Venkat's Weblog

The fruit

The fruits of my run…..Emotional Satisfaction, a rave to do more and of course the certificate !

A Day out at INXS

Yesterday, we had a day out-actually lunch. The occasion was My Birthday and I decided that it was a reason to go out and relax, especially since it has been a while the team had gone out together. What would be better stress buster for the amount of work that the team was putting in! Well we decided to explore a new place for eat-out and decided on the ‘The Cascade’ in Khader Nawaz Khan Road, Nungambakkam. The first thing that hit me in KNK road was the number of high profile banners it was carrying and that too in a medium stretch of road. KNK is definitively a brand in itself!

The spread was Chinese and since we were divided into veg and non-veg I must say that all of us had our stomach and aesthetics senses satisfied, as were seated in a private room and the ambience was good. Starting with starters to the main course and desserts what could be a better way to celebrate when you are among your friends and team that has shared everything right from the start. The lunch was sprinkled with lot of heart filled laughter and satisfaction. With so much to look forward to I hope we can keep up this tradition and happiness. Here some snaps which speaks volume about the day and the happiness that we shared.

Celebration time

Back from a meeting in Mumbai, but my team Inxs seemed to have had fun, with a B'day celebration of one of our members. Here are some snaps.

I know you are thinking about the U.S trips pictures that I promise you, well they would follow shortly!

Updates from my US trip

Last 10 days was really super hectic for me measuring the length and breadth of the US sub continent.

Started my trip with New York, then about two days in Orlando, Florida. Was here for the WES Summit of Research in Motion (Blackberry). I was really happy with the progress we made there in terms of getting good exposure to our product and the platform. Have taken some good leads from there. Lets hope we get some good deals from this trip.

The other interesting part is, that sunday early morning we drove down to Kennedy Space Center which is about 50-60 miles from Orlando. This is the place from which all the manned missions are launched. Yes including Colombia which killed Kalpana Chawla. Also this is the place where the shuttles land after their mission. This place really taught me a lesson, they have made it so interesting and the visuals teach you so much that children taking interest in science will be far more than just reading books on science.

Also I was in cloud nine when my life time mission of flying on a chopper was achieved in Orlando. Flew a Robinson 44....oops flew on a Robinson 44 with a pilot ;) this is really superb experience in life. Sat in the front with the pilot, of course with my hands tied from not touching the controls. Saw the entire Orlando including the Disney world in about 8 minutes. 8 heavenly minutes I should say.

From Orlando, went to Chicago with my sailor colleague where I had to complete some works with my company secretary for Market simplified Inc. From Chicago went to San Francisco again on some meetings I had with some VC's.

Flying within the US is one hell for sure, as we get used to all the pampering of the Asian airlines. Indians for sure are very pampered I should say, not blaming though.....we deserve it anyways. All we get is peanuts to eat and sometimes not even that. I am not talking about low cost airlines, all are full service carriers like AA and UA.

Getting back was one back breaking journey, started Sunday morning local time in SFO, reached New York in the evening, left New York Sunday evening local time and reached Chennai Tuesday morning Indian time. In all I flew for more than 32 hours including the breaks in New York and Brussels. What kept me going was the service in Jet Airways and the food they served. kudos to them!

Will shortly upload all the pictures I took ,interesting ones only ;) been too lazy to download it to my comp. promise to do it tonight and upload.

My 60seconds of fame!

I had mentioned to you in my earlier blog about the meeting that I had with Mr. Murali of Business line here is an excerpt of my Interview (with my handwritten answers)!

Check out http://60secondschief.blogspot.com/

Wealth Management 2008

The Wealth Management 2008 conference held by the CFA institute in Atlanta was a great venue for us to participate and to showcase our products. As told earlier, our product rockstaradvisor was well received and we had a good reception for our Mobile Application too. Here are some of the snaps that we had taken during our conference which was held in the Grand Hyatt, Atlanta.

AT INXS

Our two members Business Team seem to be rocking in the Wealth Management 2008, summit held by the CFA Institute in Atlanta, Georgia. So far the response received for our Blackberry Application and for our ’Rockstaradvisor’-
http: //www.rockstaradvisor.com, seems to be really rocking. I would surely give you more updates on the conference as soon as our guys are back from United States.

At INXS we had really worked hard towards both our Blackberry Application and for the CFA summit infact at INXS we work hard and play hard….here are some of the snaps taken of few of our INXSIANS who celebrated their Birthday during the past week and this week.

This is our good old kiran who is soon getting married.

This is Hiran whom we all look upto at INXS literally!
Next B'day was of our important team member whom we shower our love and appreciation at the end of the month...yes he is our Corporate Head who is incharge of depositing our pay every month....oops the pic. of his cake seem to be the 'header' for my blog!
Corporate as he is fondly called celebrated his B'day in style......and successful in noth appearingin any of the photographs!

A VERY SPECIAL DAY

Today is a very very special and happy day in my life and am reserving this space for an update of the same. Wait for a day or two when I would share this happy occassion with you all:-)

Shamshabad Airport-Needs Improvement

I had to post this today, to tell you people of my experience at the New airport, the Shamshabad Airport in Hyderabad. I had a meeting in Hyderabad on Monday, the 24th March ’08. Since the day I was landing was only the second day after its inauguration, I was full of ‘super’ expectation and was thinking that finally some kind of a step was being done to the infrastructure facility. But I was in for a big disappointment as soon as I landed. You might think that I am seeing things entirely in a ‘negative’ aspect, but I feel that for an Airport built in 2008, it looks as if research was done for it in the ‘pre-development’ era i.e somewhere in early 2002.

Here is my account. As soon as I landed at the Shamshabad Airport, I could see that there were only six ‘aerobridge’ for both the domestic and international sections. It was shocking to see that there were only two baggage carousels in the Domestic Airport and two baggage carousels in the International Airport section. I am well aware of teething troubles that any start up’s or for that matter airports could have and we were there only in the second day of the opening of the ‘Airport’ but my biggest astonishment was, when I found that for every traveler there were hundred visitors and I felt that the Airport was not just equipped to handle that type of a crowd. I happened to take my return flight on the same night and to my horror I found that I had to travel a good two hours and thirty minutes to the Airport. Apart from that I had to wait around one hour and 30 minutes for the aircraft and around 20 minutes inside the aircraft, the travel time itself was for one hour and thirty minutes, and taking into account the delay in the air for around 25 min. (when the aircraft was finding parking space!) and finally landed near the flying club. The captain said that the matters were beyond his control. In totality the time taken for the travel was around six hours. Just imagine if I had taken the train I could at least been assured of a good night sleep!

With this experience behind me, I am all geared up to face the next which should be between Chennai and the New Bangalore Airport. Not sure what would greet me there and would not be surprised if it would be the same as I had faced in Hyderabad. Well one could never say and be sure to find my post on this as soon as I reach home. We need improvements in excess!

A Long weekend

It might be the day after 'Good Friday' and the second day of a long weekend for many. But at INXS we toil to make the coming weeks good! Yes at INXS we are busy preparing for conferences that are scheduled for the next month in U.S.A, the detail of which I will be posting in the consecutive weeks. At INXS where we design and create with passion, the conference becomes our adernaline push to make things perfect!

With these happening at INXS, reflecting on the global economy I hope that the Fed. rate cut and the promise for more would only bring about a 'positve attitude' to the global economy. With news of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Lehman Brothers Holding Inc., have been put on the negative outlook by S&P (of course without changing their respective positions), forecasting decline in profits of these companies; much remains to be seen.