Sandeep the Speaker

I recently hosted a session of team-building games for SAP at the Golden Palms Resort in Bangalore,  and below are some pics from the event:

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On 6th of May, 2011, i got engaged to the most wonderful woman i’ve met…Lavanya Ramakrishna. We exchanged rings in a small family affair at Bangalore
We would be tying the knot on the 5th of June 2011 and i’ve created a website for this memorable occasion….www.lavanyawithsandeep.com
As you check out the website, you might also want to check out the engagement pictures below.
Official pics are awaited, and i shall share them with you as an when i receive them

Engagement

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All of us tend to look up to big people for lessons on how to get better. We are keen to learn the secrets of their success. But we forget that sometimes the biggest lessons in life come from the smallest folks around us. Now that’s a good lesson to remember!

Take ants for instance. Would you believe those small creatures can teach us how to live a better life? Jim Rohn – the great motivational guru – developed what he called the ‘Ants Philosophy’. He identified four key lessons from the behaviour of ants that can help us lead better lives. Jim Rohn is no more – but his messages continue to inspire. Here then, are the four lessons from Rohn’s ‘Ants Philosophy’.

1. Ants never quit. Have you noticed how ants always look for a way around an obstacle? Put your finger in an ant’s path and it will try and go around it, or over it. It will keep looking for a way out. It won’t just stand there and stare. It won’t give up and go back. We should all learn to be like that. There will always be obstacles in our lives. The challenge is to keep trying, keep looking for alternative routes to get to our goals. Winston Churchill probably paraphrased the ant’s mindset when he offered this priceless advice: “Never give up. Never, never give up!”

2. Ants think winter all summer. Remember the old story of the ant and the grasshopper? In the middle of summer, the ant was busy gathering food for the winter ahead – while the grasshopper was out having a good time. Ants know that summer – the good times – won’t last forever. Winters will come. That’s a good lesson to remember. When the going is good, don’t be so arrogant as to believe that a crisis or a setback cannot happen to you. Be good to other people. Save for a rainy day. Look ahead. And remember, good times may not last, but good people do.

3. Ants think summer all winter. As they suffer through the unbearable cold of the winter, ants keep reminding themselves that it won’t last forever, and that summer will soon be here. And with the first rays of the summer sun, the ants come out – ready to work, ready to play. When we are down and seemingly out, when we go through what looks like a never-ending crisis, it’s good to remind ourselves that this too shall pass. Good times will come. It’s important to retain a positive attitude, an attitude that says things will get better. As the old saying goes, tough times don’t last. Tough people do.

4. Ants do all they possibly can. How much food does an ant gather in summer? All that it possibly can! Now that’s a great work ethic to have. Do all you can! One ant doesn’t worry about how much food another ant is collecting. It does not sit back and wonder why it should have to work so hard. Nor does it complain about the poor pay! Ants just do their bit. They gather all the food they can. Success and happiness are usually the result of giving 100% – doing all you possibly can. If you look around you, you’ll find that successful people are those who just do all they possibly can. Follow the four simple steps of Jim Rohn’s ‘Ant Philosophy’ – and you’ll see the difference. Don’t quit. Look ahead. Stay positive. And do all you can. And there’s just one more lesson to learn from ants. Did you know that an ant can carry objects up to 20 times their own weight? Maybe we are like that too. We can carry burdens on our shoulders and manage workloads that are far, far heavier than we’d imagine. Next time something’s bothering you and weighing you down, and you feel you just can’t carry on, don’t fret. Think of the little ant. And remember, you too can carry a lot more on your shoulders!

Reproduced from: http://in.education.yahoo.com

My training firm Sound Footing is proud to launch its 3rd Radio Jockey/Anchoring course on the 6th of March, 2011. The first class will be a FREE INTRODUCTORY CLASS, and participants who are interested in attending further will do so by registering and paying the course fees.

For details on the course structure, please visit http://soundfooting.in/workshop-details/

For registering for the FREE INTRODUCTORY CLASS, call on 92412 72410 or 9902146723.

The TV commercials and hoardings are tempting alright, but let me warn you, a Sony Cybershot Digital Camera will let you down terribly!

I  bought a Cybershot W 180 (Sony lens) for Diwali in 2009, and guess what, the camera spoiled all my special moments during that festival. I thought may be i was doing something wrong or the settings weren’t right, so continued clicking. Until one day, Bollywood actress Prachi Desai dropped in for a promotional event at my office in Navi Mumbai. Since i was the official Anchor for the show, i handed over the cam to a colleague to click as many good pics as possible. The colleague did so diligently, but the Sony cam decided to ruin that event as well. The first two pics below were clicked with my defective Sony Cam, and the third was clicked with another digicam at the event. Observe the obvious difference in quality!

Also observe in the above pics, the first two have a yellowish tinge to it (clicked by my defective Sony), but the third one has natural light (clicked by another digicam).

After this, images for event after event got ruined by this Sony cam. I showed it to professional photographers, and they too checked all settings and said the camera has to be defective. I took it to a Sony showroom, asked the sales guy to show me another cam of the same model and compared the pictures and still found that mine was defective. Then during the Indian Premier League, i showed the camera to cricketer-cum-photography expert Anil Kumble, and he said ‘Sony has never had good digicams’.

Finally, after getting thoroughly convinced that the camera had a problem, i approached the service centre in Indiranagar, Bangalore. Here, i started facing the harsh reality! Sony really doesnt know how to service their cameras! Or probably, the service engineers dont understand photography at all! Can you believe it, i showed them the same pictures as the first two above, and they say that is the best quality the camera can give! I was taken aback and asked them how a Cybershot priced at Rs.8800 can give quality worse than a VGA camera on old mobile phones! Then the seemingly clueless engineer decided to take the camera into custody and rectify the issue.

A few days later, they returned the camera saying they have changed the lens. And guess what, there was no improvement whatsoever! I contacted the Sony India customer care through e-mail, and they would respond to only 1 out of approximately 10 e-mails, despite each of the mails being ‘auto responded’ with a case/reference number. The case was then handled by a lady called Nalini, who sits at the Mysore Road service centre in Bangalore. This lady calls me and asks me to come to her service centre and seek her engineer’s opinion, as if her pop is going to pay for my conveyance and time. After much debating, she agreed to have me deposit it at the Indiranagar centre and they would in turn send it to Mysore road.

A week or so later, i got back the camera after the s0-called repair. And as is now the norm with Sony, they did nothing with the camera! Same disastrous picture quality! Once again the numerous calls and mails to Sony Customer (un)care followed, and Nalini called me again. The kind of statements she made was:

1) There is more than 1 person in the photo, hence poor quality. (So she was actually saying that all pics have to have just one person to expect decent quality)

2) There is nothing wrong with the camera. This is the best quality that any camera can deliver.

When i asked to speak to someone higher than her in authority, she  says she’s the highest authority in the company and that i cant speak to anyone higher. If she indeed is the highest authority (and i know she isn’t), then it speaks volumes of the company’s mental disintegration.

Recently, i was at another event and i found a person with the same model of camera. So we chose the same settings on both cams, and shot exactly the same scene with the same person’s hand, and bingo, there was a huge difference in quality again. I’m trying to contact that guy to give me that pic so that i mail the Sony jokers again, so let’s hope i get that.

All that i’m asking them is to replace the defective camera, which at the time of purchase was priced at Rs.8800/-. Now, it would be far cheaper. If they refuse to replace it, little do they know that i can create damage of lakhs of rupees to them by discouraging other prospective customers from buying any Sony product

This is an open challenge to you Sony!

Below are some more ‘Sony Cybershot Quality’ pictures clicked by my cam:

Entrepreneurship gives me a kick, and so when i read this article, i got even more charged up. The article is about college dropouts who became world famous entrepreneurs, and some are seriously big names!

Check it out on the below link:
http://business.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/oct/22/slide-show-1-college-dropouts-who-became-great-entrepreneurs.htm

Sound Footing’s second RJ Training course took off on the 9th of October at the Golden Square business centre in Koramangala. I have a good mix of participants ranging from corporate employees to housewives to students. Each of them has something unique to contribute to the classroom and to be honest, i’m learning so much myself!

One of the participants is Gaurav, a complete radio enthusiast. He’s big time into HAM Radio and is so well informed about the medium. His contributions to the class have been nothing short of extraordinary. Be it tit bits on the history of radio, advice on social media and internet or even just quipping in with humour…Gaurav has been a wonderful value add for the course. I take this opportunity to convey my heartfelt thanks to Gaurav.

We have currently concluded 4 sessions and some more might join us on the 23rd. During the next 4 sessions, we’d be visiting a recording studio and a radio station and i dont seem to be able to wait for them

Please keep visiting www.soundfooting.in for the latest on Sound Footing’s RJ Training courses.

After deciding to quit my job at Tata Teleservices at Mumbai, i had to transport my bike to Bangalore by train, and i therefore went to the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus in Mumbai. I expected pretty shabby treatment owing to my experience at the Pune Railway station, and i got just that. The guy at the parcel booking counter was hell bent on me getting the form filled by a tout who would in turn fleece the shit out of me. But i was in no mood to give in and seeing my speak for my rights, a gentleman called Mr.Yadav offered to help me.

This person not only helped me fill the form, but also got the stubborn booking official to do the work and got all the formalities done in no time.

I was pretty impressed with his efficiency, but in the corner of my mind, i was wondering how much this guy is going to extract from me. To get out of this ordeal as soon as possible, i asked him what was his ‘charge’. And the response i got from him shocked me…. he said ‘I do not charge anything. I’m a Government servant and this is my work. Why should i take money for something i am paid for?’

I had goose bumps! I’m a fan of this guy! Hence, i dedicate the first post of this blog of mine to this honest and sincere government servant. If only some 10% of our Government employees were like this…. our country would be so much better!

So if any of you happen to visit the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus in Mumbai, do try to meet Mr.Yadav at the parcel office, and pass on a word of appreciation. Let him know that we are proud of people like him!