I am constantly amazed by the power of the piddly iPhone camera!

After the effusive praises (I am sure I am deserving of far less) Jenny Nash showered on me for wishing her a happy birthday, I got thinking first thing in the morning – how did I even get started? I greet over 2000 people happy birthday every year and sure enough, it had a very interesting beginning.

In 1995, I was promoted to be a manager – for the first time in my life. I was to be development manager of a few UI developers. I asked myself how could I differentiate myself? I already knew – with occasional reminders from well wishers like Bob Hart 🙂 – that I was not much of my developer myself. (I guess that is why I got promoted? 😉 ). I had resolved to see if I could excel in Customers and People. And it was that thirst to be known to be a great people manager that drove me to understand how to recruit talent, build talent, develop talent and so on. And in the process also how to get to know people at a deep level.

One of the tools I had developed was to greet my teammates on two days of the year – their birthday and their anniversary day (in our company). It was fairly uncommon in those days – at least in my company – so much so that most believed that I had a cron job (automated; those days I worked in Unix) that I had set up. Eventually, the feedback to this practice was so overwhelmingly positive that I enlarged to include team members from outside my team, then customers, personal friends and now just about anybody I meet.

I had had some hilarious bumps on the way. One of the early ones – and this has happened multiple times – was when I became a higher level manager. Every time we had a new employee, I would write down their joining date and then ask for their birthday. More than one employee had complained to HR about this. Lady employees were uncomfortable sharing their age and elderly employees were afraid of discrimination if management knew their age!! This, inspite, of clarifying that I was seeking just month and day!!!

This continued for a few years. Year after year, I would send birthday emails out. And no, they were not copy pasted. And then technology like FB came and messed me up. First, everybody started to wish everybody publicly on FB about their birthdays. This had two issues. When I wished somebody, many felt I picked up their birthday from FB – which I thought diminished the value of the effort I was putting. (I write it in my calendar). And the whole unique value prop was under threat.

So, after a year, I had to improvise my strategy. I realized that FB had made it easy for people to send wishes (and also for the recipient to send mass Thank You in one message). To create a niche, I had to focus on quality. And that thought has now started a process where I am moving away from email based wishes to actually calling people up.

I am in transition. I am still settling in the new process. Given my travel schedule and the different time zones in the world, I do not often make it every day – in which case, I will wish by email at the end of the day. Long commute hours is something I do not hate any more!! Also, I leverage FB to send personal messages to wish if email and phone number bounce back. (For whatever it is worth, I hate wishing people publicly. I still think of it as a very personal one-on-one message).

And then FB royally extracted its revenge on me last year. Made the mistake of connecting FB to my address book. It quickly overwrote my painstakingly gathered birthdays with the self-declared birthdays of the person in FB. (Without asking me how to resolve the conflicts!!!! 🙁 ) It is often that people purposely give a wrong birth date. (This is a good practice, in my opinion, given the amount of identity theft in the world). And that started the process of me wishing somebody on a wrong date, finding it the humiliating way that I had messed up and then correcting my address book 🙂 And promising never to connect my address book directly to the social media 🙂 A few of those errors are still taking some time to work out the kinks. My friend from Dallas – Badri – knows very well how I have raised wishing him on the wrong day to a level of fine art!!!!

That said, I have had some positive outcomes too!! In December 2004, a birthday wish to a sales guy I had not met for a long time led him to get me to meet his client and one thing led to the other and that January, he signed a rather large deal. And yes, he, as well as the two key guys on the client side still get birthday wishes from me annually!! Another story – in October 2012, I left a voicemail for an executive at a customer wishing him happy birthday! When he returned the call, one thing led to the other again, and in a few months, he switched jobs to work in my current company!!!! There are numerous such experiences I fondly remember.

So, I am often asked, where do I get the energy to do all this? Well first, I think this is a great way to network with people. Once a year, this forces me to think of my people in the network and talk / connect with them. You never know when I may be of help or they might be able to help me. As Jenny said, “paying it forward”.

I also have found this as an excellent way of keeping my address book updated. Beats the business model of Plaxo 🙂

But the real reason is that I feel indebted greatly to people who have touched my life. In so many ways, I am the end result of all the cumulative influence people around me have had over the years. While I say “Happy Birthday”, I guess, what I am saying is “In this short journey of life of yours and mine, I am delighted that we had the opportunity to walk together for a few steps. Every step in that journey has enriched me and made me a better man. Thank you for that. My call today is to let you know that I have not forgotten you nor what you meant to me. Because today is special to you, it is special to me too. Thank you again and I certainly will seek more intersection points with you in my path.”

And to be able to convey that heartfelt “Thanks”, I can always find the energy to get up a little early to make sure I make time to wish you on your special day!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I wish you a Happy Birthday!!!

First off, I absolutely am of the belief that when it comes to countries, there are no friends or enemies – just interests. Regardless of the geopolitical interest that Crimea itself generates for US (which should be precious little) the issue at hand is letting Russia go uncontested as it increases its power and direct control. This is against strategic interest of US (which is interested in seeing a weaker Russia) and therefore US needs to and should raise hell and try to exact a price for Russia’s actions. Such geopolitical issues are far more complex, interrelated and nuanced than most of us probably fathom.

That said, I was struck by President Obama’s declaration “Russia is on the wrong side of history”.

There is an assumption in that statement that history, in the long term, will “right” this by reversing this action. First and foremost, my observation is that history has never judged “right” from “wrong”. It has only judged victors from the vanquished. Victors then wrote their version of the story. And since history has no ability to run a control experiment, that story, then called history, became “right” and always has looked kindly on the action of the victors and harshly on the vanquished.

The second difficulty is that the history of political ownership and geographical boundaries of that part of the world and by extension Central Europe too is like God’s cruel giant etch-a-sketch. There is an excellent video of this that has gone viral that depicts over time how the boundaries and ownerships have changed (http://youtu.be/nq0KNfS_M44) and thus the definition of “right” and “wrong” has flip-flopped! Out of curiosity, I started reading the history of Crimea and here is the summary:

The following is just in the last 100 years!! Before that Crimea was occupied or ruled by the Greeks, the Romans, the Goths, the Huns, the Bulgars, the Kievan Rus, the Byzantine empire, the Kipchaks, the Mongols… You name them.

1917-1921: Incredibly enough, in these four years, Crimea existed as or part of 10 different countries!!! (Under Tatar govt, Bolshevik govt, German govt, British govt, Anti-Bolshevik govt and so on….)
1921: Crimea became Autonomous Crimean SSR and became then part of the Russian SSR which eventually became part of the Soviet Union.
1941: Crimea devastated by the Nazis. All cities razed to the ground. Crimea ruled by Nazis.
1944: Red Army takes over Crimea and Stalin forcibly moves out all indigenous Tatars out of the country. Half of them died. Greeks and Armenians were ethnically cleaned too. That is how Russian people started settling and overtaking Crimean land.
1954: Nikita Khruschev (President of USSR) unexpectedly “gifts” Crimea to Ukraine!
1991: Majority (54%) in Crimea referendum choose to stay independent of Russia. they become part of independent Ukraine.
1999: Crimea becomes Autonomous Republic of Crimea with its own parliament and constitution.
17th Mar, 2014: Crimea declared independence as Republic of Crimea
18th Mar, 2014: Crimea votes to be part of Russia. Thus making it the shortest lived independent country ever in history!!

It would be interesting to see how we can ever prove or disprove President Obama’s statement.

USA Today Tech Section front page carries an article that declares in its first statement “millions worldwide celebrate Pi day today” (today being 3.14). That led me to the curiosity question – how many countries follow MDY format for dates? Who are these other “worldwide” folks? Want to take a guess? Only USA!!! Okay, I am discounting Belize!

More than 10 times the population of USA in this world write their dates in DMY format. That should mean they would celebrate July 22 (22/7) as Pi day.

China – with more than four times the population of USA – follows another format – YMD.

But then, we will come up with any excuse to eat some more pie!!! 🙂

The fact that I am asking you this should tell you what the answer is. And yes, they are crazy but true!!!

1. Which animal has killed more humans in Africa? Hippos or lions? (I could not believe this)
2. Which animal can go more days without water? A camel or a giraffe? (What? What about that ship of the desert thing????)
3. You have a white cat which has blue eyes. Therefore it is deaf. True or False? (Go figure this one)
4. Which one is more likely to kill you? A champagne cork or a poisonous spider?
5. Which is the food most number of people are allergic to? Cow’s milk or peanut? (Bad news for my folks back in India)
6. Every year, which one of these kill more people? Bees or snakes? (Wait till Sharmila finds this out 🙂 )
7. An average bed has how many dust mites? About a dozen or about as many people are there in this world? (There goes my sleep in a Marriott bed tonite)
8. Which kills more people every year? Coconuts or sharks?
9. Which accelerates faster than the other – by about 50 times of the other? A flea or the space shuttle?
10. Which one of these two animals have been proven to prefer blondes over brunettes? Man or mosquito? (Really? Who came up with the study? Incredible!!!)

At this point I decided to stop reading any further. Else I might come across something absolutely crazy like a hippo can run faster than humans or something like that… What? That is true too?

I give up! Good night folks!!

Yesterday, while visiting my doctor, I heard something that made an impression on me. We were discussing my theory of splitting up our retirement period and taking long time offs multiple times in our life and pursuing other interests than work. My doctor himself regularly takes time off to go serve in Haiti, Honduras etc.

As we exchange notes, one similarity came up in both our experience of discussions on this topic. Most folks worry of the financial stability aspects of taking time off. And the consequential never ending pursuit of financial stability since the goal line keeps getting moved as we even remotely approach the goal line that we had set for ourselves before.

He told me a story of an old friend of his who had put this in a great way. Evidently, what he said was that he did not need a lot of land. He just wanted to own the properties adjoining his!!!

That is an awesome picture of describing a never ending goal!! Had a hearty laugh!!

The guy on the top is Roberto Cacelen. He is from Peru.
And he is 43 years old. To put it in perspective, he is less than five years younger to me.
He started skiing in 2005. To put it in further perspective, that is when I started running.
He competed in Sochi Olympics for cross country skiing!! To put it in furthest perspective, I cannot get a medal in my age group in our neighborhood races!!

And he did not get any medal either. Came dead last last. 87th to be precise.
But he did it with broken ribs because of an accident a couple of weeks back.
Now that is courage! That is competitive spirit at the highest level.

The guy on the bottom is Dario Cologna.
He finished the race in nearly half the time as Roberto.
He won the gold medal.
He is world number one in his sport. Proven at the highest level of competition.

After finishing the race though, he waited patiently for 28 minutes at the finish line for the last guy (Roberto) to show up.
And when he did, he went up to him to give a hug and congratulate him…

We do not need to know Dario’s country. We do not need to know his age.

What he did is what we as humans are all supposed to do.

In this hyper selfish world where sportspeople resort to steroids, politicians get thrown in jail for kickbacks and corporate bigwigs resort to illegal activities for personal benefit, I sure am glad that there are people like Roberto and Dario to help us understand what GRACE is all about…

Here is a question that has been vexing me for some time. I have come to the question watching my dad’s condition – physically, getting up from bed is a chore and he is completely devoid of any desire to live. On those long flights to India once every 90 days to see him for two days and back, I get a lot of time to reflect on. After all, there is precious little you can do at 30,000 feet in the air in a pressurized aluminum chamber once the iPad battery runs out 🙂

The question is : Is it time to retire the traditional idea of retirement? For at least most people who do not do physically intensive work?

My research indicates that the concept of retirement came from the agricultural and then the industrial days when people primarily did physically intensive work. You know, like tilling land, pushing the lathe machine, shoving coal in the blast furnace and all that. It stands to reason that after a while, time took its toll on your physical abilities. It was desirable both for you as well as your employer that you call it quits. So, the model was you work very hard, save a lot of money and then call it a day. Then you enjoy your hard earned money and time off.

And that was the way it was supposed to be for my dad. He certainly pushed himself hard thru his working life, gave an unbelievably great running start to his children and then retired. With his life savings in his hand. With the life savings, he bought a house, built a garden – ready to enjoy life as it were.

Except he didn’t. He suddenly realized that he was in his mid-sixties. There was no way he could enjoy the stuff that he would have enjoyed in his thirties. Or forties. Or fifties. He had the money. And the time. But not the physical condition. Or like minded friends, to be honest. He could not travel as much as he would have liked to. He cannot kick a ball anymore (he loved playing soccer)..

That house? His kids visited his great abode once a year. Till we moved him and my mom next to our sister last year, the grand kids saw him once a year. My mom has grown her own interests in life and certainly much more physical issues.

All this makes me wonder – “That was not the plan. Could this happen to me too?”

Like most of my friends – and a large segment of today’s population – I also have become an “intelligent” worker. We do not till land, do not throw coal at anything but use our brains and intellectual faculty – invariably with a computer – to do whatever it is that we do at office. (That, and we do a lot of meetings 😉 ).

Theoretically speaking, I should be able to work as long as I live – as long as I am not crippled by Alzheimer’s and such ailments that fundamentally impair by ability to be an “intelligent” worker. There is no need to retire. I can work till eighty, if I wanted to. In fact, two of my peers at work are over seventy and they are doing a fantastic job at a C level post in a medium size very successful public company!!!

I assume I will not necessarily earn then as much as I do now. But really do I need to earn as much? Most of my financial responsibilities will be over – kids’ education will be done, spousal welfare would span over a far shorter time frame, and I certainly will outgrow the fascination of “owning” stuff (I am relying on maturity that comes with old age on that last one).

If I put all this together, is the logical conclusion somewhat like this – work till you die or cannot work; spread your retirement time from now on? Which means work for a few years, retire for a couple. Come back and work again for a few years and take again a year or two off. Enjoy the things I can enjoy when I am in my forties. In my fifties. In my sixties.

Maybe I should have started this in my thirties? (Heaven knows, I cannot break the six minute running mile barrier any more now!!)

Have any of you had such thoughts? I would be very interested in understanding your opinions or points of view. I would gladly call you if you wanted to spend some time on this topic.

“By far the greatest impediment and aberration of the human understanding arises from [the fact that] . . . those things which strike the sense outweigh things which, although they may be more important, do not strike it directly. Hence, contemplation usually ceases with seeing, so much so that little or no attention is paid to things invisible.”
-Sir Francis Bacon