ceo-articles

Keep the Cell Phone bills to minimum during overseas travel ...

2010-12-12T10:22:00.000-08:00

After travelling all over the world and trying many different ways to manage my telephone bills and the data plans, here are my findings to manage the costs.

The best scenario is to have a cell phone working on WI-FI all the time. There are many IP based software APPs ( like Skype, Viber, Vonage etc )on the smart phones ( like iPhone or Android based phones and some other smart phones ) that work great and allow you to make and receive calls from anywhere in the world for all most free. Unfortunately, it is not easy to get connected to WI-FI during the over seas travel. So, while we can use our USA based smart phones while they are connected to WI-FI, we need to find other options to make and receive calls from anywhere during our travel. There are a combination of things that I do contain the costs. Some times, there could be more effective ways to handle these issues depending on which country you are located/travelling. Here are a few tips. These are only my views and my experiences. There could be better options that I am not aware of but like to learn. Please comment and share your experiences.

1) MagicJack and a Telephone: I carry this kit all the time with me during my overseas travel. This works best in a scenario where I am near a computer that is connected to Internet. I usually use this when I am in a Hotel Room and my Laptop is connected to Internet. Magic Jack is a small sized connected that gets connected to the USB drive on your laptop. You can plug-in the telephone on the other end. Voila. You now have a telephone working and all your calls to USA are free from anywhere in the World. Click here to learn more about MagicJack.

2) Use local Phone in the foreign country + Call forwarding thru LocalPhone.com: This arrangement works great to receive calls from USA or other countries into the local phone. Here is how it works.

Visit localphone.com, register and then buy a local phone number in your country. In USA, we pay around .99 USD/month to keep this number. The advantage with this number is that you can forward calls from this number to any international numbers. When I travel overseas, I take a local phone for rent in the air port and then forward my USA cell phone to the USA local number from Localphone.com and then forward the Localphone.com number to the rental cell phone. Make sure that the rental cell phone does not charge you for the incoming calls. Many rental cell phones in many countries do not charge for the in coming calls. So, when some one in USA calls to your USA cell number, that call can be received in the rental phone of any country. What you are paying here is to the Localphone.com for international forwarding. Their rates are quite reasonable for such an international forwarding compared to the roaming charges that we pay to the USA cell phone company. For example, I paid 14 cents / minute when I receive calls from USA to my Japan's cell phone to Localphone.com.

This is lot better compared to the roaming charges that I pay to my USA carrier.

Save a ton using Magicjack (VOIP device) during overseas travel

2010-03-20T22:54:00.000-07:00

This devise saved me atleast 1000 USD in my recent Europe trip.

It is a very useful device to carry, when you are travelling outside USA. It is very small. Almost like a bigger USB drive. Its interface is excellent. Connect it to your Laptop USB drive during your business travel. Other side of the device has regular telephone jack interface. While I am in hotel, I dis-connect my hotel telephone from the wall and connect to this Magic jack device. Its is this user interface that makes it so easy to use. Once it is connected, I use the telephone to call any USA number as I call from USA. So, this needs that our laptop is connected to internet. In business travel, our laptops are mostly connected to internet anyway. This device is very convenient to use from hotel rooms or home etc. as it connects to laptop. One of the drawback is that we can not use it while we are on road unless your PC is on and connected to internet. Similarly, receiving the calls is also not very convenient unless we are near the computer. But, it is the best way to call to USA during overseas travel, from hotel rooms from any where in the world. Here is the best part. It costs around < 40 USD / Yr.

6 Best Twitter applications to manage your Twitter followers

2009-10-25T16:05:00.000-07:00

There are many applications that help you manage your Twitter followers. Some of them help in mass un following and following. I personally found that these tools are not very effective as you like to be aware whom you are following and not following. ex. if you un follow in bulk, you miss many celebrities and important people ( who may not follow you, but you still like to follow them to get their tweets). After struggling with many applications, I found the following few to be quite useful.

1) Twellow : I found Twellow to be the No 1 application to manage your Twitter followers. I rate it high because, you can ask it to list all the people whom you are following but those that are not following you. While many applications provide this list, Twellow is unique in providing the people's profile as a part of the list. This is very important information for you to decide whom to unfollow selectively.

2) TwitterCounter : This application will show you how many new users one is adding per day. You can add TwitterCounter to your site / blog / social network.

3) Qwitter : It is also good to keep an eye on who is not following you anymore. Qwitter e-mails you when someone stops following you on Twitter with a message.

4) Twitterfriends : Find out the hidden network of Twitter contacts that are really relevant for you. I liked the quick stats that this app provides. You can also see who of your Twitter friends are online this very moment.

5) Mr. Tweet: I found this application to be quite useful in finding new and relevant people to follow. It will analyze your Twitter network, help you discover interesting people, and also recommends you to others.

6) WeFollow : One can find new and relevant followers with keyword search, of interest. It is good to list your profile here and use this site to find new people as well as get found by others.

McKinsey conversations with global leaders: John Chambers of Cisco

2009-07-13T07:14:00.000-07:00

Listen to the McKinsey conversations with global leaders: John Chambers of Cisco. John Chambers is always an excellent leader to hear to. A few take aways:

-CISCO always looks at every downturn as an opportunity. John claims that, during everydownturn, CISCO always gained market share and emerged stronger than they went into it, as they don’t look short term and are able to anticipate and invest into market transitions. CISCO is able to do this as they are cash rich. I am sure CISCO can afford to do that with their 34B cash.

-Move fast but not with out process a process behind it that can scale, have flexibility, and be able to be replicated. Moving fast without a process would be equally as bad as not moving fast at all.

- CISCO think we are entering the second phase of the productivity growth and it's all going to be around collaboration and network-enabled technologies called Web 2.0 that enable collaboration. CISCO thinks that they can use this downturn to catch up, move aggressively while competition is cutting costs and lead this wave.

This is a big bet for CISCO but looking at their past, hopefully they pull this off. We want them to.

- John's answers to a question on " What does this mean for your customers?" is quite illustrative and impressive.

Tweetie .. Excellent Iphone Twitter client

2009-05-16T07:30:00.000-07:00

Tweetie is the best iPhone Twitter client that I came across. 3 things that I like about Tweettie

- You can manage multiple Twitter accounts easily
- Check the Twitter trends ( best way to check the latest news)
- Retweet very easily

Watch new Videos on You Tube

2008-03-28T21:35:00.001-07:00

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Stream live video fast to the world. Right from your phone

2008-03-09T09:38:00.000-07:00

Here is a cool tool QIK that allows anyone to stream live video right out of your mobile. Experience the possibilities .. amazing ..

Currently it supports streaming from Nokia phones only .. I wish to see iPhone support ..

CLick here

The Coming Death Of Indian Outsourcing ; Need to go up the value chain

2008-03-01T19:33:00.000-08:00

Here is a good article from FORBES on the "danger of death" for Indian outsourcing.

CLick Here for the article from FORBES

I totally agree with the author's views. It is time for the top management of Indian SOftware Houses to think beyond the low end services game and move up the value chain by start producing innovative products. This fact is very evident if one looks at the balance sheets of these large Indian comapnies like INFOSYS, TCS, WIPRO, SATYAM etc. The revenues from products is 0 to 2%.

Innovation is one part of the story. Some of these companies did come up with some software products in the past but never were successful in creating the global brands. It is not easy for the management and sales force to adopt to this new business model. It is not a rocket science but needs focus, commitment and will to take risk. There are handful of Indians who has this expertise. These sales experts cannot do much when they do no thave mamageemnt support. Today, they all go afetr easy money with short sales cyles.

The sales cycle for a body shop could be anywhere from 1 day to 1 month, where as for an outsurcing project it could be anywhere from 1 month to 6 months depending on the size of the deal.

The product sales cycle could easily be anywhere from 1 yr to 5 yrs, depending on the customer profile. One has to invest in time and money in marketing, building the prodct brand, acceptance of the product by the customers, testimonials from customers etc before one takes off.

Americal companies and the teams are masters in executing this business model, over the time. Indian companies need to learn this game. One way to do this is to induct and integrate the American expertise. This is where the Indian companies are still struggling. It is easier said than done to do this due to many factors. The long sales cycles of the products is something a company with outsoucing business model ( short sales cycle) can not digest easily. The associated cultural changes pose problems too. It took 25 yrs for Korean gaints like Samsung to understand, overcome the cultural barriers, integrate and finally win the US markets. Do the Indian companies have such persitance? I think they have no option.

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Free math courses online

2008-02-26T20:44:00.000-08:00

Here is an excellent resource for people looking for Educational Portal. In perticular, check out all those free math courses online from top schools ..

2008-02-16T23:44:00.001-08:00

Earlier, I recommneded thi sbook and provided the audio book link. I got my audio CD and felt that one should own the actual hard copy of the book also. Very good book that explains the definition of good profits and the importance of good profits for long term sustainability and growth of the company. Here is the link.

2008-02-16T23:24:00.000-08:00

I was reading TIm Ferriss blog and decided to buy the following 2 items.

1) Ultralight ION Jacket for my travel. The Marmot Men's Ion Windshirt fits in your pocket and weighs only 3 ounces, making it ideal for ultralight backpacking.

2) Kiva Key Chain Convertible Pack, Blue : The "go anywhere, fit anywhere" key chain pouch that becomes a pack.

2008-02-14T11:38:00.000-08:00

Here is a powerful book if you want to know the power of American Capitalist Economy on the whole world ..

2008-01-23T19:02:00.000-08:00

The 4-Hour Workweek

Here is an another very interesting book for those who wants to be extremely productive .. many tips on American productivity. The author ( Timothy Ferriss) comes strongly from his viewpoint on what a beautiful life is. Some of us may not agree that. However, his tips on how to be productive are quite informative, revealing and sometimes controversial. He also gives pointers to excellent tools and resources for small businesses, which I found very useful. It is amazing how he won kick boxing championship with very little practice. As I mentioned thought we may not agree to some of his views, on the whole it is an excellent book one should not miss reading.

2008-01-10T23:33:00.000-08:00

Here is a very good video from Google tech Talks on

“Competing on the basis of speed” .

A must see for all the software developers.

2008-01-10T09:59:00.001-08:00

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Jott : Fantastic application that interfaces voice to many applications.

2008-01-07T08:30:00.001-08:00

jott : Cool productivity application : Amust have for everyone

1) It is free
2) It converts your voice into e-mails, data beses and even blogs. Amazing.
3) It has links to many popular 3rd party applications/sites

Ex. You are driving a car and you fixed an appointment with one fo your friends/doctor. You nee dto enter this in Gooole Calender. All that you need to do is call to the tel number provided by Jott and leave a voice mail with time, date and with whom. Boom. Your Google calendar is updated and a mail is sent to your in box.

Another scenario. You stopped car and filled gas. You call Jott and tell your expense information and it is automatically updated online at another free app xpenser. I found this extremely useful to track my expenses. I can go online at my convenience and analyse my expense reports.

I believe that this is going to be one of the most sought after Voice Recognition appication. I am sure that you would see its aintegration to many applications in 2008. Bravo to the team that developed these smart applications.

2007-12-30T08:25:00.000-08:00

The secret of raising smart kids : good article from Scientific American

2007-12-30T00:26:00.000-08:00

Explains the difference between good profits and bad profits linking them to customer satisfaction : very good book to read ..

2007-12-29T22:17:00.000-08:00

An excellent book on innovation ..

2007-12-27T23:34:00.001-08:00

36 Startup Tips: From Software Engineering to PR and More!

2007-12-27T10:16:00.000-08:00

Here are the wonderful links to YouTube videos that can change yourlife

2007-12-25T07:49:00.000-08:00

Here is a good article on how to measure the performance: A balanced score card : A concept from couple fo Harward Professors

2007-12-23T19:09:00.000-08:00

Online COmputer Scienece tutorials from the World's top Universities

2007-11-18T19:16:00.001-08:00

Here is an interesting suggestion for the next "Open source Business Model"

2007-10-10T18:24:00.000-07:00

Read Any Good Books Lately? - New York Times NYT asked a handful of writers what books they've enjoyed most over the last few months, and why. Their choices — from best sellers to poetry collections to ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/books/review/Survey-t.html?_r=2&ref=books&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

2007-10-03T16:26:00.000-07:00

Legendary University of California, Berkeley makes their courses available on You Tube.. Enjoy ..

http://www.youtube.com/ucberkeley

2007-09-23T09:08:00.001-07:00

I just ordered the following audio book .. found the reviews and recommendations interesting ..

2007-09-22T11:19:00.000-07:00

I have not read this yet .. but reviews are very good ..

2007-09-22T11:12:00.001-07:00

A good book to improve Presentations ..

2007-09-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

The all time favourite classic book in Audo CD..

2007-08-18T21:00:00.000-07:00

Steve Job's speaking techniques

Read Gallo's column in Business Week "watch Jobs' speech"

2007-08-18T20:07:00.000-07:00

Here are few more interesting sites that offer very interesting tach talks ..

TED's new WEB site
pop-tech web site
Wall Street Journal COnference talks
SHIFT Talks
Google Tech Talks

See Bruno Giussani's post on a comprehensive guide to great talks

2007-08-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

Hi, Lot of hectic activity did not allow me to post. Here is another interesting link for thos eof you interested to listen to interesting tech talks .. similar to TED talks .. this is LIFT (from geneva)

http://www.liftconference.com/

2007-06-17T20:25:00.000-07:00

Hear to the wonderful keynote speeches from the CEOs of SAP, Salesforce, Microsoft, HP etc at Software 2007 conference

2007-04-14T22:06:00.000-07:00

The Great Game of Business, by Jack Stack. Good book.

2007-04-14T22:05:00.000-07:00

In Search of Excellence, by Tom Peters. Good book on corporate management. Here is the link to the audio CD.

2007-04-14T16:14:00.000-07:00

See Friedman's view on Globalization. Very well written book ..

2007-04-14T16:13:00.000-07:00

Here is a good one from Jim Collins

2007-04-01T06:42:00.000-07:00

Here is a Jack Welch's must read for every one

2007-04-01T06:35:00.000-07:00

Here is another book one should read ..

2006-12-23T08:13:00.001-08:00

Here are some very interesting collection of videos from TED Talks ..

I perticularly liked Hans Rosling's talk on Ideas worth spreading ..

2006-12-04T12:01:00.000-08:00

If you are interested to listen to IT conversations, here is a good link ..

Cleck the following lonk for very interesting articles for business leaders from HBS

2006-11-26T03:44:00.000-08:00

Working Knowledge for Business Leaders .. from Harvard Business School

A good life style tv focussing on Manhattan and California life style .. Food , Night life, etc ...

2006-11-24T05:36:00.000-08:00

LX.tv is focussed on the life style of Newyork and Californians. Realtime coverage of food, wine, night life etc ... Very good reporters.

2006-11-19T00:12:00.000-08:00

A number of very good audio podcasts as MP3s .. ex. Interviews with Nandan , Premji , Ratan Tata etc

Local technology leaders of Michigan ...

2006-11-14T05:20:00.000-08:00

REad the profiles of some of the local Michigan leaders of TEchnology ..

Few more good books that I came across

2006-11-13T08:59:00.000-08:00

I was listening to Guy's mp3 on "Art of pictching" and he recommends the follwoing 2 books that can help in public speaking as well as pictching well. I am ordering them today and I thought I would share these links for you. Amazon seems to be offering at good value ..

Public speaking-- as listeners like it!

Another good book that could help build relationships is given below.

Interviews of many Management Gurus ..

2006-10-29T16:34:00.000-08:00

I found this site called managementfirst.com, where you cansee interviews of many management gurus ..

Interviews

New Bloggging model emerging ???

2006-10-28T06:05:00.000-07:00

There is a news on the Time Warner Inc. group, Business 2.0 blog , which says the leading magzine is encouraging their journalists to start their own individual blogs and they believe that each individual blog would contribute in bulding their brand. Another novel touch to this move is that Time Inc. will be remunerating these bloggers based on their popularity. It says they would be paid a modest CPM. Time INc. would also sell advertising on these blogs and share revenues with the individual bloggers. A very novel, daring and welcome idea!!! I certainly welcome this innovative idea from Time Inc., it would be interesting to watch how this move would change the blogging world ...

Here is an another good book to read ...

2006-10-25T23:51:00.000-07:00

This is another very interesting book I ever read. It amazingly explians the importance and power of the GUT feeling in our life. Here is the link if you want to buy the book.

I found it a great way to buy and listen to the audio book during driving. Here is the link to buy BLINK audio book..

Jingle Networks Has Now Raised Over $60 million .. Listen to the interview of the CEO and their investor

2006-10-24T22:29:00.000-07:00

Jungle networks seem to be providing free 411 calls and deriving their revenues from advertisers. They are trying to kill the telephone service market which seems to be 8 Billion in size.

Look for the interesting Michael Arrington interview with Jingle Networks CEO George Garrick and their investor Josh Kopelman regarding today’s fairly large financing news.

Click here to read the complete article and listen to the podcast at TechCrunch

Interesting videos

2006-10-23T17:45:00.000-07:00

All of us need some fun to relax from our busy lives ... I thought I would collect some interesting videos. Click the below link to see those interesting videos ..

Clean and Good Videos

Knowledge Corner

2006-10-17T19:07:00.000-07:00

If you want to go back to school or want to provide these great knowledge links to your teenagers, click the following link.
knowledge Corner 1

knowledge Corner 2

It has a collection of excellent links to various top Universities where they are offering free videos of their class rooms. Some of the universitt names include MIT, Stanford, Berkely, Princeton etc....

Venture Capital

2006-10-17T14:33:00.000-07:00

Today, I was looking for Venture Capital sources. I found that Price Waterhouse Coopers had excellent resources to start with. They even have freely available templates to download and create finalcials. I found it extremely useful. This link along with many other intereting links are made available at the following link.

Venture Articles .. Many things you like to know about Venture Capital

Have a good reading!!!

Gadgets & Gizmos

2006-10-10T18:30:00.000-07:00

It is very important for CEOs to keep upto date with the latest Gadgets to keep themselves productive. Today I was looking around for some good sites that review the Gadgets and Gizmos. I compiled some and kept them at the following link.

http://ceogadgets.blogspot.com/

I could only review a few sites today but leep updating them as and when I find time.

A book that every aspiring CEO should read ...

2006-10-05T21:08:00.000-07:00

I was reading this book for some time and found it to be a very enlighting experience. I am sure it changed the way I think and work for good. I guess every one should read it with out missing. It is titled as "Good to Great" and written by Jim Collins. Great reasearch work and gives great insight into what factors helped in building some of the great companies. Thoguh it is a well known fact that one has to recruit the right people, I especially liked the way he conveyed the point -- "getting the right people on the bus and more importantly letting the wrog people get off the bus " before deciding the right strategy. He also stresses that right people are those who are desciplined people and need not be managed and he brings out very well the improtance f desciplined organization as factors for the sucess and growth. He brings out that the descipline helped many large American corporations to grow consitently and become great companies. If someone does not own it and wants to buy, use the following link to buy the book at Amazon at discounted prices.

Very good Audio and video links of CEO talks

2006-10-04T11:17:00.000-07:00

Today, I created this blog and and I came across the following interesting Video links of a number of CEO talks. I was especially looking for the videos of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. I have to present my product tomorrow to important people and in this context I perticularly liked Steve's introduction of the easy to use , elegant IPOD. It was crisp, to the point and introduced the product very well. I could pick up a few tips from here.

Stanford Summit Video Archives .. Wonderful discussions with interesting people
Bill Gates Webcasts .. Excellent Technology Keynote Videos from famous people from CES 2006
Steve Job's speech at Stanford's graduation .. Considered as one of Steve's best speeches
Steve Job - Steve Job launching MAC
Steve Job - First Ever IPOD Launching Event .. Very well presented
Steve Job's launching IPOD HI-FI
Charlie Rose's Interviews of famous personalities as videos .. Great interviews to watch
Audio interviews of many WEB 2.0 companies .. Listen to the new and young generation CEOs