The last week that went by, I was busy blowing balloons for my daughter. One after the other, it gets bigger and bigger. And before you know, it just bursts. And, to keep the little one happy, I have to redo it. The moment it bursts, the disappointment in the poor thing’s face is cute :-). You never know when to stop blowing and when not to.

While I was doing this, it struck me, isn’t it bit like our IT careers ? Bit by bit, over the years, one becomes more and more responsible, along with it comes yearly pay hike bit by bit compounding the salary. Assuming the salary is guaranteed until retirement, home loans are planned for 20 years; kids go to better schools; just 2 years into buying a car, the thought of buying “car of the year” comes. Like this, everything comes to mind that go hand in hand with our professional development. The one thing that doesn’t come to mind is how to keep upskilling oneself. Like the balloon, before the realisation strikes, we stare at the danger of a sudden burst.

This is  a typical timeline, atleast from an Indian context, we ask of our friends;

At 16, how much did you score in Maths, Physics ? Not enough, why don’t you try arts, commerce ?

At 18, which college did you choose ? Didn’t get a good one, I told you, should have studied harder.

At 22, did you find a job ? X went to US, Y went o UK. Jesus, what are we doing here ?

At 26, settled ? Not finding a good match ? Probably, it is time to look for one yourself, parents will agree. Onsite ?

At 30, which flat did you buy ? How big is it ?

At 35, are you diabetic ? Doing regular exercises ? Cut down on drinks, smoke, remember you have kinds. Term insurance ?

At 38, are you hands-on ? Lay-offs ? Big Data course ?

There comes a point in one’s career, when the day gets so busy, there is no time for lunch, but end of the day it feels nothing has been achieved. Everyone needs your time, a little bit here and little there, and it is time to go home. For IT engineers, the clock is offset by 3-4 hrs. The sun rises at 8am. Getting out of house at 9:30 am and reach office by 11 am, heavy traffic again. At 11am, it is so tiring after being in the traffic, what better way than to hit canteen and talk about it again for that day over a 30 min tea break ? Back to desk, check some mails, it is time for lunch. After little over one hour lunch break, it feels so sleepy, a nice nap would be good. Coffee at 3pm, and the realisation strikes, there is a lot to do and have to catchup for yesterday’s work. A long day ensues again. After all this pain, the only solace is waiting for the weekend. Enjoy the weekend and be back on monday and repeat the Groundhog Day.

My tone is satirical so far, but it is not far from the truth. As you can see, there is no time for oneself to upskill. I am not saying no one is doing it, but it is the case with a majority of them. There are a lot of factors contributing to this effect. Culture, both local and company, transportation, lifestyle, governance etc., This also shows up in the way people abusing their bodies. No exercises, no regular health checkups.

According to me, when you have about 12-15 yrs professional experience, either your title must read Vice-President and upwards or you must be an expert in some field at a decision maker level, if not, at the flip of the coin, you could be the next one to be shown the way out.

If upskilling is such a real problem, then why is this not taken up seriously ? My theory is, the same lethargic people get promoted and become leaders and you can imagine what such a leadership can do. This is  a real crisis situation and needs addressing.

Just by sheer numbers, the number of IT engineers in the country is massive. As per the recent McKinsey report, nearly 80% of engineers coming out of college are unemployable. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same was said for the people in the industry as well. A large percentage of this workforce is unemployable. Electric cars, AI, Big Data, Cloud Computing is the future. But, who is going to work on it ? Everyone is busy managing projects.

At the end of 15 yrs of experience, the most common job title is project manager. If you are lucky like Jay Panda, you could probably include that you are an avid non-fiction reader, but that doesn’t count :-). On the other hand, a good project manager is a great asset to a company. Software engineers think if someone is not coding, then that someone’s work must be shit, but the project managers are the ones that keep them going.

So, where do we go from here ? I think one of the great service the company can do to its workforce is to give every manager a good training on “goal setting”. There is nothing like setting expectations, recording it over time and reviewing it periodically. This sounds so simple, but difficult to follow.

One of the clients I used to work at, mandated that upon promotion, the employee MUST move to a different area of work. I think this is fantastic idea and automatically puts the newly promoted employee to be a learner, all over again.

One of the founders of Infosys, N R Narayana Murthy, famously said, “Love your job, not your company, because you never know when the company stops loving you”. This is so very true. Never “solely” rely on the company to upskill you. Invest in yourselves. Read books, MOOCs are cheaper. Like never before, many reputed universities are offering online courses in many fields of interest.

The scary situation where you want to leave the company, but cannot because no one can match your salary is a dangerous position and I am certain there are hundreds of thousands living in this dilemma.

If you think there is no crisis, please forgive me for this blog article :-).

 

“Anything” + AI is the next “big” wave, so they say in Silicon Valley.  I am currently reading The Master Algorithm by Pedro Domingos which prompted me to write this article. During the 90s when Internet was getting ground amongst common western folk, web 1.0 gave internet an additional push. Web 2.0, with the advent of e-commerce and mobility, internet reached hundreds of millions more in all parts of the world. What if Oxford dictionary does not find a verb listing for Google, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp ?

With more people online coupled with improvements in telecom infrastructure, there is more usage generating vast amounts of data at astronomical scale. Now, something can be done with all the data generated. In a nutshell, this “doing something” to such data is AI and its close cousin Machine Learning. Think autonomous cars, these are possible only with “doing something” to all the past data generated and drawing new patterns.

The field of AI and Machine Learning have been around for decades, however since these work best with more and more data, their time has come for resurgence. The ubiquitous nature of Machine Learning can be seen in the Netflix and Amazon predictions. They let loose algorithms on the data to figure out what we might like.

However, this is a Black Swan moment for Indian software companies. Indian IT basked in glory for close to two decades. Very high double digit growth was the norm. The elephant was getting bigger and bigger. And now, it is time for the party to end. Needless to say, they dug their own grave when the party started two decades ago. Just that some dust had gathered in the meanwhile, no one took notice, and now it is time to keep it ready.

At the time of writing this blog, I came across an article on LinkedIn on culture. This is so very true and I think culture is the primary reasons for Indian IT staring at a Black Swan moment. The culture of “investing in oneself” to become good at something. Too many people waited too long for their companies to take care of them in all respects.

We are in the midst of Industrial Revolution 2.0. The revolution fuelled by Information Revolution. The first Industrial Revolution replaced manual work. The second one will replace mental work. “Data is the new Oil”, Pedro says in his book. Intelligent people are working harder and harder to put more workforce out of job. Self-driving technology could mean millions of people out of jobs. Intelligent algorithms can write code which means millions of software engineers out of jobs and so on. Already a handful of companies have become so powerful with all the user generated data, they might as well start controlling our lives.

Where does this all end ? In 50 years from now, AI and Machine Learning technology will become superior. So much so that, all the common and repetitive jobs could be taken over by machines and algorithms. The very audience for whom all these advancements were made, the same people will be out of means to pay for these services. It seems like a vicious circle. The argument against this could be, well, we will always figure out something else to do. But, the worry is, the technology is growing at such an exponential pace, it is difficult to catch-up or imagine to do “something else”.

According to Pedro, scientists believe it is possible to build a Master Algorithm, and they are working very hard at the problem. When this becomes a reality, all that has be done is let loose this Master Algorithm on the data, and you will have your desired output.

Banks would replace tellers with robots, super markets would replace most of the staff with machines, smart algorithms would replace software engineers, automation would replace testers and so on. So you see at every step, it is an effort to improve something by removing human intervention, but all for what good if no one is going to have jobs ? I heard Yuval Noah Harari’s new book Homo Deus touches these topics about “tomorrow”.   I haven’t read it, perhaps Yuval has some answers for us.

The topic of jobs has some people already worrying. The idea of Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been put forth by some countries, however this is still in early days. The idea is, people who lose jobs to machines would be paid UBI. Sounds terrible ? Perhaps I am being paranoid and the world will correct itself when the time comes, it is just a scary thought, that is all I am saying. I read an article today about advancements in security. Funny and interesting, but the very thoughts are scary to some extent.

Is it time to shift gears and take up a specialisation in AI and Machine Learning, so that we don’t become victims to the machines and algorithms ? Well, let’s get a good night sleep and see what tomorrow has in store for us.

The most decorated product in consumer electronics in history completed 10 yrs last week. The iPhone. Some say it is probably the most decorated product ever, not just in consumer electronics. Upon his return to Apple, when Steve Jobs announced he was going to use Industrial Design to turn around the company, everyone thought what the hell does that mean ? Today, all the dots are connected.

Some say a creative mind is a monkey mind and hence words like chaos, sporadic get attention. However, with all its best creative endeavours, Apple has remained to lead the number 1 position in Supplier Chain Management for a number of years. This only goes on to say creativity and order can go hand in hand.

A few months back, nothing else to do, I reasoned why Nokia failed and tried reading some case materials. There is one particular statement that caught my eye that I will never forget. If you are still reading, try opening this doc and scroll to page 18. In other words, Nokia’s market intelligence told them the iPhone was an extension to Mac, infact, Mac with a radio. Apple moved the differentiation tide from hardware to software.

Beyond the imagination of its creators, iPhone has changed the world forever. Music industry, telecom industry, sports, fashion world and many more changed forever.

Apple has introduced three different and distinct user interfaces to the world. The mouse, track wheel and touch. In all this, we see the culmination of a fairy tale of one person whose only goal in life was to give the best user experience to its users. A man who led a legion, who, like Hannibal’s crossing of Alps, would do the same if he appealed to them. Every product designed spoke out loud the intentions of its creators, every single time.

At times, even with the best of intentions, there have been criticisms. It happens all the time, however the customers have always seen such criticisms like a mother chiding her kid to get better next time.

Purpose. It is very important for a company to stay true to its purpose. Doing business is one thing, but constantly communicating the purpose to its user base is a different matter altogether. This is what we see in Apple. Though it is very simple to write down what Apple did in hindsight, it is too bloody hard to do it day-in day-out.

To give an example of what I mean, take a look at the Netflix profile page below. It is a very simple page however the presence of “Cancel Membership” right in the front conveys a very strong and reassuring message to me as a user. This button speaks to me “Look, we do provide good content, however if you are not happy with us, here is your chance to leave. We are not here to siphon off your money”.  This, according to me, is purposeful design demonstrating the purpose of the company in its products and designs.

Similarly, the presence of the nice looking search bar on every Amazon page speaks, “Here, go ahead and explore and tell us what you want”. Strong visual cues communicating the purpose. Very well done.

Like I said before, in hindsight this looks very easy to do, but why do so many companies out there fail to do this ?

I recently happened to learn about woodpie.com, a book review and sharing site. Now, why does anyone come to a book sharing site ? To search for the book they want to read ?. Sounds reasonable ?. Now, let’s take a look. Even before I can search for anything, I am being asked to login. Frustrating ?

After logging in, this is how the page looks. Probably the only reason anyone would come to this site to find the book of their choice. Apart from book search everything looks dominant. This, to me, is not having your product true to the purpose.

There is no shortage of such examples. Indian Government websites are full of them. How do we fix this ? We need leaders who under customer experience and that is the only way we are going to get close to fixing this.

Intrigued by Google’s story in the book In The Plex, I began to read more about it and finally landed up on Gayle Laakmann McDowell’s “How to crack the PM interview ?”. There I learnt the kind of questions the PM (Product Manager) candidates are asked. There is one particular type of question that interested me which is coming up with a number out of nowhere and still be within some margin. For example..

1. How many golf balls can you fit in a Boeing 747 ?
2. How many piano tuners are there in Los Angeles ?
3. How many policemen are there in US ?
4. How many kilometres do the people in US drive in year ?
5. How long is all the DNA in your body ?
6. How many people in the world are picking their nose right now ? (my favourite)

And so on. The point is not to arrive at a right answer, but to test your approach and thereby arrive at some number in the whereabouts. At first glance these questions appear out of blue and one tends to arrive at some random number through some guess work. However, I have been reading some books that make these questions rather enjoyable to solve. Apparently, such questions are called “Fermi problems”, named after the famed physicist Enrico Fermi.

To give you an example, let’s walk through the problem of How many miles do all Americans drive in one year ?

There are some assumptions made upfront. One does need to know some general knowledge like the total population of the world to be about 7 billion and that of America to be about 300 million etc.,

So, to solve this we will make the following assumptions

1. The population of America is 300 million
2. There is about 1 car per 3 people
3. The total miles driven by a car in its lifetime to be assumed based on general warranty like 36,000 kms in 3 yrs.

Using all of this, one can arrive at a number of 3 trillion kilometres. I have not shown the detailed calculation, but is just multiplying all the numbers shown on top.

I was wondering who on earth would use this skill to solve real world problems and forgot about it completely. However, two recent incidents in the last month hinted me it is indeed worth having this skill.

My daughter is growing up and school admissions is around the corner. No one panic like parents do. Some school near my house is known to be popular and people flock at 4 am in the morning to queue up for applications that is issued at 10 am. Does this sound familiar with release of Apple products ?

So, I too undergo this ordeal and make a wrong assumption. I thought who on earth would come so early in a cold december and went there at 6 am. To my astonishment, there were scores of people standing in queue already. Now, I have to make a decision, whether to stand in queue or go back home to finish my sleep ? The guard at the gate told me about 500 applications will be given. By looking at the overwhelmingly large crowd my mind judged there are more than 500 people. However, I decided to stand in the queue to see what happens. I did take a pic.

As you can see there are some people queued close to the school entrance and the queue bends and continues on to the next street as shown in the second pic. Looking at huge number I decided there are more than 500 people. However, to my surprise, when it came to my turn, the token number issued was 202. I was taken back. Have I been so poor at estimating ? 202 vs 500 is a big difference. With some careful thought, I could have come close to 200. So, a standard building size is about 30×40 feet (atleast in Bangalore). 30 feet wide and 40 feet in length. Let’s say, the 40 feet is along the street. In the first queue, that building is equivalent to about 3 buildings, about 120 feet. In the second street, people have queued to about 10 buildings or roughly 400 feet, totally 520 feet, lets say 500 feet. I have considered 40 feet along the street to consider the worst case.

Now, look the people standing. Each person occupies about one feet and no one is touch shoulder to shoulder so another feet to stand free. Therefore, 2 – 2.5 feet per person. There you go, it is 200 – 250 people as per the guesstimation. I realised this later, but recollected later how this skill could be useful in real life.

The second situation I encountered while reading the book “Ready Study Go”. One page 11 of the book, the author claims about 750 million die every year due to various causes and hence the need to stay fit. At first glance, 750 million people is about 1/10th of the world population. Can this be right ? Then I just googled to the world fact book and found that the world mortality rate is about 8 per 1000 people which works out to close to 60 million. Big difference !. So, there you go, another usefulness of this skill.

There are some interesting books you can read on this topic. Some of them I know.

1. Guesstimation By Lawrence Weinstein
2. Street fighting mathematics By Sonjoy Mahajan
3. How to solve it By George Polya

To some people such skills come naturally due to their frequent encounter with analytical problems, but for others, I think this can be useful.