Sameer Agarwal

Well yes, it is. It conveys so many different things to different people. For example, the graphic that I have as the header of my blog (as on May 14, 2008) is a picture of me smoking a hookah. I put it up because I thought it was cool. But today someone told me the picture ought to be changed because it looked like I’m sipping something else since the hookah is not completely visible! No marks on guessing what that “something else” could be. Let’s see how much time I take to change this picture… am mighty embarrassed as of now, but maybe I’ll leave the picture as is, since I don’t really care what others make out of it as long as I like it. Let’s see what I do…!

Thank you for standing by my side through thick and thin. I’m not sure how good a son I’ve been but you’ve been a great mother. You’ve changed your way to align with mine, have ‘braved’ me often (and you know what I mean) and still never expected anything in return. Words may be all I have, but I don’t want to spoil it all by saying something stupid like I love you! Happy Mothers Day!

It didn’t take me more than a week to get what I wanted (check my previous article on this). I am on WordPress now, and that too on my own domain. It really is a 5 minute installation. The customization took some time, and that too only because I’m sort of fussy about the finer details. I’m loving it!

In a recent seminar I attended, I discovered the concept of Unconferencing (lookup Kiruba Shanker on Google). This post is not meant for talking about unconferencing even though I’m very excited about this concept. It’s about something else…

I met an HP colleague at the seminar. Both of us knew that we existed but had never talked to each other before. In fact we (at least I) didn’t even know that both of us will really meet at the seminar! A couple of sentences exchanged at the “networking” break and she told me that she “knew me better than she should” because she found my blog!

Now that indeed is a small world. And maybe dangerous too!

SB – guess “How much do you want people to know about You” will be interesting research work esp. because it’s difficult to control what people can find about you. Do some ego surfing – type your name in quotes on Google and you’ll know what I mean

“I believe you don’t know what you’ve got until you say goodbye”

I am learning this over and over. Twice in the past six months actually. The first time was when I relocated to Bangalore – that is when Delhi suddenly became my dream city! It’s funny that I had not valued Delhi for all the 29 years of my stay there and then suddenly it became The city!

And then. I was back in Delhi last week for a seminar. It’s surprising that I tried to look for the city grid – the one thing I used to complain about Bangalore a lot. I realized Delhi had none too! It was no better than Bangalore and probably has the most confusing roads for a stranger since everything is in circles! This little thing completely changed my perception about Bangalore.

I like Bangalore now. I can live with the traffic and the pollution and the high cost and the ‘kadi patta’!

Very different words yet they can get so close. Of course we’ve all read independence and interdependence and dependence. Collaboration is of course related to interdependence when two or more parties get together for a common goal – the prerequisite being that both should bring value to the table.

But sometimes do we use collaboration as a garb for laziness? My colleague was talking about why he could not use the office gym – because he did not have company. Alone he doesn’t think he will be able to stay motivated. Do I think differently though – I guess not. Alright I have traveled alone on leisure, watched movies in a theater all by myself and the likes. But those were one-off instances. Will I stay motivated to follow a rigor alone? I’m not sure. Will I wait infinitely for collaboration sake? I don’t know…

I’ve been thinking about starting a blog on Knowledge Management for quite some time now. But I’ve been waiting for co-authors (collaboration). The funny thing is that I haven’t even looked for co-authors really (laziness). But probably today this changed. I came across someone’s blog on KM and I wrote to this person with my idea about starting a KM blog with multiple authors. It looks like she’s game and I’ll update more on this blog when I know.

Just hope that it stays collaborative – nothing less, nothing more!