Ode to a friend...

My friend!

Within me, you've walked the paths i've let no one else tread through,

From me, you've heard words – silliest, craziest, caring and true…

You and only you, know the negatives that i’m made up of,

Yet you treasure me for what i am, smiling my negatives off!

We fight! …as often as a pessimist’s sigh,

Have been through times we couldn't see eye to eye!

Our friendship has always stood the acid tests of time…

Times, none would ever envy, yet times most sublime!

Let all these memories both forgetful and fond

Forge the extremes that we are, into a lasting bond;

I pray the crossroads of our unique lives would often join,

Even when we take opposite sides, i hope we belong to the same coin…

___

“Friends are a gift from God!”, or so they say; Whether or not God exists is another topic for another day. But friends are for real! They are the reason I am what I am! Over the years, I've made some truly amazing friends… I've also been a jackass and lost a few… I dedicate this piece to all those special people who have made and still continue to make my life worth living!

Warren Buffet – A Romantic?

Not more than 24 hours ago, the ketchup company H.J Heinz Co. was bought out for a staggering 23.3 billion US dollars. This is the richest deal ever inked in the history of food industry. In my opinion, buying a ketchup company for $23.3 billion, at a premium of 20%, sounded more like a joke. But when I noticed the name Warren Buffett associated with the buy, I immediately acknowledged that it is my judgment that needs some serious recalibration. Through hours of awestruck stalking, I’ve come to terms with the fact that when it involves Warren, the Oracle of Omaha, there is always a meticulous plan to what might appear to the mortal’s eyes as randomness.

I’m talking about Buffett’s relentless investments in the newspaper industry, of course. Especially at a time when the entire world is going viral, it baffles me that he continues to pour money into the out-of-date, conventional newsprint. Warren Buffett calls himself a newspaper addict. His words, “I’ve loved newspapers all my life and always will”, are deeply rooted to the times he went around on a bicycle and delivered newspapers in his hometown, Omaha, as a kid.

For long I thought that he is just being human and is allowing his personal preferences and emotions influence his investment decisions. Each newspaper company he acquired went a step further in justifying this opinion of mine. For example, Berkshire Hathaway’s acquisition of Warren’s hometown newspaper, the Omaha World-Herald (the company was financially struggling then), was regarded merely as a charitable act by most, including yours truly. But I learnt later that he is as much a skeptic as he is a sentimentalist when it comes to investment decisions.

In his sincere efforts to save the newspaper industry as a whole, he invests tremendous amounts of time and thought into his investment decisions. Consider the numerous investments that Warren has made in the newspaper business so far, there is one phenomenon that is constant – profit! I realized that he is the perfect blend of a philanthropist and a business magnate.

Last year, Warren bought as many as 63 local newspapers from the financially troubled Media General Inc. of Richmond, Virginia. When most critics viewed it as an emotional move to play super-hero to newsprint media, he justified his investments saying, “The kind of earnings we’ll draw from our newspaper properties will be a very tiny fraction of, say, Burlington Railroad. But it’s not a dumb decision financially.” The records prove his justification. He has so far managed to turn most of those around financially and in terms of circulation.

Dig a little deeper and you find that he has a clear strategy to his investment decisions. He goes after newspapers that are in communities where there is a sense of belonging among its residents. He has stated that he would never buy a newspaper company based out of New York or Los Angeles for the lack of a sense of community there. He says that in a closely-knit community, the residents are very interested in local news, be it gossip or high school sports, these newspapers serve that purpose.

Having said that, it is also interesting to note that his love for such community newspapers rooted in heritage does not veto rationale. He made a statement last year when he shut down the 143-year old Manassas News and Messenger of Manassas newspapers in Virginia because he did not see economic value in them anymore.

The facts are clear and simple:

He loves newspapers. In the midst of all the billion dollar deals he inks, he is not the one to lose sight of relatively smaller investment opportunities in the newsprint industry. The newspaper industry, though in its decline, will last longer, thanks to this man. If it ever happens though, the newsprint apocalypse will coincide with Warren’s decisions to sell out his newspapers because in spite of being a romantic, he is also a rationalist!

What's in a name??

“Mr. Tha-naag-arjjen?” he asked and threw a quizzical stare at me.

I wore a weak smile as I hopelessly tried to defend my name (my father’s actually!). “It’s Thi-na-ga-ra-jan”, I said, “Arvind Thinagarajan”, trying my best to make it look effortless. “But you can call me Arvind! I’m sure that’s easy, right?”, I egged him to concede. I took a quick look at his name badge and nudged him to acknowledge “…right, Tony?”

But I figured he wasn’t going to give in that easily. He took another long look at my credit card and prepared to murder my name again. I wondered why he wouldn’t just scan the stuff I gave him, swipe my card and get it over with. What was this uncalled effort for? Trying to put my point across with a little subtlety I spoke, “You know what…just call me Mr T. That’ll do!” and remembered to smile. That was a discount he should gladly take I thought, but I thought wrong. That there was no one behind me waiting in the queue meant he could experiment with my name longer.

My name had become Tony’s exciting new challenge and I had to do something fast to steer him off topic. “So what’s your last name, Tony?” I asked. “Banks”, he said and continued “See how simple that is man? Tony Banks? Easy as pie!”. I smiled, and nodded vigorously in agreement hoping he’d return my credit card and begin bagging the grocery.

But he continued with a sheepish smile, “Why do you have such a complicated name Mr. T? Why do you make it so hard for people like me?”

“Try pronouncing Vangiparapu Venkata Sai Laxman!”, I thought to myself, “or how about Venkatanarasimha Rajuvaripetan??”. But surely it needed more than that to convince my man Tony! So I tried something else, “What does your name mean?”, I asked.

“I dunno man!”, was the puzzled reply, “My mama didn’t give my name no meaning! Why do you ask?”

I told him that my name had a meaning to it – ‘Arvind’ meant ‘a lotus that housed knowledge’ and ‘Thinagarajan’ meant ‘the sun or the eternal light’. I told him about how I couldn’t think of an Indian name or an Asian name, for that matter, that did not mean something purposeful.

“Maybe that’s why my name is long, because it is supposed to mean something”, I said and realized something else as I blurted out, more to myself than to Tony, “May be my name has a meaning to remind me something important, that I got to add some meaning to life as well. What do I mean to the people around me? What do I want to be remembered for when I’m done adding meaning to my life, when I am no more?”

I looked into Tony’s eyes and knew that for a second he wanted his name to mean something as well. He smiled and said something I would never forget ever, “Well I dunno if I can do anything about what my name means but I sure as hell can do a lot about what I mean to the world around man!”

“Well said, Tony!” I said raising my hand for a high-five, over-joyed, and realized that the conversation we just had meant something to each other. Just the way it is supposed to. Everything around has some meaning or the other, in my opinion.

Tony is now my friend. I still haven't tried to find out if his name means something. I'm sure it does but I don't care because I know that he does. Like I said, he is a friend! And I know that I mean something to him as well. He now calls me by my name.

Excited about Facebook's Graph Search? Maybe we shouldn't be!

A few weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg introduced the concept of Facebook’s graph search to the world. Today, it is being widely talked about even as Facebook slowly rolls out the feature to its users. Even though this concept of a graph search could be called as the latest advancement to the conventional searches that exist today, search technology as such is still at its most primitive level for one reason – it is reactive. Reactive searches have been the way of search technology for the past so many decades now. Reactive search can be defined as the search that waits for a user’s input before using it’s algorithms to bring up the results. For years search engine giants like Google, Yahoo, Bing and others have tried to gain competitive advantage over the other by perfecting their respective algorithms to get better, faster results. But it is every competitor’s dream to develop a proactive search that works! Proactive search can be defined as a search that uses parameters other than the user’s physical key-strokes as input to bring up a reasonable set of results even before the user types anything.

I was in a speaker session with Patrick Riley, CEO of Ark, and in his opinion, Apple’s Siri is the most proactive search at our expense today. I think that is so sad because even Siri requires a voice command input. Search technology would have reached its pinnacle when there is no more need for us to perform a search. Imagine a scenario when a user merely thinks of something and search results instantly pop up on the screen! If and when that happens, the search engine companies would market it as a search engine that reads minds. But the technologist would consider it merely as a primitive advancement of the concept called Affective Computing.

The Affective Computing software is "based on the premise that an individual’s psychological symptoms can indicate his or her current affect". The most basic examples of existing affective computing systems are the heart rate monitor and the sleep pattern analyzer software. MIT is relentlessly working on accessories like rings and chain that could be a person’s 24-hour health monitor. They have also developed prototypes of systems that recognize changes in facial expression of consumers. A product like this could take a company’s customer satisfaction rates to a different level as the system observes, understands and adapts according to the consumer’s expression.

The botton-line is this - I see my friends so proud of themselves for being one of the few people to already have access to Facebook's graph search and all I can think of is the mind-blowing possibilities still waiting to be unearthed in the field of search technology. I look ahead and wait for the day when technology understands what I feel, what I need and when I need what I need. I know I don’t have to look too far ahead!