Big Data or Big Brother

According to an Australian blog, Facebook's $1 billion purchase of Instagram was less for the application itself and more for the data (including personal data) of the 30 million members of the photo sharing service. Of course, this is just a minor addition to the 900 million users active on Facebook, whose data is already within the reach of Mark Zuckerberg. Frightening as this sounds, the Facebook founder is not the only one who can analyze this kind of "Big Data" to know exactly who you are, where you live, what you do, etc. Every time we upload data to the Web - post photos, play games, update our status/location or make blog posts - we open up our lives for potential scrutiny by not just Facebook, Google, Apple and Microsoft but also many smaller players who may not be as scrupulous about what they do with our personal details. Of course, some loss of privacy is a natural corollary of being active on the Web, which is why some people refuse to get on Facebook, Twitter or other social media websites. But the growing adoption of Web and Cloud services by individuals and businesses, generating 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day (as per IBM), raises concerns about how all this data is going to be used and by whom. If large corporations or government agencies can keep tabs on everything I do, as long as I remain online, it won't take long for the dystopian vision of George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" to come true

Business and Networking

Earlier this week, I attended a BNI meeting for the first time. Their website describes BNI as "a business and professional referral organization that allows only ONE person from each profession to join a chapter. This is a unique platform that integrates face to face networking with an online social network spanning 45 countries and thousands of business people". Although I had heard about the benefits of networking to improve business results, this was the first time I actually saw it in action

The claim about having only ONE person from each profession is not exactly true because BNI India admits members whose cater to different niche markets within the same larger profession. For example, the chapter whose meeting I attended had 4 members from the software field - 1 web design company, 1 social media marketing consultancy, 1 e-business company and 1 company providing customized software solutions. Anyway, there's not much point in arguing over fine print, I guess

The typical meeting works like this - after a brief introduction of BNI, all members present (absence for 3 meetings invites suspension) give a 30 second talk about their own business. This may sound repetitive, yet it is done every week for the benefit of new members or visitors (each one invited by a member, with prior intimation, at a cost of Rs 500). At the end of the 30 second spiel, each member briefly mentions their recent successes and what kind of referrals they are looking for that week

Next, two selected members give a detailed 8 minute presentation on their business. Then all members hand over referrals to anyone else whom they can help, based on the requirements they had mentioned during the 30 second talk (as I understand, the business owner is supposed to talk to the prospective clients only after the referrer has given the latter a personal heads-up). They also pass thank you notes to those fellow members whose previous referrals helped them win new business

The meeting ends with a meal (breakfast in my case, since that chapter holds its meetings every Tuesday morning) where the members do some one-on-one networking and understand each other's referral requirements more clearly. Referrals can also happen offline and not necessarily during the meeting only. BNI also has a concept of power teams within each chapter. These bring together people from related businesses who can help each other with referrals, more than other members

BNI also offers trainings that help members develop key business skills like communication, presentation, management and leadership skills, to stay ahead of the competition. Training sessions also give members from different chapters an opportunity to meet and extend their network. All in all, BNI was an interesting concept and one that seems to work, since I heard some profitable referrals being quoted. If I had something more  tangible to "sell", I would surely have thought about signing up

Nokia N8 and Belle - The Power of Cool

At the time of its worldwide release on 1st October 2010, the Nokia N8 was by far the best piece of hardware in the smartphone market. Sure, its design was not quite as cool as the iPhone's. But it had a powerful 680 MHz processor and 3D Graphics GPU along with 16 MB of on-board memory and a long lasting battery. Most importantly, it had a 12 MP main camera with Carl Zeiss optics that still remains unmatched in terms of picture quality

But in spite of all this, the Nokia N8 failed to set the smartphone market on fire due to its operating system - the dated and unintuitive Symbian S3, which even in 2010 was considered old-fashioned and uncool. Even the much-touted Symbian Anna update failed to enthuse smartphone owners, as it did not live up to the standards set by iOS and Android. But the new Symbian Belle update may change things around, at least for committed Nokia owners

The process of upgrading from Anna to Belle took me more than 1 hour and consumed about 300 MB of bandwidth. But boy was it worth the effort! The first change I noticed was the look and feel. The 6 home screens (up from the earlier 3) look hyper cool, with neat widgets in up to 5 different sizes, along with the tried and trusted app shortcuts. The new wallpapers provided by Nokia are very good. The default Clock and Calendar widgets rock!

The bottom of the screen has 3 buttons instead of 2 (Menu in addition to Options and Call). This is not useful on the N8 but would help on other phones without a Menu button. To scroll between homescreens, you need to flick your finger sideways, as the screen change button has disappeared. At the top is a thin panel showing the service provider name and a tiny digital time display, along with icons for battery, signal strength, 3G or  Wi-Fi connection, etc.

Touch this top panel and flick your finger downwards to reach a new screen where you can turn on/off your mobile data , Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connections, and also switch to Silent mode with a single touch. All those who have struggled to reach the Connection Manager in Symbian S3, to turn off 3G connections, would agree that this new facility is a life-saver. But one problem is that this screen tends to open up whenever the phone touches your ear during a call

That's just a small glitch but a major one with Belle is that it is much, much heavier than the Symbian S3 for which the Nokia N8 was designed. As soon as you complete the OS upgrade (which by the way can only be done using the latest version of the Nokia Suite), you see a visible drop in the UI's performance due to the lack of free phone memory. The quick fix for this is to uninstall any bloated applications that you can live without (Social being a prime culprit)

Some other minor issues include slow playback of multimedia content and problems with some kinds of .flv files. While the former is understandable, considering most new smartphones have powerful dual or even quad core processors, the latter is something Nokia needs to look at. But all things considered, the Belle update has given a new lease of life to my ageing N8. Now I may be less easily tempted by the new Sony Experia S and its 12 MP snapper

Micromanagement

Micromanagers are the bane of any IT project (or any project for that matter). These are typically individuals who rise to leadership roles prematurely, for reasons other than their management skills. In some cases, the best techie in the team is made the manager while in others, someone having cordial relations with the Client or with Senior Management is given the top job

Managers in the first category know that their team members are not as good technically as they are. This makes them believe the Limp Bizkit song that goes "if you want something done right, you just do it yourself". Of course, if they can stretch themselves to handle the extra load, this would not be a problem. But even if they do manage it for some time, they tend to burn out

The second category of managers are inherently insecure and always keep looking over their shoulder. Their idea behind micromanaging is to ensure that no alternate power centers develop within the team. If any team lead or senior team member shows some initiative or takes some independent decisions, this category of manager moves swiftly to cut them down to size

Whatever the reason for micromanagement, it is a fact that no team member enjoys working under such conditions. A tightly controlled team can never produce future leaders. Team leads who are used to being micromanaged would naturally try and practice the same style when they themselves become managers. And thus, this unsavory and undesirable system continues

Priorities of an IT Manager

The way I see it, an IT Manager's primary tasks are managing People and managing Processes. If he/she does a good job of both, the People and the Processes would take care of managing the Technology. Of course the Manager should have, or should acquire, a basic understanding the concerned Technology. But the team's success does not depend on his/her being a Technical Expert

But most IT companies seem to believe that an IT Manager's primary task is managing Technology - in other words, being "technically hands-on". If he/she is skilled at managing Processes, that is an added benefit, provided he/she practices it outside regular work hours. And managing People is considered about as valuable as a cricketer's computer engineering degree would be to his IPL team

So if you go to office every other Saturday and write/fix/test code along with your team, saving them from the ignominy of failed deployments, you qualify for accolades and awards. But if you don't have to go to office on Saturdays because you have worked hard to build a strong team, and empowered that team to follow efficient delivery processes, you are judged as only Meeting Expectations