Wanted "Senior Engineer - 4-5 Yrs Experience, proficiency in java, sql, oracle, ...xyz....etc." Sound familiar? Imagine if every (tech) position was written in this way. Would we have qualified at the starting points in our careers? Probably not. Someone took a chance with us, lowered their expectations and we met them. Someone definitely took a chance on me. We grow and we evolve. Our spouses and parents see this every day of our lives in our personal realms. We're nowhere near as able and capable as we can be. And we were worse years ago. And they know it. :)

At work, it is a deeply rewarding experience to hire someone that you feel is a risky bet because of their lack of experience. They're eager, excited, not as jaded with corporate life and are a breath of fresh air to everyone around them. They make mistakes, slip and fall, but so do we. They'll need to be corrected and will occasionally give you the deer-in-headlights. We all do that, they're just newer to the game thats all. But they're so eager and the stakes really are low and they recover faster than anyone else. In two years an investment like this pays off. If lacking in experience, when hiring look for aptitude, thinking skills and interest.

One of the most nerve-wracking experiences for techies is attending a job fair. I've attended several of the largest tech job fairs in the country, in and around Santa Clara. It is an absolute tech meet market. Getting two questions from a company after your 30 second pitch is a minor victory. When fresh out of college, premium watermarked paper costs a lot. And after handing out all those resumes, you're lucky if you get a handful of calls back. I was so eager to start working after these experiences that I taught myself on nights and weekends on my first job. I know I paid off on my investment.

Don't expect someone like this to be with you forever. This is just an even exchange. They give you their best, eager, manic, caffeine-rich, near-24 hour days of their lives, and you give them much needed experience, maturity and help them grow. It's important that both move on at some point, but enjoy the experience while it lasts. Help them with communication, business writing, meeting etiquette and other softer skills that no body teaches you in college. If the person is any good, you'll find yourself relying on them more and more as time goes on. That means your investment is paying off.

Narayana Murthy, founder of Infosys, in one of his speeches once said (paraphrased) "All of us are the fruits of a tree somebody else watered. During our lifetimes, let's promise to water another tree, so new fruits may bloom."

Words to live by.

Forbes had a good list that I captured here. Many colleagues came up to me though, immediately after, and suggested I add a few more. So, by popular demand here is another roundup of some painful jargon. Part deux (faux french and euro terms strike me as needing to be on the list too).

"Deep Dive"

If you're not in the navy or in mining, this term is off limits for you. What it really means in geek terms, is to get more technical, in the weeds (see below) or to simply add more details, usually of a technical nature. Let's just call it for what it is. "Can we have a more detailed discussion please?"

"In the Weeds"

Managers, are most guilty of this one. It's their way of remarking to themselves or the attendees, and simply asking the rhetorical question, "Did anyone get what I said?". Just prior to this is the customary third degree technical questioning completely inappropriate for a larger managerial meeting. Multiple versions of this term exist. The most heinous office-space versions involve people in the room, I kid-you-not, pulling out an imaginary weed whacker (Yes I know) and making a motor noise like so - RR-R-R. Really.

"Parking Lot"

A meeting consultant must have come up with this in the last five years as part of his/her unique vocabulary. Ever since it's made a cunning appearance onto the scene, it has become the catch-all for discussions that are usually not relevant to the meeting at hand. Oddly, if you pay attention, sometimes the person who calls "parking lot" i.e. requesting to defer an item for discussion, is the very person who digressed the discussion to begin with. People tend to have chats in a parking lot only to resolve fender bumps and nicks, or if in the midwest, to stock up on ammunition, so if in a meeting, call it for what it is. Not bloody relevant. This term needs to be euthanized quickly.

"Strawman"

Basically if I propose a complete hack, want to request feedback without being humble enough to be open about it, or don't know what the bloody heck I'm doing, I'm working on a strawman. If I just say I need help people surprisingly always offer to help. I just don't call it a strawman.

"Synergy"

If there's one term that's driven us techies up the wall over the last decade, its synergy. When someone means "I want what you have" or "I'm going to learn a lot from you" or "my people/tools/processes suck, yours are awesome, HELP" before or after "I'm going to acquire you", they cannot be honest about it and would rather say "lets find or explore synergy". It's one of those words that's morphed from a noun into a verb and adjective. Please stop with the synergies.

"Leverage"

Like synergy, leverage came into everyday business vocabulary as if our primary occupations involved the use of fulcrums and levers. I wish it did. Those were simpler times. I know the words 'use' or 're-use' don't sound complex enough, but that's really all we're doing. Let's just say that. Developers reuse things all the time. You'll never hear me say "let me leverage xyz's xml processing library". I'll reuse it.

"Traction"

Again, if not in the chiropractic or spinal disc realignment business, you've got nothing to do with traction. All you need to say is something is gaining acceptance, popularity or wider support. That's all. It's okay to use simpler words. Really.

"Google it"

This is an up-and-comer, but every bit as irritating. When someone wishes to impress upon you the very outer limits of their researching capabilities this is the term that is used. Usually it means they did a lazy search, and captured the first piece of data (not knowledge) they could find. I have a hard time placing my trust in someone who just read something 5 minutes before I do. I prefer expertise. 

"Agile"

I'm working on a follow-up post just dedicated to this term. It has morphed from a set of principles from career programmers into an entire industry. It encapsulates and justifies everything from lack of design, insufficient documentation, poor requirements, collaboration over expertise, non-linear amounts of waste and sometimes poor practices, all in the name of delivering smaller pieces of value quicker to the end-client. The focus continues to be on getting 'agile' vs. delivering value using agile principles. There is more confusion than clarity on this one topic, and entire forums of software people bemoaning the state of agile affairs, and when the word itself is used as cover for anything and everything, it makes itself into the realm of jargon. Getting back to basics and rethinking is highly called for on this one. 

Notable Mentions : "Bucketize", "Gap Fitment", Any permutations of the list above.

Ultimately this post is about making our meetings and our work environments more productive and accessible to all. We all have lots to contribute towards each other and to improve the quality of our work, but all of these terms serve as downers and meeting filler material at best. Jargon like these only help meander an otherwise meaningful discussion for no apparent reason. Some of these terms have existed for a whole decade. It is unacceptable. Let's take back our work environments from the consultant-speak, and bludgeon these terms into permanent oblivion. There is a reason the second S in KISS stands for stupid.

Now that's what I call synergy.

I used to get petrified of these meetings. At an earlier stage of your career, you're less likely to be involved in these sorts of meetings and so you're less likely to know how to deal with them. Just know that over your career there is a transition of first being scared, then confident, then knowing what your outcome will be and then finally getting to be the executive who decides the outcome i.e. the H or F part. Let's first define what this meeting is.

It's the sort of meeting where something fundamental is about to change, and you are single-handedly the cause for that change. It is most definitely not a status meeting, a platform meeting, an update meeting or any kind of regularly scheduled meeting. It also isn't a panic, pin the blame or root-cause analysis meeting. It most definitely isn't a technology-related meeting. It's much more.

When you present something fantastic, uniquely value-adding, a proposition that could get people above you in hot water, or stand out by challenging the status quo of business, that's when you have a GHOF meeting. When you challenge basic assumptions, organizational models, executive wisdom, redefine competition, identify new business opportunities, or all of the above that's GHOF at it's best. You have to identify something, typically a problem or five, a host of solutions, investments or deas and tie all the pieces together. You're basically identifying something no one else thinks about - and because you have - are implicitly or explicitly applying for any opportunity that arises out of that. The untold assumption is that you're suggesting status quo isn't an option, and so if not given the opportunity to solve the problem, what else exists?

I like these meetings because it reduces outcomes to two fundamental options. Green light, red light. No amber. It dramatically increases odds of success to a guaranteed 50%, gets you visibility, makes you known as a non status-quo'er (there are too many of those) all while painting a giant 3-d bullseye on your back. Things will change for you. Guaranteed.

I'll follow up with tips for one of these, but I try to work on at least one or two of these a year. That means at least three-four ideas you have to discard in the process. Desh Deshpande, of Sycamore Networks, famously used to recommend his employees always go on job interviews at least twice a year. That way they know what they're worth, aren't afraid of taking risks where they are, and can dive headlong into an opportunity without worrying about unemployment. They know they're good enough. They just found a job elsewhere to prove it. I recommend if you don't or can't head down the entrepreneurial path, try to create for yourself at least 1 GHOF meeting a year. It does the work soul much good.

Oh, and if offered cake at one of these meetings, never refuse. 

Avatar is undoubtedly going to be all the rage this weekend and at water-coolers next week. (That and the foot of snow the nor'east is getting)

For those who think this is a concept that second life, Facebook or Cameron has pioneered, here's some background.

The weight of Indian religious belief is shared equally by three paths, or margams. Bhakti (the path of devotion), Jnana (the path of intellect or knowledge) and Karma (the path of action). There are entire volumes of work, ashrams and gurus that have pontificated on the depth and breadth of each. These have been gathered through verbal traditions, written leaf manuscripts and experiences passed down from thousands of generations ago.

Jnana-margam is the subject of the Vedas and Upanishads, the most popular reference material for Indian philosophy. Much of latter-day Buddhism can be attributed to the purest wisdom of these pages. Karma-Marg, the source of many of the forms of traditional Hatha Yoga is described in great detail in the Bhagavad Geeta. It is a series of discourses given by Lord Krishna to his disciple, prior to the greatest war mankind has ever seen. Bhakti-margam is probably best captured in the Srimad Bhagavatam-Purana, a collection of episodes, happenings in the every day lives of citizens long ago, that describe the glory and omnipotence of Lord Vishnu. That is the source of the Avatars, dashavataram, because there were ten of them.

Because qualities like righteousness, justice, equality were lost on mankind for successions of years, through a period of yugas (several thousand years), Lord Vishnu was beseeched by man to deliver  mankind from unspeakable evil, disaster and destruction. Through a series of Avatars, or physical representations of the ultimate form, the lord appeared and rescued his devotees each time. The Avatars - Matsya (Fish), Kurma (Tortoise), Varaha (Boar), Narasimha (Lion), Vamana (man), Parashuram(Warrior), Rama (King), Krishna (man), Buddha, Kalki. All except Buddha and Kalki appeared in previous yugams or ages. The Avatar of Matsya which came about thousands of years ago is the tradition upon which the later-day "Noah's Ark" is based. Think about how one tradition from another region many years ago was repeated in another land, thousands of years since. It is NO coincidence.

One slight variation on the avatars is that some don't recognize Buddha as an avatar but rather Krishna's brother Balaram (an avatar of Adi-Sesha). Ultimately though each avatar promised and delivered salvation, blessings and hope for mankind in the face of certain catastrophe.

For those interested in an incredibly pious and sacred English rendering of these tales, Srimad Bhagavatam by Kamala Subramaniam (here) makes for a great read. Treat it with respect though, read it in seven days and prepare for some remarkable goodness to come your way. The power of the Bhagavatam, proven over generations, is that when read with respect it purifies and bestows blessings upon not just your house, but those of all of your neighbors, and your seven subsequent generations. 

Online avatar creation sites like face your manga or second life might get a lot of traffic this weekend, as people try to figure out how they can get one. The avatars described are an incredibly pious and sacrosanct concept though. It is just worth respecting that the concept of the Avatar came about several thousand years ago, in another yugam, or time, obviously much before this movie, James Cameron, Facebook or James' namesake, the J.C. I'll be sharing that and the movie review at the water-cooler.

..there is a woman. Or so goes the adage. My version and story differ just a bit.

I am blessed with three women in my life. 

My mother. She has taught me to be always be honest with my emotions and never be superficial, to live within and accept your means, to love and live for your children, and to help those less fortunate. Unfortunately, India has an abundance of those less fortunate, and ever since I've come of age, all I can remember and see to this day are efforts she takes to help those downtrodden ones. "Help ever, Hurt never" is her life's motto and she goes to great lengths to live this. I have seen first-hand the unshakable power of prayer, belief and the force of the Lalita Sahasranamam or Narayana Bhattatiri's ode to the Lord of Guruvayoor, Kerala, the Narayaneeyam. She personifies the Bhakti-Marg or path of devotion and unbelievable events have happened for our family because of that devotion.

My wife, undoubtedly the smart one, was educated at premier institutions around the world incl. MIT & Cambridge. She had a great career and put that on hold for our kids. Her reason for doing so is to provide an environment for them, at least as good as one our mothers provided for us. She is my sounding board on every aspect of my life and I make better decisions only because of that. She helps me understand subjects that I have a tough time grasping, like micro/macro economics and social development, that come naturally to her and I am wiser for it. Because of her, I know who Austan Goosbee or Paul Samuelson (RIP) are and how their work shaped our lives. My intellect is better formed because of her.

My daughter, my fountain of renewal, teaches me to just let life be. She knows how to let the truly insignificant pass from memory. No event is as important as the one currently being experienced, and that's good enough. That is also the essence of Zen. She wouldn't know, that's just how she is. She teaches me that life's worries are easily forgotten if only we became more like children. Through her eyes I see how much love life can really give us. Every man should be blessed with a first child that is a daughter. It will help him.

Behind every successful man there is a woman? The revelation I had recently is that they are actually my life's blessings. I know the impact these women have on me, making me a better person. I am aware of, respect and treasure that with my very being. It is that knowledge that makes me successful.

Who doesn't love food, right? What's not to love? After reading Prof. Michael Pollan's new book, you'll love it even more. Or, just hopefully, love the right kinds of food. 

To those unfamiliar with Professor Pollan, he writes often for the NY Times as a contributing editor, a journalist by trade with dozens of articles for Time, Conde Nast, Harper's and the Times. He has a background in journalism and studied at Oxford, and at Columbia. 

Pollan's writing style is amazing and fun to read. A chapter might switch from data to research to observation to suggestion in just a few paragraphs, all the while begging the reader to examine his own food practices and shortcomings. The prose is never preachy or overly scientific, and therein lies the beauty. I took the time to research, i.e. not Google, several of his sources and data points, and they do indeed add up. Readers should take the time to investigate steps taken by our government to safeguard the food 'industry' and question just whom the nexus between the government and this industry benefits. 

Unlike his previous book however, The Omnivore's Dilemma, this one is less about industry, but more to & for the consumer. Analyzing food practices and cultures centuries old, contrasted with nutritionism, a few decades old, reductionist science approach to food content, he asks the reader to make simple, better choices in their diet. Calling out a few of this 'science's' missteps (corn products, saturated fat, trans fats, etc.) he cautions basically against taking the nutrients out of the food, the food out of the diet, the diet out of the practices, and the practices out of the culture. Every misstep of ours, and therefore miscalculated health outcome, seems to have been the result of families forsaking generations-old food practices, and placing their faith in a nutritionist's test tubes and the products that come out of them. This just seems too intuitive, but we still do most of our shopping in the middle aisles of the grocery store, where these food products thrive.

While describing the values of an all-vegetarian diet, which he openly professes is far healthier, he admits to enjoying the odd serving of meat as well. The reader is given lots of options, simple advice, on better yet pragmatic choices to make while at the grocery store. The best part of the book for me, is when he talks about the relationship between our appetites, our desire for food, a plant or fruit's ripening cycles and the antioxidant and other compounds it forms as a result. It was thrilling to read about the relations between a dozen or more of nature's processes, and the purpose behind each one.

These purposes are rarely witnessed in a test tube.