November, 2008

Recently, out of the blue, I got a chance to speak at the career-choice program at the TVS Academy, Hosur school (Hosur is a place 50 km from Bangalore - and does not belong to Karnataka). The audience, to whom I spoke yesterday, comprised of 50-60 students (grade 10-12), their parents, and the teachers.

Now! 3 days ago, I spoke nervously in front of some VC's in an attempt to seek some funding for MeraSport. That nervousness was just nothing compared to the butterflies-in-my-stomach feeling I had while speaking in front of these very curious and eager students - especially when I had the bonus-onus to talk about careers and related-choices.

What followed, though, was pure ecstacy!

(I was invited on account of being a 'success' in my career! I don't think I have been a success yet, but they reiterated that for them I was a success, merely on grounds of going for a weird field such as sports after having studied (?) at IIT. It was impossible for me to decline their offer to speak, after such an overwhelming approach. Plus, I have this inherent respect and love for the student generation - which is so creative, energetic, and damn positive about everything).

The other 4 speakers were seniors, two of whom I could locate on the net as well: Karthik (flourishing career in wild-life); and Anup Naik (an established architect). The entire session was fascinating, with the speakers speaking enthusiastically about their experiences, and the students and parents applauding and responding oh-so-sportingly! Not once did I feel annoyed about travelling 100kms on a Sunday morning for a 10 minute talk.

I spoke straight from the heart. Some of my thoughts: 

• The word 'career' comes from 'care-er' - someone or something that takes care of you (like work-er, play-er). Care includes eveything: money, emotions, love, passion - and hence, a career should be able to take care of all those points - not just money. Nonetheless, money has to be important.
• Money will come. It will take 2, 5, 7 or a maximum of 10 years - but money will flood in. More importantly, that won't be the end of it. If it were, the Ambanis, and Kiran Majumdar, and Bill Gates - all would have stopped 'working'. 
• Friends are like the Post-It glue - the cohesiveness disappears with time. The only people anyone can be the most sure of are one's parents, next comes the spouse - and, hence, they should be taken care of right from the onset. It's their support which matters - and, unconsciously, it's their cushion which we keep in mind when we dare to move forward. Friends may just be ready to help, but parents would always be there.
• The following qualities would ensure success in any field: communication skills, great ethics, smartness, humility 'n' respect, and a hell-lot-of-an (constructive) ego. Take one of them out, and doom is unavoidable.

There were some impromptu wisecracks that were thrown into this talk. However, the real fun followed the talk when these hyper-eager, and very smart, students just surrounded the speakers to shake hands with them, some calling me, "Anna!", the others calling me, "Sir!" - but all of them bubbling around with excited faces! Can't say how I felt when one of them came up and jumped around saying, "My name is Saurabh also, Sir!"

:)

5 minutes later, I found myself in a classroom with 5-6 parents and 20-30 students shooting questions regarding a prospective career in sports! There was just so much to talk about (yes ... try speaking with me about a career in sports) - the parents trying to find about the best institutes to study sports as a business, the students inquiring about the various sports-career options. Interestingly, 6-7 of the students were girls! They must have asked almost as many questions as the boys (about life as a sports manager). The curiosity ranged from "what I do in the office" and "what have I done earlier" to "why did I choose to get into sports after IIT" to "why didn't I stay back in the UK" to "would sports be a wise decision for them" ... 

Probably the best thing I liked about this visit was getting back to school - walking through the corridoors lined with classrooms stuffed with benches. There's this freshness that only a school can generate. I would recommend everyone to keep networking with college students. There's a lot we can learn from that species.

Do files get embarrassed when they get unzipped?

Was texting Ankur Bhargava urf Tyson on the fabulous gtalk - and he started asking those questions which I really hate. Well, while I didn't let him proceed beyond his first question, I gave him a mouthful about the questions I despise when people chat with me over phone, or text, or even in person. Here's the list:

• "Aur ... kya chal raha hai?"
• "Aur sunao ..."
• "Shaadi kab kar raha hai?"
• "What's new???" or "Kuch naya bata?"
• "Kahan hai aajkal?"
• "Koi nayi film dekhi?"

If you really can't find anything to speak with me about, the best is to hang up, or speak about ManU. If not that, just ask these questions with more purpose, more specificity, or don't ask at all.

Brian Kelly:  Can I ask you something personal?

Tina Trac:  Sure...

Brian Kelly:  Where's the bathroom?

The generation gap is getting smaller, and smaller. Sanjay (Mob Me Co-Founder, and now a business associate/partner) made this dawn upon me recently in a conference (he loves climbing on the stage at every occasion - that's what his buddy Vivek told me when got talking to them) that the gap between you, and someone just 4 years younger to you is m-a-s-s-i-v-e - much more than what you thought it could be. 

For example, Abhinav, who writes for MeraSport these days, informed me that he finds thumbing an sms on a 1-2-3 keypad much easier than writing similar stuff on the laptop! For some reason, I never tried to find out what prediction-mode is, but these new fellows are born with that knowledge.

I would never have imagined that - in my past 5 lives - and no wonder, I was left silenced for 2 minutes! Not just because suddenly I felt much older than what I think I am (and, for once, I felt concerned about my greying hair), but because it means a lot for my work. 

(When people comment on my greying hair, "Haaww! Premature greying ...", I just retort, "Not Premature ... Precocious Greying!" - clever?)

We feel that the little screen of the mobile world can do only so much when compared to the larger laptop screen which is much more richer, but here's the truth: this new generation was born using the smaller screen, so it expects businsses to make products (games, animations, scoreboards, websites) to make the small-screen experience richer. Try ignoring the small-screen, and in the next 4 years you and your business will be a dodo. 

I love this song - and everytime I see this movie or hear this song, I wish for the following: I knew Italian, I had Roberto Benigni's charm, I could see an Opera. If I work really hard, I can get all three - but that's what I am - Brilliant, but Lazy. 

To define recursion, we must first define recursion.

Bombay will forget it late, the rest of India will forget it soon. If we were a developed nation like the US, we would have focussed all our energies on this problem. However, the country has so many other problems to cater too - the terror of not being able to find food for the evening, the terror of sleeping in the chill and the rain, the terror of being diagnosed of a fatal ailment ... etc. etc.

This incident will soon be forgotten - not as soon as the others, but it won't take a very long time before normal routine follows. It will be forgotten, or remembered, probably, as another Indian trauma that occured on yet another 26th day of a month.

Hoping that the people who should suffer, do suffer. Also, wondering where Raj Thackeray has been all this while - the terrorists were definitely aliens to Maharashtra - shouldn't Raj be there to drag them out?

When it's a question of money, everyone's of the same religion.