Some of the lessons from the evening:

Execution matters

Great, if you’ve got a brilliant idea. But if not executed well even the most unique one will fail. So having a great idea is only the start, a dedicated execution plan is what will get you to the real goal. Reminds me of this – 1% Inspiration. 99% Perspiration.

Keep it flexible

As much as we like business plans to be firm at the same time they need to be flexible enough to change as per market scenarios, consumer expectations.

Focus on the right thing

Often businesses lose direction because they are focused more on the competition rather than keeping a tab on changing consumer preferences.

Be human

Business is all about relationships. So you could be an IITian or a college drop-out but if you don’t have the right interpersonal skills and the humility to deal with people, you probably won’t go too far.

Be passionate

Entrepreneurship is not a moment of time. It’s a path you’ve chosen to walk. If you loose passion mid-way that’s the end of the game. Watch Narayana Murthy talk about Passion.

Accept failure

Entrepreneurship is all about risk taking. If failure is not your cup of tea, start-ups are not for you.

The mantra:

Passion. Perseverance. Patience.

And I thought it also needed the 4th P – Profit.

The Economic Times -  Power of Ideas got Narayana Murthy to share some of this thoughts on entrepreneurship. My favourites are Passion & Innovation. But you can see all the videos here at the powerofideasET – YouTube Channel.

Are you a successful entrepreneur? Would love to hear some of the lessons you learned while setting up your business. Use the comments area to share your story.

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#2
Wish you could put more into that SMS? Read why text messages are limited to 160 characters?

#3
Fucking (pronounced “fook-ing”) is an Austrian village located in the western Upper Austria. The village is located 33 kilometres (21 mi) north of Salzburg, four kilometres (2.5 mi) east of the German border.

We had a vote last year on whether to rename the town, but decided to keep it as it is. After all, Fucking has existed for 800 years, probably when a Mr Fuck or the Fuck family moved into the area. The ‘ing’ was added as a word for settlement.

Read More.

#4
Using Gmail? Well, you can only send out 500 messages per day. Read more about Gmail’s Limitations for sending messages.

#5
Do you know what’s a Flugelbinder? See this photo and you’ll be surprised it had to have such a difficult name.

Did you learn something new in the past few weeks? Care to share with all, put it in the comments area.

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Mumbai, hold your breath
Private swimming pools with DB homes

Spotted this hoarding at one of the busy traffic junction of South Mumbai. Seriously, can our city really afford to have private swimming pools? Isn’t the recent spate of water cuts a wake up call to all of us and that too a RUDE one. considering south mumbai has so far been the least affected by water cuts. Yet, our building suffered an uplanned/unannounced water cut for more than 48 hours.

At a time when most hotels, gymkhanas and clubs are being asked to reduce water usage in their pools and gymnasiums I don’t know how and where are we going to bring in those million litres of water to fill up these “private swimming pools”.

God can bless us and solve our problems, but I think this one needs to be solved by us. Let’s do our bit to conserve and use this natural resource responsibly.

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In November 2000, when I freelanced with Teens Today – an India Today publication I had the opportunity to interview Stephen Gately on his India tour to launch his solo album. If you’re interested I reproduce the same below.

 
Click on image to enlarge.

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Farhan Akhtar
This is the guy who once again re-confirms my “life-wish” to make a movie someday. His ability to play so many roles (film director, actor & singer) and that too with superb performances is commendable. Firstly, I would thank him for responding to the letter I sent him a few months back after watching ‘Rock On’. Then I will discuss what does he tell himself before jumping into the unknown waters. How do you expect a film director to make his debut in a movie in which he sings the songs himself?

ShahRukh Khan
The first two guests are from the film industry but I guess they have a certain attraction. I won’t meet SRK because he is King Khan but rather because there was something he said long back and that thought has been kind of printed in my head – “I strive to do good work, money is only a byproduct.”. And would love to know the secret of his energy. He is very active and needs only 4 hours of sleep to keep him going.

Robin Sharma
Read his books and have found them to be a great source of positive thinking and looking at life in a new perspective every time. Loved his book The Greatness Guide. Would love to chat up with him and dwell deeper into understanding the simplicity of life we forget in this fast moving world of ours. A totally philosophical chat, this one would be.

Thomas Hawk
This man has a mission – 1 million photos to be uploaded on flickr in his lifetime. He rarely travels without his camera & equipment. He not only has a brilliant photo collection on flickr but also is a photographer rights activist and talks a lot about his processes and experiences at the blog. Thomas is a person who inspires me to shoot more and experiment with angles and Lightroom effects. Will have a discussion on what’s it that he searches for from his viewfinder and hits the shutter to take that awesome shot.

Milind Deora (Who’s he?)
Politics and me don’t fit together very well. A little because I don’t really get the idea and a little because I believe Indian politics is a bit too complicated to comprehend. A luncheon with this young face of Indian politics, would only to be understand his attitude towards the political system. Is he just following his father’s footsteps? Does he see a future for this country different from what the old leaders see it as? Maybe this chat can finally get me interested in politics and it’s workings.

So, who’s that interesting person you would like to have lunch with? Share your thoughts in the comment area.

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I think one of the most exciting thing I wrote was the Letter to Farhan after viewing the movie ROCK ON! – it was meant to be a movie review but I sent the link to his production office and I was super thrilled when Farhan wrote back to me.

My attempt to give out some gyaan:

• Do a smart allocation of printers in your office and Save Paper 
• At the start of 2009 I got a bit thinking and wrote my Thoughts for the new year 
• And then How to spend your time effectively during the recession
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My photography has picked up some momentum and I have been an active member with the Mumbai Weekend Shoot group (see my photos from the shoots). I shot the Ganesh Visarjan and have been giving the photo blog fortnightly updates. 

Trying to give some shape to some random thoughts I started writing the Monday Mumble and 5 things I learnt series. Hopefully, you should see more of these in the coming months.

Social media played a very active role in the Mumbai attacks and I put forward my observations – Mumbai Terror Attacks.

If you’ve  been a regular reader and have enjoyed the blog, here is a great way to browse the archives – browse by category/month  or select keywords at the bottom of the post under Tags.

Also don’t forget to miss any blog updates, by subscribing to the email alerts of this blog.

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It is August. In a small town on the South Coast of France, holiday season is in full swing, but it is raining so there is not too much business happening. Everyone is heavily in debt.

Luckily, a rich Russian tourist arrives in the foyer of the small local hotel. He asks for a room and puts a Euro100 note on the reception counter, takes a key and goes to inspect the room located up the stairs on the third floor.

The hotel owner takes the banknote in hurry and rushes to his meat supplier to whom he owes E100.

The butcher takes the money and races to his supplier to pay his debt.
The wholesaler rushes to the farmer to pay E100 for pigs he purchased some time ago.

The farmer triumphantly gives the E100 note to a local prostitute who gave him her services on credit.

The prostitute goes quickly to the hotel, as she owed the hotel for her hourly room use to entertain clients.

At that moment, the rich Russian is coming down to reception and informs the hotel owner that the proposed room is unsatisfactory and takes his E100 back and departs.

There was no profit or income.

But everyone no longer has any debt and the small townspeople look optimistically towards their future.

Can the Global Crisis end the same way ?
Think of the rich Russian as the US Fed who pumps in money into the system and takes it all back after the cycle is complete……yes ?

- Anil Bhatia

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Carrots came in various colours like red, yellow and even black. The orange coloured carrot was developed by the Dutch in respect of their national colour.
Additional reading at Orange Journey.

There is something called sea-burial. They take the body placed in a coffin and sail into the sea from certain approved locations across a few European countries and drop off the coffin there. The coffins are made of biodegradable material so that it completely decomposes once it hits the sea bed.
Additional Reading: Sea Burial Services |  Sea burial a hit in land-starved UK (from Times of India)

We all grew up eating the much abused fast food and never stopped, yet. But did you know there is the exact opposite called Slow Food. From USA today, Slow Food aims to be everything fast food is not.
Additional Reading: What is Slow Food?

There is a way to solve the world’s drinking water crisis. And NASA may have that solution worked out. From USA Today – NASA has spent decades perfecting a system to transform urine into water that can be used in space for drinking, food preparation and washing. Agency officials say the water from the system will be cleaner than U.S. tap water.
Additional Reading: On tap in space: Urine will not go to waste

Babe Ruth was probably the first famous face to be used as a brand ambassador in advertising. [Source: PBS American Photography (episode 2 of 3).]
Additional Reading: The Babe Ruth Times

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A good book

And the forgotten playlist on the iPod

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Robin is very digital savvy and shares his inspiring talk via his blog and twitter channel. Subscribe to his newsletters and enlighten your Inbox. Being a twitter addict I recently added  _robin_sharma to my twitter channel and it’s been good reading his 140 character messages.

It was great to see his response to a message I sent him earlier yesterday.

Talk about persistence. If you know what the LWT means, leave me a comment.

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