Wadiblog

This article address a key issue faced today at many multi-national system design firms. Having design teams situated on two opposite sides of the Pacific is both time consuming and can lead to confusion.

These are challenges that can easily be overcome by putting stringent processes in place, and have a clearly define set of roles and responsibilities. It’s only a matter of time that the Electronic Design Industry catches up, and adopts outsourcing best practices from their counterparts in the Software Design space.

The problem is simple. Architects divorced from actual implementation tend to drift into Never-Never Land. Without drawing unflattering parallels to Frank Lloyd Wright here, these architects tend to create idealisms that are unworkable in the application, or are simply unimplementable. Conversely, implementation management separated from architects tends to lack vital information about the intent of the design—stuff that is very hard to capture in a specification but that would strongly influence how the design was implemented. Continue reading…

Posted by Siliconstani

  Today, Friday August 1st a number of  Calfriends and I met for our weekly TGIF FRIDAY CLUB at STRAITS RESTAURANT (http://straitsrestaurants.com) in Santana Row While looking over the menu,  my eyes fell upon an interesting item: ROTI JOHN.

Roti John, is a sandwich inspired by some legendary guy named John who apparently while in Singapore was over come with nostalgia for a sandwich from back home. Goes out in search of a bistro or deli like place, ends up at one the many street side hawkers and custom orders a sandwich made from Asian bread or Roti, omelet, and vegetables.

The hawker, a Malaysian Muslim had the entrepreneurial savviness to brand this sandwich as ROTI JOHN that apparently became the talk around town.

I couldn’t order ROTI JOHN since it’s only served for lunch, however the name alone inspired me to share this on WadiBlog, not to mention having a mouth watering ring to it.

I wonder how many times we go through life where because of our impulsiveness, urges, desires to do or eat something we, without realizing inspire someone with a great idea.

Entrepreneurship isn’t something you learn in school, or can read up in ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR DUMMIES.I doubt anyone taught this Muslim Hawker about how to look out for a good idea, or how to market and brand the idea, no?

*WadiBlogging from Blackberry

SEO Optimized by WadiBlog admin

(Article adapted and updated from my article for TriCity Voice dated July 18, 2007)

The health care system in the United States is clearly sick. Our health care system is one of the most expensive among the industrialized countries and yet the World Health Organization rates us as 37th in overall healthcare performance [1]. California is no exception. Over seven million people in California alone are uninsured and many more are underinsured [2]

There have been many proposals put forth, including mandating individuals to purchase insurance [3]. The League of Women Voters of California (“LWVC”) and the its local arm, the League of Women Voters of Fremont, Newark and Union City (“LWVFNUC”) [both of which also include men], after reviewing the various proposed options to remedy the healthcare system, support single payer universal healthcare. LWVC and LWVFNUC along with thousands of others supported Senate Bill 840, titled “The California Health Insurance Reliability Act”, authored by State Senator Sheila Kuehl.

This landmark legislation provides fiscally sound, affordable and comprehensive coverage via single payer universal health insurance for all Californians. SB 840 would require replacing all health premiums, taxes, deductibles and co-payments now paid by employers, employees and individuals with one affordable premium paid to the public trust fund. Proponents expect that the bill will save $8 billion in the first year alone and $344 billion over a ten year period [4]. This legislation would replace the current 1,500 plus insurance plans in existence in California with a more cost effective universal access health care system.

SB 840 passed both the State Senate and Assembly in the 2006 legislative session. However, it was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger on September 22, 2006 on the grounds that “healthcare is not a right” [5]. Proponents of SB 840 have noted that the Governor received $4 million in campaign funds from the Insurance Industry [5]. Despite 2006 legislative year obstruction, Senator Kueh and supporters forged on ahead with its re-introduction in the 2007 legislative session. SB 840 passed the State Senate and is now in committee’s in the State Assembly Appropriations Committee.

The League of Women Voters of Fremont, Newark and Union City (“The League”), will continue to participate in OneCareNow, a grass roots campaign to educate Californians about single payer universal healthcare. The OneCareNow campaign held health care awareness activities in 365 cities throughout California. The campaign started in August 2006 and continued until August 2007. Every day for 365 days, one city in California was asked to support the concept of making sure that all Californians have health care. July 18, 2007 is the day that was devoted to the City of Fremont.

February 12, 2007 was the City of Newark’s day. In February, the League engaged in outreach activities with residents and presented information about SB 840 to the Newark City Council. May 5th was Union City’s awareness day. The League presented testimony to Union City’s Council which passed a resolution in favor of SB 840 on May 22, 2007.

Fremont’s awareness activities included leafleting at various theaters which were showing Michel Moore’s recent documentary about the deplorable state of our healthcare system – “Sicko”. The League also sponsored a packed forum featuring the following knowledgeable speakers who shed light on the various proposals Assemblymember Alberto Torrico, Co-author of SB 840, Ms. Pat Snyder, League of Women Voters of California, Mr. Andrew McGuire, Executive Director, Health Care for All.

The OneCare grassroots movement convened a State Strategy Summit in February 2008 in Los Angeles to plan for ongoing strategy to obtain universal coverage for all. Stay tuned for updates.
Useful Websites:
www.lwvfnuc.org
www.onecarenow.org
www.healthcareforall.org

Reference web links:

[1] World Health Organization: 2000 report: www.who.int/whr/2000/en/index.html

[2] Health Care for All: www.healthcareforall.org/healthcare_crisis.html

[3] This site has a readable summary: Health Access California: www.health-access.org/advocating/2007_bills.html

[4] Health Care for All: www.healthcareforall.org/studies.html - based on the Lewin Group 2004 study.

[5] OneCareNow: www.onecarenow.org/sb840.htm

The main speaker at Thursday’s NYC Ultra Light Startup meeting was John Carlino, the founder and president of GoNogging.com, a free platform to share digital content and demand the video you want. GoNogging.com is John’s second internet business and is developed purely through outsourcing. So it made sense that he was at Ultra Light Startups to tell us about his tricks for effective and efficient outsourcing.

I liked John. He’s a straight up New Yorker who tells you his tricks of business in a clear no-nonsense style. Here are some of John’s do’s and don’t:

• Don’t pay them

Lump sums or installments. Pay your outsourcers by the milestone. This way you are incentivizing them to provide exactly what you want at the price agreed. Anything else may mean you waiting around twiddling your fingers.

• Own your code

Your outsourced teams should not have the right to replicate. This is your baby. Protect it.

• Don’t mix it up

Don’t host and code through the same provider. A one-stop-shop is not a good idea. It means that the provider has more control over you. If things fail on one end you have a lot more to lose if you try and leave the shop.

• Make friends with everyone

Especially project managers. Even if the company treats your work shabbily, a project manager can be a very useful resource at a later date. He can give you honest feedback and teach you about the technologies out there.

• Break it up

Into modules and have different developers/development teams work on it. This way you can test several teams, if one person/team is unable to deliver the process still runs. Make sure the code is well commented for smooth transition between teams.

• Let them teach you

Tech changes fast. You can’t possibility know all you need to know, especially if you are not a techie yourself. Do enough research to figure out what you need to know and then based on that find teams with potential and have them compete. They will teach you what you need to know. You can use this knowledge with other lower priced teams. This doesn’t mean the team that originally taught you lost out. They formed a relationship. You might end up working with them in the future.

Guest Post by: Riaz Haq

Sunday, May 18, 2008: South Asians in Silicon Valley had a big weekend with both TiEcon 2008 (The Indus Entrepreneurs Convention) and HDF (Human Development Foundation) holding their annual events. These events brought out the powerful, rich and famous with origins in the sub-continent including former Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Lord Nazir Ahmad and celebrity politician Tariq Aziz. While Mr. Shaukat Aziz was the keynote speaker on Thursday evening at the TiE Global charter member reception, the Human Development Foundation annual fundraiser was addressed by Lord Nazir Ahmad and Tariq Aziz, Ethan Casey among others.

Continue Reading »

Some great sites were featured at this week’s Web2NewYork, a more casual and smaller NY Tech.

• Tabbery
• Sosauce
• Zubka
• Drawn by pain

Tabbery

Tabbery is web app that allows you to upload different tabs of your desktop onto the Tabbery website to share it with friends. This made me wonder how does this really help me. I already have basic collaborative tools via google docs. During the presentation I changed my mind. This thing is fantastic!

I can have different themes for different tabs. So if I want my BF to look at the websites I have for travel plans I can have him look at one tab. If I want my partners to see other websites whose design I like I can share a different tab with them. This small app also remembers the size, location, and order of windows. Amazing, I no longer have to do an incorrect mozilla exit to have it remember what web windows I want opened when I begin work again tomorrow. And goodness me the app also caches thumbnails so I can easily remember which is which. The only draw back to the tabbery is that currently all tabs are saved on public domain so if you have some highly sensitive business plans and designs in the works, don’t share those with tabbery just yet. In the near future though, they will be allowing greater control.

Sosauce

Remember the days pre-FaceBook open API? remember how darn excited us techies used to be at each new feature? Even post open API we still got excited about cool apps. Although some apps are still exciting, they lack integration of features across the site plus the apps like much of FB don’t represent data that is portable.

I like that travel app but I can’t add it on my blog page about my travels. Now this is where sosauce comes in. I can show a map of where I’ve been and integrate it with journal text and photos. These photos don’t need to be hosted elsewhere and manually embedded with code for your journal. Instead they are a click drop away.* Also, sosauce lets you send syndicated content back to your existing social graph on FB. At the moment the syndicated content is just a thumbnail and to see your content your FB friend will have to become a sosauce member.

I gave founder the idea to allow a small photo or other load to facebook with a sosauce URL which will allow FB users to get a glimpse at how powerful sosauce is. He’s going to look into it. Whatever gateway they are using to get their minifeeds to FB, my guess is an app should make this possible also.

Zubka

In the last 2 months I’ve had two head hunters and 1 corporate recruiter find me on linkedin and contact me so that I would forward a job description to my peers. In most cases I didn’t forward, I mean none of my friends are unemployed or looking for anything. My thinking about who in my network might be interested in something just doesn’t seem worth the effort. Especially since these head hunters who are strangers aren’t giving me anything.

Zubka is changing this. It helps people like you and I get paid to help our friends find jobs. It fulfills obvious needs in its market–hirer finds the right person fast and at a low cost (only 6-10% cut), helps your friends get jobs, and helps you make money in the process. Oh and if you are holier than moi (which isn’t that hard) you can give your money to a charity.

In future they will include a hirer and referrer rating so both parties can make smarter decisions about their time. Plus with their RSS feed/widget you can even advertise open jobs on your blog space. Sounds amazonish/ebayish doesn’t it? Well that’s cause it is. Red Herring called it the ebay for jobs last year.

A very different presentation than what I am used to seeing at tech meetups was from the director of “Drawn by Pain,” a Web TV series. It was different because when I walk into these things I usually don’t watch clips of metaphysical, anime/film combos. I also rarely meet directors like Jesse Cowell talk about passion, good content, and humbling experiences.

In the words of the website: “Drawn By Pain engages its audience by leading them through an episodic spiral into one woman’s search for salvation as her animated madness fights for her sanity in the real world.” The animation with film combo makes the film surreal and metaphysical while still capturing the protagonists’ inner demons with startling clarity. Its become my regular dinner TV, why don’t you give it a try.

Great presentations and even more interesting people.

Until next time,
Spunky

*Travel isn’t the only sosauce feature though there are others.

Crosslinked at spunkystartupper

 Silicon Valley is abuzz with phrases such as ‘Social Maps’ , ‘Community builders’, ‘connecting people’, all to achieve a goal, connect people to people. Many communities and social networks have come and gone. Very few social groups, networks, or communities stick around to become a big hit. I don’t mean big hit in terms of it’s monetary valuation, or the amount of VC dollar’s it attracts. For me, however much dollars and cents is a worthwhile pursuit communities aren’t built on green backs alone. No amount of money in the world can build a lasting, sustainable community of people. You can pump all the VC dollars available  into social ventures, however if you don’t have what it takes, then people wont settle in your little neck of the woods or as the Urdu saying goes, in your “dair inch kee Masjid”.

So what if you have the fancy lettering on the wall. You can be Facebook, MySpace, or bebo shebo - for all I care all these sites are nothing but fancy Rolodex. They are great community building tools, I won’t deny that. However, they in no way can be referred to as communities. Your average run of the mill Silicon Valley executive would have you believe otherwise, may even attempt to teach you a few “Community Building” tips.

Please, spare me - as the average Silicon Valley executive, sitting in his fancy Corporate office knows squat when it comes to community building. All he, or she can do is strum up some fancy PowerPoint deck, impress a few of their corporate buddies, and maybe, if they’re lucky impress a VC or two on the way - before you know it, they are on their way to becoming the next Bill Gates, or Warren Buffet - worth Billions. But that doesn’t imply mastery over  the ABC of community building, no?

Community building is an art, an art only someone with a passion, and genuine interest in people can accomplish. The true weight in gold isn’t in how much Series A funding you have, nor is it in any fancy degree you have your name pinned too. Community building is something deeper than all that.

So what is the secret? How does one build a community, not a community around a product such as the iPhone enthusiasts - as this is also, according to the dictionary definition classified as a community, like a community of Entrepreneurs, that frequently are found to flock around some big name who apparently is a Guru in his, or her space.

There is no denying the fact that these aren’t communities. However, they are short lived. What will be of the community of Entrepreneurs when say the Big Name Guru of theirs dies of, what about when Apple or someone else comes up with something way cooler than the iPhone? Will these communities still exist, perhaps, but I doubt with the same voracity as they initially had.

So, how do you build a sustainable community?

Stay tuned to WadiBlog, right here on Wadiwallah.com - the Community Side of Silicon Valley to learn about “The Art of Community Building - Part 2″…

1. Trendr
2. Kluster
3. Twiddla
4. Muxtape
5. Bricabox

Trendr

A snazzy trend tracking website. You can track # of blog posts from googleblogs or technorati, stock tickers, particular job queries in specific cities on craigslist and monster, google news items, amazon sales ranks, number of Ebay auctions, flickr photos for specified query, stats for a particular video and the list goes on. You can also track custom data sets by uploading by hand or using their API.

Most interesting to me is the ability to collects stats from a given profile in myspace such as –Number of Friends, Number of Comments, and Profile Views Per Day. Now granted this does not have facebook yet but it is the beginning of tools that are slowly getting us closer to being able to measure influence on social networks, and perhaps new business models around social rank (see Sanford Dickert’s notes from NYC Bar Camp 3).

But do have fun with this tool too. For example check out the number of times the youtube song called I have a crush on Obama got favorited.

Kluster

Introduced by founder Ben Kaufman as an online decision making and collaboration platform that can be used to facilitate large group decision-making during product development, marketing/advertising initiatives, and event planning. Any kluster member can login as a user and then start or participate in a project which meets their skills. A spark is an idea on how to proceed further. While an amp is a suggestion or a refinement.

A highly interesting biz idea and even greater potential for the many startups out their who can use it. I’m going to start one of my app ideas out there as a project to see if user contribution is valuable. Since I am good at ideas but not a designer, I’d love some design feedback. Lucky for me since Ben told me that most of the 10k members of the site they got in the 3 weeks since launch are designers.

Twiddla

A few weeks ago when my partners and I were trying to mindmap our site flow ideas needed to be thought out by one person and emailed for comments or if done on spot we had to wait until 1 person finished his changes before another could make some. If we tried making changes simultaneously google doc and mindomo discarded someone’s changes.

Online meetings just weren’t as fast as each of our thinking. Too much waiting around, which as most of you know means a loss of great ideas since the rest of the team couldn’t see and build on all the individual ideas. I prayed for some way more efficient then this.

Twiddla is the answer to many my prayers. A whiteboarding service at it core, but one with the ability to co-browse. No more telling partners to go to the link, do x to see what I mean. With cobrowsing we can all be on the same page or mind map or photo or site template and simply mark it up. To check it out you don’t even have to sign in, you can work as a guest.

Muxtape

I wanna share my music tastes with this new guy I am dating, but I don’t necessarily want him to hear some of the trance I listen to every day. Passing on my pandora or lastfm login names will mean doing exactly that. But now with muxtape I can easily create and share mixtapes online of songs I know might work for him (without damaging his impressions of me). Once created he can click on any particular song or listen to all 12 tracks in each playlist in the order I place them.

Heck once Muxtape offers a link to itunes and a commission for my forwarding ppl to itunes I might even be able to make some money. A great way for me to make money of my recommendations and a great way to see if this guy I’m dating is worth it.

Brickabox

Is a platform where one can easily create one’s own social content site in mins. There are some premade templates for web review sites, mashup sites, video review sites etc. You can also create your own layout from scratch. Great tool for new organizations. The only other thing I could wish for would be an interface that connects with facebook.

Until next time. Love, Spunky

Also posted on Spunky Start Upper

Outsourcing

In recent years there has been an amalgamation of many outsourcing marketplaces directed at entrepreneurs for hiring web development and design folks. Is this the right solution?

The answer depends on what you are trying to do, what you are willing to accept, what price point willing to offer, and what trade offs you are willing to make.

So what are you trying to do?

Is innovative technology a key component of your business offering? In general the success of a business based on specialized competitive technology requires a more innovative, carefully screened and informed team which will drive up the costs. If you skip this step, you could be faced with major delays and/or frustration and lack of completion.

If innovative technology is not a key component of your business offering and your unique selling proposition revolves around a new use case or better user experience of existing tech tools, you can create a fully functioning prototype quickly and cheaply by using a outsourcing firm that allocates its design/development resources across a variety of projects. Since such firms split man hours across projects, they tend to be much cheaper alternatives to outsourcing a team.

What performance you will accept?

Two major barriers when working with outsourcing teams are communication barriers and skills scarcity. The communication barriers can be caused by cultural issues, timezone issues, lack of face-to-face non-verbal cues, and lack of clear specification on your part. Sometimes these differences can be very subtle and go uncaught, until results prove otherwise. It is always a good idea to allow time for several iterations.

Skills scarcity can occur simply because of the different business environment abroad. This can mean differences in the technologies/platforms that are popular. It can also mean less experience and understanding of basics like US specific look and feel especially since what works for the business needs of their more local clients may not work for you

but the good news is…

that none of the cons are real barriers.

There are a variety of outsourcing options out there. Cast a wide net and make first cuts based on level of communication you are willing to accept. Post first cuts hire an outsourcing consultant from the culture of the outsourcing firm to coach you on specs and first few conversations with outsourcing firm. My friend Abdulrahman Rafiq provides this service.

You could also hire an internal team known for their communication skills to delegate or to get more ears on your interactions with the firms to make sure more people catch possible miscommunication earlier. Make sure to choose people who are patient.

When faced with skills scarcity question your assumptions. How important is one platform compared to others for your product? Can you compromise with something which has only slight limitations but a big pool of low cost outsourcing resources. Be creative about your process and execution. There are many different ways to slice the outsourcing baby to make it work for you. Here are a few I have heard about:

Outsourcing marketplaces

For coding and some design –

• Buyerzone.com
• Elance.com (great source low cost projects as is popular among small outsourcing firms in India)
• GetAFreelancer.com (European focus
• GloLance.com
• Guru.com
• iFreelance.com
• myTino.com
• Rentacoder.com
• Sologig.com
• YourCoders.com

For design–

99designs. I have had technical issues with their site though.

Kluster–fairly new about 3 weeks old at time of this posting. Founder Ben Kaufman says about 10k users and majority of them are graphic designers. I have had technical issues with their site as well.

Programmer Meet Designer–what it sounds like.

Can you think of any options I am missing? If so comment below.

Had prior experience outsourcing? Got helpful tips? Do share on my facebook group associated with outsourcing (Ultralight Startups).