Busy like a bee

We falsely live under the notion of being busy to be an attribute of being important. The easiest excuse we tell people is that "I am busy". Its one of the easiest ways to exit from things. But its far from the truth. First we use this as a tool to fool others and later we fall pray to our own trap. After observing this for sometime, now I have realized that this can be attributed to two  things.

Firstly, when people genuinely realize that something is really important but keep on regretting that "I am too busy hence I cannot learn something or do something". I hear it as if they are saying "I am hit by the procrastination bug".

Secondly, when some others say that "I am too busy, so cannot do it" I hear it as "That's not my priority"


A classic example from my personal experience was that I badly wanted to visit the dentist for about three months, but kept on blaming it on being busy and couldn't find time to go. Then one day in the middle of the night I got a toothache and all of a sudden I am no longer busy and the first thing in the morning I am seated on the dentist's chair! Now suddenly I got all the time in the world to do this and then attend to the other work!

Yarl IT Hub - Our Values

A key ingredient of consistently successful organizations or individuals is the value system. Taking a cue from it, at the initiation of the Yarl IT Hub itself, we decided to have the following as are core values. So for those who wish to join can compare these with their own values and decide whether the initiative is consistent with their personal values or expectations.

Our Values
1. Not for profit initiative
2. Transparency
3. Apolitical
4. Technology and corporate independent

1. Not for profit initiative
Yarl IT Hub is a community that has gathered not with the intention of making profits. Anyway it doesn't mean that Yarl IT Hub wouldn't have income, it would definitely have but crucially what ever surplus will be  invested again on ventures which shall be coherent with the vision of the initiative.

2. Transparency 
For the members and contributors all the details shall be kept fully transparent thus giving credibility and visibility on how each contribution ( contribution doesn't necessarily mean monetary ) has been utilized.

3. Apolitical 
This is an IT initiative and our vision is based on achieving IT objectives. Hence we do not want to get bogged down by politics of any kind. Any person who wants to express political opinion can use a different stage or a medium and spare Yarl IT Hub. Yarl IT Hub will not entertain any of it, irrespective of the kind of political affiliation. There are enough political stages to express politics and lets spare this for IT.

4. Technology and corporate independent 
As individuals each of us will have technology and corporate affiliations but Yarl IT Hub as a unit will be independent of technology and corporates. All decisions will be made while been neutral about technology and corporate.

read earlier posts on Yarl IT Hub,

The vision of Yarl IT Hub
Why we picked Jaffna

If interested like us on Facebook or drop a line  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Yarl-It-Hub/218986791503185?sk=wall

Many thanks to those who are already in contact with us and willing to join this effort!

Having the sun at the finger tip!

When I posted this picture on facebook after a visit to Jaffna my aunt commented and referred the song posted below. The only error is that its a sun here and the song is about the moon. But still whenever I see this picture I now remember the song. The song is of course an Ilayaraja's master piece! The legend! Then in the video appears one of my favorite Tamil actresses - Revathi. Enjoy an old classic!

After all, why Jaffna?

For centuries knowledge and education had been the crown jewels of the people of Yarlpanam. From the days of being the patrons of Tamil literature, to the times of Arumuga Navalar during which, him and the American missionaries competed against each other in a race to foster education and even extending to the times during the height of the war studying on 'kuppi vilakku' they had always shown the unconditional thirst for knowledge. Despite all what it had gone through, luckily the societies value for knowledge still remains unchanged.

During the last three decades circumspectly Jaffna hasn't been able to directly join and contribute in the IT revolution that was happening in the world outside of it. Although sons and daughters of its soil who had migrated else where had joined in and contributed to it in their own right. Unfortunately these contributions had been in silos and the region doesn't have an identity of its own in the global IT market space.

The absence of war had given the people living in Jaffna an opportunity to reconnect and experience the changes that has happened elsewhere. They now have a chance to really use the things that they had visualized by reading on magazines and text books during the times of conflict.

We at Yarl IT Hub believe that the basic ingredient needed to become an IT power house is already there in Jaffna - That is the raw passion and thirst for knowledge. Also we believe that scattered through out the globe there are enough people with roots from Jaffna who have the experience and knowledge to contribute towards this endeavor of preparing and creating the IT incubator and the brand Yarl! We request these experts to join with us on this endeavor!

Who and How you can Join?!

We humbly request you to give the most valued possession you have for this cause- that's your precious time and mind share. Money can "come and go" but its the knowledge that can always be there and help in this quest to make "Yarl the next Sillicon Valley". We welcome all those who would like to volunteer for this cause and contribute, remember that due to technology you can contribute to this irrespective of your geographic location! You can also come from any background, be it a Student, IT expert, marketeer, media person , Doctor, etc as long as you are an IT enthusiast you can join on this - Its a community initiative for the community by the community - Simple as that! Currently we have a small online community formulating the plans and events. We would soon reveal the details. Till then if you are interested and ready to invest your time on this. Please do drop a line to us or if you want to silently watch us perform - follow us at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Yarl-It-Hub/218986791503185?sk=wall

The follies which a man regrets most in his life, 

are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity.

On my next post I will write about the Values that Yarl IT Hub has been formed with and will ALWAYS continue to have.

Click here to read the earlier post on the vision of Yarl IT Hub

The dawn in Jaffna

Yarl IT Hub - Our Vision

We had grown up, studied and used things produced by the entrepreneurs from the Silicon Valley. If Information technology was a religion, silicon valley is the mecca for innovators and IT entreapreneurs. It has produced men who had transformed lives and "left a dent on the world"! Interestingly what's happening there is not an overnight phenomenon or an accident. Its been a hard journey, where generations had contributed and todays generation proudly "stands on the shoulders of the giants".

For the initial trail blazers, it was only passion which drove them in to it. At a time when they were working on devices, which they believed that they could change the world, others ridiculed them. But importantly they had some 'insane' people who believed in such super normal dreams and willing to take a chance and allowed the young ones to experiment. Such an environment with freedom, encouragement, inspiration and recognition has turned out to be an excellent incubator for IT power houses of our times.
We have our own choices, either all these people who are willing to "stay foolish and stay hungry" are willing to migrate to Silicon Valley and try to experiment there or continue to sit at a distance and keep on gazing at Silicon valley with a dropping jaw till we meet our maker or try to create a conducive environment of our own by design.

A few friends in IT, who has our roots in Jaffna had decided that we want to take the third route and not going to meet the maker without trying to create such an environment by design! Our vision is very clear - we want to make Jaffna the next Silicon Valley. For those who think its too ambitious - we haven't tried and given it a chance, hence we cannot conclude. Let's try and then see whether if its too ambitious or not.

The next question I had been asked is why Jaffna - the war torn land which is licking its old wounds and struggling to stand? That will be in my next post!

Keep on reading here, I will post more details of how we are planning to pursue our collective dream and how you could also be part of this dream!

"If those who think to achieve,
Have a firm and focused mind,
They will realize what they thought of.
And even as they have thought of".

~ Thirukkural

Kolaveri

The power of internet is unprecedented - starting from the Egyptian revolution to the silly home made youtube videos - internet and its users has had the power to make them global phenomenons. The latest addition to something going Viral is the Why this Koleveri Song, First when I watched I did find it interesting and listened it a few times. At that time It had less than 20K hits, but still I didnt realize that it would go viral within the next few days. Today when I checked it has over three million views and that's within a week!

Its graph representation of view clearly shows how exponential growth happens when something goes viral on the internet.

 source : youtube

When compared to a all time youtube hit - Battle of the Kruger graph.

source: youtube

It will be interesting to see. How this will progress when this video matures - How long can it sustain the momentum!

It was just out of curiosity I am going to watch this graph. Since unlike the battle of the Kruger - This song is an Indian Song and reach might be limited - But interestingly one factor which had contributed to the cult like status of this song is the over whelming use of English or rather  'Tamilification' of English words, hence has had the power of reaching to a broader audience.

I will do my little part to contribute to the viral effect by posting it here, enjoy Kolaveri!

Staring at screens

Today while commuting in the MRT I just realized how predictable and monotonous we had become. If you take a typical day of a person in IT we stare at big screen for at least 5-7 hours per day. Then in case if you are in to watching TV then you would spend another 2 hours staring at another type of screen. Adding to this, even when commuting we stare at the smaller forms of electronic screens. If this total is added up - That's
more than 50% of a days quota and more than 75% of an effective day.

Staying connected and staring at screens gives us a falls sense of importance and completeness. When over done we miss to see what's around, we even miss to admire the beauty of the nature - thinking that all such things can be experienced through a 14 inch screen and at times even smaller ones.

I had realized and also heard others say that good ideas come in when you are not pre-occupied with some crap on the screen. But when you are relaxing, sleeping, contemplating, hiking, walking or in a state of solitude away from devices! So I am off now to take a nap instead of staring at the screen ;) Out of jokes - I guess this balance is pretty important.

The need for the right environment

Interestingly the above video appeared on my Google+ stream with a comment from a 'friend' which read as - "Perhaps a Steve Jobs in making". The comparison of the legend made me watch it. Interestingly in my current mind set I started to read beneath the surface of the presentation. Let me say this the presentation was purely awesome - Even at this age I haven't wrote an iPhone application for that matter not even used one. On top of it, I will not be able to get on stage and do what he did. Let me not take any thing away from that young man!

What I am interested is the background which has enabled such kids to be produced. Even during his talk he makes it clear that he had inspiration and encouragement! Inspiration from Steve himself and encouragement from his friends, teachers and parents! So even in case of producing prodigies its just not a case of having the talent and skill, there is a need for a conducive environment in which they can thrive.

In our own quest to produce an environment for IT innovation in Jaffna - A set of like minded people have got together and started to set up "Yarl IT Hub"! Keep on reading the blog, will divulge more information and how you could get involved on it!

Greatness lies in sustaining

While Murali was playing a youngster by the name of Ajantha broke in to international limelight, few critics of Murali claimed that he was a road block for the next generation of spinners and another few suggested that all Murali's records would be broken by the new kid on the block. At that time I can remember Sangakkara diplomatically threw caution to the wind in one of his articles, in which  he suggested that its not just about starting with a big bang, but greatness lies in the ability to sustain and out fox batsmen for a prolonged period of time.

This attribute of being able to sustain to achieve greatness is not just limited to cricket, take for example film makers. Haven't we watched first time film makers presenting magic beyond comprehension and then fading away without any sign of trace. Haven't we seen novelist who had won accolades for their debut and then run out of steam and ideas to keep the readers enthralled.

This is not only applicable to the people who live in media limelight, the ability to sustain is important in each persons own life. Let it be a project, marriage, organization, initiative - remember greatness lies in sustaining. Have a great week!

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

The penchant to wait till the last moment

While at the university irrespective of whether if its to study for an exam, a tutorial submission, assignment submission or a presentation I had this habit of waiting till the last moment, Then fight a great battle in the eleventh hour and get it done. I had observed that this is a shared habit mostly among guys. As per common sense we should cringe and be ashamed of this, but ironically in reality  its an identity most guys (including me) are very proud of. We almost view it just a few notches below the medal of gallantry!

When asked, we would boast about how little time we spent on it! Its like one of those dark secrets deep within us, externally we are proud, but deep within somewhere in a corner a little genie within us would tell us, next time let me not wait till the last moment. When studying for the next day's exams, I used to tell myself - next time I am going to start from day one and not cramp and suffer like this. But, its one of those thoughts that comes across on the eve of each exam.

Now I am quiet old ;) No longer doing exams but the old habits doesn't seem to go off.  Classic example is the times at which I make my blog post of the day. Given below is the scatter plot for the month of October.

My blog posting times for the Month of October

It gives an Average posting time of 9.48 PM
Median of 10.02 PM

Obviously even on this self - challenge I wait till the eleventh hour to do this. :(

Let me try to break this pattern. I know its not going to be easy. But let me try!

Our liking to fiddle with markets

When I visited the Indra Gandhi museum in New Delhi I took this picture. Its been there on my machine but until today I didn't bother to read the content of this news paper cutting.  Interestingly its a news item on Ceylon's one time quest for a fully nationalized import and export industry.

Interestingly, at that time in history Ceylon has been powerful enough to make it to the headlines of the "The Times of India" with an Economic related decision.

Ironically when we fiddle with markets now, let alone the headlines of Indian national news papers, it doesn't even make it to the business pages. Or is it that we had learnt our lessons and no longer fiddle with the free market?! ;)

On a different note, two of my pals were debating on "Revival of Underperforming Enterprises and underutilized Assets Act", which was passed recently. One said, its simple, If I had given you a piece of land to cultivate paddy and if you are not using it, or not utilizing it to the fullest potential. In order to counter the opportunity cost of it I would want to take it back, its the same the government is doing, so its not wrong". The other asked, How do you define 'under performing and under utilized assets '?.   In defense "Its only the obvious ones". The other hit back "Lets take over the house by the lake and start a paddy field - that's place where Gods who waste tax payers money reside". Other friend didn't want to argue on that, although they had two contrasting view points they agreed on this. Unity in diversity - we owe it to them!

Lesson on Managing Supply from wadei seller

In the train I heard a familiar voice announcing, "katata sarata rahata miris ekka ulundhu wadei". He is the same guy who inspired me to write a post on sales skill. Whenever he is around I pass a glance to see what he is up to.

Today he said he has only 6 wadei left. So people hurried to get it from him. He announced one more left and then he said, sorry sir both of you asked at the same time, but unfortunately I have only one left, so let me give it to one of you. So he gave it to the guy who passed him the money first.

Then he said to other person, wait sir I will check whether I can get some more wadei. He pulled out his phone and said

"Princey, do you have wadei?"

"The train is pulling out from allawa, I will reach polgahawela in 15 mins, please bring it to the last second class compartment"

So I kept watching out of curiosity what was happening. Train stopped at polgahawela and there stays a lady with the supply of wadei and passed it to him, he was happily selling his new stock.

I was left a bit puzzled by this, either he has a very efficient supply chain, who can pass stock in such short time ( he might at that rate, can give a good run for the Japanese) or he was shrewd enough to limit the stocks and create an artificial demand ( if he has done that he might be able to rival the diamond and oil industries). Irrespective of the option it was, it just confirms that he is a shrewd businessmen.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

No to "Act of God"

I was forced to read a legal contract document and it had the term "Force Majeure", which drew my attention and made me to read that section in full. Interestingly I found that there was a legal term "act of god". The definition says that,

"Act of God is a legal term for events outside of human control, such as sudden floods or other natural disasters, for which no one can be held responsible". link

Now there are two sides to this, if you are a god fearing soul - You shouldn't sign this types of documents since its an insult to the almighty. All bad things are attributed to be done by God not a single good thing is attributed to god. So you should referain from signing these types of documents and protest to change the legal term.

In case if you an atheist, you shouldn't sign either. Since if you sign it, you endorse that god is there. How can you say that there are Acts of God, while you believe that god is non-existent in the first place.

So simple solution, all parties forget about contract laws and stop signing contracts, so people like me can sleep peacefully! I am just bored reading a few contracts ;)

Kandy Ariel Views

Pictures from View Point at Udawattakele

Saved by the bell

Its almost been 210 days since I vowed to make a daily blog post for 365 days. When I started, I expected to fail due to any of the following reasons including travel, work, lethargy, sickness etc.

Little did I think I would have a serious threat from technology. But today I realized that technology is the major factor which would stand between me and the 365 target.

I came home and tried to switch on the machine and connect to internet. The 'good' people at the service provider had disconnected my service. So I tried my plan B, my blackberry, it didn't start and I couldn't switch it on. I felt helpless almost similar to the withdrawal symptoms a drug addict would have when out of supply. I tried to remove the battery five times, tried switching on the device about 50 times. Then when I was almost willing to accept that I had been defeated by technology, my blackberry by itself started to work. So today here I am happily writing my blog after being saved by the bell or rather blackberry. At least I can sleep peacefully, because I managed to make a fake post to keep my word, but I do hear a few voices saying "son you are fooling yourself"!.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

The cat's eye

Udawattakele - Kandy

View Larger Map

Right at the heart of the Kandy City resides the Udawattakele National Forest Reserve. It's just right behind our School and while being at school we found hundreds of excuses to go there and loiter, we were really creative in our excuses, sometimes even for drama practices! God forbid us ;)

Last week, Nipuna , who had come down for a short vacation buzzed me and asked shall we go to "UK" on Saturday I didn't have any second thoughts and said yes. So armed with our camera's we went for a loaf around. The event of the day was watching a snake capture a frog, I couldn't resist the temptation of not posting it, hence posted it yesterday click here to view that. Today I am sharing the rest of the pictures from there.





If you are in Kandy and want to enjoy some tranquility you can take a 4 hour walk around it. Locals need to pay an Entry  fee of 28/=. Its open for public from 6 AM to 6 PM.

refer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udawatta_Kele_Sanctuary

The Catch

Snake with his pray - Taken at Udawathakele in Kandy.

Importance of carrying oneself

When I was about to set off for my first consultancy assignment I was trembling within me. While I was doing my final preparation I got a call and was asked to come down to meet my CEO, Dinesh. He wished me and said, "I have full confidence on your skill level and knowledge, the trick for you to successful is to carry your self well".

This is one of the most important lessons I learnt. I grew up to live happily by taking a back seat and being below the radar. At school this was not an option on certain days, I had to do my part in spot light but university didn't do much good, through out the stint I was happy to be below the radar. So this was the mind set I entered the cooperate world . I am sure he had noticed that I preferred to sit at the back at meetings, bit afraid to speak in front of him, let my shoulders drop when in company of Seniors, etc.

I wanted to be successful in what I do and whenever I was about to cringe, I always remembered the advice and told myself  "I need to carry myself if I am to be successful". For the youth bought up in western culture self confidence comes naturally to them, but for us Asians, we are brought up with the notion of giving exaggerated respect to others and eventually being very much backward and with lack of self confidence. Now I see people who come out of the local universities to have the same weakness, So for them the first step in coming out of a weakness is to realize and accept that one has the weakness, then you can work on it. btw I hope that he doesn't regret giving that advice to me ;)

Every dog has its side of the story

At large when we try to analyse problems we look at it from our own perspective, we feel its right but at times we do not have the holistic picture. In decision making having a holistic idea of is very important. Also its important to acknowledge and empathize the fact that different people can and will hold different opinions due to the partial views that they had seen.

I came a across this video advert of guardian, which is an excellent rendition of what I was trying to explain using text multiple times and failed.

So next time remember that every dog will have its own story, including you and me, but doesn't necessarily mean that either one is right. Its just 'right' on the individuals plain of reference.

Google+ Page for Sayy's 365

My 'friends' Sach and Nee had created Google+ page for their blogs so out of curiosity I decided to create one for me too :-) Just to compare I created a page on Facebook too for the blog.



Interestingly they had linked Google Hangout to pages. Seems like we can do web casting through that to the community. Interesting development. Specially considering the fact that Google Hangout to be one of the most intersting tools to come out in recent times I am pretty optimistic about what the future holds.

If you are really bored and nothing else to do you can click and get the daily feed at your own risk ;)

Airport Questions

The cops at air ports have the peculiar ability to ask funny questions, ok the term funny might not be appropriate but since I have a limited vocabulary I will leave as it is. Today I stumbled on this Ted talk Hasan Elahi: FBI, here I am! | Video on TED.com about how the FBI picked up someone with a mistaken identity. Now I feel a bit better, if it is the situation in US, how can I be complaining in other places ?!

There was a time at which I was frequenting South East Asia and this very often than not I used to attract the attention of authorities and once I was arriving at a certain country well past mid night, badly wanting to find a bed and go to sleep. Inherently I had this issue of not having a place which I can call as home town, I had one city as my birth place, another city as my residential address and I was living in another city. This very often drew the curiosity of the officials and it was normal that they spent 'enough' time to 'understand' this. But on this day I was damn sleepy and the official was not in any mood to let me go, he was asking the same question set in different ways. At one point he asked me "why were you born in Jaffna?", this blew my fuse off, I replied, "How would I know, you need to ask that question from my mother". Now I am thankful that I was allowed to go after an hour of 'questions', looking at the TED talk I am sure I had been lucky! Specially this is even more blissful when you are treated like this at a place which you call as home!

Android in a ........'s hand

There is a Tamil idiom  which says ""குரங்கின் கை பூமாலை"" when directly translated it says "when a garland is in a monkeys hand". Today I almost felt like a step slower in evolution when I had a nexus google S phone in hand. Started playing it with and ended up playing with it for well over two hours. It was sleek, clean and it was clear that the touch technology had come to age when compared to the HTC Viva that I have.

Although it was not my phone I wanted to try the features so I added my gmail account to the market place and was happily downloading applications - mind you the free ones. It was nice and really handy, and wanted to show it to my sister who had decided to buy one of this. But at the end of the session I wanted to remove my gmail account from the phone to hand it back. I went around and around to remove it and ultimately found a place where the menu said remove account, but then it said - please go and reset factory settings to remove the email account. So I ended up re-setting the factory settings to remove the email account attached to the phone. I couldn't stop comparing how usual customers will ask for such flexibility in system to change accounts, user names and every other thing but even in the scale of Google, product do come with limitations and people shut up, buy and use it. All the power of being big or is it the power of positioning! But then on second thoughts I think its a move to be coherent Google's strategy to move to cloud based Chrome OS in near future.

Pretenders on web

The web is full of pretenders. Two of the best type of pretenders who never cease to provide humor to the reader are the Tamils who try to pretend to show them off as Sinhalese or Sinhalese who try to show themselves as Tamils. Both sides try their best to write with a pseudonym from the other community and they usually fail at some point.

Pitfalls of Tamils who try to pretend like a Sinhalese on the web
- A lot of them name them spell Sinhala as Singala or Singalese
- Spell chinthanya as sinthanaya, write Wellawatte as Wellavathai etc....

Pitfalls of Sinhalese who try to pretend like a Tamil
- In Tamil there are many dialects, so usually when they write they mix up the dialects
- Forgets the N at the end of Tamil names
- Use the term Yaapanaya instead of Yaalpaanam etc...

So next time you want to pretend please spend some more time and try to do a better job, Good luck!

To Sir, with Love

If I am not mistaken the first English movie I watched was "To Sir, with love". Having access to watch movies was one of the hidden benefits of obtaining British Council membership. So one day I made up my mind to go and ask the librarian whether I can also make a reservation to come and watch a movie there, she happily obliged and gave me an appointment. I was supposed to choose the movie, at that point of time I only knew that Charlie Chaplain, so I was about to book for a Charlie Chaplain movie, but then the friendly librarian told me to watch " To Sir, with Love". I didn't want to disappoint her, I was more than happy to get a chance to watch any movie. So the reservation was made and I turned up at the library on time to watch the movie.

It turned out to be a wonderful movie, watching it while being at school was making it even better. At that time itself it was a movie taken 25 years before, but it was interesting. After years today I bumped in to the movie on youtube when I was browsing randomly. I watched the full movie again. I was sure it was an evergreen movie and I couldn't help thinking how many similar movies had it managed to inspire! Everything needs inspiration!

I would definitely rank it as an ever green classic!  

How much can be gratification be delayed

I am seated here thinking at midnight how long can delayed gratification can take. Almost all the lifetime we had been told study well its useful in future, and then when we wanted to enjoy, people would say hold it for today so you can enjoy much more in future, when we want to spend people would say save it since that's a delayed gratification. Now I wonder how long? How long is delayed gratifications?

For certertain things you need immediate gratifications, life doesn't have to be hell today trying to make everything and blame every other thing on delayed gratification. Somethings need to be taken today. Finding the balance will always be the challenge.

I am too tired and sleep. So I stop musing too much. Good night.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Responsive web design

Few days back I got a link from a customer on responsive web design. It was a way of designing sites so that the same site works in both laptops and mobile devices. Although I had been out of touch on web development for a considerable time now, this got more curious again to do some searching on this. Ironically web development was my bread and butter while at the university, today I stand out of touch.

Anyway these designs are pretty impressive, 

These are the Machine and Mobile Version respectively

Machine Sized

Mobile Sized

reference from http://css-tricks.com/13372-seamless-responsive-photo-grid/

If interested in digging in deep use, http://cssgrid.net/ OR http://www.splashnology.com/article/responsive-web-design-toolbox-50-handy-tools-and-services/2632/ OR Like any good software professional GOOGLE ;)

Online recruitment

Some time back I was representing my company on a certain bid and a few hours after I made the presentation,  I got a message from a competitor's HR department on linkedin which read as,

"We have a opening for a Professional. The job role will be to understand and respond to various RFI, RFQ and RFP.Regularly Interact with customers".blaa blaa

First I assumed it was just pure co-incidence, but then when I got the second message I was sure that it was not a coincidence and I realized the level of competition in this domain can go down to?!

From that day I had been observing with interest, how companies are positioning themselves online and doing successful online recruitment. In this regard I find alot of them being very successful on Linked In. A general guideline says always try to recruit people who are currently happy at their present job and linkedin has become a medium through which companies are attracting people who are not on the hunt for jobs.

I had also seen recruitment efforts on facebook, but from what I had seen the level of resourcing via facebook as of now is only entry level position. Facebook's purpose, structure and mentality doesn't allow such information to proliferate at the rate of speed it does on linkedin.

The other option is twitter, which strangely has a awkward behavior since it has both the top level segment and the entry level segment. BUT it depends on the country of interest.  Twitter recruitment online in Sri Lanka - is questionable, but in other markets its practical, specially through companies cooperate twitter pages.

Online recruitment in present times had developed in to a fundamental qualification for any HR professional. So get on twitter, facebook and importantly linkedin if you are into recruitment.

African Cats

Fittingly when I was returning from Kenya ( after going on three safari's ) a few months back I watched the movie African Cats on the in flight entertainment system. I decided that I will be blogging about this, but I kept on thinking that if I am to write about it, I need to give it more time and write it properly. So that's how the procrastination begun and eventually it took all this time to write this "good for nothing" post about it.

It was more a narrated documentary than a movie. It was hard to think how they had done this, obviously you cannot direct and ask the animals to live their lives as per directors script. It should have been a few peoples lifetime of wild life documentation being nicely laced in to a story to make it flow. It shows all the emotions in the world including, sorrow, death, war, joy, motherhood, birth, tragedy, love you name it. For me its one of the best pieces of wild life documentary ever. I assure you its worth your time to watch this.