A golden journey coming to an end with Huawei

Before I joined Huawei India all I knew was, that I had enormous passion for Android. My understanding of the OEM space today has strengthened working with Huawei for 3 and half years.

It’s been a golden journey....as all my passion, aspirations, desires, ideas all started coming true here. I could actually write a book, if I have to describe the learning’s that I got here....But I shall keep it limited to a post for now & just share some of the key projects I worked on:

MBB Landing Page:

Working as a business developer, partnered with some amazing companies to bring in some cool discounts, gifts, offers for our datacard users. The first web landing page we started monetizing by bringing real value for our customers. Total WIN-WIN

Huawei Club:

The new era of marketing is all about empowering your core fans to talk & advocate your brand. We travelled to many cites, visited colleges, met young minds, engaged with them & as a brand tried to bring in a small difference in the way they learn/adopt technology. Through the club we wanted to make fans feel honoured of being who they are & aspire to be who they wish to be. During this phase...I relived my college days!

RCB:

The power of fans can take you anywhere..That’s what we witnessed during our partnership with RCB. We were all there in all the possible new channels, newspapers. Getting to meet all the RCB players was a dream comes true for me.

EMUI:

Being in this Smartphone space, I leant that hardware is going to get saturated. The game changer will be the experience an OEM will bring on to their consumers hand via the device. EMUI stood for making user experience simple & make touch more meaning full. Engaging with EMUI users across the global made my belief stronger about the power of social media. The power where you can get your ideas spread across with not limitations.

Honor Launch Event

So grateful to end my journey with some very sweet memories, all that was created during our recent Honor launch event in Delhi. I will forever be a fan of Huawei products & people who inspired me during this journey.

I take this opportunity to thank Huawei for making this journey remarkable & for all the beautiful memories which I will cherish for lifetime.

This is the perfect time, I am ready to finally say goodbye to the corporate world & embrace the start-up life. I will see all my loved ones on the other side...where my life takes a 180 degree twist. 

A Student for Lifetime

Called up my mom today afternoon for a general chat, she says “I am painting the wall, can we talk later?”. As the call ended, the only one thing that hit me was how cool stuff my mom is still doing at this age. It’s so inspiring to see my parents always doing something interesting – like going for a jog early morning, trekking, playing badminton, working with NGO etc.

The best thing my parents preached: “Beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take that away from you. It’s the biggest wealth. The world has so many lessons to teach you. Consider the world, this Earth, to be like a school and your life as classrooms. And sometimes here in this Planet Earth school the lessons often come dressed up as detours or roadblocks. And sometimes as full-blown crises. To succeed you got to be open to the lessons, lessons from the grandest university of all, that is, the universe itself.”

The times when I lost badminton matches, banged my car and failed in relationships….all gave me lessons. Failure is never an option; it's being able to walk through life eager and open to self-improvement and that which is going to best help you evolve, 'cause that's really why we're here, to evolve as human beings. To grow into more of ourselves, always moving to the next level of understanding, the next level of compassion and growth.

And I believe that there's a lesson in almost everything that you do and every experience, and getting the lesson is how you move forward and being more of yourself.

From last 2 months, I have been closely working with inters & college’s students - the thing that I have learnt from them:

•      Being who you are (No mask)
•       Not being judgmental
•       Open to experiment & learning’s
•       No fear of failures
•       Being crazy, laughing just because you want to
•       Loving & caring selflessly

I am student for the lifetime. Before going to bed the one thing that I ask myself is, “What I have learnt new?” And I answer – I learnt a new style to bun my hair, I learnt a new vocabulary, I learnt what hurts people, I learnt how to console my friend in a new pattern, I learnt a new song…
I want to learn to swim, skydive, ballet dance, play guitar, bake yummy cookies, skating & many more..

I know that I m getting better from yesterday…I am getting to be more of myself…I am living the way I want to…I m learning something new every day!

Happy Learning Friends!

Learning’s from the Corporate World

It has been a long day yesterday…. Right from interviewing some inters joining my team to attending Bangalore Barcamp - listening to some amazing talks by my friends. Barcamps hold a special meaning in my life and to prove that statement, I started blogging after attending Pune Barcamp 2007 which happens to be my first Barcamp.

As you would know I have been blessed to work with some amazing companies like Oracle, IBM, Motorola, Teleca & Huawei. Barcamp has thought me the art of sharing & learning, thus let me share with you’ll key lessons that I have encountered & adopted during my 6 years of corporate experience:

•   Truly believe in the company & project you are part of. Until and unless you are not passionate you can never give your best
•   Instead of your manager, Plan & Strategies your own work
•   Set targets & benchmarks for yourself. Timely keep a track on our scores
•   If you feel insecure it’s time to learn & work hard in improving your skill sets
•   Do things the way no one ever can do it the way you do
•   Instead of working hard, work smartly
•   Network & build your brand
•  Take ownership
•  Help people working for & with you to grow, they will help you step ahead
•  Present yourself & your work in the best way possible to management
• Let failures never define you, but help you get one step closer to success
• Last not the least – Learn, Share, Contribute, Support & Inspire people around you.

 You will never be remembered in a company for your contributions, but for the way you treated people around.  So have a true beautiful heart and don’t ever forget to carry a smile on your face no matter what the situation is.

Yesterday across the dining table one of my friends said, “You sound very corporate”.

Well I take it as a compliment because my Dear friends I know my business very well.

Appointed: BOS for Computer Science at Jain University

I strongly believed that the gap between our today’s academic and the industry requirements is very huge. The course syllabus especially in various Indian Universities for Computer science is very outdated as compared to the technology trends & innovations that are happening.

When I was offered an opportunity to change the above situation I just accepted with honors – Glad & very grateful to be appointed in the Board of Studies for the Department of Computer Science at Jain University.

The Board of Studies under the department of Computer Science is constituted by the competent authority for going through certain proposals for introducing new and innovative programmes in the field of Computer Applications and Information Technology.

As I am committed to give my best to this role I plan to bring in the following:

•       Computer Science syllabus updated with the latest web & mobile technology
•      More of practicals, workshops & lab sessions. 
•       Industrial live projects for students to build experience.
•       Best practices of programming & IT management.

Taking this opportunity to thank Jain University for the belief in me & for driving the change in academics that’s very much needed in the best interest of the students & Industry.

New Role, New Responsibilities, New Goals with Emotion UI

I believe “that the best things that you receive in life are those things you never asked for”.

Being enjoying my role as a Business Developer for Strategic Alliance at Huawei Devices; much satisfied I couldn’t have asked for anything better…but destiny proves itself every time.

This month I officially took up a new role -“Business Operation for Huawei Devices Global ROM Emotion UI”

Emotion UI:

Emotion UI is a skin over the base android that would define Smartphone experience on all Huawei Devices. It provides various features such as, interesting navigational experiences that can be easily customized based on one’s personal needs, rich pool of personalized themes that bring a more vivid visual experience with interactive animation that can be changed by simply shaking the phone, pre-installed performance enhancing functions, easy Widgets management, and Presets for driving, attending meetings, and outdoors.

The surprise element in the UI is the way applications are managed (moved, installed, or uninstalled) directly from the home screen without using an app launcher. Widgets can be easily added by pressing and holding a blank section of the wallpaper.

My favorite feature is "Me Widget" - a folder of grouped widgets that the user can customize as a single unit providing quick access to favorite contacts, photo galleries, or music player.

Major responsibility of my team would be to:-

• Brand Emotion UI: Show how apart from hardware Huawei is also very serious about software innovation
• User Engagement: Get most of the current Huawei Smartphone users to experience Emotion UI
• Android Upgrades : Release latest android upgrade along with enhanced user experience with Emotion UI
• Community building: Creating & building fan clubs who will help us in making Emotion UI the best design for smartphone in the coming days.

Like the fact that Emotion UI was not designed to make users say “wow”, but to make them say “wow that's nice and I did that!”

Yes! I am very excited and getting all set to deliver my best in this new role.

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Exit Strategy

“There was a phase in my young life as a photographer when I would shoot every object that comes into view. It was good practice, invaluable training, even. 

Now that I have grown comfortable with my camera system, know more or less how to play with light, I try to push myself beyond every comfort zone I find myself in.

It was therefore quite a treat to put together a bland looking window on a fire exit door with a gorgeous woman”

This was narrated by a friend of mine - an ideal example of exit strategy.

You got to figure out when to exit…move out from your comfort zone…take new challenges…in order to grow…in order to excel. Exit strategy is needed in everything you make an entry into, if you don’t, that’s the time you feel stuck. This post will talk about why exit strategy is a must for the below:

Partnership Alliances:

You can never win in today’s industry by being an individual player, strategy alliance with other business gives you an edge to fulfill customer needs and excel. Every partnership that I sing off brings in lots of excitement along with commitments. We sign off Win-Win partnership deal, decide on Go to Market plan, but never plan on defining the exit strategy.

What if the market does not respond positively to the partnership?

What if only one partner succeeds out of the deal?

What if the market circumstances change and the partnership backfires?

To proactively act in the above situation its important while designing an alliance best moment is to talk about the exit strategy.

Product:

When thinking of the end of a product’s life, think of the principles of product life cycle management and the four phases of a product’s life cycle. There’s the introduction phase, the growth phase, a peak phase, followed by a gradual decline phase. 

An exit strategy for a given product line typically involves outlining the company’s steps to reducing its exposure. Using customer reward programs, prompt payment incentives and offering volume discounts, are just some of the ways to retain business. The intention here is to maximize the product’s gross profit during its final life-cycle. In telecom I see a new product killing another existing new product launched from the same brand.

It’s important to predict eventual decline in customer demand, accordingly reduce the products marketing expenditures, reduce inventory and move the product line to“made-to-order” status. Support & Maintenance for the existing customers using the product is primary in exit strategy. Either move them to the new product or set a deadline for the end of support dates. Oracle products are the best example for the same.  

Relationship:

I know it’s debatable, why would one need an exit strategy for a relationship? Who wants to step out it? Why work on it?

But look at it in 2 angles:

Exit strategy for being friends to moving on to be in a love relationship. Exiting from being just lovers to a married couple. Exiting from just being a couple to a family etc. Figure out when to exit from one kind of relationship to another.

Other angle is when you realize your integrity is no more secure. During getting marriage discuss the divorce scenario when heavily in love, it is the best time. The moment the love is over and all what is left is disagreement and difficulties, it will be much harder to find a common ground based whereupon both partners can exit gracefully. Having a plan ready in advance will save emotional energy when you're feeling sapped from fighting.

Unexpected swings in the relationship can create distress and drama. If you have a relationship that you value, sit down with the person while things are going well and create an agreement on how you would handle your worst case scenario. What would you like to see happen, from a calm rational place, before you end the relationship. An exit agreement can clear a lot of bandwidth we can use for other fun activities, and let us enjoy the moment in the relationship now!

Start-up:

Your new venture is off and running. You and your partner are in sync with your goals for the future. As hard as it is to imagine the ending when you’re just beginning, an exit strategy belongs in your business plan, it can actually help you improve your business, making you look at cracks in the foundation of your company that need reinforcing and new methods to help you push your business even further in the right direction. 

Plan for what happens if one of them dies. 

Define what happens when one partner is ready to walk away. 
Worst scenarios for dissolving a business partnership is when the partners are locked in a dispute and the only solution is splitting. This is a time when emotions can run very high and having the terms of the dissolution already in place limits additional conflict.

So what happens to the partners when your small business becomes bigger either by merger or by sale?

What if somewhere down the road one of the partners is ready to take it all on alone and wants to buy out the shares of the other? A carefully crafted plan will lead to a smooth financial transaction. Having a clearly defined exit strategy does more than just establish the rules for different end-of-partnership scenarios. 

Job:

I am guessing that at the beginning of your career or even at the end of your corporate one, you did not have any idea that you would end up doing this for a living. I used to have a mental box of where my career could “logically” proceed, until I realized that I love learning new things, working on challenging stuff.

So my advice to you if you do not know what you want to do…Congratulations! It is perfectly normal. I promise you few really know their life’s purpose early on. It is a work in progress and that’s what makes life so beautiful. Second, be patient and have fun and explore. Try new things, learn constantly and allow yourself to imagine, to brainstorm, to come up with ideas and to put a few to test. Also, pay attention to your strength. That’s something that you do well consistently and feel energized and happy about.

We have got to be open to the possibilities and the opportunities that come along or else we will miss out on great chances to reach our fullest potential. I always wanted to make my professional smooth exit so I took my time building what I believed was imperative to that: a smart exit strategy at every job that was interesting, different & challenging.

Exit strategies aren't failure missions; they help to reinforce what you are doing right and focus on what you can do better. 

A year with Huawei - An incredible journey

For all those who know me, would also know that completing a year working in Huawei is such a big milestone in my life :-)
Yes, not only does this make me feel happy sharing this news in public…but the fact is that in last one year working for Huawei has been an incredible journey for me.

AND I AM STILL SO MUCH IN LOVE WITH MY WORK!

Aug 2011 is when I joined this Chinese Company and I still remember how bad I was in pronouncing Huawei. Now I m good at it… well this is how we say Huawei and not “Who are we”

Joined as a R&D Tools Leader in Quality team and now currently working as a Business Developer for Huawei devices. So what do I do here…hmmm LOTS:
- Alliances & Partnership for Huawei Devices:
- Identify and qualify strategic alliance partners for Smartphone & Datacard products
- Product Manager for Huawei Datacard Landing Page
- Looking after embedding third party apps & solutions into devices

The best part of this role:
- Getting to meet & talk to some awesome entrepreneurs each day.
- Working closely with R&D Engineers, testers, designers & lawyers which helps me learn new things each day from each of these fields
- When I bump into customers and get to hear good stuff about the products that I work for
- Getting an opportunity to talk business with brands that I am personally a big fan off
…. And many more reasons

Nothing is always perfect on this earth, as in my case I hate when I have to sell rejections to most of the business proposals, feel bad when products don’t do well in the market and face customer’s feedback when the products don’t meet their expectations.
But all this becomes worth-it, when I wake up with tons of things that goes in my mind which drives me to office every day & going to bed with a satisfaction that the work done is taking my company closer to its goal.

More importantly what I enjoy best is working with an amazing team, boss & business partners who make me a better person each day….and the journey shall continue.

We are What We Choose

How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?

Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?

Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?

Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?

Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?

Will you bluff it out when you're wrong, or will you apologize?

Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?

Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?

When it's tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless?

Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?

Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?

In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story

Well said lines by Jeff Bezos as he shares his experience & learning while building Amazon

Now as a Business Developer for Huawei Devices

It’s a BITTER-SWEET!!! feeling

"SWEET" Cos I’M back into the android word as a Business Developer for Huawei Devices &

"BITTER" Cos today I Bid Adieu to my Quality team at Huawei, where I stepped in 6 months back.

Looking back I must say it was a great journey, which gifted me lots of good memories that I will carry. Will for sure miss the smiles and laughter that I shared with my team. Don’t know how to thank them for organizing such a brilliant Farwell party today. Had no idea that they were planning something this this for me, and seeing so many best wishes filling my inbox & nice set of books as a gift from them … felt nostalgic.

It was great getting to know each of them. I’m proud of the days that I spent in, the role I had and the work I did. During the farewell when each of them spoke, I was zapped to know what I meant for each of them and how I touched their lives.

Some like the way I speak with ascent,

Some like the way I smile with watery eyes,

Some like the way I get things done

Some like the way my sandals make noise while I walk

Realized we all leave some footprints in others life... the question is how you do what to be remembered is what will determine your behaviour.

Time to windup all the memories & emotions & move on you start a new journey in my career as a Business Developer.

Thanks to all my friends & online followers for the best wishes … I hope to bring in the difference. Will be in-charge of Marketing, Branding & Business Development for Huawei Smartphones in India from tomorrow :)

What it is like being an Entrepreneur?

Well my admiration for Entrepreneurs is an open secret then how could I miss recording my meeting with the wonderful friend Sushrut Bidwai. A tall young gentleman, an entrepreneur from last 6 year by choice. For me he is a guide book for entrepreneurship.

If I have to rewind the video of our meeting, I would look like interviewing Sushrut. So here's the report of the interview:

Being an Entrepreneur gives you opportunity to:

- create products

- do things in your way

- create jobs

- take up many opportunities

- meet smart people

It needs guts to step out of your comfortable zone and face all the risk/challenges you as an entrepreneur would face each day

India’s social elements mainly corruption makes existence of start-ups more difficult

Explore small towns of India to kick off a startup not necessarily always Bangalore or pune

Meet and interact as many people as you can, there is so much knowledge around

Its not an idea but the passion & an intent is what keeps the Entrepreneur going

Glamorous part of being an Entrepreneur:

- Being titled as Entrepreneur

- Freedom to bring in change

- Knowing your limitations

- Inspiration to many

Non-Glamorous part of being an Entrepreneur:

- Risk & challenge in every corner

- Less of social & carefree life

What it needs to be an entrepreneur:

- Passion

- Extrovert

- Just do it attitude

And there is where our drinks got over. We departed and I was back with a thought & smile to stay for ever.

I look back at 2009 ...

Jan – New Year 2009 celebration was with my family at Tirupati joining my hands saying out prays… At that moment as I remember, I had nothing to ask but had received a lot so it was a Thanks giving prayer.

The year began with me working on a Project for ILO. I had made a come-back in Java development. This project was challenging and we were very close to deadline and used to reach home late night.

Feb – From this tight scheduled project my Manager approved my leave to attend Sun Tech days. That was my first visit to Tech city Hyderabad. Words are less to describe my lovely experience at this Charminarwala city.

March – We finally met the deadline of our project and there comes my appreciation letter from our client ILO for my security complying coding.

April – Got promoted as a Framework Architect. As a young developer I had many innovative ideas which were just budding in my minds, but this role gave me an opportunity to get these idea’s implemented. Working for this project in a new role was an amazing experience and that is where I had started taking baby steps in Web Application Security.

May –I attended “Security Testing Conference” as it appealed to my interest, where I met IBM AppScan Rational software Asia’s marketing head Randeep Chhabra. I learnt from this gentleman about IBM as an Organization. At my personal front my dad had decided to resign from his company where he served for 25 years and join us back in Pune from Delhi.

June – This month was like an offer season for my family. I got an offer to join IBM – Bangalore, my dad got the offer to join OIA and my sister had 3 offers in hand from Wipro, SONE, Avaya.

July – Mid year my family members and I were faced with a tough decision to move on in different directions to achieve career goals. Wasn’t easy for any one of us but it was per destined. I moved to Bangalore, Dad moved Ethiopia and sister stayed put with mom in Pune.

Taking the decision of relocating to Bangalore was easy but when I was packing my stuff, emptying my wardrobe, beautiful memories of pune flooded in my mind. Saying goodby to friends, relatives, family and Pune as a city was painful.

Aug – I was in my native place. My relatives, friends and cousins welcomed me with open arms. Joined project O2 UK and was made a proud member of eBPP. This was my first step in telecom domain. I organized the Bangalore tweetup and I met some really amazing people.

Sep – Settling in Bangalore was not an issue as I knew its local language and I had my relatives to take care of me. Every night before my eyes closed I had tears in my eyes … this soul was missing her family and the lovely place where she grew up as a kid, did her schooling and graduation, worked and built up some amazing relationships with many punekars. Professionally was growing more of as an IBMer. Attended IBM Rational software conference.

Oct – Learnt that this city is tech city by heart. I met many active user groups organizers and used to spend weekends in UG’s meetups and how to forget the funny part. I once told my uncle that I have never seen a Kannadiga’s marriage, and that’s it… Atleast once in 2 weeks I was there in a traditional outfit smiling at people at some1s marriage. At work I was in a Knowledge Transformation phase and there I got an opportunity to be Speaker at IBM developerWorks un-conference.

Nov – This month was where I had many crushes. First on Cloud computing, Web Services, SOA and finally Android. Being at IBM the plus point was I had opportunity to work in all these fields, but I had to make a pick. My dad one evening on a phone call just expressed “It’s my dream to have a home in Bangalore”.

Dec – My dad’s wish was somewhere echoing in my head and heart. Quote’s are always true “If U have a will and wish u always find a way” I found my way and fulfilled my dad’s wish “Finally I bought a 2 BHK flat of my own at Bannerghatta” which is 6 Km from my office. My year couldn’t have ended with more than this; I got an opportunity to be a part of IBM’s first GBS project on Android.

No one could have ever predicted my 2009 to be like this, so I believe that future is in our hands. We have to work towards it. Its not that I had a smooth and peaceful year. I did face lot of ups and downs but what I remember is the best that happened to me…this is how I have decided to live 2010 too.

I repeat…. I am living to witness miracles.

Where I started & What am I now….

I started off my career as a Corporate Trainer while I was accomplishing my Maser’s in Computer Management.

Role as a Corporate Trainer:

- Conducted training for EDS Fresher’s batch in C and VB Script

- Training to HSBC in Core Java

- At Bharati Vidyapeeth University trained the PG-IT students in Java and WebTechologies [HTML,CSS, DHTML, PHP, JavaScript]

- At Asian School of Management was a visiting faculty for DBMS

Role as a Software Consultant:

Did couple of projects naming few – Online Admission Portal, Online Examination and IT School. This is where I got first hand experience in SDLC and a scope to explore Java, JSP, Servlet, JDBC and Struts.

I had become a big fan of WSAD and Websphere. 

Role as a Weblogic Consultant:

Moved on to become a Weblogic Consultant as I wanted to understand more what and how things work on the server side. 

Troubleshooted issues occurring on Weblogic Server 8, 9 & 10.

Found my interest in Python and made WLST my domain.

Later on started working and consuting client facing issues in devlopemnt with WLW.

Got introduced to JSF, JMS, JTA, POJO & Hibernate.

These new Technologies drew me back to the development environment.

Role as a Programmer Analyst:

Did a project for ILO – International Labour Organization. Which not only gave me a come back into development but got me introduced to the secure coding.  

The experience of the race shows that I got most important education not

through books but through my work. I am developing by my daily task, or else

demoralized by it, as by nothing else.

Role as a Framework Architect:

Currently I am into the designing & development of a framework to facilitate rapid

application development for Java open source projects.

A broad layout on the Framework features -

*        User authentication 

*        Single sign on 

*        User & Role management - Role based access to the functionality & access to data.

*        Advanced search

*        Client side and Server side Validations

*        GUI Generator - Listing, menus, toolbar, filters 

*        XML based screen generation  

*        Supported databases - MySQL, SQL server, ORACLE. 

*        All queries will be ANSI SQL compliant  

*        Flexibility to develop business logic in middle tire or database

*        Exception handling

*        Audit trail

*        Logging mechanism

*        Report Generation - Export to PDF & Reporting services and dashboard 

*        Licensing mechanism

*        Security features - Framework will be protected against following vulnerabilities published by OWASP :-     

>   SQL injection

>   Cross site scripting   

>   Malicious File Execution

>   Insecure Direct Object Reference

>   Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

>   Information Leakage and Improper Error Handling

>   Broken Authentication and Session Management

>   Insecure Cryptographic Storage

>   Insecure Communications

>   Failure to Restrict URL Access 

With this being my career journey, I could say “Find a job u love & u will never work for the rest of ur Life.”

I remember in my college days when I participated for a Paper Presentation “Open

Source vs Proprietary Software where I said “I support Open Source and 1 day I will

start contributing towards it”

I never knew that this would come true so soon.