Do you like what you do?

*This blog entry is specifically targeted for people in IT.

Do you like what you do? How often do you do things that you do not like but still do because everyone else is doing that?
Working in a global company gives an advantage of knowing fellow peers working elsewhere in world. Different parts of the world have different working style and cultures.

Look at Japan, people are hard working or rather workaholics – they come early and go late. They have high quality standards. They have long working hours and they have unsaid rules like no one leaves until the boss leaves. But they still manage to get time to go to pubs every night. They like pub hopping, and they still manage to come to office next day by 8 am. Surprising! I wonder when they sleep.

In Europe, people come early and leave early. Friday is usually half day because no one is in office after 4PM.  The beer party starts at 4 pm on Friday and continues till Saturday night. (It may sound like an exaggeration but is still true).

In US, people are more professional come early, go early and the time that is spent in office is highly productive.

In all the above three cultures one thing is in common – They find time for themselves; do things they like and have heart to follow their passion.
Now you must be wondering what point I want to make. There is a Scott Adam’s Dilbert Law – After every salary raise you will have lesser money in your bank account. All my friends agree with that. What do we do with our money?

Now let’s talk about us – Indians. How often do we follow our heart? Do we have passion for something? Who are our role models? How do we contribute to the society? Do we define new paths and set example for others to follow by setting new trends?

I think we seriously miss doing something passionately for ourselves. And this is from the beginning. As a child you do things which your parents want you to do. Most of the time what we do is based on what will impress others, but not on what we like. What we do is more decided based on the circle of friends, the company we are in, the money we earn. We always try to make a statement but in doing so we miss doing things that are close to our heart.

Giving an Engineering Presentation

Giving a presentation may not be a easy job for many. At least it is not that easy for me. For people in sales and marketing presentation is their key skill. Apart from that it is a skill which is good to have for everyone.

Well this is not my expert subject to write on, but I have been giving presentations of late to too many people, which includes customers, peers, mid and senior management and next month I have to give a presentation to CEO & President of my company. So what I am going to write further is my first hand experience from a engineering perspective. You may agree to disagree.

• Know your audience
  • If the presentation is for the customer, find out what they are looking for. Before the presentation speak to sales and marketing folks to find out that information. Also, find out how technical they are.
  • If the presentation is to senior management, bring out the key differentiators form competitors, challenges by the team in developing it, and the benefits customers are going to make. Leave revenue details for sales and marketing folks. You only concentrate on what you can do best.
• Keep your presentation short and simple
  • Short presentations are important to get the full attention of your audience. You may loose your audience in between if the presentation is too long.
  • Use simple language and not jargons. Remember it is not a sales presentation. Avoid using local phrases. They may not make sense to a person from a different locale.
• Unless it is not a technical presentation, do not include too much of technical stuff
• Run demo on multiple machines
  • If your presentation includes a demo, keep multiple copies of your demo running on different machines. You never know what may go down.
• Do not put too much on a single slide
• Make your presentation humorous
  • What you seek is the attention of your audience. Include light humor, that keeps everyone awake and make the presentation interesting.
• Be ready for last minute changes
  • If there are many stakeholders, then be prepared for last minute changes. Different people have different views, and sometimes it is difficult to get aliened with each of them. Do not try to take everything from everyone. That will create a mess. Instead take best from everyone and leave the junk.
• If possible, make it interactive
• Prepare list of probable questions & answers
  • It will not catch you unaware.
• And last but not least, Practice a lot
  • Prepare your script and practice according to it. This way you will not miss important points. And remember. “Practice makes a man perfect”.
  • Practicing also help to finish your presentation in the allotted time.

Self improvisation

Self improvisation is important. It is important to evaluate your deeds, words you speak, the way you speak, how you treat others, what you are contributing to the society, country or even your company.  A genuine self assessment allows you to understand where you stand in the crowd, what you are missing and how you can overcome your shortcomings.

I manage two projects in my organization that gives me two teams to manage. I knew this in past, but now I have also realized that no two people are alike. Each one in your team will have a different way of thinking, different plus and minus points and different approaches to handle same problem. This actually makes people management more difficult.  You have to treat each one in your team in a different way to get the best work done, to keep each one motivated.

This is a difficult job to do. If I put myself in this shoe and try to treat each one differently then I know I am in mess, because you cannot override your personal traits. If I am aggressive in nature then I have to put some extra efforts in keeping myself under control so that I do not hurt someone unknowingly.  I think if we learn to keep a tab on our emotion then it is very mush possible to react to situation while handling a person with more reasoning.