Rhythm of life!

Music works miracles to the mind! It makes babies smile, dance, zoom, chuckle out loud. It has the power to make people across all age groups, economic strata, regions, nations swing through emotional extremes! If you can close your eyes and zoom out of the externalities, you will see your fingers, arms, body sway with the rhythm, almost involuntarily! It can calm down the the nerves and excite it almost instantly. Ever wondered why ? Is it the urge to synergies with the rhythm of the heart beat that triggers it all ?

Some forms of entertainment are innate to the human existence. It comes with how we have been engineered by nature! Music, dance, games, painting, dressing up ... all in group and solo settings are part of human wiring! No matter how man evolves across generations, this shall be so, maybe? What else falls under this category ?

Have we redefined search for mobile ?

The last decade has changed the definition of search. From going to libraries and pouring over newspapers, we have reached an era where searching is also known as googling. Rightfully so.....information is now on our fingertips, its instantaneous and almost always spot on relevant! Thank You Google. You have truly organized worlds information for the web.

Fast forward to today. Mobile has changed how we look for information. Its not limited to the search box on Google or the browser from the web. Now, its all within the app/well within the context of what you are up-to. Expectations are soaring high. We not just want answers, we want them packaged so we don't need another tap. We want problems solved for us so we can use our mind-space better.

For example Facebook. Facebook has evolved from being a Friend networking platform to a lot more. Now, we can find smart deals, favorite recipes, parenting advice, news, information about next set of events... sometime even travel itinerary for our next trip! Its all there in some way, shape or form. And FB has interspersed all this so eloquently, that once you are in for a piece of information, you almost always spend 30 to 45 min on the platform meandering your way though the newsfeed. Its impressive how FB has created such powerful social groups. Social affirmation is so powerful that, information from FB Groups can be so much more relevant that what you get from the WWW.

However, this rich information creates a new challenge. There is 'soooooo-much' information in the newsfeed, and you invariably wanted to go back to something later in the day or week. The "save" feature from FB is a big boon and helps bookmark news. That said, very often, you are not sure about everything you want to come back to at first glimpse. What do you do then ? How do you search ?

For instance:
- I saw this super interesting article about incorporating STEM eduction into daily kids activities. This was last week. I want to find it again & FB has no idea what I am looking for. Can FB find the article that was a part of my newsfeed, before showing me other information ? How about showing me information from my friends/groups before showing me other things ?
- I forgot the name of this acquaintance of mine who works at XYZ company & went to abc school with me. I really want to message them. How do I look up their name ? Can I simply search "XYZ company + ABC school" ?

As FB evolves from a networking platform to so much more, their search needs to evolve to keep up with expectations. The phone is now my window to the world. I use my mobile device at-least 50X more frequently than my laptop. Searching my iphone 6 and getting relevant information at my fingertips is still a far far dream. Here I am looking for a note that I typed last week about the best brand for baby mittens. I typed this in a hurry when a friend spelt out the name over a phone call. Can I find this note without having to pour through all my apps/notes?

Quality of search or information retrieval needs to be high everywhere. It all starts with the phone/tablet itself. Then its the individual app you are perusing. Top places where we spend our time - email, social networking, shopping, news. While Google succeeded in channeling search on web with the toolbar, how can search experience be the best across every point of entry on mobile ?

Happy New Year 2016!

Happy New Year! Every new year is exciting. It brings a whole new series of yearly celebrations. Birthdays, festivals, anniversaries..there is so much to look forward to. After all, isn't life about those precious moments spent with and for loved ones :)

We have been living in San Francisco the last four years. Every year, we look forward to the NYE fireworks right by embarcadero. My little one is now a 3 year old. Its her first fireworks show and I have been waiting to share this special event with her. New Years eve is not the same anymore though. The television was buzzing with news about beefed up security in all of Europe, fire in a top 5 star hotel in Dubai. Fear of terror and simply the fear of unknown is top of mind for most people. Its really sad that this is the world that our children are growing up in. They need to grow up in a secure world. No matter which economic class you belong to or where you live, living without fear is a fundamental right, more so a need!

As we walked to embarcadero to witness the SF fireworks, all these thoughts were buzzing through my mind. We did not change our mind, we did not stay at home, we simply decided to be a part of the excited crowd waiting to see the lights. It was a very special show, the best I have witnessed in the last couple of years! Soon the crowd, the cheer and the happiness of the people around me took over and we really enjoyed the show.

I wish and pray for a safer world. A world where our children can live without fear or doubt. A world full of love and compassion. Amen!

The iDen Story : The African Lesson

After a long long time, got reminded of days at Motorola and all that I learned from my first job!

There is so much more to it that this, but these lines have had a lasting impact:

"Every morning in Africa, a deer wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.........,

Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the slowest deer or it will starve to death.......,

It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a deer....when the sun comes up, you'd better be running...........!!!"

My definition of love ...

"I love you, not for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you."

Tap into your inner genius!

Human Brain - What a wonderful creation! It can do so much. Handle diverse thoughts, deep indefinite memory, link the two, create deductions, take it all a step further and create the unseen - the power of imagination. How awesome is that! Sometimes, you feel like simply letting this awesome creation of God assimilate and process; to talk to you. There is a lot that goes into it everyday, every moment. Sometimes, thoughts want to come back out, processed. The internal self wants to communicate back to the external self. Probably this is what great thinkers achieved via meditation or deep thinking. The ability to listen, listen to this creative genius within you is such a blessing. Its a recursive loop for the most part. The more you listen, validate and send back messages, the deeper,insightful and relevant the next days insight. Isn't that a superpower ? We as humankind sometimes don't realize how powerful we are, if we simply look within ourselves. This deep thinking and meditation can happen in many ways. For some, its quite time listening to your thoughts, like a flowing stream. For some-others like me, its quite time with a pen. I like to write those thoughts down. Its like letting the inner energy manifest though a pen. Its abstract. I arrive at thoughts and realizations that I could have never imagined until then. May be, that's what manifests as intuition. Call it what you may - I am sure we all have experienced it at sometime and felt that its pure genius! The genius of the human mind. It doesn't matter if its mine or yours. We are all geniuses to our own merit. Its all a matter of tapping in. Those who do, spread knowledge and enlightenment. They lead their generation. They take mankind forward. They are remembered as the 'chosen ones'. Take time. Listen to your inner voice, your inner genius. Lets resolve to create a generation of a trillion geniuses. Lets help mankind take the next step in the right direction. There a lot for us to do!

Change!

The person that I am , change has always been hard. Be it the most pleasurable change, or the worst nightmare, change is hard. It brings its share of unknowns, its share of risks. We all handle this in our very own way. The reality is, change is inevitable. The theory of evolution (true to the extent that we know it), proves that those who handled change well, survived. Others simply perished. Those genes were never meant to reach the next generation. If the theory holds, the mere fact that you and I are alive today, says that we are pretty well adapted to accept change. I like to remind myself this, more often than I currently do! Change is inevitable, those who flow in the direction of current, have the maximum energy to make the most of it once the tide has passed. Those who resist, drain away all their energy before the calm. Its important to flow with the flow until the tide passes! After all, once the change is set in motion, there is no going back. You either swim or sink. Then why not, give yourself the best chance to swim ?!

Take charge!

A much cliched and very short note, more so for myself than for the world! Though, I want to hit the publish button, so anyone else who feels the same can resonate and have an awakening moment the way I just did. There are times when life becomes a big long laundry list of to-dos that you have to deal with. Day in and day out, you always have a little more to do than you actually manage to get done within the day. For a moment this morning, I tried to pause and wonder why! Why am I having an extra long to-do list. Some part of it is just me being a lot less organized when it comes to personal life than I am on the professional front. I don't typically write down. Little objects at home, remind me of associated chores and I simply get them done, or talk about it and conveniently forget it once again. For some reason, the most important things get done (mostly) in time, though the little ones fall through the crack. And when the number of forgotten 'tasks' increase a certain count, I start feeling sad and a weird sense of ' i don't have time' creeps in. Now that I have realized what the problem is, its about time, I pause, take charge, prioritize what I do each day, based on its importance, instead of what happens to meet my eye & I might have A PLENTY of time :) Let see! Though super simple, I will come back and write about, how I 'took charge' in a month! Stay tuned!