Nowadays, I find that a large chunk of traffic to my blog comes from H1 job market related information searches.

First of all, I love this feature by wordpress that lists the traffic source and the exact search phrases if it is through a search engine. I guess most blog providers do offer this facility. Seriously, hats off to them! It helps a blogger know what kind of information his visitors seek and what percentage of his visitors seek that information thereby enabling him trigger his forthcoming posts in that direction.

I had also received a comment from a visitor seeking more information on the current state of the IT job market.

Now coming to the point, it is really interesting to see how attentive people are, to events in the US and how concerned they are about the scheme of things that may have effect on their American dream.

In March, I had written a post on the IT contract job market situation in the US as a result of the slowdown that I (like many others) have been noticing. The past few months have not been the best for IT job seekers in the US, be it contract or permanent. The reasons certainly track back to the mortgage meltdown and the consequent slowdown in the American economy. The slowdown has affected many companies across industries that have led them to cut down in projects/project allocation and overall spending which in turn has been having its effect on hiring.

From my experience in marketing consultants, the situation does not seem to have gotten better yet. Like I mentioned in my earlier posts, we can see an evident increase in companies that prefer hiring people with skills and experience in multiple technologies thereby saving the cost of hiring multiple people. Not many people are prepared for this kind of a demand; hence, consulting rates have gone down.

On the other hand, because the number of H1 visas processed has been increasing on a yearly basis, the supply of resources for any particular IT position is generally high.

In the meantime, we are also seeing positions going on hold or hiring being held up for unexplainable reasons (unexplainable by recruiters/ outsourced hiring companies).

I am guessing the reasons could be as I mentioned earlier, scrapping of projects or cost cutting initiatives.

I would not like to inject any negative feelings or approach that may hinder one’s decision on what future course of action they would like to stick to, because my post is really not worth that much. But I would like to inform readers about the factors they might want to take into account for making an informed decision in considering coming to the US for a fulltime or contract job.

As I would prefer doing, you could probably take a paper and a pen or just copy paste this on a word document and try answering the following 10 questions -

1.      Why am I currently looking to move to the US? What could be the benefits as against staying back in India?

2.      What is my current area of expertise/ technology?

3.      Am I an expert? How can I differentiate myself against the hundreds of people in the same field of technology/expertise?

4.      In the present market situation, what are the basic and additional skills being asked for by companies who are hiring people in this technology?

5.      Which industries are hiring the most? Do I have experience in those industries? If not, in my area, are my chances good even if I don’t have industry specific experience?

6.      Can I consider coming on an H1/L1 from my current company and then move when the market is better?

7.      Does my intended profile require very good communication skills? Or does it ask for more technical certifications and versatility? Which should I focus more on? (Of course both are necessary for any kind of job, but the degree of compromise from the hirers may vary depending on the need and nature of the profile).

8.      What is my flexibility with regard to rate, location, working hours?

9.      Do I know people who are in the US now, and are seeking jobs in the same area of technology as I am? Can I contact them for inputs?

10.  Do I have an alternative option or exit plan in case things don’t work out as planned (that is, I don’t end up with a job until a certain period of time)?

I have heard from experienced people that at least a couple of years ago, one didn’t really need to think too deep into how things would turn out during their job search in the US. The market was doing so well that there was a confidence that things would fall in place sooner or later.

I can say for certain that it is not that easy now.

I am sure answering the above questions carefully after good research can surely help one make a more informed decision and build confidence in oneself about his decision. One can check out popular job sites like dice, monster and careerbuilder and do a detailed analysis of the jobs pertaining to one’s area of interest. Getting first hand information from friends or relatives who already are in the US will also help a great deal.

Of course, there may be more questions that may need to be answered. I will surely add more if I can think of any. Meanwhile, people who find the above information useful (or not), please feel free to leave your thoughts, suggestions and opinions.

Good luck!

I fall into this category of people who think that they are so far away from being perfect and that there needs to be a constant (as in, all the time and forever) review of themselves and people around them in order to get to that goal; the category of people who love to listen, read and ponder about life, situations, psychology, philosophy, principles and inspiration.

When I was a kid and I became aware (at least I thought so) that these thoughts dominated my “think time”, unlike other girls of my age who thought a lot about how to dress up Barbie, I felt I was gifted! J Like I was going to be a next generation Vivekananda or Gandhi! I remember sometimes I behaved like I was a saint, telling my brother that if he lied, god with a capital G would punish him.

I even attempted to read huge philosophical books that my father bought; I thought big words didn’t really matter since I could easily grasp the context and message (because I was ‘gifted’!)

After 10 pages of knowing the truth (with the capital T), reaching out to god (with a capital G) and understanding the self (with a capital S) I would just close the book once and for all, forcing myself to realize that I already have it in me, then why read? But at that age, philosophy is a keyword that I learnt; and I liked it you know, sounded sophisticated for my age!

I grew up listening to class discussions and extempore by friends, slowly recognizing that my philosophical thoughts weren’t really growing beyond a level and that a lot of kids around me picked up the concept lot faster than I did! What was going on? I thought I was gifted! Are they too? Should I have read 10 more pages of the big fat books? Why am I not able to speak?

Since then, my idea (now, strategy) about being philosophical changed a little bit. Quotes still inspired me, but simpler ones. I chose to avoid the capital letters and go by the ‘do good and be good’ types. I was self-enforcing the idea that there was no capital or small letter god and no heaven or hell; its all about what you are and what you can do for the people around you. It is about character, nature, morality. No, not personality, but individuality.

I didn’t need to talk about good stuff as long as I was “doing” them.

Oh, and I still liked those books, but I didn’t call them philosophical anymore, I called them “inspirational”.

Years passed by and it was time to get married. When I met my husband, and we were trying to carry out a casual conversation during our preliminary rounds of interaction, I was confronted with the usual question “So, what kind of books do you like to read?”

Oh yes, I was ready for this. “Inspirational, motivational books” I said.

“Oh, you mean self help books, good good”, comes the reply.

What? self help books is what they call them now? What does that mean and why is that so? Is that a new terminology? Where was I?

Is it the self with a small or a capital S? Because, if it’s the capital S then I can understand but if it is small, come on, why would they do that? It is not that I need help for myself. I don’t need help at all. “I am what I am”!!

I hated that term. I still do. It is like saying, “nobody else can help you so why don’t you help yourself, please.”

Hmm alas! My strategy has changed again. I read less of what the world now calls self help books and have shifted to bio and autobiographies. These can be motivational; these can be inspirational too right?

I look back and realize that over the years, all that I considered musing has been nothing less than amusing!

I try my best to understand international affairs, economics and foreign policies but sometimes I simply don’t get it. Are policies formed and strategies built to make life easier for people or what?

Take a look at the latest global oil crisis. Oil prices are at an all time high. People all over the world are suffering (except probably the people in OPEC). Within and amongst countries the blame game is on about increasing demand, falling supply, declining production initiatives, and so on.

Saudi Arabia (which is the largest producer) says it will increase the production to meet higher demand; US blames its oil companies for making windfall profits and still not doing anything about the prices; the companies in turn say they are reinvesting the profits for exploration. Meanwhile US imports of oil have risen to 65% of its total consumption (witness yet another George Bush-ism - “It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas”)J ; India, China and other developing countries are being pointed at for their outrageously (!) high quantities of oil consumption; suddenly press and people of the developed nations are accusing Governments for not being concerned about developing other sources of energy.

Interestingly, the story in India goes like this - In spite of the record oil prices abroad, Indian oil companies in the public sector are on the verge of bankruptcy. The Government decides to subsidize fuel prices, which means that the petrol sold by the likes of IOL and BP in India, is much cheaper than the petrol sold by Chevron in the US; meaning, IOL makes a loss every time it sells fuel to the Indian public.

When oil prices went up further, the Government had no choice but to hike the prices by an average of 13% at one go which came under sharp protests by the Opposition. Between soaring prices and subsidies from PSUs, the private players like Reliance are having a tough time too because if they don’t lower prices, they remain uncompetitive. With oil prices still soaring, the Government’s lack of nerve (in view of coming elections) to remove subsidies, the PSU oil companies road to bankruptcy and the private players not able to do anything, there is no doubt that the economy is in turmoil. Rate of inflation will soar, stock markets will suffer and the dream run part II of the sensex will become more and more elusive.

All said and done, the fact still remains that there is no short term solution for high oil prices and at least 90% of the world’s population is suffering from it. Given this, I can’t help wondering, “Why can’t we just lower the prices? I mean, what’s the big deal? If everyone faces the problem, nobody would not want to see the prices go down, right? So let’s just bring them down!”  

Alas, if only it were that simple. 

When such crises occur, I think Governments everywhere can(rather, should) learn some lessons – about making compromises, about understanding the importance of being interdependent, about reminding them that they are representatives of a large population and that there needs to be a human aspect to everything.

“The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man, the reflection of his own face.”

Reflections are mysteriously impounding; I remember spending hours during my childhood vacations, endlessly looking at the reflections of beautiful trees, busy birds, moving clouds and even my Self in the serene waters of the pond in our ancestral home.

I am just back from a holiday to Yellowstone National Park, WY. The sights were simply amazing. A dreamer’s paradise! It took me back to those days where the only thoughts that occupied my mind were the whys and hows of Nature and Creation.

We drove around the Park early one morning to snap some sunrise shots. Yellowstone’s lakes are very beautiful and sunrise was the best time to capture reflections on it’s calm and still waters. 

Reflections,  I decided that morning, will have to be the theme of my next post.

Someone once said, “All great things are only a number of small things that have carefully been collected together.”

When we take a picture of a mountain, a garden, a farm or the sea, we sometimes overlook the small flowers, dewdrops, rocks, pebbles, animals and insects that also, along with others make up these beautiful landscapes.

A macro photograph is a style that focuses completely on one subject. Say you are taking a flower; everything else other than the flower is left blurred. Meaning, the depth of field is narrow.

For a macro photograph, either the lens is used to the optimal to get a large image of the subject or the photographer simply gets as close to the subject as possible.  

In my experience, a macro photo that I just clicked typically leaves me getting all philosophical, thinking about life, God, creation, existence, and so on.. J

When you click the right picture, do you feel a sudden stroke of ecstasy? Like something struck you in the head and you just can’t wait till you get back home, download the picture and see it on the big screen of your pc or even the TV? Well, I’ve had my moments of bliss, more often now than earlier.

 I love photography and it is not until recently that I came to realize it. I have the least idea about its technical side and have so far been clicking only on instincts. I did put some effort into reading a document about ‘photography as a science’ and have so far managed to finish only three pages out of fifty eight. (science is just not my cuppa!) J

One day, a co-blogger and friend mentioned about four basic principles of photography.

He just gave me four phrases – golden hour, depth of field, soft lighting and high key/low key lighting and left it to me to find out what they meant. So I went to good ol’ wikipedia and found some very simple explanations. It made a lot of sense and I could relate it to my thought process while clicking.

I then went back to my collection and checked if some of my earlier photos reflected these concepts. So here for record and my own reference, I am putting down what I read, along with illustrations from some photos I clicked.

v Golden Hour – The golden hour is defined as the first and last hour of sunlight during the day when a specific photographic effect is achieved with the quality of the light during these hours. 

v Key Lighting – Lighting for total illumination of the photo requires 3 points – key lighting, fill lighting and back lighting.

o     In key lighting, low-key lighting is a style where the light is focused on certain parts of the object (which is being photographed) in such a way that it enhances the features that make up the outline of the object and leaves the rest in shadows.

o     Alternatively, high-key lighting is a style that has very little dark areas or shadows.

(I do not have photos to illustrate this; will update as and when I click some.)

Back lighting – Lighting that is used to illuminate the subject from the back. The camera and the light are facing each other.

When the backlight is very intense

(precisely 16 times more than the key light)

it produces a silhouette 

Fill lighting – Lighting that may be used to reduce the contrast of a scene and provide some illumination for the areas of the image that are in shadow.

v Soft lighting - Soft light refers to light that tends to “wrap” around objects, casting shadows with soft edges. The softness of the light depends mostly on the following two factors:

o       Distance- The closer the light source, the softer it becomes.

o       Size of light source- The larger the source, the softer it becomes.

The softness of a light source can also be determined by the angle between the illuminated object and the ‘length’ of the light source (the longest dimension that is perpendicular to the object being lit). The larger this angle is, the softer the light source.

v Depth of field – This refers to the part of an image that appears sharper than the rest of it showing that the focus of the lens is on that particular portion of the image.  This makes the rest of the image a bit blurred. Mathematically, the depth of field is determined by the distance between and camera and the object, the focal length of the lens and what is called the f-number of the lens. In digital cameras, the dof is determined after the image is made.

Each of these fundas is a vast field of study in itself and cannot be mastered in a day. But understanding the basics adds so much more to the whole experience of clicking.

This post is more or less a continuation of the previous one, Web 2.0. It is about Orkut- another stunning example of the Web 2.0 revolution.

Orkut, as we all know is an online community which stimulates the “social animal” in a person. They define themselves, “orkut is an online community designed to make your social life more active and stimulating.”

Orkut strikes the right key with its users. You can find it as a minimized window on any 18-30 year old Indian’s desktop, at least once a day. Why so?

Orkut or any Web 2.0 product/company for that matter cannot be successful without constant user need perception, up-gradation and feedback. It is a never ending loop. There are so many portals providing similar services that differentiating becomes inevitable for sustenance.

When I first logged on to orkut in 2005, this is what it had –

Ø      friends list and related features

Ø      testimonials

Ø      communities

Ø      photos up to a certain limit

Ø      ‘scrapping’ and messaging

Ø      a simple search facility

Gradually they added these –

Ø      videos

Ø      photos up to any limit

Ø      optional profile lock to keep away curious strangers

Ø      recent updates from friends feature

Ø      ‘ask friends’ feature for common messages

Ø      blog, picasa incorporation feature

Ø      integration with gmail (where ids from orkut are directly updated to one’s gmail address book

All these add-ons are certainly a result of the ‘loop’. They found that people needed to share more photos with their loved ones, so increased the photo limit; they understood that integrating the mail ids on orkut with gmail would reduce the effort to check/cross check mail ids each time; they recognized that by showing ones’ profile updates his friends can find out that he has read a new book or got married, found a new job or traveled to new places; they accepted that one needed his own privacy on a wide reaching public utility, one needed to feel free to express himself within his own boundaries!

What do I say? ‘That’s Google’ or ‘That’s the power of Web 2.0′?

The recent update from Orkut is called “Orkut applications”. It’s a huge step. Now one can share applications like games, music, videos, slideshows, books, jobs, and what not! You name it and they’ve got it!

Its like integrating all other Web 2.0 portal ideas in one, shelfaris, slide.coms, snapfishes, monsters, cricinfos, bollywood4us, again, you name it!!

Of course, in the process the users gain, but what’s in store for business?  

Tim O’Reilly put it aptly,

Need I say more?

Recently I got introduced to this term Web 2.0, which was coined in 2004 by O’Reilly as a result of a brainstorming session. Evidently, Web 2.0 is a sequel to Web 1.0, but what is Web 1.0 in the first place?

Web 1.0 is the World Wide Web or Internet we have known in the 90s and early 2000s; the Web that was used to post information in the form of websites which were mostly used by companies, Governments and other special interest groups; hence almost entirely drawing a one-way traffic. Of course, there were e-mails and chat programs, but that is pretty much all that represented a two-way communication.

Over the years, developers and experts have evolved a more interactive version of the Internet; a two-way, rather, an all-way traffic that has increased participation, contribution and extraction by all users alike.

Ohhh yeah, welcome to Web 2.0! The World Wid(er) Web of googles, yahoos, picasas, blogs, wikis and ebays!

According to Tim O’Reilly -
“Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.”

The Web 2.0 buzz which is characterized by many other buzzwords like wikis, blogs, social-networking, open-source, open-content and file-sharing, is supported by a totally new generation of Internet based techniques and languages like Java, AJAX, Flash, etc.

My post is not about digging deep into its technicalities but I would like to focus on the business points of view.

Clearly, the realization that the Internet can be a great instrument to cater to business needs has really been the pushing force for this development. Businesses always need to move with time, technology and people; its a matter of survival. They have gone hand in hand with every revolution- the newspapers, the radio, the television and the mobile technology. Now, the arrival of the 21st has posed great opportunities to explore the latest revolution, the Web.

In the early years after Y2K, businesses realized that they could not only post their company information on the Web, but also use it to seek information from people viewing their sites. This in turn can help them channel the interest from people, to interact and get a lot of first hand information about matters that can be crucial to business decision-making.

Business existence depends entirely on the needs of its market. And if the Web can not just help reach out to its market but even widen it, why not use it to the fullest? The uses of Web 2.0 are wide and the list never seems to end - advertising, networking, partnering, broadcasting, researching and so and on. What more, now, visionaries are creating excellent business models around the Web itself!

Technology developers working for businesses are literally getting into the hearts of the users to attract them to using the Internet. ‘User friendliness’ defines everything they try to do. Other forms of media are being integrated with the Web and now, one can read a newspaper, listen to the radio, watch television or read books online. The result? People are gradually getting hooked onto the Web.

Web 2.0 has very wide implications to many businesses. Take the recruiting industry, for example. It started out with a system where a prospective candidate goes to a company website to get their HR generic id and sends and email with his resume. Then came career links in company sites that accepted form data from the candidate, enabled him to upload his resume and submit the data to the company’s database that could be internally be accessed by its hiring department. Slowly, business models were developed around an external recruiting firm that catered to needs of the companies as well as candidates and created a common platform for them to match their needs. While these are still widely popular, a model based on social/business networking and referrals is being exploited in the form of networking sites like LinkedIn, Ryze, Facebook, Orkut, etc. Newspaper employment ads are being posted on the Internet too and job/recruiting blogs are also featuring Government vacancies online. A whole lot of websites provide both free and paid services for career development resources. Can it get easier than this?

In short, Web 2.0 is characterized with vast and wide-reachable audience, unstoppable competition, enormous payback and endless scope for strategizing!
Will this sequel continue? We must wait and see!

References and must reads -

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE
http://www.paulgraham.com/web20.html

I recently came across this site, www.slideroll.com and i am probably the last one to do so! Found it extremely interesting. Slideroll helps you create online slideshows. The membership is free and it allows storage of a sufficiently large gallery of pictures. Slideroll enables one to add music to the slides from a given list of tunes from different genres you can choose from. There are also options for text slides, zoom, timing etc.

Unfortunately there is no option to add/upload music files from your pc (I didnt find it). Another issue I faced was embedding the slideshow in wordpress. There were many codes for embedding, but noting was working on my wordpress. I spent a lot of time and brain exercise trying to figure out what the code meant. No luck! But I came across an interesting feature to solve all these problems. There is a free slideroll video creator, which you can download to your pc and attach slideshows created on the site and upload music from your pc. The end result is an mpeg file that can be uploaded to youtube and google videos and even to wordpress.

So here goes my first slideshow using slideroll video creator. It is a collage of some photos I clicked during our trips around US. Check out -

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0vc0WMg_kA

No matter how many movies I watch, after every movie (even the not so good ones), I spend at least a minute wondering how they do it (of course for Titanic, I think I spent a whole month!). This movie making is such a thought provoking affair!

I guess the success lies not only in the freshness of the script but the entire effort that goes into it. It is not just about the story, actors or technical excellence but bringing them all together. I mean, just wait for a movie to end and watch the names appear. . there are so many of them!! Organizing all these folks, in itself is such a herculean task, leave alone getting the best out of them. To add to the complication, we are talking about artists and technicians - professionals in their own fields from whom expertise has to be drawn in such a way that the whole idea doesn’t really change from its original but still gets enough modifications to make it the best.

Imagine people who are successful each time they make a movie like say, Steven Spielberg. I have no clue who does what behind the scenes, but imagine the kind of motivation, leadership and people skills that goes into the whole process!

And how tough can it get when it comes to an animated movie?! The effort is enormous. I saw a video on youtube made by an animation film maker. He has made a 10 minute animated film on how to make animated films. Absolutely simple and crisp but with such good team work from his fellow technicians and artists.

You might be wondering where I am going with this, but the thought I am trying to convey here is that good movies can be such a wonderful source of inspiration for the message they convey not only on screen, but from behind it as well! Give it a thought sometime ..