The Zone @ABOVE

There is a Chinese saying that goes like this - 好事成双 (hǎo shì chéng shuāng). You may be wondering "what has this got to do with the title?” stay with me on this. hǎo shì chéng shuāng translates to "Good things come in pairs". This is more or less equivalent to the English quote "The best of things in life come in pairs". Man-Woman, Health & Wealth, Food & Drink, Clothes & Footwear, Salt & Pepper, Fish & Chips, Jekyll & Hyde - I know the last one is a wee bit overboard, but

then, had it not been for the pair - we wouldn't be talking about Jekyll & Hyde. The pairs may or may not reflect "opposites", but then they form the proverbial "two sides of the same coin" - lest it can't and won't be a coin.

So, what has this got to do with UX? Well, everything. Most of us parrot "Great UX, awesome, amazing" etc., and UX today is more of a fashion statement and a must have term in the digital world. Added to that is the mystique and glamour quotient attached to it.

Reality Check 101

Let's scratch the surface to get a handle of "what does it really really take to deliver great UX?" If you thought about Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Usability Research, User Testing and a few hundred other related terms, think again! These are what I would term as "Essential", it’s a given and there are no two ways about it. While you may ponder on "so, what's the point?”, I would like you to suspend such floating thoughts and hear me out (whether it sounds completely off, disjointed or pulls you on to click on the next tab or fiddle with your phone – stay with me for a few minutes and at the end of it, you are welcome to judge this controversial take).

The best of current day digital products and services eco system is powered by technological advances and brilliance. Can you think of a Facebook without instant feeds? A Pinterest without hmmm, the ability to pin? An AirBnB or Uber without instant gratification?, the list is endless........... These poster children of the digital era have manifested to what they are due to the underlying poetry called code a.k.a the finesse and polish of engineering (development fire power). The bane of the industry so far, irrespective of the jazz and pizzazz of Design Thinking and the like, is this mentality of "Us Vs Them", "Developers/Engineering are not creative", "They just don't get it" blah blah blah.

However, the ground realities are diametrically opposite. If UX is the "Face & Gateway" to a digital asset, then great code is the "Bloodline" that keeps it alive, thriving and accepted. Coders code - designers design and never the twain shall meet seems to be the norm (Rudyard Kipling must be giggling to glory).

The (not so) secret sauce to solving this conundrum.

For someone whose bread and butter (and sometimes a wee bit exotic dish) depend on UX, I can unflinchingly say that there is a way to get on top of this fundamental issue and the following teeny-weeny behavioural changes can flip the tables:

 1. Humility: Accept and acknowledge the criticality of this pair. Most of the times, this boils down to the unwanted battles about the pro's of right-brained (creative) school and con's of left-brained (nerd) school. Teams need to understand that the whole is greater than the sum of parts. If this gets imbibed in the culture of the organization - magic happens almost instantly

2. Empathy: UX'ers and Developers must embrace the ethos of "collaborate and co-create", end of the day the teams sail or sink together

3. Child-like Curiosity: There has never been an instance of children getting killed due to curiosity - cats are exempt from it though. The pair must and should be open to new ideas, perspectives et al., This imbibes critical skills like active listening, articulation and gaining consensus.

4. Rabid focus on the BIG picture: Sports and Army history to name a few is peppered with ton's of stories about "how" collective thinking and action have won accolades, saved lives and protected nations. Why not embrace the same way of life when it comes to building products?

5. Acquainting with Domain fundamentals: Designers must make an effort to educate themselves with the basics of a technology stack, a particular language, limitations and work-flow. The same holds true for non-designers too. They must be aware of basics like colour, shapes, typography, design theory etc.

While there are plenty of other things that can make an impact, the 5 points mentioned above have made a vast difference in my work around the world and across industry verticals. Are you still going to move on or has this instilled a tiny voice in you that says "hmmmm, what's the harm in doing it this way?"

Whether you want to shower bouquets or brickbats, I would be gleefully happy if either of this happens, because, end of the day it has would have succeeded in what it was supposed to do - trigger a response.

So, what is your take on this, have you been part of such stories?

To those who want to pass, thanks for reaching till here. Grateful for the time spent.

In any place we go, there are a few people who have an easiness of getting into conversations and many others who would have the hesitation of getting into one.

The ‘few’ here can be referred to as ‘talk leads’ – the people who find talking easy and can engage people in brilliant conversations. These people are easy to reach out, motivating and build relationships easily.

Most of the times, ‘talk leads’ are looked at with appreciation and the shy or introverts just make a wish inside to be like them one day.

But, believe me ‘communicating effectively’ is not a rocket science. Once you start making cheerful conversations with people around, you would soon drop your hesitation and would stand apart.

So, what one needs to do to be a ‘talk leads’. Well, nothing much. Just, follow the below pointers:

1.      While coming across new people initiate and introduce. Saying a     ‘hello’ could break the ice. 2.       Concentrate while someone is being introduced. 3.       Make eye contact while talking. 4.       Keep that smile on your face. 5.       Make use of humor to lighten conversation. 6.       Increase your areas of interest. 7.       Seek opinions from others. 8.       Be a good listener. 9.       Remember names. 10.     Learn to respond, not react. 11.     Be friendly. 12.     Help others.

#illridewithyou hashtag is going viral. And why should it not be?

For those who are still oblivious, it is about a Sydney Muslim woman Mariam Veiszadeh who found herself struggling getting out of the city during the Martin place siege and became an inspiration for Rachael Jacob and Tessa Kum, Sydney TV cum editor to start this tweet tag for safety of all other Muslims in Sydney.

#iwillridewithyou is not just a kind help showed by two strangers and now many more to save fellow men and women but it is indeed an initiative which has its roots emerging from humanity and wellness.

Why I say humanity is easily understood. This gesture is more than enough to show that humanity matters and at this time what is needed to restore peace of a place is to hold hands with each other and come out of difficult situation.

However, when I associate #iwillridewithyou with wellness might bring a question mark on most of the faces. But a little more thought on the same will make you easily understand it too.

Wellness is a broad term which signifies total wellbeing which is inclusive of mental, physical and spiritual health. In most of such cases, when there is a situation of emergency, people tend to get more panic and what they lose out first is the belief on others. Situations are sometimes so traumatic that there erupts a crack in year old friendship and trust too.

This usually happens as there lies a scope for wellness in us. We might be physically active, loving by nature, generous and may have better understanding towards things and people too but deep inside, our foundation is not strong enough to hold us well in testing times.

However, in today’s Sydney incident, Rachael Jacob has shown that it was her positive attitude and belief in herself and her attitude that she offered a helping hand to people who she thought are not finding it easy and cannot be blamed for Martin Place siege.

Similarly, Tessa Kum, took the lead and started #iwillridewithyou tweet. Both the women through their righteous attitude proved how ‘well’ they are by making their initiative a movement and getting so many other Sydney citizens to help the Muslim community which otherwise could have resulted in something negative and dreadful too.

Holding hands, being generous, maintaining positive attitude, having love and compassion and taking the right decision at the right time to serve mankind are the signs of wellbeing and needless to say that #iwillridewithyou is a true example of Sydney being a ‘well’ society.

Corporate Social Responsibility, normally known as CSR, is common to all corporates these days. While Wiki explains it as, “Corporate social responsibility (CSR, also called corporate conscience, corporate citizenship or sustainable responsible business/ Responsible Business) is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model”, in plain words it refers to efforts of company which are aimed at ‘giving back’ to the society.

         ‘Giving back to society’ sounds like a great expression. In fact, I always consider ‘giving’ to be a beautiful expression of showing love and gratitude towards others. Often we live to give to our family, our friends and our loved ones. And it is so nice to see them happy.

But, how many times we think of ‘giving’ to people who are not related to us in anyway?

I won’t deny that there have been many times when I thought of ‘giving’. And when I say giving, it is not just material stuff, but also time, attention and care.

So, now you would ask –“how often did you do that?”

Probably once in a year!

It’s not that I have not been willing to do more charitable work and volunteer, it’s just that I had my own reasons of not doing it. Most of the times my conversations with myself were - “I thought of volunteering this time, but I am so time pressed.” And then “I want to give but don’t know the right place which will accept” and sometimes I told myself that, “I can, but I want a home pickup for the stuff I want to give”.

While my above thoughts restricted me to do ‘good’, I was lucky to realize that my company’s CSR initiatives can help me follow my heart ‘calling’. And then it was just the matter of getting started. Besides, such CSR initiatives also taught me the following:

Change starts from ‘us’ – Often we complain about our country’s infrastructure and system to be not in place. For instance – While driving the other day with my friend, I was complaining a lot about the filth and garbage lying on the roads. Later, when I participated actively in ‘Swacch Bharat Initiative’ by my company, I realized that complaining won’t solve the situations; taking a step together for betterment would do. How many times we take a stand to change things? CSR teaches that if we want, we can bring a change. It is just the matter of getting started.

An eye opener – Most of us remain unsatisfied with our lives. There are problems everywhere, but we concentrate on ourselves in such a great deal that we oversee what others are going through. A day at orphanage or old people’s home is enough to make us realize our own blessings. May be not the best, but still better than many!

Being ‘human’ – Our ‘emotions’ define us the best. CSR makes the employees think more about the society, the way we can help it and how we can be better ‘humans’. And once you start, you think the same way. I now try and think of ideas through which I can be a help to anyone. To whom it does not matter!

Happiness is overrated – This is perhaps the biggest lesson I learn while volunteering. I, like many others was always on search of happiness. Participating in my company’s CSR made me understand that ‘happiness’ is overrated. It is truly a state of mind and often experienced when we show kindness towards others. So, keep doing good and stay happy!

Analyzing the ‘work place’ – What makes a company better than others? In my opinion, your pay package and incentives are not right measure for it. In fact, a company’s CSR can help you understand that better! Any business or organization who works for the benefit of the society reflects the attitude of the people. A thoughtful company can only be run by thoughtful people and I am proud to be a part of one!

CSR is an important aspect of any organizations’ smooth running and success. While the company makes an effort to ‘give back’ to the society, it is also the responsibility of the employees to participate in every such endeavor with full enthusiasm and work towards a better future for all.

Moreover, when your company provides you with an opportunity to do something which connects you with your inner self and that too in your working hours and with all arrangements duly made – why not we just do our part and make this world a better place for all of us.

I am sure, many of you must be actively participating in your company’s CSR. Do let me know what have been your takeaways so far.

image credit -agencypost.com

We all come to work daily but we do leave a part of us at our home only with our people. Did you feel awkward when I said, ‘our people’? If you did not, then this article is a must read for you.

Being at work, delivering our best and taking paychecks home is what ‘work’ means to most of us. While we spend about one third of the day at work, we live at the place half-heartedly. Why I say half-heartedly is because when at work we have our guards always on and we follow the rule of not connecting emotionally to the place and people.

But do you really think that the best in humans could come without having emotions in it?

A painter cannot make his best painting unless he emotionally feels for it. A poet cannot bring tears in the eyes of his readers until he brings out his heart felt pain in his words. In a similar way, anybody at office will not be able to relate to the work until he/she has emotion for it.

And to exhibit the right emotion one has to get his ‘whole self’ to the work. And what rightly means as ‘whole self’ is to ‘just be yourself’-- the way we are at home – with our family, with our friends and with our loved ones.

There are people at work who find themselves uneasy talking about their kids and spouse. At the same time there are many people who are high on the corporate ladder and openly give instances of their kids and family while giving TED talks. And in no way, their being the best dad, best spouse or a responsible family member hinders them to be on their way to success. So, what makes most of us not worthy of talking about our family or kids when required or when we feel so? Surely, this would not make us too less in our work or affect our performance rather showing our emotions will connect with our workplace and people in a great way.

Hence, the idea of entire thing is to truly embrace ‘yourself’ at work. Do not stop being ‘yourself’ at work from now on. Make connections with people around you, thank them daily for the things they do (in spite of all us being paid for our work), talk to them about the other interests and hobbies you pursue, make a good network, learn what you feel is missing in you and most importantly lend out a helping hand whenever needed.  Live fully and make each day a day to celebrate, connect and deliver your best at your second home – your workplace.

Yesterday morning 9 am, I sent out a post on my personal FB page wishing everyone a Happy Monday morning and guess what one of my friends commented on it?

“Hey, Happy Monday? What about the blues?”

This comment of my friend left me with a thought. Why do people don’t like Monday? Or, why most of us have Monday Blues???

Weekends do keep us going right from Monday to Friday and we definitely look forward to them. But why not Monday?

Well, one of the reasons to this is that we plan our weekends but we do not plan our Mondays.

Look at it from a different perspective; had you planned your Monday and came to office, you would not be acting lost and confused. Your work is set, you have goals to meet and you have enough work to start your Monday and further make it a productive week. What say???

If you are still wondering how not to have Monday Blues, probably you can try the following:

Re -Define Monday – The working professionals have made a mindset about Monday. Mondays are boring, getting back to work, start of the week, fresh tensions to deal with and what not. Let’s create some positivity here and think that yes, Monday is going to be a new week and I am going to give my best. Or, yes, I could not finish my goals this week, I will do them this time by starting work efficiently from Monday. Our thoughts matter a lot and we can change our perception about Monday by re- defining it. Give it a try!

Plan for the day – Most of us are so occupied with the thoughts of how we will spend our weekends on Friday that we lose on a day’s work there and when in office on Monday, we are in double whammy. Why not get this sorted? Look forward to the weekend, finish off Friday’s task and do something extra for Monday. Planning for Monday is a great idea as you would know how the start of the week is going to be. And once in office, you would not be thinking of Monday Blues.

Do ‘good’ – If you think that the above two pointers are not your cup of tea than try to be sweet as a cake on every Monday. Nope, I am not sharing any recipes or culinary knowledge hereJ. Rather my point is to do something nice for others on Monday. It could be as small as visiting a nearby orphanage for half an hour or doing a voluntary service somewhere or bringing a smile on someone’s face. Think of Monday as a day to do it without a miss. The happiness you will get in doing so will make you forget of Monday Blues.

Monday is just like any other day of the week. And you can do your best on this day too like others. So, come out of the blues and if you have some better suggestions to cope with it, do let us know. Happy Monday!

What does it take to engage an ABOVE’ian? And I do mean an engaged ABOVE’ian , and not just a satisfied ABOVE’ian?

Employee engagement and employee satisfaction do differ.

For an employee to be satisfied, the only requirement is to come in to work, perform his duties, go home after 8 to 9 hours, collect a decent pay check and be perfectly fine with just that. Can an employee be satisfied without being engaged? Ofcourse!

Coming in and doing one’s daily job may be enough for that employee, but that same ‘satisfied’ employee won’t go out of their way to go the extra mile or make that extra effort. And he is thus not 'engaged'.

Employee engagement is much more than about the pay and job flexibility. Engaged employees are invested in the organization’s vision and mission, they love coming into work because they want to instead of coming to work because they have to, and are employees who look for ways to give back to the Organization instead of just looking for ways that how the Organization benefits them.

It is proven that higher employee engagement levels result in increased individual performance as well as organizational performance.

So, how do we ‘engage’ rather than ‘satisfy’? I was never a believer that money buys love. And that holds true at the workplace as well. If we want employees to be happy, money is not always the answer. True, money is important, but it is not on the top of the list when it comes to engagement. It is up to the employees to make decisions and choices about how involved they want to be at work. Our responsibility at ABOVE is fostering and creating an environment conducive to employees to foster engagement.

Some factors which encourage employee engagement at ABOVE are:

A belief in the leadership of the organization, and the leadership strategy

Employee empowerment/autonomy in decision making

Foster friendships at work

Promote a positive work environment

Personalize and civilize the workplace with small perks and competitions; celebrate the little things.

However, engagement is not just about providing a foos ball table for entertainment, Chai Time once a month or festival celebrations or parties. While that may make an employee happy, it may not necessarily engage.When it comes to what engages employees, it really comes down to small and simple gestures as well. We at ABOVE do them too:

Smiling and greeting each other in the morning

Saying a simple 'thank you'

Acknowledge good performance

Asking about their well being and life outside of ABOVE

Bring treats or treat them out

A small 'thank you' or a smiling welcome charges everyone instantly. And a happy and engaged employee environment leads to happy and successful company too.

Act today, to change tomorrow.

Soul Based Workplace - I have found one, what about you?

David Whyte has aptly quoted, "A sure sign of a soul-based workplace is excitement, enthusiasm, real passion; not manufactured passion, but real involvement. And there's very little fear."

Well, if you are one of the lucky ones then I am sure that you would agree with the said words or else you would have a question in mind asking, "Soul based workplace? Does it really exist?"

Soul based workplace also might sound heavy and intriguing to many!

Work place plays a very important place in our lives. Don't we spend more than half of our day working there? And that place of work definitely needs to have a special connection with us too. However, I still find working people not talking very high of the place they work at or about its culture and environment. And many of them, trust me, behave like school going kids in the morning reluctant to go to school as they feel their workplace sucks.

 How do I know this? Well, I am the experienced one! ;)

So, now you must be thinking why I am talking about such a place.

Well, I guess, I have just met one. Hey, not the soul mate but the soul work place!!!

It might be too early to say things like this on just the second day but as they say first impression is what creates or destroys the image or to be humble and modest - good things need to be brought out.

Well, I know you are anxious to know where do I work and why I am speaking so high of it. So, here is what makes me think I am at the right place, at the right time and hope to be here till my time is right. (Don't read the sentence again. I just meant that I have found a soul based workplace. Read (ABOVE Solutions)

Organized (Both you and me)- Organization is the key to success! Well, to put it differently, people who are not very organized love to see being other organized. No, it's not about me.

Most of the companies seek for organization from their employees from day 1. However, they are not organized themselves. For instance - In one of my recent interviews with the company, the HR who called me went missing at the time of my meeting. And that too untraceable. Apologies were not enough as I spent on conveyance and lost on my work day too. Similarly, there are companies who make the interview candidates wait for long hours on the pretext that the concerned person is busy. Not acceptable. Everyone's time is important.

So, with my present company, everything was crisp. No waiting, no wasting of time and enriching rounds of discussion.

Also, on my first day, everything from my desk to laptop to my joining forms to my buddy; all was set and prepared.

Impressed! They do what they want from the employees. Or in Corporate terms - Setting right expectations.

Not an Alien- In my earlier companies, I faced issues with people not interacting much on first day. The person who joins feels like an alien. Well, I did not feel like one here as I was assigned a buddy who took me around and I was introduced to everyone in the office. So, Day 2 - I know all, I know where is the coffee machine, the pantry and also the office pet 'Hera'. Thanks Buddy! You were really helpful and the system too.

Happy and Dancing too- Wishful thinking is important. You never know when your wish comes true. Well, one of my wishes did come true on my first day at my work place. Dancing! Haha! Yes, not joking. If you think my heart was dancing to be at such a place, yes, it surely was but what I am talkin here is dancing with the team. I had a fun Zumba session with other members and we danced like anything. It was so much fun!

Freedom - Last, but the most important of all. Freedom! We all love it. Don't we? But how many companies allow it to their employees? Freedome to think, freedom to interact, freedom to innovate and freedom to set your own work timings. Well, ABOVE Solutions has given me all on the very first day. Hoping to deliver my best too.

Finally, few words of wisdom. Work matters to all of us. The employer and employees depend on each other. All of us do understand these work philosophies but not many implement them. I am surely lucky to be at one of such places where the philosophy which runs the place is 'PHD - Passion, Hunger and Drive'.

Touch Wood!

                                                                                      - Hema Dhawan

Recently, I attended a workshop on Agile and Scrum Methodologies where I got a chance to interact with various managers and team leads from different organisations who like me, were there to learn how to be “agile”. During our break sessions we would interact with each other and discuss various project management techniques and why we wanted to transform our teams into being Agile. During the interactions I realised that a lot of people were there because  AGILE is the trend. The industry needs it and a certification will help them get there. No one truly knew, why they want to be an agile team or an agile organisation and thats where the search for the answer to this question began.... Why AGILE? 

Why Agile?

According to the Oxford dictionary agile means "Able to move quickly and easily". But why would I want to do that while developing software? Traditional Software development models have established practices which have worked well so far, so why should we change to something new? 

Well, over the years, the software industry and the world we live in has changed drastically. Technology has advanced at a much faster pace in the past few years and what was ice breaking technology a year back is a commodity today. That is the pace at which things around us are changing and there in lies the problem for traditional software development models to work successfully.What's relevant today might not be so relevant tomorrow. Nothing but change is constant in today's world and each organisation and individual needs to be ready to adapt and change at the same pace. 

Traditional Software Development models require us to define all the requirements ahead of time, design and architect the software, estimate the effort for development, develop the software with a big bang and then follow it with a couple of cycles of quality assurance and regression fixes. These methodologies are often referred to as heavy-weight software development methodologies.

Key issues with these models are:

Planning and Design takes a lot of time in the cycle.

Development is accomplished in a big bang. Changing the rigid structure  becomes an arduous task at later points in time.

Since the software is available to QA teams post development is complete, quality is often compromised to meet deadlines.

It takes multiple Dev/QA iterations to get the developed software to be stable.

Requirements are often misunderstood or not captured in the entirety. Often, the way the software comes up and what the customer expects are different and because of the long turnaround time, changes are costly.

We are fundamentally change resistant in these models. Each change request is greeted with a lot of resistance. It's costly too, because the impact has to be analysed on the entire software and dependent pieces need to be tested again. But what is the value of a software which is not usable by the customer? 

 Imagine a method where we could sense the shortcomings of a feature in the product fairly early. How about as soon as the feature is ready, we get some feedback from the end user or customer and make sure it's inline with customer expectations. If something is not how it was expected to be, we take up the advised corrections/changes, test the feature again, and demonstrate it for more feedback. We just decided to fail fast, improvise and adapt to the changes as soon as possible. We weren't rigid about requirements and did not resist changes. Oh and yes, in the process we built an increment to the software with assured quality and a feature that meets the customer's requirements.

So what was different compared to the traditional models? What changed? 

What was different was the mindset. We weren't hung up on requirements and we didn't resist change. We moved away from rigidity to be AGILE and forthcoming to change.

Being Agile

We don't realise, but in our daily lives we are all agile to some extent in our functioning. We never plan too far ahead, because life is full of unknowns. A few of us know the goal we are trying to reach, but have no idea on how to get there. We figure out as we go.

Everyday we plan to do some tasks, but not everything goes as per plan. What do we do? We adapt. We improvise. We assess the shortcomings of the plan. We learn and take an alternative course (corrective action) to finish our tasks. We are in principle flexible, ready to make changes to a plan when required and that is what being Agile is all about.

Various software development methods are used under the Agile umbrella, like scrum, scrum ban, Adaptive Software Development etc. We must remember that these are frameworks. Not everything works for each project and in each team, but these methodologies provide us with a guidance for execution. 

Being AGILE is not about a rigid process to be followed. It's about a mindset to deliver high quality and usable software from the very beginning. It is a mindset to get things done, to fail fast and recover fast, to adapt to the changes around us.

                                                                                   -Raghav Kamran

                                                                                   Solution Architect

Cloud computing is not new to the unknown. In this blog post, I will share my experience of how we have used cloud computing at ABOVE Solutions to drive higher business and engineering value as well as lessons learned along the way. The cloud experiences span infrastructure, platform and application services with different clients in varying degrees of success.

Initially at ABOVE, we used to deal with multiple customers for their various needs regarding proof of concepts, project development and much more. During that phase, we went through lots of ups and downs while working on various challenging assignments. Cloud computing was one of our main challenging assignment to move away from the traditional way of deployment and deal with agility.

After brainstorming over a ‘pizza lunch’ on one Friday, we concluded that there was a common set of recurring problems that needed to be addressed. The problems we faced were purchase of hardware, software licenses, high capex, manpower to set up and manage a system before we could showcase the very first single page to the client and their stakeholders.

We used to spend most of our time (17-20%) setting up, and managing the different server environment, handling loads, fail overs, and different admin consoles to manage the servers and different payment cycles. Moreover, operational cost was not justified as per the actual need of different customers. However, these activities forced us to spend time and cost for something which was not our core strength because ABOVE has always strived to ensure that it focuses on technology that delivers software and product engineering excellence.

In 2010, during the second phase of development of our first product, TangoFX we needed to set up cloud as a different instance for different clients. We designed the product and developed code as per cloud design to maximize the benefits it benefits. I still remember how the first cloud solution was hosted on Window and SQL Azure under the partnership program with Microsoft. Cloud provided us with the facility to choose any server instance of our choice from an available instance pool. The next problem was to address dynamic adding of storage, and computing power to video encoding and video streaming where we benefited usingAmazon S3 and EBS for storage purposes along with elastic transcoder for encoding of videos into multiple bit rates and different video formats. Elastic encoders helped us to reduce the effort by not adding the support for multiple video codec to our custom encoders. Wowzamedia server was hosted along with Media Cache Add-on on Amazon EC2 for smooth streaming of video without any jitters.

We have also solved another business problem of clients like Radiowalla and Graphic India through cloud computing. Their content usage for streaming the audio and video was not fixed and our need can increase or decrease the load at any given point of time based on their marketing strategy and campaign. Here, Amazon auto scaling feature was used to control the capacity up or down automatically according to their business conditions. This helped us stop to raise a request to customer support to add new storage and additional computing power. We leveraged the power of Amazon cloud front to solve the problem for the performance of all static content like graphic images, Java scripts and CSS. Then, we used Amazon Cloud Watch to monitor cloud resource utilization and application via alerts and different metrics which was set up in no time without any prior experience in networking. This service is simply amazing and pretty easy to set up alert services as compared to setting up on dedicated servers.

Last year in 2013, the Weightless Project was developed as a social and health initiative project which was another example where we again used and leveraged the cloud capabilities usingAmazon RDS as a database to store the calories burned at high velocity by end users. Additionally, we have set up the Elastic load balancer to provide high availability in no time with a limited skill set.

Now, we are able to manage all server instances using one admin console screen which is an awesome capability of cloud. Apart from this, I personally love AWS IAM (Identity and Access Management ) Which allows us to create and manage cloud users and groups and use permissions to allow and deny them access to AWS resources. Consolidated Billing feature helped us to consolidate and pay bills for multiple client accounts and enabled us to see a detailed cost report for each individual account.

Apart from the above benefits of the public model of cloud, we have also leveraged cloud capabilities for internal purpose in the company. We are providing the different instance and environment like development, testing, integration using virtualization for internal activities. Here, VM vSphere and open source XenServer is used to achieve the private cloud set up in at ABOVE Labs.

A recent challenge was to take big data to the cloud to start practicing for Big Data; this required setting up the complete big data infrastructure. There was no worry for the team that time, the big data instance is also available on the cloud. We shall able to set up the big data (SAP HANA) environment using cloud and able to do POC and build competencies in record time.

Apart from cloud benefits, we learned the actual meaning of virtualization, elasticity, different strategies for implementation, and how to reduce risks and complexity. We learnt the ability to virtualize the different cloud layers (SAAS, PAAS, and IAAS) and the same time; we learnt not to virtualize everything. Traditional ways of designing application and writing code will not be an exact fit and will not reap the benefits of cloud computing when it comes to using all features of cloud simultaneously.

At ABOVE, we have worked on both dedicated and cloud models to provide and deliver the best values to the clients. Cloud computing has helped our teams to be more effective and efficient while considering all factors like flexibility, reliability, security, scalability, extendability, cost, and time. Now, we will more focus on solving next generation problems for our self and our clients.

As innovation in computing devices, apps, and potent new techniques for applying them proliferate in the consumer world, companies are struggling to close the gap.

zdnet.com

The WeightLess project story...The Weightless Project was co-founded along with Happy Creative Services (India) Pvt Ltd in early 2013. We announced it at Health2.0 in Sept.2013 and was officially launched byDeepak Chopra at Dreamforce later that year and also supported graciously by top fashion designer Rachel Roy. When the project authorRavi Bhat conceived of the innovative model, we had to spent a lot of effort to convince the the early players in the quantified self market such as Fitbit, Jawbone and Basis to adopt the model. Fitbit sponsored a humanitarian calorie drive via Weightless project and we raised 10M calories via the platform and $10K was contributed to Typhoon Hainan efforts. The money was sent via The Chopra Foundation to Efren Peñaflorida (CNN Hero 2009) who founded the Dynamic team company in the Philippines. I would also like to thank Kristin A. Meekhof who has been a champion of this initiative via her articles on Huffington Post and also dedicating the calories from her marathon run.

Over the last year we have worked tirelessly to scale the model/platform globally and stay focused in our endeavor to help the world get healthy and tackle the challenges of obesity on one end and malnutrition on the other. At one point we are advised to patent the "calorie transfer process" and platform IP and we strongly believed that this would go against the ethos of why we launched this initiative. When it comes to innovation and changing the world, Elon Musk is one I look up to. When he released Tesla's patents to 'Good Faith' use, it was aimed to help stem climate change. He had stated, “It is impossible for Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis.” Similarly, when we launched the WeightLess project, our single minded focus was to ensue we can build platforms and awareness to address the obesity/malnutrition.

Therefore we viewed that obesity (lifestyle disorders) and malnutrition are such global issues, that we need significant global momentum and all of us cooperating for the greater good. In May this year I had met with Sridhar Venkat (Head of Akshaya Patra) to see how we can use calories to support their initiative. I just read yesterday that they have taken this model and started their own "www.donateyourcalories.com" campaign in Mumbai along with "Sugar Free" brand and bollywood actor Akhay kumar. (http://www.afaqs.com/news/story/41948_Donate-Your-Calories-says-Sugar-Free). It is good to see companies and organizations now adopting "the calorie transfer" model to bring awareness to obesity/malnutrition challenges in our society. I do hope that they will use the calorie transfer model effectively, stay focused and ensure that "calories saved" via working out or lifestyle modification is transferred to those in need of these calories ("calories gained"). I wish them much success in this endeavor.

I am very happy today to see an idea now being adopted by brands and companies! Thanks again for the support and faith from the global community.

Carpe Diem!

NOTE: Weightless project has also been recognized by the advertising industry with these awards: ‘Blue Elephant’ At Kyoorius Advertising & Digital Award for Direct Marketing & Activation Bronze Abby for Direct Response at Goafest’14 - A South Asian Advertising Festival

Conversion of Flash to HTML5 - Myth no more

Introducing FlashMorph, our very own Adobe Flash (SWF) to HTML5 conversion platform powered by a best-in-class engine and workflow. 

The FlashMorph engine ensures Flash content submitted will look, feel and behave the same in HTML5 format, thereby enabling Flash content to be available across platforms.

The horrific incidents that compromised the safety of women and children in the city a few months ago have left citizens shocked and fed up, thereby looking for solutions to end such atrocities.

In an effort to make a positive difference, ABOVE came up with a CSR effort that includes hosting free self-defense and safety classes for women and children.

Basic self-defense training can give one the ability to take care of one's self in many dangerous attack situations, along with giving a person the confidence needed to possibly never be a victim in the first place.

The self defense classes at ABOVE are based on Krav Maga (KM) which is extremely intriguing. Most martial arts have a fighting spirit and appeal mostly to men because they make one feel like a walking human weapon. However this isn’t the case with KM. What makes it so appealing is the fact that this form of martial art is extremely practical, realistic and the moves will work in a real-life situation.   

KM involves a lot of natural body movements which make it a great way to get some exercise while learning a practical and intuitive method of self-defense.  

Classes are empowering and leave one feeling challenged, confident and feeling like one. One in your mind, body and spirit.

The problem with improving innovation

For years I’ve helped companies improve innovation in a number of ways, and I continue to find that innovation itself is widely misunderstood.  Innovation is how companies rapidly grow revenues and emerge as leaders in their industries.  It is the single most important trait of highly successful companies.  Innovation is not the same a continuous improvement or problem solving.  It typically does…