The future of internet

The way mobile apps are being introduced into the market, I don’t think the internet can catch up with it. We have apps to tell us which movie to go, which restaurant to eat, which event to attend, all our pictures and videos are being stored on the cloud, we can control our homes from a mobile, so on and so forth. We are in such an unfortunate situation that we can barely do anything without the internet. Though telcos have been talking about excellent bandwidths and local operators like ACT and Hathway promising 100mbps, end of the day we barely get 1/5th of it. It’s just not possible for them to give these speeds to everyone. So they along with TRAI have come up with something called FAP (Fair Access Policy) more than a decade back. 

Today is a different story all together. The way things are shaping up; even a 100mbps connection would be a limitation. What I fail to understand is that why don’t they build technologies that can multifold instead of just doubling or tripling? 2G to 3G was just 2-3 fold increase in speeds. So is the case going to be with 3G to 4G. By the time people starts moving from 3G to 4G, it would be choked and they will be talking about 5G. I know there are a lot of technical hurdles, regulatory compliances, frequency allocation challenges and many more issues; but that’s precisely why we have stalwarts like Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance, Tata, Birla in this game.

With more and more people talking about smart homes, IOT is becoming popular. Soon the Internet of Things will connect even the simplest device in your home to the internet. According to Cisco, there will be an estimate of 50 billion connected devices in 2020 and some forecasts even reveal higher numbers. This clearly suggests that there will be 3-4 times more internet-connected devices in the near future. Few companies have already designed strategies to solve this problem, while some are riding on the wave.

Interestingly, companies like SigFox is building smaller cellular networks that are designed exclusively for IoT devices.

Though M2M enabled systems are designed to take lower bandwidths for connecting to smart home appliances; it also makes the users to depend more on internet. This only adds to the existing problem but not solve it. That’s precisely why a 2-mbps connectivity is not sufficient, though technically it’s more than enough for our use.

I can only say that while companies try to find solutions, my answer to this is personal discipline. Unless we get into a routine of curbing ourselves to a limited usage of ‘internet’, no amount of technology or modernization can help us. 

                       

Don't worry! Monday Blues are not for real.

Reasons could be many, but the problem remains the same. Be it in India, America, Australia or anywhere in the world. Be it a CEO, a manager or a clerk; the feeling is unanimous… the weekend just vanished! I would have generalized this to some extent, but I have chosen to go with the majority.

Yes, there are few powerful leaders who beat Monday blues hands down. But a majority of them get stuck. Unfortunately, people fill this time by spending their valuable time on WhatsApp, Facebook or twitter. I feel that these activities should have their own space and time. The trick here is of course ‘balancing the act’. While you use these sites to de-stress, they should not exhaust you and eat away the best in you.

I tried to get some interesting points online, but its all crap. One of them says, you need to look for the next weekend to beat Monday blues. Wow, what a way to start a productive week!

I personally use these 7 methods to avoid Monday Blues. Needn’t to say, I have figured them through my own experience and they do work. I have observed this with few corporate leaders and recently with the new age entrepreneurs as well:

1. Start Early: Never go late to the workplace on a Monday. As it is you are half dead, and you don’t want the guilt of starting late, which could kill the other half.
2. Music On: Switch on to some fast beats/tracks. These beats will push your adrenaline and boost up your senses. This will also help in erasing your sweet weekend memories, which otherwise is too much of a disturbance. You could even read a page from your favourite book thats on top of your reading table.
3. Right Activity: Choose an activity that you like to start your week with. If you are a sales guy, don’t start your week with a review. Have a customer meeting in the first half to get back to serious work. If you are into projects, start with a group discussion or a brain storming session. Trust me, you would love the outcome.
4. Plan Ahead: Always plan your Monday’s schedule in the previous week itself. This is important because, your start to the week depends on what you do on a Monday and this sets the pace for the week ahead. Fix an appointment with your customer in advance, or share the discussion notes to the team in advance. You don’t want to spend your Monday, thinking what to do for the week ahead; right? Especially, not on a precious Monday morning.
5. No Social Media: Don’t start your day/week by logging into Facebook or WhatsApp. This eats up your work enthusiasm and priorities. Focus on important activities to make best use of your productivity. You can always keep a portion of the lunch hour for social media.
6. No Emails: Yes, don't check your emails at least for the first 1 hour. If they can wait for the whole weekend, they can wait for another hour. Emails consume a lot of time and let them not eat away your important time. You need to do one of the above activities before you get onto emails, so that you can set the right direction for the week ahead. Remember, a good start is half job done.
7. Food & Sleep: Last but not the least, it’s not easy for people to have a control on the sumptuous food on a Sunday night. I suggest you have a gala brunch or a lunch, but keep your dinner light; so that you get a good night sleep... After all, you need to recharge your battery.

The real networker

We are in the age of networking. So many avenues, events and forums that are available to almost all of us, almost at ease. I see a lot of people make good use of these forums to build strong networks and connects. Like always, there are pros and cons to everything; so is with networking. Though its an integral part of your business; its time consuming, expensive and also sucks a lot of your energy. At times, you even feel dejected, in case the event is not as per your taste or expectation.

Well then, what do we do to get the most out of it?

Right things in life are always tough to follow and adapt. The easier ones get the best of us, so we generally choose them and miss the bigger picture. Let me take your through this in detail with some right things to do:

1.     Choose your event: Spend 10 minutes understanding the event before you register. Go thru the attendee list and ask yourself if you want to meet this set (or similar) of people. Don’t fall prey for few big names, its just an eyewash.

2.     Have an event calendar: Unless you have a set discipline, this habit of yours might eat away a lot of your productive/active work time. All events are planned well in advance, so you can add the chosen events in your calendar and stick to it. Unless you are invited as the chief guest to an event.

3.    Share with your partner: If you have business partner(s), make sure you share events among yourselves. There could be people with whom you might not be able to break ice. Or, your partner might give a different perspective of the same event or a person. This also helps in business continuity strategy.

4.     Don’t shower cards: I have seen a lot of people going around and exchanging cards left right and center (literally showering cards on people). Their satisfaction comes when they exhaust their card folder. Their objective is just to distribute as many cards as possible. You must be laughing now! Get out of it. In fact, you should be choosy to offer your business card. You are a special person, value yourself first! Moreover, you don’t want to spam your mailbox too.

5.     The first 60 seconds: Now this is the best part of true networking. You get to know a person in the first 60 seconds and decide if you really want to have this connect or not. The logic is that it applies for both parties. The other fellow is also looking for a good connect and if you are not his right contact, he will switch off immediately and that’s your cue to buzz off.  This real art of networking gets the best of very few people. Remember, multi-million dollar deals doesn’t start in boardrooms! If you get connected to the right person, spend the rest of the evening with the same person and close the deal. A deal in hand is much better than 10 deals in your excel funnel. The highly successful entrepreneurs know this well and they value time.

6.     Be alive and kicking: While all the above points are important, this is a must-have. Don’t go to an event to check your Facebook or WhatsApp messages. It really shows on your face. We all know that ‘People buy people’ and not products or services or brands. If you are boring, where is the point of buying your ideas? Stay alive & stay kicking to look your best, for the best deal of your life!

Stop talking to your phone!

Day by day, hour by hour, second by second, it’s getting intense and worse. Humans are becoming slaves to mobile gadgets and they have started living in a world of their own. Unfortunately, we are now more comfortable talking to our phones than saying a hello to the person standing right next to us. We don’t mind spending hours checking and re-checking status updates and some junk forwards rather than spending few minutes with our loved ones at home. I bet 90% of us doesn’t even know who our neighbor is and their names or what they do. I somehow feel that we are becoming more and more artificial and plastic day by day. And unfortunately, this pattern is showing strong signs of a bleak future.

     

Everyone needs an experience to realize the value of family time. Like what happened to me last week, when my daughter was participating in her sports day event, she noticed that I was present physically there but I was diving inside my phone on and off. She came to me after finishing first in the running race and asked me why I was spending looking at my phone in spite of her waving hand at me. It was embarrassing as well as disturbing. It hit me so hard that I realized I was only present physically, but mentally I was somewhere else. How much time was I spending on the phone! That’s when I made these 5 golden rules for myself:

1. Make sure you put the phone on silent once you reach home. You can check once in a while if there are any important calls. Do the same with WhatsApp notifications. Disable them so that you don’t get distracted every minute with a ting. More over, you are not in a call center to respond to a message within 2 minutes. So chill...

2. Make a habit of NOT attending calls after a certain time (say like 7PM or 9PM) depending on the type of job or business. Once you follow this discipline, people would either call you before that, or the next day. They will respect your time; and that’s what you are looking for. Finish all the important calls before 7PM so that you know any calls after that are either less important or just cold calls.

3. A lot of the Indian working culture is to day ‘Yes’ for any last minute requests. We all work on deadlines and hence when we get a request on the eleventh hour, we tend to say yes. That’s when you fall in the trap. Whatever planning you did for that evening with your family goes for a toss. Ask your family how many times does this happen to you; you will realize that this happens almost all the time.

4. Keep taking feedback from your kids. They give you honest feedback. They will tell you how much they miss you, in spite of you being right next to them. Ask yourself frankly; do you really like to be this?

5. I switch off my phone every night. I am not in a business where my UK or US clients call me at midnight. Things can definitely wait till the next day. Anyway, sky is not going to fall overnight.