Good Technical Web Resources To Bookmark

During my study, I came across some useful web resources which I thought of sharing with you all. My intent is to have them all in one place for my reference so that I can always come to this post and browse when needed. I'm going to update this post if I come across any new web resources which I think worth booking marking. The readers of this blog can also have a look at  these resources. If you have any web resources which you think are good ones, you can leave a message against this post, I'll take a look and include those. Hope these resources benefit you all as well.

Design pattern & certification links:
OO principles: http://www.objectmentor.com/omSolutions/oops_what.html
UML, design patterns: http://sourcemaking.com/uml 
Strictly Singleton pattern: http://javarevisited.blogspot.in/2011/03/10-interview-questions-on-singleton.html
IBM UML certification: http://www-03.ibm.com/certify/tests/edu833.shtml

New tools/technology updates:
News about tools, mobile apps, cool websites: http://www.makeuseof.com/
Highly successful kickstarted project: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/556341540/pressy-the-almighty-android-button . You can find someother cool projects here
MIT technology review: http://www.technologyreview.com/
Geekwire: www.geekwire.com/
Technology Advice, product review: www.thinkdigit.com
Engadget: www.engadget.com
Technology updates: www.gizmodo.com
Tech journals: www.gigaom.com
Java code geeks: http://www.javacodegeeks.com/

Understanding mechanics & engine:
Mechanical movements animated: http://507movements.com/mm_114.html 
Animated engines: http://www.animatedengines.com/index.html

Utility:
Sorting algorithms Animated: http://www.sorting-algorithms.com/
Compress photos without degrading quality: http://www.jpegmini.com/

Java Developer Links: http://www.cygnet-infotech.com/41-websites-every-java-developer-should-bookmark
Good Read: http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/21/leadership/steve-jobs-elon-musk.pr.fortune/index.html

Teaching, Training & Coaching: What's the difference between them?

We have come across these terminologies many a times in our day today activities. During our schooling, we were being taught. We had teachers. When we got job and joined an organization, we were trained. There were trainers.

We have seen many training/tutorial centers. The teaching and training are pretty much same with certain differences. Coaching is what something different than teaching and training. In this short post I'll explain how coaching is different from training/teaching with certain examples.

Well, teaching is vast and is carried out with the intent of guiding people to impart the knowledge on the subject. The students are instructed with examples and accumulated experience by the teachers. Teaching is more of theoretical in nature. The teacher creates awareness among the students on the subject matter to help them better understand the theories. This  is what is done in schools/colleges. Teaching is what is done in our academics and it is limited to that. 

The training by definition is form by instruction, discipline or to make prepare for a skill or test. This means that the  training is more practical than theoretical. It is specific to real world concepts which is immediately required by the participants for doing their job. The professional training involves reshaping the learning that we've got in our academics to the practical /real world problems. Organizations conduct training to their new employees to align them to the goal/vision/mission of that organization. Most the learning that we've got during schooling days may not be applicable here, but is more focused to what problems that organization is trying solve.

Where as coaching is different story and is very effective than teaching and training. Coaching is "putting the participants in the context of the problems, make them realize/feel the problems and prepare them to come up with solutions". Coaching depends solely on the participation of participants. Coach identifies the strength and weaknesses of participants and he/she guides what they can do to improve. So coaching is more individual oriented. 

You May Not Be The First But You Can Always Be The Best : Finding An Edge In The Market

Innovative organizations, people like you always be thinking/doing something new, it could be new product, solution, method, mobile app etc. But if you look at today's world, the idea you are thinking of doing, is already done and available in market or someone is working on the same idea or  someone has protected the Intellectual Property(IP) by filing patents. This is for some people can be a disappointing factor. According to me there is nothing much to worry here and back off. In this article I'll try to explain why we should not get disappointed and how to find a way forward.

There are examples where many start ups who have failed to be success because the idea they are working on is already there. They have failed by this only factor. And there are also examples wherein certain start ups are indeed success in what they were doing even when some had already done the same thing. If you dig deeper why is this then you will realize that the success is not about just having a great idea and working on it, its about the way its executed. Before getting into the execution part, let tell about what if your idea is already IP protected by some body. Here what people should be doing here is that study the patents carefully. The patents may not cover the exact idea as that of your sometimes. In this  case, frame your idea and protect it, you may have to consult IP lawyers for this. Secondly though companies/people have logged patents, but there is no product on that idea in the market due to several reasons. In this  case you can go for licensing it. You'll have to pay for this. If you believe that the licensing the idea and making that to the market is really going click, then only you need to go for since it involves monetary aspects.

Look at the examples. If you take smart phone companies as example, there are many companies that make phones. But yet iPhone is received by the people as the only best smart phone. All phones have the same feature. This tells that its how you make it. There is nothing important than user experience. And user experience is the base for word of mouth advertising.

Apple Inc. recently announced Apple Watch and this entered the crowded market, there were many smart wrist watches out there in the market, like pebble, for health monitoring, the FitBit was huge success. Of course there is some brand dominance to some extent, but its the user experience, ease of use is what it matters. Facebook was not the first one to have social networking site. Apple was not the first to bring the smart watch. But yet Apple watch is being received by the people very well.

So, perseverance is what really matters. Having an idea is just not enough its the continuous execution is what matters. Especially India based start ups face many hurdles due to the fact that different people mindset. Its difficult to convenience them, taking the idea globally may work. Some guidelines are if idea you are working on is already in the market, its not that you stop doing it, but look at the customers using it, what are they saying about the product, list down the cons they are talking about. Remember that we can always make products more easy to use. 

So the bottom line is that 'You may not be the first but you can always be the Best'.

Driving Culture Change In An Organization Effectively: Practices & Challenges

Organization culture is built over the period of time influenced by business model, customer interactions, leadership behavior. Since culture is built over time, difficult task to change. However once organization learns that the current culture in not helping achieve business objectives, the change becomes mandatory to cope up with new trends, market developments for the organization to survive and set the standards.

The cultural change boils down to people behaviors in the organization. We can change the processes easily but it is tough task to change people behavior. Culture change is a business challenge which has to happen collectively by joining hands with each other in organization. Some of the thoughts shared below.

What's the current situation/culture?: The current situation needs to be assessed carefully by focused discussions, listing down the people concerns, complaints, thoughts. Sufficient time needs to be spent here writing down all the assessment comments, clearly identifying the gaps, problems, come up with clear, simple vision/intent of the new change.

What is the new culture? Set the vision/intent of change needs be clearly mentioned and understood by all. Everyone has to be in agreement with the culture vision. Let all employees understand that and acknowledge & sign it. If any one does not agree to the vision, spend sufficient time talking to the person to understand the different opinion and see there is really a problem/hurdle in change objective.

Driving changes: The leadership needs to be decentralized, and as much as possible this has to be bottom up approach. Since any change boils down daily activities performed by employees, the top management may not well understand these bottom level issues. Hence the leadership needs to be decentralized/flattened to better understand, drive the change. Reorganization may not just help.

Coaching plays an important aspect: To effectively convince the employees,

they need to understand and realize what's going wrong with current organization culture. This can only be done through coaching and not by training. 

Hire an outsider to kick start the organization change, the employees listen to thoughts of a person who has newly joined the organization with vast experience in bringing the change. This simply works but existing employee's attempt to change the culture/process may not be effective or fail subsequently. This is  the reason for teaching new processes, the organization hires outside trainers and employees are trained outside the company campus sometimes!  

Track timely and closely the changes being deployed. It has to be very clear as to what people should be doing in daily activities since all the changes being driven boil down to daily activities. The change is truly in effect once new culture change becomes part of employees' DNA and no guidance, change drivers required. This is when we truly have self organized people/teams.