tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63841036873498695692024-02-19T00:06:24.811-08:00Sanjeet Kumar - Blogs, Papers and PublictionsSanjeet Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03916615057896283479noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384103687349869569.post-43910894405390855172018-01-06T14:06:00.001-08:002018-01-06T14:06:59.456-08:00Robotiqa - RPALink below<br />
<a href="http://robotiqa.com/assets/robotiqa-handout.pdf" target="_blank">Robotiqa - RPA</a>Sanjeet Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03916615057896283479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384103687349869569.post-60428339814334318512017-08-19T12:03:00.003-07:002017-08-19T12:03:45.442-07:00Technology x Customer <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRACqDu20d4VYtAfgPlchO3naMW2Gjw2CJcAnbz52WgyX043xSVBCEliD57GpYEyuGlnHw8k4Zhcjcqwcth5nuOIYbqLt-zcSlezjdN6zPbkCQJIDE7s9WEUX4os_IErTJ9aedK6DV9kRu/s1600/e42ab5c1-09d5-44d2-b27f-37386f756be7-original.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="542" data-original-width="556" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRACqDu20d4VYtAfgPlchO3naMW2Gjw2CJcAnbz52WgyX043xSVBCEliD57GpYEyuGlnHw8k4Zhcjcqwcth5nuOIYbqLt-zcSlezjdN6zPbkCQJIDE7s9WEUX4os_IErTJ9aedK6DV9kRu/s320/e42ab5c1-09d5-44d2-b27f-37386f756be7-original.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Reference: LinkedIn <Anonymous post></span></i></div>
Sanjeet Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03916615057896283479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384103687349869569.post-53333384967104873982017-08-08T05:57:00.001-07:002017-08-08T05:57:55.052-07:00Organ Donation - Join me<b>Appeal to all</b> -<br />
Join the "<b><i>2017 CST-CTRMS Joint Scientific Meeting</i></b>" in Halifax.<br />
<br />
You can <b>Register </b>here: https://www.cntrp.ca/single-post/REGISTER-NOW-for-the-2017-CST-CTRMS-Joint-Scientific-Meeting<br />
<br />
Please let me know <<i>Sanjeet.Kumar@gmail.com</i>> if you have difficulty in getting an <b>entry pass</b> for this event.<br />
<br />
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<b>Register your Choice (</b><i>for BC residents</i><b>)</b>: http://www.transplant.bc.ca/Pages/Register-your-Decision.aspxSanjeet Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03916615057896283479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384103687349869569.post-50767753160096851952017-07-20T06:20:00.006-07:002017-07-20T06:20:57.006-07:00Platform Strategy Primer<div>
This month I was invited by a partner to attend the 2017 Platform Strategy Summit at MIT Media Lab (Cambridge, MA) organized by the “MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy”.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This blog is the short synopsis of proceedings, with some judgemental inputs from my side. Therefore, nothing here is my IP. I am, however, writing a separate book – “Platform or Pipe-Dream” plans to be publish in Q4 2017.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>What are Platforms?</b></span></div>
<div>
Platforms are Interactions enabled by Infrastructure. They are environments, computing or otherwise, that connect different groups and derive benefits from others participating in the platform. Platforms externalize the value creation.</div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Platform Strategy - Primer</b></span></div>
<div>
A platform strategy is an approach to entering a market which revolves around the task of allowing platform participants to benefit from the presence of others. It is not about creating technology infrastructure, rather about creating beautiful interaction between producers and consumers</div>
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</div>
<div>
Interaction design should be first… this is something eveeryone today knows... use “Interaction Design” to enable the “design of Infrastructure”. Goal is reducing friction on the way of Interaction. Frictionaless interaction yields Networking Effect. A positive Networking Effect is the mantra and key to success. </div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Competition will occur at any level. The Business model must be prepared accordingly. </li>
<li>Prepare for Viral-ity. (This is different from Word of mouth).</li>
<li>Strtaegy must be targeted towards selling the "Reduction in Transaction cost".</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
Platform Strategy Mission Statement should be: Dynamic, borderless and collaborative; Universal source of information; Global ecosystem of contributors; Increases access and usability; offers users choices</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Connect with Business Model</span></b></div>
<div>
Business Model is not around creating Software and selling them… rather it is now about Data that gets created when software is used. Business model should be centered about monetizing those data.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"Level Strategy" is key. Competition will occur at any level. The Business model must be prepared accordingly. Model should be prepared for creation of new behavior, becuase Platform creates new market, and new opportunities.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Cost of expansion is virtualy Zero. Can be predicted easily... most of the time it is going to be linear. Understanding and guessing Inflection Point is key for modeling. </div>
<div>
Another notable feature - Marketing cost not required, once the inflection point is reached</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Model for Multisided Platform. Not only 2-sided platform</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Build the Platform for Success</span></b></div>
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Platform features alone is not sufficient. Reducing the friction to connect is most important</div>
<div>
Remember that the boundaries are alterable (Consumers can become producer and vice versa)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Possibly the single most important feature you will need is I call - "Learning filters" - similar (but not same) to personalization </div>
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Platform components - Toolbox, Magnet (attract), Flow (Matchmaker), Governance & Security</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Challenges</span></b></div>
<div>
Seeding users is the most critical step to platform success. Goal is to reach inflection point</div>
<div>
Platform gap happens when we say… Let us build the infrastructure… instead of saying lets us build interaction. Ensuring Consumer and Producer success. How to distribute focus on Stakeholders not only Shareholders.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Risk</span></b></div>
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Beware of the risk of building a monolithic system</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Pipe vs Platform Strategy difference</b></span></div>
<div>
Value Creation using “Platform Strategy”. Earlier it used to be through “Product or Pipe Strategy”</div>
<div>
Pipe – A linear model, uses resources to compete for efficiency… At the other end is the Consumer for whom value is created. Pays using currency. Pipe enables processes. Process was created and made more efficient. Goal was to improve pipe process through efficiency and repeatability (for scaling)… increase quantity and quality for higher productivity.</div>
<div>
Platform – No longer competes for resources rather provides an ecosystem through which others also (including us) can create value. Platform enables Interaction. Goal should be to increase Quality and Quantity of Interaction that is happening on the platform. Scalability is achieved using “Network effect”</div>
<div>
Pipe to Platform Shift: a) Resource competition is not required. Rather an Ecosystem is needed b) Processes to Interaction</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Also to note:</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Ecosystem is the new warehouse. You do not need to own everything, but we need to have everything in our ecosystem</li>
<li>Liquidity is the new inventory</li>
<li>Community management is new HR/employee</li>
<li>Curation & Reputation is new Quality Control</li>
<li>Customer journey is new Sales funnel</li>
<li>Data is new Dollar</li>
</ol>
</div>
Sanjeet Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03916615057896283479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384103687349869569.post-71368729847629294292017-05-02T12:21:00.000-07:002017-05-12T10:17:46.861-07:00Democratization of Technology<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: blue; font-size: x-large;"><b><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk481527497"></a></b></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: , serif;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-large;"><b>Democratization
of Technology</b></span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">Most of us think that work life earning may not be sufficient for old age, or say, will have
meager valuation in the next 20-30 years. On top, People are concerned about
losing their jobs due to technology-assault and super-speed automation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: , serif; font-size: 15pt;">How much of this will
prove to be true? To find this, I conducted detailed research and
published few papers. This blog is synopsis of all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: , serif;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Fast Forward: year 2035 -
2040 </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">Two factors will impact our earning capacity (rather negatively):</span></div>
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<ol>
<li>Rapid
automation & Artificial Intelligence</li>
<li>Socio-economic
imbalances across geographies</li>
</ol>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;"> Two</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: , serif; font-size: 15pt;"> factors that will
reduce the cost of livelihood (positive effect):</span></div>
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</div>
<ol>
<li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Democratization
of Technology</span></li>
<li>Government
intervention - socialist economy</li>
</ol>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: , serif; font-size: 15pt;">There shall be continued tussle
between both sets of factors (above).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: , serif; font-size: 15pt;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;"><i>Automation </i>and <i>AI </i>is no
longer buzz word. Effects are visible across the board, will spread to every
possible sector eventually. Despite best efforts by <i>society champions</i> (read politician), socio-economy
divide will continue to hound masses. In anticipation, countries
like Finland and Canada are running experiments to pilot the idea of
"<b>universal basic income</b>" — the unconditional provision of a
regular sum of money from the government to support basic living irrespective
of employment status.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">This blog is dedicated to
the argument “<i>Democratization of Technology</i>” - which means, access to 'technology-endpoints' (products and services) will plummet abruptly, rendering it almost FREE. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">As a Business Leader, understanding
of this trend and its implications is important. Because, this is connected to
Customer buying behavior and how it will transition in the next 10, 20, 30
years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Cnsumer Spending Pattern</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">A recent <i>UAE
government data</i>* as well as <i>IMF report</i>* (</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: x-small;">July 2016</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">) show similar patterns in household spend distribution. As expected, housing takes the lion share at 40%, 13% on Food & Beverage, 10% on
Transportation, 6% on healthcare, and 5% on Entertainment. In other words, about
74% of UAE residents' expenditures go to housing, food, transportation, health
and entertainment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">*Ref - http://www.dubaichamber.com/whats-happening/chamber_news/dubai-chamber-analysis-shows-uae-retail-sector-growing-5-each-year-through-2017<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">*Ref - https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2016/cr16251.pdf</span><span style="font-size: 15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">Spending habits around
the world tell a pretty consistent story — we tend to spend money on many
of the same basic products and services. Based on IMF data from four large
economies: USA, UK, China, and India, majority of expenditures are in these top
6 categories:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">1.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">Housing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-left: 51.75pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">2.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">Food<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-left: 51.75pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">3.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">Transportation<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-left: 51.75pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">4.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">Healthcare<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-left: 51.75pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">5.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">Education<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-left: 51.75pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">6.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">Entertainment<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">Now, think... what if the cost all the above 6 items plummet with time. There is
compelling case behind this hypothesis, which I shall come back after next 2
paragraphs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: , serif;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Technology Democratization
and Price Plunge</span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: , serif; font-size: 15pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: , serif; font-size: 15pt;">It is not the first
time, this will happen. </span></div>
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<u style="color: #222222; font-family: proxima-nova, serif; font-size: 15pt;">Example - Telecommunication:</u></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">IMF 2000 millennium data
shows - on an average a typical household spent 7% of its income on communication. With the
advent of <i>WhatsApp, Skype, Hangout, Facetime</i> etc. this is practically free for
anyone carrying the most basic smartphone and internet connection. <i>We democratized
communication channels</i>. Whether you are a billionaire or a poor on road, has
same quality of communication service – FREE.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ref: https://www.imf.org/external/country/ARE/</span><span style="font-size: 15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;"><u>Example - Tuition /
Education:</u><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">Google, Wiki, Stanford-web, MIT-web, Khan academy (and many similar) give 100% free access to top quality education content. 20 years back, quality education was luxury. Today numerous free tutorials are available on information highway with the click of
button. <i>We democratized access to knowledge</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">One can think of many similar examples – On the consumer front, examples are photography, publication, entertainment, job
market etc. that were accessible only to rich before, is nearly free now. On the business
front, there are players who have democratized the once monopolistic nature of
businesses – AirBnb x Hotel industry, Uber x Taxi.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">In fact, as we speak… we
are actually using more a million dollar stuff Free. We have taken them for granted. </span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">This is How – <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk481527497"></a>
</div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">See chart below.
Most of us would have purchased these products and services some point in time.
Those in 40s and 50s can relate better. Combined cost is nearing 1 million USD.
Today every one of us are using same product and services – almost Free. So
strange, in todays’ world we do not value these at all. Our expectations have
changed, rightly so because in a democratic paradigm things are taken for granted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvBdfiuUclj48JnTlNCTc7SIoobunSGdwV1nruOS10kQONfiwNQnsy9sSsGbYMBXxH_2x02vtYjU6MeS70E_OhS_GGvEUnVL4vcNMuYegrkdJXducAKmtRyttT7XXUXbF5On6FgzzFQ79r/s1600/USD+1m+free.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvBdfiuUclj48JnTlNCTc7SIoobunSGdwV1nruOS10kQONfiwNQnsy9sSsGbYMBXxH_2x02vtYjU6MeS70E_OhS_GGvEUnVL4vcNMuYegrkdJXducAKmtRyttT7XXUXbF5On6FgzzFQ79r/s400/USD+1m+free.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Ref
– Data from </span><a href="https://singularityhub.com/"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">https://singularityhub.com/</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">I. Housing</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><u1:p></u1:p></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">Think about what drives
high housing costs. Why does a single-family apartment in downtown cost $10
million, while the same square footage on the outskirts of city can be
purchased for $100,000?<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span><u2:p></u2:p></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">Location.
Location. Location. People flock to high-density, desired areas near the jobs
and the entertainment. This market demand drives up the price.<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span><u2:p></u2:p></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">Housing sector will democratize for two reasons: The first reason is because of two key
technologies which make the proximity of our home to our job irrelevant,
meaning one can live anywhere (specifically, where the real estate is cheap):<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span><u2:p></u2:p></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;"><b><i>(a) Autonomous
Cars:</i></b> If your commute time can become time to read, relax, sleep, watch a
movie, have a meeting — does it matter if your commute is 60 minutes?<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span><u2:p></u2:p></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;"><b><i>(b) Virtual
Reality: </i></b>What happens when your workplace is actually a virtual office where
your co-workers are avatars? When you no longer need to commute at all. You
wake up, plug into your virtual workspace, and telecommute from the farm or
from the island of Azure.<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span><u2:p></u2:p></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">The second technology
drivers are robotics and 3D printing, which will democreatize the cost of
building structures.<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span><u2:p></u2:p></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">3D
printing has slowly gone from a curious novelty to a totally viable option
for creating all kinds of useful things, from <a href="http://bgr.com/2017/04/13/3d-printing-belgian-chocolate/"><span style="color: #222222; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="text-decoration-line: none;">chocolate</span></span></a> to <a href="http://bgr.com/2017/04/08/adidas-futurecraft-4d-shoes-launch/"><span style="color: #222222; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="text-decoration-line: none;">athletic shoes</span></span></a>, and now <a href="http://news.mit.edu/2017/3-d-printing-buildings-0426" target="_blank"><span style="color: #222222; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="text-decoration-line: none;">MIT has invented</span></span></a> a way to
use the technology to print buildings, too. Given that most 3D printing takes
place inside a sealed box, it might be a bit hard to imagine exactly how a
structure could be built in such a way, but as you’ll see it can most
definitely be done. (MIT printer picture below).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN8CpdMkrsDhimWG9CWki4mlY_l_bHXbmvssHh0-MJNXstlr8S__Eh2YFosXyv3m9vR9AknngX4cKv0vhAbnkyJ_DEcQ9PKPe9736opKHkU8Jk-RWqDhczzyfiP8ULEHG9J8IkNDJf6UTQ/s1600/3D+building+printing+machine-MIT.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN8CpdMkrsDhimWG9CWki4mlY_l_bHXbmvssHh0-MJNXstlr8S__Eh2YFosXyv3m9vR9AknngX4cKv0vhAbnkyJ_DEcQ9PKPe9736opKHkU8Jk-RWqDhczzyfiP8ULEHG9J8IkNDJf6UTQ/s400/3D+building+printing+machine-MIT.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">A number of players in
the market are now exploring how 3D printed structures and buildings can
dramatically reduce the cost of construction and the amount of time it takes to
build a building.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">WinSun in China was first
to 3D print an entire building, the building was non-functional though. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: , serif; font-size: 15pt;">Recently Dubai launched world's first fully functional 3D-printed building (see picture
below).</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0JOH-0e2ZsJ24DtE8nTQL5dgBXyPuX6VUafhbsbuphEpJK32BpIvOD74HnBYVCiIzYQruSD51jmlEh4EGJNtY4LV-TzTwEvZktK0lKrTFjpzFhuHf2YgVdBDDUSgYMFMm342lvYuZHxsj/s1600/3d+building+Dubai.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0JOH-0e2ZsJ24DtE8nTQL5dgBXyPuX6VUafhbsbuphEpJK32BpIvOD74HnBYVCiIzYQruSD51jmlEh4EGJNtY4LV-TzTwEvZktK0lKrTFjpzFhuHf2YgVdBDDUSgYMFMm342lvYuZHxsj/s400/3d+building+Dubai.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">II. Food</span></div>
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FPO and USDA data suggest that the cost of food cooked at home has dropped by 55%. (Cost of food in restaurant has however increased for obvious reasons).</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1r5Pbp57xW3bsx8uzkNa0a3SVKaksk9deV06Qtzi1zCUrV5ZmXLCNuiqwRTtoCn7Spq3opiycuPIvMnVfMwO1_BijFzV6-ElxeV67cwJzCP4SIp4WH-V-z-hUvZd0jzXTQ1fJxonzfXVo/s1600/USDA+Food+cost.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1r5Pbp57xW3bsx8uzkNa0a3SVKaksk9deV06Qtzi1zCUrV5ZmXLCNuiqwRTtoCn7Spq3opiycuPIvMnVfMwO1_BijFzV6-ElxeV67cwJzCP4SIp4WH-V-z-hUvZd0jzXTQ1fJxonzfXVo/s400/USDA+Food+cost.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Additional gains will be made as we learn to efficiently produce foods locally through vertical farming (note that 70% of food's final retail price comes from transportation, storage and handling).</div>
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Also, as we make genetic and biological advances, we will learn how to increase yield per square meter.</div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: , serif;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">III. Transportation</span><span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: , serif; font-size: 15pt;">The automotive market (a
trillion dollars) is being democratized by startups like Uber. But this is just
the beginning. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: , serif; font-size: 15pt;">When Uber rolls out fully
autonomous services, your cost of transportation will plummet.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">Think about all of the
related costs that disappear: auto insurance, auto repairs, parking, fuel,
parking tickets. Your overall cost of "getting around" will be 5 to
10 times cheaper when compared to owning a car.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">This is the future of
"movator as a service."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;">Ultimately, the poorest
people on Earth will be chauffeured around !<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "proxima-nova" , serif; font-size: 15.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<h4 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 26px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 28px; margin: 24px 0px 14px;">
<span style="color: blue;">IV. Healthcare</span></h4>
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Healthcare can be roughly split into four major categories: (i) diagnostics, (ii) intervention/surgery, (iii) chronic care, and (iv) medicines.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
(i) <u style="box-sizing: border-box;">Diagnostics</u>: AI has already demonstrated the ability to diagnose cancer patients better than the best doctors, image and diagnose pathology, look at genomics data and draw conclusions, and/or sort through gigabytes of phenotypic data… all for the cost of electricity.</div>
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(ii) <u style="box-sizing: border-box;">Intervention/Surgery</u>: In the near future, the best surgeons in the world will be robots, and they'll be able to move with precision and image a surgical field in high magnification. Each robotic surgeon can call upon the data from millions of previous robotic surgeries, outperforming the most experienced human counterpart. Again, with the cost asymptotically approaching zero.</div>
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(iii) <u style="box-sizing: border-box;">Chronic/Eldercare</u>: Taking care of the aging and the chronically ill will again be done most efficiently through robots.</div>
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(iv) <u style="box-sizing: border-box;">Medicines</u>: Medicines will be discovered and manufactured more efficiently by AIs and, perhaps in the near future, be compounded at home with the aid of a 3D printing machine that assembles your perfect medicines based on the needs and blood chemistries in that very moment.</div>
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It's also worth noting the price of genomics sequencing is plummeting (as you'll see below, at five times the rate of Moore's Law). Accurate sequencing should allow us to predict which diseases you're likely to develop and which drugs are of highest use to treat you.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEfDUewWLBTsOQs18XOchenUmAA9s24sUWA9OiL_-snEwoojCyaAAs1f0wSM-WBENxPD2Z9EZpXAG4absd9EaY-UirECfQN7GlABgM6lRpHQ8egL6aj7-Kpu9SiBv1rLMOmv9Da7C372bn/s1600/Genome+cost.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEfDUewWLBTsOQs18XOchenUmAA9s24sUWA9OiL_-snEwoojCyaAAs1f0wSM-WBENxPD2Z9EZpXAG4absd9EaY-UirECfQN7GlABgM6lRpHQ8egL6aj7-Kpu9SiBv1rLMOmv9Da7C372bn/s400/Genome+cost.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">V. Education</span></h4>
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Education has already been democratized in many respects, as most of the information you'd learn in school is available online for free.</div>
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Coursera, Khan Academy, and schools like Harvard, MIT and Stanford have thousands of hours of high-quality instruction online, available to anyone on the planet with an Internet connection.</div>
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But this is just the beginning. Soon the best professors in the world will be AIs able to know the exact abilities, needs, desires and knowledge of a student and teach them exactly what they need in the best fashion at the perfect rate.</div>
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Accordingly, the child of a billionaire or the child of a pauper will have access to the same (best) education delivered by such an AI, effectively for free.</div>
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<span style="color: blue;">VI. Entertainment</span></h4>
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Entertainment (video and gaming) historically required significant purchases of equipment and services.</div>
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Today, with the advent of music streaming services, YouTube, Netflix and the iPhone App Store, we're seeing an explosion of available selections at the same time that the universe of options rapidly demonetizes.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
YouTube has over a billion users — almost one-third of all people on the Internet — and every day, people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube and generate billions of views.</div>
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Sanjeet Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03916615057896283479noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384103687349869569.post-4146084828073886502017-04-18T13:13:00.000-07:002017-05-12T10:20:08.203-07:00What is FULL-STACK and Who is a Full-Stack Developer ?<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: 107%;">W</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 107%;">hile giving a classroom lecture recently, a student
asked me the question, What is Full-Stack and how can she become a Full-Stack Developer. </span></div>
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Arguably, this was not the first time someone asked this question…
similar queries are taking rounds already in minds of thousands of aspiring
developers. Well... I thought this is time I should put my 2 cents.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Normally people answer – A Full-Stack developer knows all stacks of technology. But when confronted with deeper questions like what is the definition of <i>Stack</i> in today's world? Who can be a potential full-stack developer? or what can one do to become a full-stack developer ? we are lost in complexity.</div>
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To
explain this, let us first understand - <b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">What is the expected output from a Full-stack Developer ?</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Historically, the
term “full-stack” is associated with those developers who are comfortable
working with both back-end and front-end technologies. This does not stand true anymore. A person with the knowledge of Databases, PHP, Javascript, HTML, CSS and surrounding technologies to make a website work should not be designated as Full-Stack worthy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">The idea of a “full-stack developer” isn’t about being fluent in every possible technology there is; because, specialization exists for a reason. It’s more about having an understanding in each of the stacks, to communicate intelligently among team members and come up with a working prototype quickly.</span></div>
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A typical stack is below (source: google image)<o:p></o:p><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Full Stack Developer
NOW vs 13 years (2004) ago</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">I have
picked 2004 for a reason, because it was then when my class-mate and dear friend
Sundar Pichai <Google CEO> first time unearthed the fact (at least first time for me) that End
User Interface/experience design is the key to any software development, a good
developer should start his/her work from there, then backwards all the way to data and process flow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">12-13 years is a very long time in technology space. 2 major event occurred in those years (2004/5): in 2004 PHP 5.0 was released, and 2005 Javascript embraced </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;">ECMA-357. This changed almost everything.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Back then, a good
web developer knew a pieces of Javascript, HTML, CSS and some procedural PHP. Some also knew Linux. In came PHP 5.0 that gave us OOP support properly, which eventually allowed developers fulfill Sundar’s prophecy. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">The
LAMP (Linux – Apache – MySQL – Perl/PHP) stack was all the rage in those years,
with little or no alternative. In the early 21</span><sup style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;">st</sup><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"> century if somebody
used version control they were considered either technological heretics or
wizards. Today it’s unheard of and laughed at, if not using one.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Today, we are staring at 2018 and beyond. To me,</span><b style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif;"> a Full-Stack Developer is - </b></div>
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<ul>
<li><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">good in
at least one technology at every stack</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">should
have awareness of capabilities of peer technologies, and how to use them</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">comfortable in picking/learning any peer technology, when need arises</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">So,
let’s try to break down and categorize the technology stacks that I think are required
from a full-stack developer today:</span></div>
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<ol>
<li><b><span style="color: blue;">Custom<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">er centric Web Design</span></span></b></li>
<li><b style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="color: blue;">Technology for Customer Devices</span></b></li>
<li><b style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="color: blue;">Tools to develop Web pages, Flows</span></b></li>
<li><b style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><span style="color: blue;">Technology to keep and serve Assets
and Data</span></b></li>
<li><b><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">All the nut-bolts - System Adm</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">inistration</span></span></b></li>
</ol>
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<b><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">1. Custom<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">er centric Web Design</span></span></b></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">The business aspirations of future tells me that, this is the most important area. This area continue to expand, eventually blurring the distance between a Computing and Human interfaces due to rapid automation. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">This will continue to become complex as Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) evolves. Technologies include:</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div>
<ul><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">
<li>HCI (Human Computer Interaction)</li>
<li>Converting website design into front-end code</li>
<li>UI </li>
<li>UX</li>
<li>Map</li>
</span></ul>
</div>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: blue;">2. Technology for Custom<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">er Devices</span></span></b></span><br />
</span><br />
<div>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">
<div>
<div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Here comes the fun part. Fun, becuase this is the entry point for majority of Web developers today. Many learn these during college days... at least a part of it. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Needless to add... this stack is the backbone of Web site presentment. Here, the developer converts business logic to its visual representation. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">If you want to produce an enterprise class website, you’d better know these and all their annoyances.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="text-align: start;">In addition to front-end technologies, a full-stack developer also understands what is possible and what not to create with the constraints of HTML / CSS / Javascript and design accordingly.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">JavaScript was sneered </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">in the early days. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">I personally learnt Javascript afyer mastering Java/J2EE, but very soon realized that I can only do so much on the html page. Many had same feeling those days.. But Today, as we know, Javascript has grown into one of the most popular and powerful languages. New methodologies and frameworks are popping up each month - Bootstrap, MVC, MVP, MVVM, MVP, Express, Angular, Knockout, Meteor, React, Ember, etc. you name it. This stack inclde these technologies:</span></div>
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</div>
<ul>
<li>Semantic Web: HTML </li>
<li>iOS, Android</li>
<li>Hybrid: PhoneGap, Appcelerator</li>
<li>CSS / CSS3: LESS, SASS, Media Queries</li>
<li>Responsive design</li>
<li>JavaScript: jQuery, AngularJS, Knockout, etc.</li>
<li>Mobile devices and Browser compatibility</li>
<li>AJAX, JSON, XML, WebSocket</li>
</ul>
<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Alongside HTML, CSS, Javascript, a full-stack developer should also know about responsive design and how to work with media queries and CSS pre-processors like LESS, SASS. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">It is good to know how to communicate with the back-end via AJAX or WebSockets.</span></div>
</div>
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<b style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: blue;">3. T</span></b><b style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: blue;">ools to develop Web pages, Flows</span></b></div>
</div>
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<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Today, I will never hire a developer who does not use a version control, even if s/he is a solo developer.</div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
With virtualization tools, having separated development environments on a per project basis is kind of mandatory. They are easy to set up with VirtualBox and Vagrant the least. However, With Vagrant you also need to know the basic syntax of Ruby and shell scripts as well.</div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
(I shall write a separate blog just to cover the virtualization topic. There appears to be lots of parallel definitions going on - probably all correct in their context)</div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
The barrier of entering the web development industry as a web developer remains low, but getting increasingly complex. Complexity grows, for example if you want to set up Vagrant , then you need to know Ruby’s syntax, as simplified as it is or if you want to manipulate DOM elements, jQuery is a good to know technology.</div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
The dynamic nature of the whole industry makes requirements shift often to the most popular and “next best thing” tools and programming languages.</div>
</div>
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</div>
<br />
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Version control: Git, SVN, Mercurial</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Troubleshooting techniques</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Virtualization: VirtualBox, Docker, Vagrant</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
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<b style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: blue;">4. T</span></b><b style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: blue;">echnology to Keep and Serve Assets and Data</span></b></div>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Apache and Nginx are basic norms. A full-stack developer should know how to set up these applications and serve the contents of his/her website.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
NodeJS or PHP or Ruby (or similar) is what needs to be mastered on a high level.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In addition to web server and programming languages, database management is also a requirement for a full-stack developer which in itself is another beast. This is the place where scalability and performance plays vital role.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Relational (such as MySQL, PostgreSQL) vs non-relational databases (like MongoDB, Redis or Cassandra) are differences the full-stack developer needs to know, along with knowing the syntax of XML / JSON. Technologies:</div>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Programming language: PHP, NodeJS, Ruby. <This list is very long here></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Web servers: Apache, Nginx</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Database: MongoDB, Cassandra, MySQL, Redis, SQL-JSON</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="color: blue;">5. All </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">the nut-bolts - System Adm</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">inistration</span></span></span></span></b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Most of the Internet is powered by Linux; it’s a de-facto operating system for web development. A full-stack developer is ecpected to know how cloud hosting works. e.g. Amazon, GC, Rackspace or other providers and its APIs.</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Search is an integral part of most websites – a developer should know how to set up and use search servers such as Sphinx or Elasticsearch. This part is relatively easy</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Caching is also very important, Varnish, reverse proxy, Memcached and opcode caching. Technologies:</div>
</div>
<div>
<br />
<ul>
<li>Linux and basic shell scripting</li>
<li>Cloud computing: Amazon, Google Cloud, Rackspace, etc.</li>
<li>Caching: Varnish, APC / OpCache, Memcached</li>
<li>Background processing: Gearman, RabbitMQ, Redis, ØMQ </li>
<li>Search: Solr, Elasticsearch, Sphinx</li>
<li>Monitoring: Nagios</li>
<li>Security: SAML 2.0+, Certificates</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</span></div>
<div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Whooshhh...
so much to learn… one can ask… <b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="color: blue;">Is it worth becoming a full-stack developer ?</span></span></b></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">I may
have gone overboard while mentioning technologies within a stack, but believe me sooner or
later you would want to know, if you want your website to be world-class,
scalable and secure. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">T</span>hese
herd of people are rare breed and hence in great demand. They will continue to
be in super demand because for every decent size web project, I would want to
be <b>at least one Full-Stack Developer</b> in the team. The person need not necessarily
be the team-lead, because managing or leading a team is a different kind of
skill.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Some good news though; with many of the mentioned technologies a developer can get away with not knowing to code or use, such as Ruby or specific JavaScript libraries, but s/he must know their capabilities. </span></div>
</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: blue;">What about Full Stack 'Architect' ?</span></span></span></b></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">One can
quickly suggest that if someone knows so much… s/he must be an Architect... not merely a developer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">In my
view… There is at least one major skill that differentiate Full-Stack Developer
and Full-Stack Architect… that is - Business acumen, cost consciousness, time
criticality. A well-developed beautiful web site is termed failure if it cannot
attract target customers, cannot generate revenue. I shall write a separate
blog just to differentiate between two.<br /><span style="font-size: 11.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Sanjeet Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03916615057896283479noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384103687349869569.post-14408630539743241812012-05-09T04:15:00.001-07:002012-05-09T04:15:16.553-07:00Cloud has Stolen the Thunder finally - Has it? : Part-3<br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-size: large;">CLOUD has Stolen the Thunder finally - Has it? </span><span style="color: #660000; font-size: large; text-align: left;">(Part-3)</span></h2>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://sanjeet0kumar.blogspot.com/2012/04/cloud-has-stolen-thunder-finally-has-it.html" target="_blank"><b>Part-1</b> here</a>
<br />
<a href="http://sanjeet0kumar.blogspot.com/2012/05/cloud-has-stolen-thunder-finally-has-it.html" target="_blank"><b>Part-2</b> here</a><br />
<br />
We shall now check our 2nd point, i.e. <span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Is it that this time </span><b style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">marketing crescendo</b><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"> is unprecedented, after all this word ‘cloud’ is more pleasing in lexicon per se. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If we look back in the history of computing, one can easily deduce that the concept of cloud is not new. Even during 50's and 60's when first mainframe was erected, scientists looked into the possibility of "Access to centralized resources, data and services". The idea could not reach mainstream due to two major obstacles:</span></span></div>
<br />
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Incompatibility with other systems (in techy term we call it </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Interoperability </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">issues</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">)</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Lack of distribution mechanism </span></li>
</ol>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">90's and 21st century witnessed two major innovations - <i>Parallel computing (i.e. sharing)</i> and <i>Internet</i>. Together they were able to break the barrier; it allowed this concept of sharing to spread all the way to end users. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">About the metaphor CLOUD. The history of technology is always like this. First, a concept gets formulated. With time, newer innovations join the fray, helping the original concept to evolve. Eventually someone sees that this concept can be packaged as a product and be sold. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The 'product' must have a Name, Life-cycle, Economic value, perceived Benefit and most importantly the product must find a User. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">In this context, I do not know who first coined the word 'Cloud'. To the best of my knowledge Gartner gave major push to Cloud and helped in spreading the benefit of this product (still doing). </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Whether a product will be successful or not, can be checked by measuring the difference between '</span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Perceived benefit' and the '</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Economic value'. Higher the difference, greater are the chances of failure of this product. Marketing push has major role in creating the difference. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 16px;">In this part of the blog I raised the issue of marketing (the Cloud). Marketing is about raising the value of 'perceived benefit'. On the other hand, till date we are not fully sure of right 'economic value' of Cloud. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 16px;">In my view ROI (and TCO) will vary widely depending on the type of end user we are talking about. Therefore I am neutral to the second argument. I shall prefer to follow wait and watch rule in this case.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 16px;">We shall look into our 3rd argument, <i>battered world economy</i> in the next blog. </span></div>
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</div>Sanjeet Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03916615057896283479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384103687349869569.post-22879443216187755922012-05-02T07:52:00.004-07:002012-05-09T04:16:37.347-07:00Cloud has Stolen the Thunder finally - Has it? : Part-2<br />
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<span style="color: #660000; font-size: large;">CLOUD has Stolen the Thunder finally - Has it? </span><span style="color: #660000; font-size: large; text-align: left;">(Part-2)</span></h2>
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<a href="http://sanjeet0kumar.blogspot.com/2012/04/cloud-has-stolen-thunder-finally-has-it.html" target="_blank"><b>Part-1</b> here</a></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">We stated, IT Cloud is a subject of discussion at the top-most echelons of budget
approval pyramid process. We touched on 4 dimensions to understand the reason behind it.</span><br />
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<ol style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
<li style="margin-bottom: 0.25em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Business executives have become <b>tech savvy</b>? Have they finally reached a level where they could understand technicalities and resulting value behind it? or, </span></li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0.25em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Is it that this time <b>marketing crescendo</b> is unprecedented, after all this word ‘cloud’ is more pleasing in lexicon per se. or, </span></li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0.25em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Is it because<b> battered world economy</b> has forced Executives to think beyond conventional areas? Or, </span></li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0.25em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Is it simply because, this time ICT sector has<b> fashioned </b>something to roar about. </span></li>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Let us analyze the first dimension i.e. growing tech savvy-ness of business executive class.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">To do this, <b>Firstly </b>I tried to find the authentic list of current CxOs of developed countries, emerging and </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">underdeveloped</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> countries. </span><br />
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<li><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I met with success in getting the list for <i>developed </i>countries. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">It is widely available for US, Canada, Australia and most European countries: Central bank sites, Stock exchanges, Forbes lists, Fortune, Business mags, CEOexpress and archival record from libraries. </span></li>
<li><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Among <i>emerging </i>market: I could easily get the list for India and Middle-East (because I work here currently). I had great difficulty in finding any such lists for China <<span style="font-size: x-small;">could muster certain data but incomplete. For this I must thank to my friends and old colleagues</span>>. Russia/Brazil <<span style="font-size: x-small;">probably it is there but I think page language was major hindrance</span>>. SouthAfrica (<span style="font-size: x-small;">frankly, did not try hard</span>). </span></li>
<li><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Did not venture in to <i>underdeveloped </i>countries for lack of time and resources</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Profiles accumulated churns vast amount of data. I had tough time assimilating them and running hundreds of macros on spreadsheet. Unfortunately at my home I do not have the luxury of any '<i>intelligence tool</i>' to this work for me. I realized that </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">even after getting equipped with an efficient tool, </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">it can take many years for someone to arrive at any precise conclusion. In my case though, I just wanted to get the <i>trends </i>of a very small subset of data... which I think was possible, b</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">ecause it is more about sampling, modeling, running analytics and generating extrapolation.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">To complete my analysis, I divided CxOs in two distinct categories: a) Chiefs/Heads of a unit closely related to technology, channels, eBusiness or engagements where HoD spends more than 50% of her/his time on technology management. b) rest of the bunch. The ratio of a and b in my sampling is approx 15 to 85. </span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Next the data was further distilled based on their last 10 year experience and type of companies/entities they led.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">There were other interesting analysis though... e.g. throughout 2000-2004 and 2004-2008 average age of CxOs was decreasing YoY. Beyond 2009 average age started rising again. Another interesting trend observed is the duration of CxO tenure which was rising during 2000-8; but dropped sharply thereafter.</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Also, there were diametric opposite trends of big enterprise CxOs when compared to CxOs of smaller, younger, entrepreneurial companies. A separate book can be written about interesting and fascinating trends gathered while analyzing just the professional profiles of CxOs.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Coming back to the subject of understanding whether current generation CxOs are technology friendly enough? </span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Secondly</b>, I used data from my own first hand experience; gathered while talking to executives in conferences, meetings or social gatherings. To summarize my understanding of the situation, </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I am putting forward a real scenario which</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> I experienced recently while conversing to a group over cocktail drinks. The group consisted - One banker, one from PR/media, one head of finance working with a logistics company, one was HR manager in an oil company and myself (sole IT person). At one point during our normal chit chat, the banker reached to her Blackberry, looked at it and immediately cursed as why the SMS reached to her so late. She </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">apparently</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> used her card at least 6 hours beforehand. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Quickly our conversation drifted on the subject as why the message received by her was not very informative and what extra information we think must be part of this SMS message sent to her. </span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">It further drifted where they phrased terms like data availability, real time data, data warehouse, Business Intelligence, bandwidth, protocols, central source of customer data etc etc.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I tried to put my bit by cautioning the possible bottlenecks in the whole process of data gathering before it is formulated and sent to telecom carriers. To me this whole discussion was very occupying and amusing as well, especially when the lady annoyingly exclaimed that she will ensure that this issue is fixed before she uses her card next time. The lady <actually Head of corporate marketing/RM - in an MNC Bank> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">perceived</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> this as an issue, may not be an issue for others. </span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Any way, from the flow of the discussion it appeared to me that </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">now-a-days</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">execs are able to pick and stick techie jargons much more rationally and efficiently than ever before. They are certainly able to connect their 'own </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">experience'</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> with 'end-user experience' using <i><b>technology bandwagon</b></i>. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I take this a definite sign of them reaching out to technology</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">. This, in my view is departure from the past when it was IT, who is used to knocking <i>doors </i>of business executives... now-a-days, it seems business execs are knocking <i>windows </i>of technology managers and sticking their necks inside. </span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Besides, there is another angle to it. Such situation automatically creates extra pressure on the service level required from IT department. Cutting it short... in effect stakeholders will </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">inadvertently</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> press for higher level of service and shorter time to market. There is now closer scrutiny. CIOs can no more run IT as a shop where something goes in, something else comes out; in terms of product/service or tangible/intangible. (</span><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">this para deserves a separate blog topic</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">As the old age typical saying... <this one is from the CEO of my previous organization> "</span><i><span style="color: #4c1130;">I do not need to understand as </span></i></span><i><span style="color: #4c1130;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Where </b>and <b>How </b>the particular </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Technology can do something for me? Instead, I just need to know </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Whether </b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">and </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>What </b></span></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="color: #4c1130;">it can do for me</span><span style="color: #333333;">.</span></i><span style="color: #333333;">"... does not fly anymore. I think the time has come that executives need to understand and accept growing pervasive nature of technology to end-users and to themselves as well. Possibly CxOs have already understood this. Most of them already have complete </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">understanding</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> of end-user experience, very often </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">delivered</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> to their target users/customers directly in paper-less and </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">touch-less mode</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">. </span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">It was not possible without them venturing out in the </span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #4c1130;">How </span></b></i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">element of the technology. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In summary, it is quite obvious that CxOs of this age are much more closer to technology than we think they are. Their exploration of "<i>How </i>Technology Can do it" has changed a lot. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Nevertheless, b</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">ased on above TWO arguments..... do they justify the reason</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> behind "<b>Cloud in Boardrooms</b>" ? </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In my view, the answer is half-yes. The proposition that </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i>Business Executives</i> are becoming more tech savvy is not sufficient. Yet, this phenomenon is very important. This trend has given a launching pad to business executives, using which they are now able to reach out to Technology very easily. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">We shall move to item number 2, <i>marketing crescendo</i> in the <a href="http://sanjeet0kumar.blogspot.com/2012/05/cloud-has-stolen-thunder-finally-has-it_09.html" target="_blank">next blog</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>Sanjeet Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03916615057896283479noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384103687349869569.post-59820383819069220662012-04-21T14:09:00.001-07:002012-04-22T02:53:46.760-07:00<h2 style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #660000; font-size: x-large;">CLOUDonomics</span></h2>
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<a href="file:///D:/DISK_444_HOME/sanjeetkumar.com/sanjeetkumar/document/CLOUD-onomics-1.pdf" target="_blank" title="download">CLOUD-onomics</a>
- Benefits calculation in terms of ROI when embracing "Cloud services & infrastructure" will continue be highly speculative.
Arriving at the 'Economic value' is even more difficult. It
depends on numerous factors... starting from the Organizational parameters
<culture, size, compliance, security and risk appetite etc. etc> to the Hardware, Software,
Design, Vendor, etc chosen as part of the solution. In certain cases it can be
even negative.<br />
<br />
Complete text <a href="http://www.sanjeetkumar.com/document/CLOUD-onomics-1.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>.Sanjeet Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03916615057896283479noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384103687349869569.post-64586472550348618202012-04-18T14:16:00.001-07:002012-05-09T00:28:37.519-07:00Cloud has Stolen the Thunder finally - Has it?<br />
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<span style="color: #660000; font-size: large;">CLOUD has Stolen the Thunder finally - Has it?</span></h2>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Part-1</span></b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">www.SanjeetKumar.com </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Over the last 20-30 years, enterprises have spent vast sums of capital
to setup IT empires. Inside story of
these IT domain is always the same. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">You will find bright meeting rooms and fancy
cubicles swamped with worthy geeks, analysts and project managers. Then there
are Data centers and Storage rooms where invariably one can find sophisticated
machines which you are forced to change every 3 to 5 years; rarely any
equipment ages beyond 7 years… thanks to the combined efforts of vendors, sales
personnel and hardware syndicates. Blame it to constant innovations and
incompatibilities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">21st century saw waves of <i>convergence</i>, <i>distributed computing</i>, <i>SOA</i>,
<i>open source</i>, <i>mobile applications </i>etc. Technology ecosystem
of IT shops were indeed impacted. Still, they didn't have all the punch, that is necessary to change the <i>Business
landscape</i>. It certainly missed mentions in any CxO briefings and places where
real decisions are made.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Now, the new thunder – CLOUD. Some call it Cloud computing; others
differentiate in terms of <i>private</i>, <i>public </i>and <i>hybrid </i>cloud. More mature and
respected ones have explained it using meaningful acronyms <i>SaaS</i>, <i>PaaS </i>and <i>IaaS</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Unlike previous waves, this time however, surprisingly the word “IT Cloud” has finally
stolen the thunder. It is being touched-on in Executive briefings and in some
cases even in Board meetings! If nothing else, <b><i>year 2012 should be remembered simply
for this reason</i></b>. IT has breached a barrier quietly… no one took notice of it!
Never ever any IT paradigm could make way to Board rooms before.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Is it because?</span></div>
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<li><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Business executives have become <b>tech savvy</b>? Have
they finally reached a level where they could understand technicalities and
resulting value behind it? or, </span></li>
<li><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Is it
that this time <b>marketing crescendo</b> is unprecedented, after all this word ‘cloud’
is more pleasing in lexicon per se. or, </span></li>
<li><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Is it because <b>battered world economy</b> has forced Executives to think beyond conventional
areas? Or, </span></li>
<li><span style="color: blue; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Is it simply because this time, ICT sector has <b>fashioned </b>something
to roar about. </span></li>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Which one is the right answer? Let us Analyze....</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">... to be continued in <a href="http://sanjeet0kumar.blogspot.com/2012/05/cloud-has-stolen-thunder-finally-has-it.html" target="_blank">Part-2</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">***** End of Part-1*****</span></div>
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<br />Sanjeet Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03916615057896283479noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384103687349869569.post-45452485830247424122012-04-15T09:25:00.000-07:002012-04-17T10:48:22.487-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="color: #943634; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18pt;">A white paper on IT Process Optimization<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #943634; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">(Emphasis is on Change
management)</span><span style="color: #943634; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p> </o:p><b><i>From - Sanjeet Kumar <a href="http://www.sanjeetkumar.com/">www.SanjeetKumar.com</a> 14<span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span> March 2012</i></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Introduction</b> </span></div>
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An organization cannot accelerate its results without an
IT function that is aligned with a coherent strategy, and optimized to perform
at its highest potential. In a stable economic environment, it has been
statistically established that within IT:</div>
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<li><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">45% of the resources are wasted on
non-productive work</span></li>
<li><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">90% of staff do not understand their own goal,
as well as business goals</span></li>
<li><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">75% of CxOs do recognize the failure of their IT
processes, but fail to streamline it; due to obstacles they face in getting
support from stakeholders.</span></li>
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<o:p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Closing the Execution Gap</b></span></o:p></div>
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Above statistics reveal, there’s
an obvious disconnect between Investment and Performance. Between crafting the
strategy and showing results. It can be labeled as the ‘execution gap’. Reasons
vary one organization to another. But whatever the reason; at its base lie
issues relating to the process of execution: getting the right workforce and
processes to use its full potential, and to focus that potential is in the
right direction. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We are transgressing ‘eras’;
Economy crisis around the world has battered Banks to the extent that it is no
more the question of who makes profit and how much… Rather, the question of
Bank’s survival itself is in question. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Evolution of IT as Utility, not merely a Service provider</b></span></o:p></div>
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Nowadays application environments
are faster and more incremental. Nice interfaces and colorful screens are absolute.
Today, if asked to <i>Business</i> to choose
single word they hate most, would like to avoid at any cost. Invariably
majority will pick the word… <i>disruption</i>.
Disruption in banking services is big NO. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There are broader underlying
requirements from the business, something they do not articulate…i.e. Not merely the ‘continuity of service’; 2<sup>nd</sup>
and 3<sup>rd</sup> criteria below as well:</div>
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<li><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">Continuity of service</span></li>
<li><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">Continuity of business processes</span></li>
<li><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">Continuity of interaction</span></li>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Our aim should be to design
internal </span><b style="text-align: justify;"><i>Processes</i></b><span style="text-align: justify;"> (development, support, operation) and </span><b style="text-align: justify;"><i>SLAs</i></b><span style="text-align: justify;">
in such a way that ensures continuity. It will be the “first step” towards the
healthy alignment of “Business and IT”. This however, can potentially result in
major transformation in the way IT executes its development and operations.</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">In today’s world; fraught with
financial crisis, hard pressed to optimize funding… noise level to search for </span><i style="text-align: justify;">efficiency</i><span style="text-align: justify;"> has grown to its highest
level. Innovative transformation of
internal IT processes is inevitable. It was long due.</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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This is actually a boon in
disguise; it is an opportunity to clean up fat and align IT with Business in
completely novel way. Business Process Management (BPM) will be vital in
formulating strategy and planning & achieving desired results. More than
half of the World’s top tier Banks have already completed BPM exercise.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is my strong view that future
of IT workforce will reduce (<span style="font-size: 9pt;">is already becoming</span>) to just 3 generic roles/skills:</div>
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<b style="text-indent: -0.25in;">a) Consultants</b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">: Must be a combination of </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Internal</i><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">(permanent staff) </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">or </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;">External</i><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">(on
contract for limited duration)</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">. Individual who fall into this category
are: CxOs, Architects, IT Unit heads <</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">of IT support, development, Infrastructure</span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">>
and Business heads who interact with IT. Essential skillset for this category:</span></div>
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a.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><i>Understanding
of Business</i> <o:p></o:p></div>
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b.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><i>Strategic
thinking</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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c.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><i>Knowledge
of Architecture</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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d.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><i>Leadership</i>
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<span style="font-size: 9px;"> </span><b>b) Project Managers</b>: The definition has
changed. They will be actually a <i>Delivery
Manager</i>. Their skill-set should include following four: <o:p></o:p></div>
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a.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span>Able to ensure delivery dates <o:p></o:p></div>
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b.<span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span>Able to understand Business language and convert
it to developers’ language. The role of <i>Business
Analysts</i> will merge with PM. <o:p></o:p></div>
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c.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span>Able to ensure that ‘<i>delivery’</i> matches <i>Service</i>
and <i>Quality</i> expectations of
stakeholders<o:p></o:p></div>
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d.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span>Tactical in approach<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b> c) Developers</b>: They are ‘<i>doers’</i> who carry limited programming
skills in one or more areas. They sit in front of screens to provide <span style="font-size: 10pt;">(or develop)</span> all the
information required to run business. Majority will sweat behind LCD screens configuring
applications, running automated software and generating reports.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Unfortunately, our old age method
of charting hierarchy to IT workforce in an organization has created confusion
and invisible barriers. Demand for off-the-shelf services growing louder and
louder. Unintentionally, the Business is expecting its IT department to provide
services similar to that of utility.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Transforming Development Process</b></span></div>
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Strategic vision for IT Execution
should be about moving beyond automating workflows; to actually aligning,
optimizing, and accelerating workforce productivity in a way that drives
measurable business results. The role of ‘automation and monitoring software’ should
increase.<o:p></o:p></div>
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How can we in the organization
start improving IT execution? The first step is to recognize that IT execution
is a shared responsibility… no one group can do it itself. Rather, IT execution
requires involvement and collaboration from individual business heads, CIO, CTO,
Finance and HR. Business leaders need to articulate both an overall strategic
vision and the key performance indicators and metrics linked to realizing their
vision. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Remember… It is the <b>The General</b>
who ensures that the Battle is won, not thousands of Soldiers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">************* End of Part1 ******************</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>Sanjeet Kumarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03916615057896283479noreply@blogger.com0