Rajeev Karki

Challenges of Doing Business in China

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:07:04 -0500

One of the challenges that businesses face today is a fierce price competition. Even though a business may provide better service and quality than its low price competitor, there comes a point when the price to value ratio is too great to ignore. Business may try different strategies to cut cost. Cost control may come from reduction in the workforce, a more efficient and streamlined manufacturing process, or even outsourcing of the manufacturing to foreign countries with cheaper labor costs. The current trend for a lot of companies has been to move the manufacturing process to China because of their good industrial infrastructure and also the availability of cheap labor

Leadership and Strategic use of Competitive Intelligence in the Corporate World

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 19:59:14 -0500

This paper is my theory on leadership, its evolution though history, and its practice in our information and knowledge driven global corporate market. I will first define leadership and how it can exists in various forms. I will also talk about how a leader can use information in the form of Competitive Intelligence to come up with strategies that can move a company towards success.

Competitive Intelligence and its use in Global Markets

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:52:06 -0500

Geographical boundaries no longer isolate us from competition with other companies. Today, more than ever before, companies need to stay ahead of their competitors for survival. This paper is a discourse on the proper techniques for assembling, managing and strategically using Competitive Intelligence.

Charismatic Leadership is not the Answer

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:10:37 -0500

Abstract:

Charismatic leaders are able to get people to rally behind the leader’s vision and move them towards the goal that the leader has set forth. However, in the current world that we live in, we need leaders to go beyond this. We need leaders that can, in a sense, “pass on the genes”, raising more leaders like themselves. This paper explains why it is important for leaders to cross this boundary and become a “Super Leader” (Nadler & Tushman, 1995, p. 108).

Managing the Information Renaissance

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 23:12:48 -0500

Abstract:
This paper compares the European Renaissance to the current information driven age that we are living in, which has been called by many scientists the “Information Renaissance.” With any change in the society, the role of a leader, whether it be political or corporate, also needs to change. This paper will also discuss on how a leader might adapt to the Information Renaissance and apply the additional knowledge to his or her benefit.

Leadership

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 20:55:31 -0500

The people that we consider leaders tend to vary by culture, time, and circumstances. Looking at the history of the world, there have been leaders that fought battles and also leaders that prevented battles. We have made leaders out of people that have run multibillion dollar companies, but also out of people that have lived a very simple life helping the poorest of the poor in third world countries. Mahatma Gandhi is one of those people that breaks the stereotype of what people today often view leaders to be. His non violence movement to resist against the British occupation shows that leaders may be born not only because of their action, but also from their lack of action against the opposing force.
This paper tries look at Gandhi’s leadership role in the non violence movement in India and shows how he is different from most others leaders that we have seen throughout history. It will also define leadership and present a model that might fit most leaders

Email communication

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 23:45:16 -0500

Today, email is a part of life for so many people. It is hard to believe that not even 15 years ago, the general public had little to no knowledge of email. When I graduated from high school in Nepal , and came to the US in 1995 to attend college, I was given my first opportunity to interact with email. Email wasn’t just new to me as an international student. It was new to most of my US educated classmates as well. My wife remembers going to a meeting her freshman year of college (in 1994) advertised by flyers posted all over campus saying, “What is this email thing?” and “How do I use it?” Now, email is an important part of not only college life but life for people of all ages. My grandfather who has spent most of his life in a tiny village in Nepal even knows how to log on to Yahoo.com, compose a message and send it. He learned while visiting my parents in Toronto , where he would send out messages to family across the globe and then check several times a day to see if he had any responses!!

Defining Human Communication (Revised)

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 23:49:06 -0500

Human communication is an extremely complex process. It encompasses more than just the science of how sound waves are generated through our vocal chords and travels through the medium of air as waves to the receiver who decodes it. Human communication unlike signal communication is affected by emotions, culture, learned behavior that cannot be easily charted into tables and graphs. It is also close to impossible to transmit the same message again and expect the exact same feedback. Studying and practicing good human communication is just as much art as it is science. An information and communication scientist needs to study the social, cultural, biological, and environmental variables in order to truly understand what human communication is, and how to use it most effectively. This paper is a discourse on what is my own theory of human communication.

Leonardo, the Renaissance Man

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 19:47:25 -0500

Leonardo Da Vinci is considered to be one of the most talented men to have ever lived. He was a scientist, engineer, mathematician, poet, writer, sculptor, botanist, musician and an amazing painter. His curiosity and his powers for invention lead him conceive things that were well ahead of his time.

Leonardo Da Vinci was a product of the European Renaissance. He was born in Florence, Italy, the city considered to be the birthplace of the European Renaissance, on April 15, 1452. Little is known about the childhood of Leonardo. By the age of fourteen, Leonardo was already apprenticing under one of the most successful artist of that time, Andrea di Cione, who produced great talents such as Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Botticelli, and Lorenzo di Credi. During this apprenticeship, in addition to learning the artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting and modeling, Leonardo was also exposed to the details of drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, plaster casting, and leather working.

One of Leondardo Da Vinci's most well known artworks is his painting of The Last Supper. The painting depicts the last meal shared by Jesus and his disciples before his crucifixion. He is equally famous for his painting of the Mona Lisa with her elusive smile that has amazed people for centuries.

Leonardo kept journals during his lifetime, and filled over 13,000 pages with notes on his scientific work. He was very interested in anatomy and did drawings of muscles, skeletons, and organs. He was one of the first people to do a scientific drawing of a human fetus in utero. Da Vinci's notebooks also included ideas for many inventions. He was interested in the idea of flight, and made plans for various flying machines including a helicopter and a hang glider. Many of his ideas were thought impossible at the time. However, today many of his ideas have actually been found to be more feasible than they were thought to be during his own time, and have been influential in the designs and plans of engineers and scientists even today.

Wikipedia (n.d.). Leonardo da Vinci. Retrieved Novenber 29, 2007 from
, Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci

Optimizing Web 2.0 sites

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 00:29:34 -0500

As more and more web pages start implementing Web 2.0 on their sites, it becomes increasingly important to also keep the performance of the website as efficient as possible. When we are stuck with slow loading pages, the first thing we think about is faster dedicated servers that can serve the pages a lot faster. Although, this may improve the responsiveness of a website, the true problem lies somewhere else.

It will probably be a surprise to most of us to find out that only 20% of a total page load time is actually spent on fetching the HTML document from the web server. The remaining 80% of the time is actually spent on the front end, downloading all the components required for the page. This includes images, css, Flash, scripts etc. Focusing on the hardware is solving only 20% of the problem.

The engineers at Yahoo did some extensive research and came up with a list of Best Practices to use to speed up your website:

1. Make fewer HTTP requests
2. Use content delivery network
3, Add an expires header
4. Gzip components
5, Put stylesheets on the top
6. Put scripts at the bottom
7 Avoid CSS expressions
8, Make JavaScript and CSS external
9. Reduce DNS lookups
10. Minify JavaScripts
11. Avoid redirects
12. Remove Duplicate Scripts
13. Configure Etags
14 Make Ajax cacheable.

Yahoo has also released an add-on called YSlow for Firefox that helps developers monitor the performance of their website and make changes to speend them up.

I personally have found these best practices very helpful. EVen though it is hard to implement all the best practices, just even a few changes has drastically changed the performance of some of the websites tha I have worked on. I would recommend YSlow to anyone who builds a website as a hobby or a profession.

Yahoo (n.d.). Exceptional Performance : Best Practices for Speeding
Up Your Web Site. Retrieved Novenber 29, 2007 from , Web site:
http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html

Living during Information Renaissance

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:10:49 -0500

The internet has revolutionized the way we retrieve information. From news, music, and weather to banking, research, shopping, and more, the internet is the place to find pretty much any information that you are looking for.

It is hard to remember the not so distant days when we had to wait for the evening news to find out what the next day’s weather would be. It is hard to imagine that we used to have to wait for the newspaper to arrive to get results of elections or late breaking news. Now, with the internet, so much information is available so quickly.

The way that we do research has been totally revolutionized. Students used to have to use annually published encyclopedias along with whatever books were available through their local library and inter-library loan to do their research. Needless to say, searching card catalogs, filling out book loan requests, and getting the resources that were needed was a very time consuming process. Now the internet is able to provide students access to the catalogs of many libraries within minutes. Students are also able to access many documents and sources online without having to check them out. Newspaper archives are readily available, making it unnecessary to search through boxes of microfilm and microfiche. Changes such as these save not only time, but also money, because of reduced printing and storing costs.

The internet itself is going through a revolutionary period. Instead of just providing static information for users to read, it is becoming more interactive. We see more and more websites providing applications on the web using Web 2.0 technology that is replacing desktop applications and electronic gadgets. We can now create and save documents, print and share photos, download music, upload videos, keep track of banking records, listen to voicemail, and print fax documents - all on the internet.

But this is just the beginning of a era in the information and communication world. We are truly living in the Information Renaissance.

Cornerstone Center for the Arts: Analysis and Solutions

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:53:58 -0500

After some extensive research on the web, we were able to narrow down the choices to three major companies that offer event management software that would meet the needs of Cornerstone Center for the Arts. These include EmergingSoft’s Meeting Planner , NetSimplicity’s Meeting Room Manager , and Dean Evans and Associates Inc.’s line of EMS software . It appears that the EMS Lite solution that Cornerstone has chosen for managing their room schedules is still a leading provider of event management software. Dean Evans and Associates Inc., the manufacturer of EMS Lite, offers the software in three different versions: EMS Lite, EMS Professional, and EMS Enterprise. It also offers numerous optional modules that extend the functionality of the base EMS product .

Cornerstone Center for The Arts: Communication Issues

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:40:20 -0500

Cornerstone Center for the Arts makes it one of their goals to offer a large variety of classes that will appeal to a wide range of people. Students are able to participate in visual arts, drama, music, dance, martial arts and more. Both individual and group classes are offered, depending on the class type and subject. Classes are offered in 12 week sessions in the spring and fall, and in 6 week sessions during the summer. During any given semester, between thirty five to forty different classes may be offered. Class size varies depending on the subject, but group classes require that at least 5-7 students be enrolled in order to continue. Classes are taught by over 20 local artists and teachers, who have been trained in various fields and are able to bring their specialized talents and expertise to the Cornerstone classrooms.

European Renaissance

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 08:40:38 -0500

Most modern scholars consider the period between 1300 and 1600 in European History to be the Renaissance period. The Renaissance period was a time of exploration and learning. People started venturing outside their comfort zone making new discoveries and inventions. This was also the period of learning in which new schools and colleges became more common. Oxford and Cambridge were established during this period.

In French, Renaissance means rebirth. The Renaissance is believed to have started in the rich cities such as Florence, Milan and Venice in Italy, and from there to have spread to the rest of Europe. “It encompassed the revival of learning based on classical sources, the rise of courtly and papal patronage, the development of perspective in painting, and advancements in science.”

One very important invention during the Renaissance was the printing press. Johann Gutenberg is credited with the invention of the printing press. The printing press made it possible to reproduce books much more easily and quickly than handwritten manuscripts. This resulted in books becoming less expensive and more accessible for common people. Literacy became much more widespread during this time. The development of the printing press also contributed to the establishment of scholarly journals which allowed scientists to share their discoveries with others in their fields. This, in turn, led to a scientific revolution. People no longer simply trusted the church to explain everything for them. Instead they began to place increased value on experimentation and scientific proof. It was during this period that people favored the scientific method as the process of discovery. Empirical evidence based on scientific observation and mathematics was favored over Aristotelian principles. This new scientific method led to advancements in the fields of astronomy, physics, anatomy and biology.

The Renaissance period gave birth to geniuses such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who made tremendous contributions in the fields of art and science. Artists such as these began “making observational drawings of anatomy and nature.” The art of this time featured new levels of realism, especially in regard to perspective.

The Renaissance period was also a time for new ideas on religion. With greater interest in science, along with increased literacy, people were no longer limited to following the thinking of what the church leaders told them. Humanism, which affirms “the dignity and worth of all people” was very popular and influential as well. It affected people’s view of the relationship between God and man. It also influenced theologians of the time, including Martin Luther, whose 95 Theses challenged the authority of the Catholic Church and led to the Reformation.

Cyber Essays (n.d.). The European Renaissance. Retrieved
Novenber 20, 2007 from , Web site:
http://www.cyberessays.com/History/24.htm

Wikipedia (n.d.). Renaissance. Retrieved Novenber 20, 2007 from
, Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance

Wikipedia (n.d.). Humanism. Retrieved Novenber 20, 2007 from
, Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism

Learning from an 18 month old

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 23:41:05 -0500

Being an Information and Communication Scientist, I have been paying close attention to the how my 18 month old daughter, Arya is learning to “communicate”. I use quotes around the word communicate because when Arya first started talking, what she was communicating to us (me and my wife) probably would have made no sense to anyone else.