Google Sqared : Getting search to be multi-dimensional

I'm not sure if people have watched the announcement or realized the value / potential of Google's new release of search - Google squared. I was pleasantly surprised to see that this now has a few features that I've always wanted and had some individuals do a bit of development on the side to evaluate the APIs.

Here is a quick recap of the press release "Google Squared does not provide a list of links to Web pages, like with a traditional Google search, but presents information derived from a query in a spreadsheet-like grid called a "square." Users of google.com/squared can then build, modify and refine their "square" through further Web searches. Unlike a normal search engine

, Google Squared doesn't find webpages about your topic -- instead, it automatically fetches and organizes facts from across the Internet"

The press release may sound confusing, however, here is an example that I ran. I did a google square on the word "coke" - which threw up a series of results in a grid - ie. rows + columns.

I then tweaked what I wanted to see in rows and what I wanted to see in columns.
Next, I added "Pepsi" to the sqare to generate a new set.

The kinds of things I added was "Started from" which told me when a particular product like Coke Cherry was launched. This still has a way to go - simply because you'll see that the "Sales" did not return anything significant.


Now - I'm sure someone is going to ask me about Microsoft Bing - Have I used it ?
NO, and I'll wait till the buzz dies down atleast .....

The 10K Marathon in Bangalore :Great participation

I've been off my blog for a couple of weeks - I guess it is the writer's block !.
Not that there has been a shortage of topics to comment upon - we've had the new government and Congress's landslide (of sorts) victory. Then, there has been the racial outrage in Australia not to mention the earlier SriLankan victory over the TTs......

More importantly, I guess, there was a certain level of weariness that had set in and I needed something that'd help me get over my writers' block. That boost came in yesterday with the Sunfeast 10 K run. The surprise at the participation as indeed pleasant.

It was wonderful to see so many people participating in the various "run" categories - I was running with my daughters and was in the Majaa run. We actually joined up the 10 K open category at it's finishing stage and then did the Majaa run.

There certainly was a lot of colour and gaiety. I understand the organizers lost count at the 23000 mark on participation and I was also witness to dozens of "un-registered" runners, in the race just for the fun of participation.

I saw whole groups of people - from NGOs, from Corporates, batchmates from a college etc, chatting and in a jovial mood that the run itself seemed a very pleasant and relaxed event. The camaraderie was certainly visible in all their faces.

The countdown on Indian Elections : high volume data processing

Starting very early tomorrow (May 16), India prepares to count the electoral votes post the elections. I'm sure enough has been said about the world's largest elections - however, am not sure if people have spared a thought on the sheer amount of data processing that is going to be used.

First is the result computation. The entire vote bank split on an average of 11 different ways (I'm told that the average number of candidates inclusive of the independents is 11)

Then, the psepologists that will get onto the TV and media. We are talking about 5-6 major media groups and about 50-60 regional groups, all slicing and dicing the numbers !

While elections probably started the computing revolution with the early counting machines, I think for sheer volume, this election is probably a record !

Tech Mahindra + Satyam : A tale of two...

As most people (atleast the IT folks in India) would know by now, Tech Mahindra has won the bid for Satyam. While, the current debate on valuation is expected to continue for a while, I thought, I'd just pen my own SWOT from a Tech Mahindra perspective.

Given that I own a few shares of Tech Mahindra (although NEVER did for Satyam), this may be seen as the "informed" view of an industry outsider ?

Strengths (read Advantages)
- TM has traditionally been in the telecom vertical and is perceived as a "vertical industry" player. This has meant that for a while, TM has been missing out on the broad "general business" areas of Retail, distribution, manufacturing, services etc. This would add considerable breadth
- Satyam supposedly has a fairly strong "fixed price" model (profitability unknown :-)) that should be good for TM
- Satyam's reach in both the middle east and AUS / NZ markets

Weakness (read Disadvantage)
- Management /Thought leadership : Especially in the areas of Packaged applications (SAP, Oracle, MS Dynamics), Custom development (non-product) and managed services
- Culture : Not sure how they'd be able to reconcile the bottom load model of Satyam at cheaper rates to the vertical strength model that TM has
- Parity : This just has to do with employee status and relationship management ?

Opportunity
- The biggest opportunity for TM would be the opening of the horizontal "multinational" enterprise - ranging from Travel industry to retail to pharma/healthcare
- The opening of the COTS (read as ERP/ CRM) market

Threat
- Client / customer and account retention (and this one needs no elaboration)
- Cost advantage ? (esp. given that most of the contracts that Satyam needs to deliver on would be on a very aggressive P&L) and the market perception / environment

However, what is very clear is that this is probably the start of a clear sign of consolidation.

Electricity conservation : Smart Metering with Smart pricing ?

Today, I saw another article on smart metering in ET's online edition that prompts me to write out this post.

For most people in Bangalore, power cuts are a routine thing. Infact, a telling and poignant photo in the local newspapers a couple of weeks ago had school children protesting that the power cuts were impacting their studies / exam results !

On their part, the government is trying to "buy" power from neighboring states to make up the deficit. This, when, the power dept is running under deficit and is owed millions by other government departments themselves ! Anyway, that is a digression.

Coming to governance, I think the best way to regulate power usage is to come up with a time based power tariff. Reasoning is simple, we Indians love to save money and if it means we have to switch on our "boilers" / "storage water heaters" in the middle of the night - we will. There just has to be an incentive.

Some of you may remember that the explosion of telecom (not the current mobile one, but, the earlier STD / landline one) owed a lot to the then prevalent incentive ie. ALL calls made between 10 PM in the night to 6 AM in the morning would be at 50% discount.

I still remember the long queue that would develop at some phone booths 15 mins or sometimes even 30 mins before the 10 PM deadline.

We would still need to upgrade our meters by making it time aware. All I'm stating is that it is NOT necessary to make the meters internet / online, but, it is sufficient for us to be able to get the meter to count at different rates based on time. Maybe we can pass that information on the grid itself so that the meters reconfigure on their own based on demand ?

Another idea to work on in my free time (when it happens!)

The much talked about Spirit of Mumbai or Why do I like Mumbai ?

For a lot of parents who worry about their child going out of town for their job, my suggestion of " let the individual start their career with a job in Mumbai - it is the best thing that that can happen" raises a lot of eyebrows. There is however a reason for this. Infact, I was reminded of all these reasons encapsulated as the spirit of Mumbai last week when I was talking to a colleague that has prompted this post.

The first thing that Mumbai teaches is "value of money". Purists will argue that we should focus on the word "value", we should replace the word "of" with "for" etc. but, Mumbai actually, I believe teaches one the value "of" money.

This is clearly demonstrated by the concept of "Shared autos and Shared cabs". Brilliant !!
It is a pleasure to walk up to any of the shared cab areas outside a train station to get into a shared cab where you get to talk to and interact with strangers. The best thing in the model is that it is a perfect example of "win-win" positioning. The individual rider wins by having to pay less, the cab driver wins by collecting slightly more than a straight "share".

Then, there is the Equality of money that the local 1st class bogie teaches. I'm actually NOT being demeaning by marking the term 1st class !!!. While I do recognize that there is a daily struggle and the bulk of the people move in the local's second class bogies, there is something magical about the 1st class bogie and that is "Aspirations"

If you sit in one of these morning / evening commuter bogies, you will get to see people from all classes of the "working hierarchy" rub shoulders. There will be the senior managers in a public sector / a bank to the rank newbie (still wet / green behind the ears) working as a trainee in an MNC. ALL of them are very open and discuss their career aspirations and hopes candidly using the co-commuter as a bouncing board. It is simply amazing !

After you spend a few months in Mumbai, you get to appreciate the term "Jugaad". In Mumbai, people learn the "yes" attitude and it grows on you. While the same attitude almost borders on "chalta hai" in other northern cities, I believe Mumbai has always had a "Can Do" set that is quite distinctive.

These 3 examples / attitudes of Jugaad, Save while you can and hold high aspirations make Mumbai an unique experience.

Let me repeat, if you ever get a chance to spend a few months working in Mumbai - irrespective of all the other troubles / issues - please do grab it !

Emirates Terminal 3 in Dubai - being in the belly of a snake ?

Most of my transits in Dubai terminal 3 ever since it opened have been in the night where I've not had a chance to see it in its' full glory until this trip.

This time, I had a distinct feeling that I was getting into the belly of a giant desert SNAKE !

You see, the design (see above) has the distinct pattern of a desert Snake. Once you walk in, you need to traverse for a looong loonng time across the belly of this snake to get to immigration.

The planes on either side almost seem to be the equivalents of small ants / insects coming in to take a dig at this dead snake !

I think in this case, there was an attempt to force fit into the design as I see a clear issue with the loading of passenger traffic. All focus is on the center or this belly where the lounges + the shopping area is. This means the extremes of this snake has a LOT of free space with a vauge emptiness to it, while the middle is the swollen "hippo for breakfast" in this snake.