Neo Leo

The first thing I do when I get up in the morn is go the loo... Though the first thing I wish I could be doing is checking my email. I wish I had the audacity to check my email while on my potty... Sooner or later I think ill come to it...
Given such a scenario, it would be natural for geeks like me, to hit Google for finding information about anything that I need...

So much so, that I do not need to go to the Google page to do my search, I just type it in the Google toolbar in my browser. Its amazing how Search Engines have revolutionized the way we find information. This invention is but a progeny of the Information Renaissance. Given the power of Information at your fingertips, I wonder what the next step would be.

Shown below are statistics of how many searches happened within the United States in March 2006 according to
comScore

One thing that Search Engines do not understand are the meanings of the words that we type in. For ex. if we type in 'Pharmacist' in a search engine it gives you, a result based on pages, which ‘Pharmacist’ appear, based on its page index. Based on Ontologies, scientists are trying to develop a Semantic Web. With the Semantic Web, if we type in 'Pharmacist', we would get the list of the nearest pharmacies around the locale we are located. The Semantic Web is a vision of web pages, which are understood by computers. This would lead to giving meaning of the words that type to the search engines with which we seek information.

Frankly speaking, I do not understand the implications of such a system from all that I have read online. However, considering that the Semantic Web was an idea of Tim Berners Lee, the founder of the World Wide Web, I would not dismiss it as a mere transgression emanating from looking forward to take Search Engines further. An insightful read can be found at this link here . I think there would be another revolution on how we organize information, once this concept is running. I wonder if this would be part of Information Renaissance 1.0 or 2.0 ?

Posted by dsmaratt at 09:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rang De Basanti is a movie about the youth in India. The movie starts with a London based filmmaker Sue McKinley. Sue stumbles about her grandfathers (a British Army Captain in India, when India was a British Colony) and is mesmerized by the stories about the young freedom fighters and decides to make a docudrama about these freedom fighters

Sue lands in New Delhi to meet her friend Sonia who studies in the Delhi University. Auditioning for the roles of the freedom fighters, Sue finds that none who turned up in the Delhi University are capable enough to play such roles. Sensing her frustration, her friend Sonia invites her to go the 'Classroom’, which is an abandoned old fort in the outskirts of the city, where her group of hedonistic friends party.

She meets Sonia's friends DJ (Daljeet), Aslam, Sukhi and Karan. In these happy go lucky friends of Sonia's, she sees the same strong spirit of the Freedom fighters and convinces them to play the parts, although they are reluctant. Belonging to a generation of Consumerism, these young men and women find it hard to identify with the characters that lived and died for Independence sixty years ago.

This movie explores with the awakening of these youth from a meaningless life to a meaningful one, where they take responsibility of their actions. The movie juxtaposes the struggles that the freedom fighters and these youth had to encounter.

Nominated for the Oscars from India this year for the 'Foreign Film Category', this is a must see movie and reflects how the new generation lives in India. For those of you who would want to watch this movie, please get hold of Annamalai who has the DVD for this movie. I have seen this movie five times, myself.

Posted by dsmaratt at 01:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Accenture — connotes "Accent on the Future". The ">" over the logo's t points forward towards the future. Prior
to 2001, the company was called Andersen Consulting.

Every word has an etymology behind it and so names of organizations. Companies start out with a name and when it runs its course through mergers, acquisitions and market changes, the names change to reflect the new identity. Here we look at some interesting company nomenclature etymologies.

20th Century Fox — after the merger of William Fox's Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures.

Accenture — connotes "Accent on the Future". The ">" over the logo's t points forward towards the future. Prior
to 2001, the company was called Andersen Consulting.

Adidas — from the name of the founder Adolf (Adi) Dassler.

Arcelor Mittal — Arcelor was formed in 2001 by a merger of Arbed (Luxembourg), Aceralia (Spain) and Usinor (France). After the recent merger of Arcelor with Mittal Steel, the new company was named Arcelor Mittal.

Blaupunkt — German for "Blue dot". The company's core business was the manufacturing of headphones. After
the headphones came through quality tests; the company would give the headphones a blue dot. These
headphones quickly became known as the blue dots or blaue Punkte. This quality symbol soon became a
trademark and the trademark became the company name in 1938.

Bridgestone — after founder Shojiro Ishibashi. The last name Ishibashi (石橋) means "stone bridge", or "bridge
of stone".

Cadillac — the 18th century French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, founder of Detroit,
Michigan.

FCUK — French Connection United Kingdom

IKEA — the first letters of the Swedish founder Ingvar Kamprad's name combined with the first letters of the
names of the property and the village in which he grew up: Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd.

MRF — from Madras Rubber Factory, which was founded by K M Mammen Mappillai in 1946.

Nokia — from where the company originated in the Finnish city of Nokia.

Pepsi — after the enzyme pepsin used in the drink.

Samsung — which means three stars in Korean.

Six Apart — Ben and Mena Trott, the company co-founders were born six days apart (in September 1977).

Verizon — from veritas (Latin for truth) and horizon.

Vodafone — stands for Voice, Data, Telefone.

Wipro — Western India Vegetable Products Limited; from its beginnings as a vanaspati (hydrogenated vegetable oil)
and laundry soap producer; now an IT services giant.

Yahoo! — for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.

Do we all know the etymologies of our own names?

Posted by dsmaratt at 05:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A logo helps to define a corporation and an effective logo becomes synonymous with the organisations they portray. In this age of the Information Renaissance, it is important to convey as much as information you can concisely. Visual identity with effective logo's are what companies are aiming at. A look at some of of the effective company logos and the messages they help convey would help in understanding how important a role a logo plays for an organisation.

How many of you have discovered the hidden symbol in the FedEx logo? Yes, im talking about the arrow between the E and the x in this logo. The arrow was introduced to underscore speed and precision, which are part of the positioning of the company. FedEx is rumoured to have spent over a million dollars for that logo.

The SUN Microsystems logo is a wonderful example of symmetry and order. It was a brilliant observation that the letters u and n while arranged adjacent to each other look a lot like the letter S in a perpendicular direction. Spectacular.

The logo above is for an editing studio. I like the way the logo attempts to convey what they do.

The above are two magazines from the Readers Digest stable. Again, the attempt to communicate what it is about quite figuratively through the logo catches my attention.

I liked this logo of a hair stylist for the cheeky humour it brings to the (dressing) table.

This was a logo created for a puzzle game called Cluenatic. This game involves unravelling four clues. The logo has the letters C, L, U and E arranged as a maze. and from a distance, the logo looks like a key.

This logo is too good. For the name Eight, they have used a font in which each letter is a minor adaptation of the number 8.

Eighty-20 is a small consulting company which does sophisticated financial modeling, as well as some solid database work. All their work is highly quantitative and relies on some serious computational power, and the logo is meant to convey it.

People first guess that 20% of the squares are darkened, but that turns out to be false after counting them. The trick is to view the dark squares as 1's and the light squares as 0's. Then the top line reads 1010000 and the bottom line reads 0010100, which represent 80 and 20 in binary.

Read in binary like Dr.Jones says...

This was a logo designed in-house for some internal event at IBM. I like that they are quite relaxed about the logo, unlike certain other companies who do not like the logo to be tampered with in any way even for internal promotions.

You might think the arrow does nothing here. But it says that amazon.com has everything from a to z and it also represents the smile brought to the customer's face.That is deep....

MindTree Consulting , worlds youngest PCMM Level 5i company and my former employer had a logo designed by Chetan , a student of the Spastics Society of Karnataka who suffers from cerebral palsy. Though he suffers from motor and speech disablity, the creative genius in him came up with this vibrant logo. The blue, red and yellow colours stand for MindTree's DNA of Imagination, Action and Joy.

If you were to come up with a logo for yourself my friends, what would it look like?

Posted by dsmaratt at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India during the early 20th century happened to visit Alappuzha now renamed from its anglicized name of Alleppey. Mesmerized by its beauty, he is said to have exclaimed, "Alleppey, the Venice of the East". This sobriquet has hence stuck to Allapuzha and has found its way to the world tourism map.

Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India during the early 20th century happened to visit Alappuzha now renamed from its anglicized name of Alleppey. Mesmerized by its beauty, he is said to have exclaimed, "Alleppey, the Venice of the East". This sobriquet has hence stuck to Allapuzha and has found its way to the world tourism map.

Alappuzha is a district in Kerala, a southern state of India. This land is filled with unending paddy fields, small streams and the Pamba river snakes through the beautiful coconut groves of this district. Life here revolves around water. The children learn to swim before they walk, they learn to row before they bicycle and their first lessons are often from a school of fish. Allapuzha is now the hub for backwater tourism in Kerala. Snakeboat races, a significant traditional event are held during the celebration of the festival of Onam. Around 120 oarsmen man these long thin boats and the most famous race is the Nehru Trophy. Houseboats called "Kettuvalam" in the local Malayalam language are popular among the tourists. Some houseboats have two bedrooms fitted with air conditioners and attached bathrooms.

Even though my hometown is just around a 100 miles north of Alappuzha, my first here was when some friends of mine from North India wanted me to join them in their tour as the local guide. We hired a houseboat, which was available for rent on an hourly basis. While meandering through the Pamba river, I recommended we stop at a local "Kallu shop” for lunch. Kallu is a local alcoholic beverage made from coconut milk by fermenting it. Kallu is a perfectly healthy drink, 100% natural and cools down the body. My friends and I had luscious crabmeat, which we washed down with bottles of Kallu. Getting back to the boat, we slumped in our chairs and the gentle rocking of the boat, which was like a lullaby, and the relaxing scenery lulled us to sleep.

Alappuzha is a place where I wish I had a home right at the backwaters. Lying on a hammock strung to two coconut trees, a stomach full of kallu and crab and having a siesta is pure utopia for me.

Posted by dsmaratt at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My Indian counterparts and I have had some questions after we landed in the US. Some like "Do you have Elevators in India?” Another one goes like “Have you ridden in a car before?” My friends and I have a jolt at these questions and having answered them rather sheepishly ,I have often wondered from where such questions arose.

My Indian counterparts and I have had some questions after we landed in the US. Some like "Do you have Elevators in India?” Another one goes like “Have you ridden in a car before?” My friends and I have a jolt at these questions and having answered them rather sheepishly ,I have often wondered from where such questions arose.

Maybe it is because of the role that the media plays in portraying India to its audiences. True, we are still a developing nation, but we are not a land of snake charmers. I have no precise and concise way of painting India.

A land of a billion people and where for every opportunity there are a hundred takers.
A land which won its freedom by the principles of "Non-Violence", but fifty years later went nuclear in its
arsenal.
A land of 18 officially recognized languages yet where English is understood by most.
A land conquered by the Mughals and British but has defeated Alexander the Great.
A land of the most beautiful women and not so handsome men.
A land whose spices have been sought after for centuries.
A land where the traditional Indian culture blends with western culture.
A land whose glory I could keep eulogizing...

To know it, you must experience it and to experience it, you must be in India; which is why I feel the CICS Department sponsored trip to India for some of my colleagues would be a revelation.

Talking about questions on the other hand, I have been faced with some intriguing questions too. A lady I know asked, "What is the significance of the Dot the Indian women have on their forehead" and “Why are they so many languages in India?". Not sure of the answers myself, I managed to ramble an incoherent answer. These are some of the things that I have taken for granted in India, not wondering once about its significance.

You know how much you know about your country, only when you are being put to constant test this way. You think of why some things are done, the way they are, when you are asked about it. Which is why, I believe that one must venture out to a different culture. It can be a journey of self-realization and of finding out who YOU truly are...

Posted by dsmaratt at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)