Random Walk

MJ Hall of Fame Induction Speech…What’s all the fuss about?

Manoj Jhaveri — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 11:23:10 +0000

The other day I recalled all the media hype and criticism of Jordan’s speech – saying that he is a “bitter old man” and still holds “grudges”. So I got curious and of course googled and watched the speech. I know I grew up in Chicago and basically worshipped MJ as all Chicagoans did…so I understand I’m biased. But that said, I really don’t understand what all the fuss is about? I did not have any major issues with MJ’s speech. There was one moment where you could tell he was still pissed with Jerry Kraus and made a bad joke, but he also made a point about how “people win games” and not “organizations” – and I think that was his main message – that business people in the game need to treat the players with the utmost respect since they are the ones that go out and perform. As for all the other stuff in his speech… he made a lot of points about how he was motivated by different people in his life (“logs on the fire”) - and some of those people motivated him because they did not initially believe in him. This is classic MJ… any fan knows this. This is what gets this guy going… proving people wrong. And if that’s what it took him to be the best player in the world… then I say so be it! I don’t think MJ is perfect… far from it. But I don’t think this speech should have caused the media circus and firestorm that it did. Overall it was a good speech and he thanked people in his life up and down. Some of my most memorable moments as a kid growing up was watching the Bulls with my buddies… thanks for the memories MJ.

See the speech for yourself and tell me what you think: http://www.nba.com/video/teams/bulls/2009/09/11/nba_20090911_hof_jordan_speech_chi.nba/

My Hybrid Experience

Manoj Jhaveri — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 02:32:53 +0000

To my surprise my recent Avis rental was a blue Toyota Prius. This was actually the first time I’d driven a hybrid vehicle and I must say it was pretty cool. A few things really stand out about the Prius:

1. When you start the car, it literally make no noise when you are idling. Pretty weird at first b/c you feel like you did not start the car.

2. Prius has a really nice, roughly 9 inch touchscreen display for audio, climate and other info. The “other info” part is pretty cool — it shows you a visual animation of the car, its 4 wheels, electric motor, battery and piston engine. And arrows move among these parts showing whether the electric motor is on, piston engine is doing its thing, and if the wheels are moving. It also shows whether power is being consumed by the battery or given back to the battery. Power is given back to the battery when breaking or coasting.

3. My average gas mileage so far is reading 42 miles/gallon of gas. However, I suspect it is actually much higher. I’ve heard of some ”Prius freaks” getting 100 miles/gallon by driving in certain controlled ways.

My next car will probably be a standard hybrid or plug-in hybrid. Only wish they could improve the battery life and reduce the replacement cost. Rumor is that the lithium ion battery pack will last about 10 years, is very expensive to replace and degrades over time (much like a laptop battery does as cycles of charge and discharge increase). Of course the world does not “really” know yet, since hybrids have only been around for about a decade now. This sort of reminds me about people who say after 50 years of using a mobile phone up to your ear you will get brian cancer (we won’t really know until about another 35 years!).

Guess we will all find out soon enough … about hybrid batteries and the brain cancer that is. Peace.

My Best Sister-in-Laws Wedding

Manoj Jhaveri — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 07:24:02 +0000

On June 5th, 2010 my sister-in-law Kavi and her main-man Raj tied the knot. It was a beautiful wedding and brought back many memories for me of when Devi and I were married almost 8 years ago on August 24, 2002. Below is a link to a little video they put together to summarize the sangeet/wedding/reception:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wy9JYSdulc

Also, you must check out the “Raas Instructional Video” that was put together by Raj’s brother Neil and Raj’s close friends. It is one of the funniest things I have ever seen…these guys should audition for SNL. Enjoy and congratulations Kavi and Raj… we love you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oYZMBOGiTU&NR=1&feature=fvwp

PS> A little factoid worth repeating here. Devi is from A.P. and speaks Telugu and I’m a Guju. Kavi also married a Guju. What can I say…the “TeluGuju” connection is strong! Devi’s cousin is also marrying a Guju in September. These Kuchipuidi’s can’t get enough of us man! As Kesha would say: “Our love is their drug”.

Lakers 2010 Champs…Kobe, Artest and the Zen Master

Manoj Jhaveri — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 08:05:19 +0000

That was an amazing NBA Finals Game 7; and I do believe the better (only slightly) team did win. I used to hate the Lakers…but I don’t think I do anymore. Part of the reason is the maturity of Kobe… yes he’s still cocky and a bit of a ball hog at times – but so was MJ (and MJ was actually more arrogant than Kobe imho). And I love Derek Fisher, Gasol and in a weird way am happy for Ron Artest. And then of course there is Phil Jackson… who I have to love by default since he brought 6 rings to my hometown Chicago.

Some more thoughts on Kobe, Artest and the Zen Master…

Kobe: We can probably stop saying he is “the next MJ”… he basically IS MJ! This guy is amazing and only 31 years old! He shares all the attributes of MJ (scoring, defense, rebounding, assists, leadership, clutch, teamwork, aggressiveness, desire to win, BBall IQ, etc…) – and he already has 5 championship rings (and now 1 without Shaq…who many said he could not win w/out). Check out the interview below for a bit lighter side of Kobe:

http://www.nba.com/video/channels/playoffs/2010/06/17/0040900407_bos_lal_recap.nba/index.html

Artest: I’m actually really happy for this guy. He has a great story… grew up in the NYC projects and had a tough life. He admits to making many mistakes in his life and being an ego-driven and immature person in his past. But he has worked hard and constantly tried to reinvent himself, and that is something that I admire. I remembered something about a famous bball brawl he was involved in, but was fuzzy on the details, so I did a search on YouTube. Check out the following video, it is amazing. The brawl was between the Pacers and Pistons and was famously dubbed “Malice in the Palice” by the media and fans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4avfapXZwqU

Now check out the video of Artest post championship victory in 2010…very different tone! It is a truly hilarious interview where he talks about his “sports therapist” that travels with him and helps him with all the crazy emotions that run through his body

http://www.nba.com/video/channels/playoffs/2010/06/17/0040900407_bos_lal_recap.nba/index.html

Zen Master: Finally, Phil Jackson. What can you say… the guy has no more fingers left for all his rings. He has won 6 rings with Chicago, and now 5 rings with LA. Plus he won 2 rings as a player with the Knicks!! Ridiculous. The guys is totally spoiled…he has coached two of the greatest players ever… MJ and Kobe. No wonder he is so relaxed and “zen”…i wouldn’t worry if I had those guys playin for me day in day out. With 13 total rings… he probably has rings on this toes! Amazing.

Steve Jobs … “Connecting the Dots”

Manoj Jhaveri — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 04:29:46 +0000

Wow…it been a while since I’ve blogged. Time for some serious care and feeding of “Random Walk”. But I think I have just the right topic to get things rolling again. Check out this fantastic speech by Steve Jobs (it is at the commencement ceremony for Standford). It has been several weeks since I watched it, and yet I keep pondering one point that he made in his talk.

Jobs contends that human beings can “connect the dots backwards but not forwards!”. I love this assertion. He illustrates this point with an interesting story from his past about caligraphy (of all things) and how it ultimately influenced the GUI of the first Macintosh! But he expands the idea to life in general. For me, the upshot of his message is “do what interests you and what you are passionate about today instead of always trying to strategize about what will be the most value-added – you won’t always know what is the most valuable until you get there”.

Check it out…it inspirational and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Hope you find it as memorable as I did:

http://www.ted.com/talks/steve_jobs_how_to_live_before_you_die.html

WolframAlpha…the Answer Engine!

Manoj Jhaveri — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 09:44:31 +0000

If you have not already played around with Wolfram Alpha (WA), you are missing out. Go to: http://www.wolframalpha.com/ and navigate to “Stephen Wolfram’s Intro” and watch the video… you will be amazed as Wolfram, the inventor of Mathematica, takes you through a guided tour of what WolframAlpha can do! WolframAlpha is different than Google, Yahoo, Bing, and the like. It is not a search engine, it is an “answer” engine. And it arrives to answers by extending its tentacles to thousands of publically available databases packed with information. It’s stated mission is to make the world’s information “computable”. Check out the following link to see what WA can currently capable of: http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/. I can’t wait to see what WA looks like in a few years, since it is still very new. I only wish I had it in high-school and during my engineering studies – I would have probably used it everyday! My son is going to love this…

Who said physics profs are geeks?

Manoj Jhaveri — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 09:16:30 +0000

For anyone that has sweat and pulled all-nighters on the road to obtaining their college degree, check out the Jan2010 issue of WIRED magazine and read “Summa Cum Fraud” (it will probably make you sick, but don’t worry, there’s a happy ending). It details the inner workings of “diploma mills”, and how they attempt to make their “universities” appear legit – including phony university websites, phony accreditation based on bribes, etc. George Gollin, a physics professor at the University of Illinois at U-C, had enough – starting with all the spam emails. Over the course of several years, Gollin became obsessed with tracking down major diploma mills with a Dirty Harry like conviction. Thanks to his reasearch, he assisted the Secret Service in shutting down several operations. It’s an amazing story with some chilling statistics. Below are just a couple from the article:

The US sells approx 200,000 degrees a year to customers all over the world
The number of fake PhD’s awarded each year = the number of REAL PhD’s awarded each year !!

I checked out Gollin’s website just for kicks: http://www.hep.uiuc.edu/home/g-gollin/higher_education.html.

Daddy the Dinosaur!

Manoj Jhaveri — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 08:36:12 +0000

Lately my son, Rohan, likes to call me “daddy dinosaur”. I have no idea why, maybe because it just sounds cool? Rohan is 3 years old and currently in love with dinosaurs. So when I came across the following article about how dinosaurs became extinct…

http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14698363

…I had to read it, because sooner or later my son is going to approach me and ask, ”where did all the dinosaurs go daddy?”. And the last thing I want to do is be completely clueless when that fateful moment arrives.

Unfortunately, this article did not have all the answers. But it does discuss some of the prevailing theories, as well as some new ones about asteroids that hit off the coast of India, that are very interesting.

Consulting Industry – A Consise History of the Last Decade

Manoj Jhaveri — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 08:08:52 +0000

Read a really consise and informative history of the consulting profession over the last decade in Consulting Magazine last week. Below is a link to the e-zine article online: http://www.consultingmag-digital.com/consultingmag/20091112/?pg=20#pg20. CM tells the story using a top 10 format. Number 1 of course is the collapse of Arthur Andersen that was tied to Enron.

Personal Productivity – Evernote, Xobni, Timebridge

Manoj Jhaveri — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 22:29:28 +0000

These tools, which I discovered this year, have really helped me be more productive and organized:

1. Evernote – www.evernote.com

I looked long and hard, far and wide, for a free tool that I could use to organize all of my notes, and random thoughts, both work related and personal, on my computer. I found a great solution with Evernote. It offers both a free and paid service (as most of these companies now do; see my related post on the “Freemium Business Model”). The free version is good enough for my daily needs. Some highlights of this tool include:

Attractive user interface that allows rich, html based notes and easy integration of screenshots from Snag-It, etc.
Client side application that synchronizes with Evernote’s servers. throughout the day In this way, even if I’m away from my computer, but have access to the web, I can still access ALL of my notes.
Allows creation of multiple folders into a folder structure hierarchy, so you can separate different types of notes.
Excellent text search capabilities that help easily find past notes

Check out some video tutorials here: http://www.evernote.com/about/video/

I’m one of those people who hates taking hand written notes for several reasons: (1) I get carpel tunnel pain, (2) I can type faster than I can write, (3) It’s difficult to efficiently search and email handwritten notes. Evernote helps address these issues and then some.

2. Xobni – www.xobni.com

I know this is sad… but it took me a little while to realize that “XOBNI” is just “INBOX” spelled backwards

This tool has become much more mainstream now for users of MS Outlook, but it has still not hit a mass audience (there are rumors though that they will be acquired by Microsoft…which would be a smart move, considering Xobni’s very cool social networking capabilities. Xobni essentially mines your email and reveals all sorts of hidden information, files and connections – and even mines your contact’s LinkedIn and Facebook profiles). I can’t really do it justice here…so check out the following 5 minute video: http://www.xobni.com/learnmore/. Like Evernote, there is a free and paid version… but the free version is “good enough” for me.

3. Timebridge – www.timebridge.com

Timebridge is actually a full-featured meeting productivity tool. However, there is only one reason I use it…so non-Deloitte employees can view my availability as it appears on my Outlook calendar!! For me this solves an age-old problem, “How will my clients and other people in my network, that don’t work at the same company as me, know when I am available to have a meeting with them”?

Here’s how it works. The timebridge application collects information from my Outlook calendar regarding when I am ‘busy’, and then sends this information to my timebridge account. If I later make a change to my schedule in Outlook, timebridge will automatically capture the changes and re-sync with my timebridge account. Below is what my timebridge calendar looks like for the week of 12/13/2009. What’s really nice is that it only shows when I’m busy, but does not provide more details than that, such as “why” I’m busy (ie. what the name of the meeting is, personal appointment, etc.).

I now include my personal timebridge link:

http://www.timebridge.com/mytime/mjhaveri,

within my email signature, so that it is on all emails that I send.

Hope you get a chance to check out these tools. Let me know what you think, and if you have any tools that you recommend that help boost productivity. Thanks!