Long time and no post

I just thought to post an update about me, yeah shameless stuff :-)

I am busy doing some interesting flash/flex and web projects. I have been playing with PureMVC, flex parser/compiler code and other stuff. A part of schedule goes in streamlining processes (development, recruitment, HR, etc) in a company, which my brother and I co-founded some years back though it's known as different name but seed is the same :-)

Whatever time is left goes in building new office space for our team. We would be moving to new office in couple of days. I hope, our team finds this new office relatively better. I hope, we would be more productive and have fun.

You can check out my flickr-stream to see how it looks, photographs are little old. Some more pics from my brother's photo-stream.

It's done using limited budget and customized furniture, not modular workstations; unfortunately, we couldn't figure out a local vendor, for modular workstations, who can do it in our budget. When we do well in coming months, we might put some good modular workstations/cubicles.

Things are not easy in this part, Uttar Pradesh, of country. It seems, government is not really interested to support businesses/entrepreneurs. Corruption seems to be at it's peak in various government departments, which makes it harder to do things right way (without bribe or favours). Bribing seems like to be an integral part of the system here, but if you are determined and know laws, you can get work done without it, though things might take longer (sometimes very) to get done.

I believe, we are fortunate enough to be in an industry (Software, Internet, Web - in general, IT), where location of business doesn't matter as long as we have three things - electricity, internet and talent pool. I might be missing something in the list.

We have managed to take care of electricity by having good electricity-generator, though it costs a lot per day, considering we have to pay minimum electricity bill to government even when consistent power supply (around 5-6 hours power cut everyday + random power cuts). Internet is not a problem here, BSNL is doing good job and I find, it's only goverment department that is relatively better than others.

The last one "talent pool" is something missing here in this city "Kanpur", or rather entire state "Uttar Pradesh"? I guess, there are not many companies here which can attract and retain good talent. Another thing is temptation to move to better cities like Bangalore, Pune and Delhi for better jobs or life? I think, it's good idea to do and get more exposure - one must do, it makes you better and allows to see the world outside of the city.

So it's challenge for us to attract good talent or create talented people. I believe, recruitment of smart people (freshers or experienced) and training are going to be the key. I have stopped expecting to get any experienced person, so I am going to fall back on hiring people with passion, integrity and aptitude. Training is going to be the one of the important things in this company.

I believe, we would be able to build a good, if not great, culture in coming months. I don't talk about compensation, it might not be the main factor for passionate people but such people should be appreciated in all possible ways (recognition, great work, great compensation and any other thing). We do pay the best in the city, AFAIK, we would keep doing that.

I am learning a lot of things and life is full of challenges now - I feel I am more motivated now than ever. It's a journey, that's going to be exciting.
Wait a second, did I tell you what we are doing and plan to do?

We are into graphics-design and development services (RIA/Web-app development and design - logo, identity, user-interfaces, illustrations, web-layouts, promos, flash-animation, etc) right now, but I am personally more interested into products, hence we are going to have a part of budget for R&D activities, where we would encourage people to create reusable libraries (be it code or design), internal-tools, experimental/fun projects using upcoming/existing technologies, etc - these can be used in our service projects. I believe, we would be able to turn some of our R&D activities into products in coming future.

That's it for now - if you have read this far, thanks for doing that. Please leave your suggestion, those would really help me in this new journey of mine.