every industry works under certain forces—laws of organizational nature—that act powerfully to define what that company can and cannot do, a well salary for employer is one of those thing that companies have to deal with, if you are business owner you can follow this tips to make sure you are paid well. Managers faced with disruptive technologies fail their companies when these forces overpower them. Lets take a look at history of manned flight innovation. The ancients who attempted to fly by strapping feathered wings to their arms and flapping with all their might as they leapt from high places invariably failed. Despite their dreams and hard work, they were fighting against some very powerful forces of nature. No one could be strong enough to win this fight. Flight became possible only after people came to understand the relevant natural laws and principles that defined how the world worked: the law of gravity, Bernoulli’s principle, and the concepts of lift, drag, and resistance. When people then designed flying systems that recognized or harnessed the power of these laws and principles, rather

than fighting them, they were finally able to fly to heights and distances that were previously unimaginable.

As in the analogy with manned flight, these laws are so strong that managers who ignore or fight them are nearly powerless to pilot their companies through a disruptive technology storm. However, that if managers can understand and harness these forces, rather than fight them, they can in fact succeed spectacularly when confronted with disruptive technological change. I am very confident that the great managers are very much capable on their own of finding the answers that best fit their circumstances. But they must first understand what has caused those circumstances and what forces will affect the feasibility of their solutions.

Here are some of excerpts from the book Innovator’s Dillema

Managers may think they control the flow of resources in their firms, in the end it is really customers and investors who dictate how money will be spent because companies with investment patterns that don’t satisfy their customers and investors don’t survive.

The highest-performing companies, in fact, are those that are the best at this, that is, they have well-developed systems for killing ideas that their customers don’t want. As a result, these companies find it very difficult to invest adequate resources in disruptive technologies—lower-margin opportunities that their customers don’t want—until their customers want them. And
by then it is too late.

As I read the book, I will be publishing some more excerpts from the book. Please keep watching this space.

January 8, 2018

Are you scared of starting your own, then this post is for you?

Start your own business

Happy new year 2018 and its time to live your dream. Are you planning to start something new in 2018 and have already thought pros and cons about it. And finally family life, EMIs etc. Finally concluded lets wait for some more time and then will think of my own. Then this is the post for you. Here are collection of 37 quotes from famous people and will definitely give you adrenaline to get started.

“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” – Pablo Picasso
“Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.” – Jack Canfield
“You can’t plan for everything or you never get started in the first place.” – Jim Butcher
“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“Start before you’re ready.” – Steven Pressfield
“A year from now you may wish you had started today.” – Karen Lamb
“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” – Les Brown
“Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down.” – Ray Bradbury
“You don’t have to be good to start … you just have to start to be good!” – Joe Sabah
“If you can dream it, you can do it.” – Walt Disney
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.” – Beverly Sills
“You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.” – Henry Ford
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney
“The hardest thing about getting started, is getting started.” – Guy Kawasaki
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain
“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” – Jack London
“The greatest amount of wasted time is the time not getting started.” – Dawson Trotman
“Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” – Farrah Gray
“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford
“If you have a dream, you can spend a lifetime studying, planning, and getting ready for it. What you should be doing is getting started.” – Drew Houston
“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” – Les Brown
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” – Mark Twain
“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tsu
“It’s time to start living the life you’ve imagined.” – Henry James
“The beginning is always NOW.” – Roy Bennett
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” – George Eliot
“All our dreams can come true – if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney
“The only thing that stands between you and grand success in living are these two things: getting started and never quitting!” – Robert H. Schuller
“What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“The greatest time wasted, is the time getting started.” – Dawson Trotman
“The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps – we must step up the stairs.” – Vance Havner
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Sally Berger
“He has half the deed done who has made a beginning.” – Horace
“The distance is nothing; it’s only the first step that is difficult.” – Marquise du Deffand
“We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.” – Calvin Coolidge

January 1, 2018January 1, 2018

Influence others and make your friend

Networking and influencing others are the basic necessities for any business. Without too many contacts and networking it would be almost impossible to grow your business. So are these qualities to increase network of influence learned? Here I have listed some of the best techniques used by world’s renowned leaders.

The very first thing that comes to my mind for winning somebody is Dog. You meet him everyday in your street, the moment you are within 10 feet, he starts waging his tail. If you stop and pat him, he will almost jump out of his skin to show you how much he likes you. And you know very well that behind show of affection on his part, there are no ulterior motives: he does not want to sell you any insurance nor any real estate deal. Have you ever thought that a dog the only animal that does not have to work for living? A hen has to lay eggs, a cow has to give milk. But a dog makes his living by giving you nothing but love. This is the first thing we have to learn is loving others without any strings attached.

The second most important thing is listening others and curiosity to know. When a patient visits to a psychiatrist, the most important job of psychiatrist is to listen. They are paid because of their ability to listen. Everybody wants to say. The cheapest thing you can find is the advice. However, nobody wants to listen. The american telephone company once did a survey to find out which word is used frequently and your guess is correct: its “I”, “I”, “I”. It was used 3900 times in 500 telephone conversation.

If we merely try to impress people and get people interested in us, we will never have many true, sincere friends.

The third important thing to succeed in any business is smile. An insincere grin? No that does not fool anybody. We know it is mechanical and we resent it. Here we are talking about real smile, coming from heart, a kind of smile that that will bring a good price in a market place. There is a far more information in a smile than frown.

The person who knows how to use these three characteristics i.e. love, curiosity to know others and love, are always successful in professional life and personal life.

March 2, 2017

Choose yourself :: Can it be possible?

Its been a while since I last time wrote a blog, though I want to pen thoughts in different platforms but running two families, my family and my startup, at a time squeezes my time.

Recently I started reading a book “Choose Yourself by James Altucher“, a nice book for aspiring entrepreneurs. In childhood, we do what our parents want us to do, then in young age, we again by parents, teachers and also a part by girl friends. In the process, we got accustomed to other’s command and wish that we forgot about what exactly we want. In the job, we just got carried away against our wish by project, manager, work pressure etc. Our very own desire gets covered by parents, teachers, girl friend, manager, etc. And finally when we try to start our own venture, we try to do things based on our past experiences, always seeking others instruction, permission and approval. But when somebody rides a boat, then its captain to decide the direction in smooth ride ans also in rough sea. It’s like telling someone with hundreds of thousands’ worth of plastic surgery to instantly go back to looking how they used to look. Their body no longer knows how. I kept kissing ass. I kept falling down. I kept being dishonest to my needs inside.

I would like to add a paragraph borrowed from book here

“When you give up searching for frontiers, inevitably you end up stuck in
a swamp, sinking deeper into the mud the more you struggle to get out. I’m not sure that analogy holds, but you get what I mean. Success comes from continually expanding your frontiers in every
direction—creatively, financially, spiritually, and physically. Always ask yourself, what can I improve? Who else can I talk to? Where else can I look?”

This is absolutely correct, its you and you to drive your own boat by looking into opportunities and increasing your boundary in each and every direction, then only your chances of getting opportunity will be more and more. The moment, you stop increasing your boundary then your area of opportunity will get squeezed by others. Others will overtake you and the the era of “Choose Yourself” will be “Let others decide”.