My SMI

Pre script : SMI = social media intervention. Lame as it may sound.


Henceforth, I am going to curb the urge to google/facebook search/linkedin search anyone I meet online, unless of course, I have to engage with them in some kind of work (work-work, creative collaboration, guidance, etc etc).
I am suffering from googling/linked in-ing any random person , remotely interesting. Yes I am trolling them in my own way. And I don't like it.


Because it leaves so less a chance for serendipity! Imagine meeting/chatting with someone and realizing you have so many friends/experiences in common, unconsciously. And horror of horrors imagine 'knowing' all this and then pretending you did not know anything beforehand, when the serendipitous facts come out tumbling by.
And sometimes I dont even want to know about any common stuff in any way. With some people its just the lesser the better.


Enough said.


~nightflier

Linking people or not ?

Disclaimer: To each his own


Since the dawn of gmail in my life, I have come a long way in learning how the world is trying to connect using the internet. People who have been using internet pre-gmail will consider me backward. And I think so too. But I was not exposed to computers and related technologies growing up much, and I have no particular regrets about that. In truth, life was simpler, without the compulsion to be involved in many unnecessary things.


The thing is with deeper penetration of social media in our daily lives, I wonder why people are apprehensive about using it. Today over lunch, a girl said she doesnt want to be on linkedin because your profile shows up on google search and she did not want anyone to know where she worked or what she did.
Of course security/privacy concern wise I understand. And to each his own. Really.


But with my increasing belief in solving problems collaboratively, rather than being stuck on some issue all by yourself, not knowing what to do next, I think networks are cool. If privacy is not your issue. 
Also what I found amusing was the thought that what if my manager/employer found out that I was networking!
Another amusing thing I have heard is if I move on to a new job my ex-colleagues will find out what my new position is. I mean isn't that the purpose, ideally ? To make sure your advancements are visible, so that you can be reached out for any kind of guidance. May be this is too much idealistic talk.
Even stranger is when people are willing to contact a consultant/contractor during their job hunts, but are not so  willing to contact company representatives like HR directly on linkedin. Does it stem out of diverting the system where we are used to do things through agents and contractors? I think direct contact with any HR makes the process more visible and transparent.


What makes me think about this even more is I dont think any of the founders thought about these things while trying to imagine a network of connected people, through their skills, work experience and education. 


I would like to believe that most people are not aware, how one can utilize all this networ(th)k effect to come across as a capable, able prospect for any kind of guidance required in any field.


Having said all this, 2 years back I was a person who did not understand the concept of networking during school job fairs. I struggled to put myself across effectively (it was a cultural thing). Eventually I did learn and I feel the importance of professional networks even more. And hence I champion them.


~nightflier


P.S. Feel compelled to add as an afterthought, that everyone needs to find the comfort zone in such ecosystem. Like the first line of the post.

learning curve

So I am learning another language. No it cannot be spoken. And it deals with computers.Thank you for the boos.


Moving forward. I was wondering whether the fact that our teacher is a total geek has anything to do with my increased levels of interest. Or how he tells stories about the evolution of the language and constant anecdotes about why some things are done better or worse. He promotes doing things on the fly. And nor does he start the session with boring stuff like data structures, data types, classes or objects. 


Flashback to undergrad days, when those very terms were hammered down my throat making it mandatory to learn them (mug them if not understand) to pass exams. I hated computers and anything which taught me how to automate things with their help. 


Coming back to present day, anyone in the technology field will tell you that how even a little knowledge of computer programming languages has been a boon to their existence in this field. And again going back to teaching techniques used to teach these make me gape. In horror. After 4-5 years of collective experience using various languages, this session was the *only* one which really took care of my needs as a learner. And I know a huge credit goes to the trainer, who was more interested in getting us 'grown ups' interested. Rather than forcing us to blindly accept stuff.


Interesting thing he mentioned, 'only our computing platforms have improved, the tools we use remain the same. Which is quite a shame. Even Dennis Ritchie would agree.' Does same apply to teaching ? Why have not our techniques improved ? or have they ?


~nightflier


P.S. may be that's the reason some of my brightest computer engineer friends cringe at the thought of coding. Their teachers did something terribly wrong :D

The why of innovation

Blog post is a result of the post (must read alert!) Upasna wrote which prompted me to write about my experiences!

[A quick note for Upasna: I know I took more than a week to finally post it. But the more I thought over it the more I got material, inside my head. So thanks for making the grey matter churn! :) Have tried to keep it shorter though!]

I am an engineer by education and a student by profession (I know it sounds clichéd but this is my standard answer to aai, who is often intrigued by why I take up obscure things to learn).

My 4 years of undergraduate studies might not have taught me much theoretically/practically, considering how crammed up the system was and how I never got along with some course material. But the one thing, I stress over and over again, it has done is, open my mind. And the decision to study further and some extremely awesome *chance* experiences restored that fact and brought me face to face with research and innovation. Bundled together.