How can we save 10 lakh man years of time every year in India. Very simple.

My younger sis is preparing for IDC and she started a discussion with me today morning which led to this.

Education System in India
There are 17000+ colleges in India from which 40 lakh students graduate every year. Though unemployability has been cited as one of the major problems another critical one has gone unnoticed. Everyone graduates at the same time of the year for jobs which are available at different times of the year. This creates a unique challenge for IT companies as they don't have the facilities or the projects to take them onboard at the same time. Hence staggered joining and “sudden unemployability” leads to wastage of thousands of months of manpower.

Solution: This is a problem which could be reduced easily if different universities operated their curriculum so as to allow at least 2 or 3 times within an year when students graduated (a practise prevalent in US)

Saving of time = Area of shaded region = 10 lakh man years and using 70 as the average age of humans = ~14285 human life spans _________________________________________

Assumptions

1. 40 lakh students graduate and everyone gets a job over an year

2. 20 lakh graduate at two points in year and get job within 6 months

Two Principles and a Learning

This is a quick posting. Because I have something to share and because I just havent posted for so long.
Two Principles that I believe are good to follow and would have signficant affect on success or failure of person/organisation

• First things first (prioritize) - assuming that you are smart enough to figure out what to do if we can do it in the right order, it could lead to a dramatic increase in output. Let me take a very simple personal example. Our office starts at 9:15 am. Everybody is supposed to be there. But for me there is this habit of reading newspaper every morning which takes half an hour and given that I have been sleeping late, I kept on getting late by 15 min and used to hate it. Made a simple change. Now I go to office and read the newspaper
• The ones who survive are neither the smartest nor the strongest but the ones most adaptable to change (obviously Charles Darwin). I believe this is true for all success stories

A Corporate Learning: "All processes in an organization will evolve and change". Which leads you to practical things:

• Keep reviewing processes as you grow
• Don’t try to make the most comprehensive process possible for starters. Start with the means (read time) you have to build and manage the process. Just get off the ground

takecarez,

Harpreet

Welcome to India!!

CoCubes team was in Jalandhar recently for a Joint Campus placement drive for Evalueserve. And we happened to visit Amritsar, Wagah Border as well!!

Sunday Morning Lessons

My parents are here to visit. And I have learned a few lessons today morning.

Mom: My house can look cleaner, infact way cleaner with just 2 hours of effort. And this is high output/input ratio. When motivated my maid knows how to work hard.

Dad: Raddi waala (old newspaper collection guy) had come to take newspapers and bad day for him, my dad was here. He totalled all raddi (old newspaper) to be ~15 kgs. My dad came, took one look and said, 'He is off by 100%. This is minimum of 30kgs.' Well, I was sent off on a 'weighing machine scouting tour' which thankfully I managed to find. And you know what, it was 33kgs resulting in doubling revenue from the sale with all bottom line impact (I gave him two bananas to compensate for it). Moreover, he showed us how he actually does it. It is surprisingly simple. Give me a buzz to know.

My dad then proceeded to do a simple analysis on how collecting raddi can be a profitable venture as well by creating micro collection centres through guard of the society plus a macro collection truck each month!!

Last but subtle point: We have a white board at our place (it is a thin sheet which sticks to the wall automatically) where each of our team member writes a message each morning!! I was quickly rubbing off yesterday's with a duster and writing a new one when my dad interrupted. He said 'Son, take a wet cloth and clean it properly'. It hardly took me 30seconds to do but now I am sure I wont have to change the whiteboard each month.

I realised I was running and while I was doing a lot more things, simple rules were being forgotten, making life more complicated than necessary. Technology may have had a big role to play in this complication, but as I read in the newspaper today morning ('A man can fall a lot of times, but he becomes a failure, only when he says someone pushed him'), the onus is on me.

Who the fcuk is going to pay?

Colleges tell us companies wont pay, companies tell us colleges wont pay. Sometimes colleges tell us they wont pay and something companies tell us they wont pay. Who the fuck is going to pay?

My father

p.s.: Defining your customer is one of the biggest challenges of a startup. The above thoughts were in my head till very recently and have currently been sorted out for good. My father can breathe easy.

Old Poetry

A few days away from life
A few days among the lonely mountains
A few days here and there. Nowhere.
A few days of my life.

Written after my wonderful trip to Kalindikhal, 6000m mountain pass, more than an year ago!! Everytime you come back from such a trip you promise that you would go back soon. And for most people that soon is too late. I hope to make a trip to the mountains in the next two months.

Learning No. 13: Drawing the line

This takes on from an earlier post on how time becomes crucial when starting up. You have 24 hours on your hands.

Meeting new people (and marketing there) is probably the most critical part of a startup. Potential customers, investors, advisors, accountant and in general people who can help. One great place for doing so are conferences. The dilemma comes in when the conference ends and you come back home with a stack of cards to follow up with (50 - 100 if you are a networking person). So what do you do then? You see the loads of work that tomorrow shall bring and the backlog that is definitely there because you went to this conference. You met some nice people, some big hot shots, a few customers who were really interested in what you are doing, some media guys who could give you coverage and some people you just want to forget.

The hardest to write mails to are the customers because you shall have to customize your offerings and think clearly about what you write. But even though the lure of the easy mails saying 'It was a pleasure meeting you' beckons, save them for the last (but make sure you do it the second night). Write to potential customers first and then schedule meetings with the few hot shots you met (lunch, coffee, dinner) and the media guys. See who you can find on LinkedIn.

There is loads you could do. Know where to draw a line. Don't go overboard and forget that your baby beckons.