All Posts by Himanshu Sheth

|In: Books|Last Updated: | 8 Comments
Currently holidaying for a week in Mumbai, the days are very busy here and hence,this has affected the frequency of the no of articles on my blog smile However,visited Crossword in Mumbai and purchased a new book “Startup Nation:Open for Business” by Sloan Brothers(Jeff and Rich Sloan) and after reading first few pages,I was very much impressed and Rs 665 is worth for the book lol The initial part of the introduction is very interesting and worth mentioning on my blog:

You’re a dreamer right? That’s why you’ve picked this book.Maybe you had a great idea knocking around inside your head for years.Maybe you’ve roughed it out on the back of a napkin and tucked it away somewhere.But you don’t know what the next step is or what the first step is.Or,just maybe,you’re sitting in your cubicle, next to a hundred other cubicles,thinking, “How do I stop working for the man?“.If any of these descriptions fit you,you are an entrepreneur-in-waiting.And you’re not alone.You are one of us-one of the two-thirds of Americans(oops,we are Indians) who dream about owning their own business.

The book also covers “Life Planning” which is very much important for people who want to startup(part time or full time).Life Plan helps you to know your current status,your likes,dislikes,your family responsibilities,dreams….. This makes me remind of Mr. Narayana Murthy who quoted “Infosys would not have been possible without Sudha Murthy’s support“and this is where support comes into picture.

An interesting article on the same can be found here and an example life-plan can be downloaded from hereThis Life Plan would definitely help us in striking a balance between personal and business life wink There are lots of other facts that are covered in the book and would be covering the interesting articles(from the book) on my blog…

Worth Reading:
StartupNation Blog
Ten steps to open for business

|In: Management|Last Updated:
To start with , I have missed blogging for two days due to various reasons and hence,getting into the groove again lol Getting back to some serious stuff, how many times have you felt unsatisfied with your job or work but could not speak to your Manager or if you are a Manager,how many times have you tried to address the concerns of the employee? Having this two-way communication would help build a better team relationship between you and your peers…

Just saw a link on Inc,which talks about “9 Questions to ask an Unhappy employee“…. Some of the fundamental questions which are interesting and are listed below:

  1. One thing that you would like to change in the company?
  2. What do you think about the performance of the team and the company?
  3. Your views on my Managerial and Leadership skills?
  4. Do you receive periodic feedback about your performance?
  5. What is most satisfying about your job?
  6. What is least satisfying about your job?
  7. What would you change about your job?
  8. Do you receive training to keep your knowledge inline with the trend?
  9. What are your career goals and how can the company help you to achieve them?
I would like to add my points on the same in my next article.Also,I would like to focus on “A round-table feedback(or a two way feedback),which would help the employee and the leader to focus on areas of improvement rolleyes

|In: Management|Last Updated: | 1 Comment
When, what, how…. to speak has become an integral part of the work culture.Many times,out of emotions,we make blunder and communicate in a wrong way to the other person and this results in an unprofessional environment cry Below is an article on “Business Etiquette“(from Hindustan Times) by Ranjan Acharya,Senior VP-HRD,Wipro that focusses on some of the basic do’s of Business Etiquettes.

Note: The points that I liked the most are underlined in Blue and Red.

Click on the image to enlarge

|In: Management|Last Updated: | 4 Comments
We have heard a lot of MBA and every professional,technical or non-technical is interested in an MBA.The MBA program(as we all know) may be a part time MBA or can be a full time MBA,for which you need to quit your job and join the MBA program.MBA is in my pipeline as well and an MBA would scale my career to a greater height but the question remains “Do you(including myself) need to go to a B School to be an MBA graduate?” and the answer is a No!!!

But how do you get an MBA without joining a B School? The answer lies within each one of us ,who have used the holy grills of marketing , without even knowing that you have those qualities in you biggrin But just by having these qualities , does it mean that you should go for an MBA or you are just trying to follow the crowd that wants to churn money after getting an MBA? MBA or business management is more about network and using right resources at the right time and for the right reason.With the advent of internet,blogs and podcasts and study from the management books available,offline MBA(MBA earned without going to a B School) has become easier and you need not enter a B School to get an MBA biggrin IMHO,just to shift your career from engineering to management,an MBA degree would be a waste since, after being in a company for few years,you yourself can opt for a managerial post in the company,for which an MBA is not required and won’t be a value-add to your profile biggrin

With the same doubts in mind,I started googling for some material which would clear your doubt(as well as mine) and I came across a post by Rajesh Setty where he explains “Why should you earn an MBA-it’s pros or cons” and I would like to note down some of the interesting points(from his article) that you should consider, while thinking of an MBA

Check your attitude:
Your sole motive of entering an MBA is to be known before hand.

Design an alternate plan(if you can’t get an MBA):

Acquire knowledge at a breathtaking speed:

Belong to powerful networks:
Build a wide network of people and keep in touch with them to build a strong relationship

Build long lasting relationships:


Volunteer for engagements of higher value:
Try to do something NOTICEABLE that would catch the eyeballs of others in the office biggrin

Lead a volunteer effort:

Work with a startup for Free (Important):

Make others win

Get a Good mentor:

Final word of advice(Time to take action):

This would make us think twice whether we are an MBA material or not!!!

Thanks Rajesh for this wonderful learning.You can download the pdf from here

|In: Podcast|Last Updated: | 5 Comments
Reporting live from PodWorks and tried my hands on blogging at around 3:30 PM and yes,I am tired after a small presentation on “Blogging tips for Blogging and Podcasting“.My team involved Vibhash and Sridhar and since,I don’t blog for money,I focussed on business side of blogging and guess the presentation turned out to be decent one biggrin

The presentation was made in around 20 minutes and the experience to speak in front of 150 people was quite amazing wink Enough of my bla..bla…the current presentation is by the Nautanki.tv CEO who speaks on “How to make money through blogging and podcasting“

AdBright,Google Ads are some of the things that he tried to stress upon.A pretty decent talk but rest of the sessions was on some of the basic fundas of Podcasting!!!

More will update later and would head to the Beach Party biggrin

More coverage:
iLan covers Podworks Day-1 here and Day-2 here

Photos of the event can be found here

|In: Podcast|Last Updated: | 3 Comments
From Blogging to Wiki’s to Startups , a new season of unconference on “Podcasting” named Podworks would start from 9th June,2007 onwards(and the blast would last for 2 days). This makes me remind of my first unconference-BlogCamp in Chennai where, I was silent and was waiting to connect with like-minded people but now,for the very first time,I would be going with a big gang of like-minded people biggrin

Last BarCamp,Bangalore was a very great experience for me and I would be joining these Bar-campers for Podworks.
Sridhar has already thought about the agenda for the discussion in the train and I am damn sure there would be lots of other discussions in the train mrgreen

The other gang members are Vibhash,Anil , Yousuf and a first timer to the unconference circuit Alok….Alok, welcome to the unconference gang lol

Let’s pack our bags and rock the way to Podworks…and yes, since Ashwin cancelled his trip,I would try to take his position to get my hands-on to live blogging wink For guys like Vishal , Mahesh and Ashwin who have missed the train to Podworks…do not worry…we guys would be there to share the experiences in Podworks , so till than……

Happy Pod(working) !!!

|In: Apple|Last Updated: | 2 Comments
This could have been one of the best interviews of all time,two rivals-Bill Gates and Steve Jobs on the same stage for an interview biggrin The start of the interview could not have been better where Bill Gates confirmed that he is not Fake Steve Jobs wink Below is a video of one of the interviews conducted by AllThingsD

The best part of the entire interview is the set of lines(below) from Steve Jobs, which really shows the fighting spirit of this great personality

Steve Jobs says:

And, you know, one of the things I did when I got back to Apple 10 years ago was I gave the museum to Stanford and all the papers and all the old machines and kind of cleared out the cobwebs and said, let’s stop looking backwards here. It’s all about what happens tomorrow. Because you can’t look back and say, well, gosh, you know, I wish I hadn’t have gotten fired, I wish I was there, I wish this, I wish that. It doesn’t matter. And so let’s go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday.

You can read the complete (long yet interesting) interview here where both show the sweet rivalry,in a true business sense!!!

Among the blogger community , Steve Jobs definitely scores more over Bill Gates!!!There is an article by Arpit Jacob , where he questions “Who is a better person Bill Gates or Steve Jobs?“ My vote was in Bill Gates’s favour taking the excellent work done by the “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation” into consideration.

I hope you enjoyed the interview,just as I did biggrin Also, do cast your votes as to “Who do you think is a better person-Bill Gates or Steve Jobs?”

|In: Joking|Last Updated: | 5 Comments
After some serious(or should I say very serious) stuff on this blog,time had come to crack some joke.Myself and Ashwin had quite a no of articles on our blogs on Megabucks and IITK, but this time,the article falls on the lighter side lol

It was around 1:30 AM and was chatting with Rachit Chandra,a student from Bits Pilani and he informed about the IITK website being hacked…Yes,this is a breaking news…Check the snapshot of the hacked website of IITK

May be the hacker is a fan of McDonald’s and hence,he has changed the name of Indian Institute Of Technology,Kanpur to McDonalds Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.

I seriously find difficult to write serious posts in a joking manner(hope,the statement was correct wink), but can someone catch hold of the hacker wink