Treating Failure as the stepping stone!

I always has this dream of creating our own start-up with few of my friends and strive for access, there by quitting the rat race in the software industry. It is similar to a architect's dream who dream of building a multi-store tower in the famous city in the world. I know, I haven't prepared myself for such encounter because of day to day activities and chores. But would like to start exploring the ideas and start building up.

We used to have this fear of Failure. While exploring ideas to overcome the fear of this failure, I stumbled upon this inspirational video about failure.

Soon Failures are the stepping stones, unless you move and take risks in your life [I haven't taken any risk in my life :( ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I10vxL0VJO0

"Life is an Experiment"

Recently I have been thinking more on acquiring expertise in certain areas where my inner soul wants me to excel in.

Read somewhere online today about the 4 simple steps to become a expert, These tips are really helpful if you are onto build expertise in your area of interest.

* Focus - First thing is to start working on your short term and long term goals. These will help you determine the steps which you have to do next. Often at times, I found myself being lost in the increasingly intertwined complex information jungle. Losing my vision and got distracted with things I come across online.

* Learn and Practice - Keep track of your favorite books and blogs, online links etc which are publishing reliable information pertaining to your area of interest. I used to read some tips and articles on the topic which interests me, but will always forget those information I read down the line. So its important to practice what you have learnt. Apply the principles and tips and watch the results (which I recently started). I heard someone saying - If you have used a new word in your sentence, then the word is yours (When learning a new language). Meaning you wont forget the word if you have used in your sentences you frame. I firmly believe there are no other shortcuts other than practice.

* Get Help - If you are struck with a problem or else lost in a concept, Use online forums and check with friends to get suggestions on handling the problem. This will help you connect with the group of people with shared goal or people with similar skill sets. This would be a great asset if you started using this effectively. Linkedin groups will be a good starting point. I personally like Linked groups and discussions, where I get to read the expert views and practitioner's perspectives on key topics/area where I wanted to build expertise.

* Don't Hesitate to do Mistakes - You will get experience only if you do mistakes and learn effectively on how to overcome. So overcome the mindset of avoiding mistakes, No body is perfect. After all, Life is an experiment.

Happy Learning!!

Dont Lose your thoughts

I am just one of the newbie blogger who are online trying to come up with a good blog everyday. I started being active in blogging recently and read few online articles, information and keep on trying for my self improvement.

At the end of the day, when you are trying to post a good blog, All the articles, comments, blogs, Inspiring comments you read etc will fade in your mind. You will just be looking at blank wall in front of your mind thinking why I should write? What I should post? when my blog is going to be useful/interesting for people around me? When it will become worth reading? when it will be flooded with comments and fans (;)). Have you ever faced this scenario before, I did.
I would like to call this as Blog Beginner Syndrome.

Well here is the answer I was looking for - some thought provoking tips and source of inspiration for online bloggers. I found these links through the Re-tweets of some of the leaders I follow in Twitter, Thanks for their retweets.

How to Capture Ideas
Top 20 ways to come up with amazing Ideas

These bloggers stress the importance of keeping the notebook handy to jot down your thoughts.

Happy Learning!

Highlights of year 2009: A transistion

* Jan, Feb 2009 - First 2 months of the year 2009 went as usual. During that time I was working in one of the offshore project in which I got struck for almost 2 yrs. There used to be times when I thought "Jeez when the hell I am going to get released from that project".
* Mar 2009 - Fortunately client have initialted talks to ramp down the team size of offshore support. I took that oppurtunity and expressed my concerns asking for release. My project lead also considered my concerns and she helped me to get release from that project. Another onsite team is looking for good DW resources, She did recommended my name since I was released from the project. I attended onsite interview and got confirmtation from offshore manager for my onsite trip.
* I traveled to US village (I mean a small city in US, dont want to mention the name) during the first weekend of March 2009, Mom and dad came from my hometown to airport for send off. For the first time in my live, I got to see snow. It is very exciting winter with couple of weekend snow storms. Subway is the only place where I spent my dollars for my food.
* I met the TCS guys who were staying in the same hotel. We had fun on the weekends and we used to cook together for dinner. After 2 weeks of grace period I shifted to single bed room Apartment with one North Indian who can speak tamil and one more south Indian who is from the silicon valley of India.
* I was assigned to 3 different projects becasue of billing issues (25% in one project, 35% in another and remaining in some another). I was working on 2 fixed bid projects and in one T&M Project. I believe FB projects were the ones causing billing issues.
* I got small exposure to Informatica, OBIEE (have only seen the environment and know how reports look like), Sybase.
* Till May 11th I have project allocation, after which my client deceided not to keep me in their project. Even though I got released from the project, I was working on one of the projects actively when I was in Bench. Because of my dedication to learning, I got a friend who is my client employee - Indian working as sybase DBA. We went to lunch to the Indian restaurant during our farewell.
* One more thing I cannot forget is the amount of fun we had there during B'day celebrations, team meets, team dinner/lunch etc. I went out for 3 or 4 movies and couple of parks in that particular city. Also I Got photos from all the places I visited. I lost my specs in movie theature while watching the movie "UP".
* Meanwhile I updated my resume with the latest project assignments and it was circulated between the project managers and Resource managers. Finally one day I got call regarding the another onsite project opening where I need to support the existing cognos environments and need to migrate Cognos 7 from Sun Solaris box to AIX (All these technical jargons are still confusing for me.. :-) he he he).
* I attended client interview during May 3rd week and I waited for 10 days to know the results. One good thing happened is my project manager is aware of my skills since he was in the client interview call as silent spectator. He gave some hope that I did attend the interview well.
* The new Client confirmed and signed SOW for 3 months. My manager helped me and he dropped me in another village in US for my new project. I have booked a hotel for 2 weeks (grace period allowed) hoping to find some Indian friends and room mates to share the apartment.
* In the new village, I started the new project assignment by receiving knowledge transition from one of my client who opted for VRS (Voluntary Retirement service) because of his health problems.
* Later on It was good experience and learning when I tried to migrate Cognos reports from Sun Solaris to AIX box in my new project. I also upgraded from Cognos 7.2 to Cognos 7.4. After completing the project I started supporting NA Cognos environments and an application. Still I am in the same project and in same place only, learning new skills from new issues faced everyday.
Hoping to concentrate more on the project and to improve my lerning experience this year.
Happy Learning! Thanks!

Things I should be doing in my job this year

Hello All,
Its been really long time since I focused on my personal or my job Improvements. Its good that my project in my client place got extended for another 6 months this year. Thanks to the wonderful year 2009 I had. I am really willing to try harder to make things work this year.
* Keep myself busy with the heavy load of work I have - Jot down a development plan for the year 2010 which should be telling me how can I improve my job.
* Keep the attitude and hunger to do more work - Even if you feel like not working every day, drag yourself into work place. It will make me feel good about myself. Also keep the hunger to do more intact. Remember this is period of economic downturn in mind, people willing to do any job because of the increase in umemployment rate.
* Let the boss know about the work you are doing - Your boss should be aware of things you are doing and about your work load. Only then your hard work will pay off after the next 6 months.
* Dont brag that I will be doing good in future projects - Improve the conditions here in hand now and focus more on your work at present. Sometimes your projects might be bad compared to the current project.
Willing to follow the above steps in my job this year. Wish me luck for my success and all the very best for you all to have a wonderful Year 2010 with more fun and work.

Going thru discussion

Hi,

I always liked to read something online. There are plenty of resources online available like News articles, Discussion forum threads, Blogs etc which I wanted to go through. I accept the fact that I am little handicapped in expressing myself clearly. Obviously that is the reason I started blogging to improve my English. But lack of time, resources & interest will always comes into play.

Today I have started going through one of the discussion forum threads available online, thats when I have realised how texting and online chating have spoiled us to shorten the sentences and words. e.g fine ~fyn, How are you? ~ h r u?, brb~Be Right Back etc.

Also I came across below words which I would like to share, curious to know the meaning of the words for which the meaning is missing.

* Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (noun) - the fear of long words.

* floccinaucinihilipilification- the categorizing of something as worthless.

* Coccidioidomycosis (also known as Valley fever) - a fungal disease

* funiculi-funicular

* spondulicks

* ignoranus - a person who is both stupid and an a--hole

* phantasmagorical

* flabbergasted

* argy-bargy

* Willy-Nilly

* soliloquey

* Haberdashery

Need to find the meaning of the remaining words.

Thanks!!

Reason why i am here

I have thought of an intriguing important question. Why everyone is blogging? What will they think when they start their first blogging? I have seen a blogger explains his genuine reason. The blogger says, he wants to tell the world the solutions he obtained for his real life problem. This may be techie. Blogger again wants to have a space in the Web where his problems are documented. I am definitely not this kind of starter. I am a kind of person who wants to make sure you do something worth in your leisure. When I start blogging, me also just thought of documenting day to day miscellaneous thoughts and musings. After starting the blog on various categories, I found out that I am not staying focused on a single thing. Another important reason, why I am blogging is to improve my written communication skills. After the blogs I would say it has got a little improvement.

I now want to tell this quote:

“We must rehearse; we must make ourselves quite perfect in our approach”

Another cause – I just want to rehearse and become perfect in what I want to be and what I aspire for. So I am not doing it because everyone else is doing it, I am just another genuine blogger.