Good is the new average !

There is an interesting article in Business Insider  which is based on Seth Godin's view "If You're An Average Worker, You're going straight to the bottom". Interesting read. This one of the lessons I have learnt during my years of working and one I keep preaching to my team members all the time


Right from the school days, I always put in the extra effort to differentiate myself from rest of the students. While working, I spent a lot of time creating my own brand - Hard Work, Good Grasp  of  the problem, Structured thought process, Innovative solutions and successful delivery. In fact, in my first start up I worked in, I was the Mr. Fix It. If there is problem, they would call me to fix. 

So the two takeaways I try to give my team is 

Good is the new Average
Being average is no longer an option. You have to be good. You need to put in the extra effort to make sure you exceed expectations and deliver. Working out the details, Making sure the documents are formatted properly (I hate it when people are too lazy to do a spell check- Takes two minutes !), preparing for the presentations more thoroughly. Small things, which add to separating you from the rest of the team members and helps you leave a very positive impression in the minds of your stakeholders. Try it and see the difference !


Create your own brand
In my view, we sell all the time. Whether it is in our personal life or in the professional work environment. So why not sell ourselves so that our talents are properly understood by the others. If you set you standards higher, you have won half the battle. But if you can "market" your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) - create you own personal brand - you have the magic mix to make sure you are recognized and rewarded for what you do. More on this in a later post...


Read the article and start your journey to being Great. Average is for losers ! 

Raghavan (Raj) Rajendran

Being Indian is now a badge of Honor?

I have been fooling around with a Proud To Be Indian web site for quite some years without  much traction, In its current incarnation, it can be seen at www.P2BI.com.


So it was with great pleasure I started reading the book by Ramith Sethi (I Will teach you to be rich Blog fame). His blogs are fantastic. His writing style is very different. You see his interviews, you can see his passion just burst out ! Overall, his blog is something I would strongly  recommend to everybody. Even though he pushes his ware very strongly, his interest in helping others shines through. And who can blame him for charging for the value he delivers. Not me !
What was interesting was the fact that he was using his “Indianness” as a badge of honor. He talks about his parents (Who migrated from India) who spend 5 days negotiating for a car and then walk out of it because the dealer refused to add a Floor mat to the deal. He also coined the interesting acronym – WWAID (What would an Indian Do?).


When I came to US (about 15 years ago) most of us felt the need to blend in. As the IT boom took over the country and the Outsourcing became the name of the game, we felt  guilty for causing disruption in the life's of the locals here
Finally I think we have moved on to a state where being Indian, and bringing in the values of our culture is considered to be good. People recognize us not just for the nerds who are the “Computer Whisperers “ but actually folks with an idea to present and the presence to make an impression !


Go for it. Love this. In fact, as part of this discovery, I am starting a career focused blog (Take off on my book Why Do Elephants Have Big Ears) to share the lessons learnt over my 25 year career with folks who can use them.


The blog should be ready in the next few weeks, But you can go over and register so that  you can be notified when it goes live….


Your thoughts?

Raghavan (Raj) Rajendran

Spiritual Gravity will bring down Apple in 2012

Most of my friends know that I am a die hard Microsoft fan. I have been working with their products for most of my career.  I have watched Apple rise from the ashes and head to the stratosphere with envy. So please take my predictions with a pinch of salt !
My prediction is  that Apple will peak out in 2012 and start their descent back to earth. Here is why …

1. Apple has to be right all the time. Competition has to be right only once for Apple to fall off its “Number 1 “ pedestal and the competition is getting  very much close to being right !
2. Apple products are not being designed and built by Aliens.Other humans will find way to break it and make something better
3. IT Corporations find it difficult to manage their own much smaller IT application portfolios. Managing over 350K  apps will soon break and rogue applications will slip in to destroy customer confidence
4. Apple products are on the verge of becoming commodities. They will soon drop in the “Cool” factor bringing them down to earth with other products
5. Without Steve Jobs, Apple will fall back into a “Microsoft under Steve Ballmer” paradigm. Still a great company making money. But not THE company !
6. What goes up must come down and what goes up faster must come down faster !! The law of Averages will catch up with Apple soon
7. Mobile virus will become more lucrative considering the exploding population of Apple IOS and we can see a swarm of them hit the ecosystem

Revisit next year same time. Let us see if I got it right !
What are your thoughts?

Raghavan (Raj) Rajendran

When the Idea creator's credibility is challenged, should the ideas credibility be questioned?

Most of my friends know that I am a big fan of Robert Kiyosaki and his books based on Rich Dad Poor Dad paradigm. I like his concepts of residual income, the quadrant approach to money making etc. In fact I had recommended his book Cashflow Quadrant to my friends 


So it was a shock when I read about John T. Read's write up about Kiyosaki. John is a very influential person with strong beliefs and ideas. He is very successful and his ideas on making money are very interesting (More on that in a later post)


He really goes to the town about the Rich Dad Poor Dad's "factual errors" and numerous "Extremely unlikely accounts of the events that supposedly happened" . It was an interesting read and John has spend quite some time to research his target. 


Whether we agree with John or not, the point which I was concerned about was the impact on the ideas and concepts Kiyosaki had put on the table. Since Kiyosaki's book's content has been questioned, does it mean that his ideas were also wrong? Was I just drinking Koolaid and not looking at the facts clearly? Should our impression of the ideas be influenced by the negative information on the author?


In my opinion, the baby should not be thrown out with the bath water.. Even after understanding all the accusations, the fact that there might not be a real "Rich Dad", I believe the central themes with Kiyosaki put forward are still valid. The fact that ideas may not be used by all of us talks more to the our limitations rather than the viability of the idea.


I still continue to believe in the concepts of Rich Dad Poor Dad.  I think ideas should be judged purely based on its merits and the idea creator shenanigans should not impact its credibility .


What do you think? 

Raghavan (Raj) Rajendran