After having read the book cover to cover I never felt I was reading a book. It all appeared to me that I was having a conversation with a friend, an enlightened one. Don Miguel’s style of writing is conversational. He never lets you feel that you are reading a book.
Although this is not the first self improvement book I have read recently, it left me with some great insights. The gist of the book I feel is that,the world is a reflection of your own self. The four agreements that Don has described in the book are gems of wisdom in their own right.
Don has made references to wisdom of the ancient people from different cultures across the world. It is a great thing to do cross cultural references while you are proposing something that has the potential to prove life changing for the readers. This is really thoughtful of him. Basically Rob has referred the ancient wisdom of the vedic culture of India and the Mexican natives.
It further strengthened my belief that gems of wisdom can come from any corner of the world. The only thing that matters is that we ought to keep our eyes and ears open to recognize them.
The four agreements that Don proposes the reader to make with themselves are not very uncommon to be found in the writings of other life coaches, especially the ones who derive their inspiration from the oriental cultures.
After having read the book cover to cover I never felt I was reading a book. It all appeared to me that I was having a conversation with a friend, an enlightened one. Don Miguel’s style of writing is conversational. He never lets you feel that you are reading a book.
Although this is not the first self improvement book I have read recently, it left me with some great insights. The gist of the book I feel is that,the world is a reflection of your own self. The four agreements that Don has described in the book are gems of wisdom in their own right.
Don has made references to wisdom of the ancient people from different cultures across the world. It is a great thing to do cross cultural references while you are proposing something that has he potential of being a life changing event for the readers. This is really thoughtful of him. It further strengthened my belief that gems of wisdom can come from any corner of the world. The only thing that matters is that we ought to keep our eyes and ears open to recognize them.
This article is going to be a complete change in the type of content that you might have seen on this blog lately. I am writing a review, and I normally don’t. I was reading this book, “Be Your Own Pilot” written by Manish Kumar. While I had not completed even half of it, I realized, I had to share it with everyone I knew. So, here I am, writing the review of one of the most amazingly simple yet enlightening self improvement book written in the recent times.
Although there are lots of books published in this genre every year around the world, this one is no run-of-the-mill creation. The book “Be Your Own Pilot” is a marvel among the self improvement books that have been published lately. Written by a veteran pilot of the Indian Air force, the book is a single point of reference a person would ever need as the source of the ultimate mantra for success in all walks of life.
Manish uses the analogy of flying to depict the various difficulties one faces in life and also shows the ways to overcome those difficulties. He has used his own personal experience during his days at the flying school to narrate a completely mesmerising story. If you ever had any interest in flying an aircraft yourself, you are sure to love the book. The book though very concise delivers the message it wants to deliver with absolute clarity in a simple to understand language.
I would recommend this book to all who ever wondered what the secret mantra for success in life is. Well, even at the risk of revealing the secret formula, I would like to give you a glimpse of the it. Manish calls it IVR. Although the secret is revealed in almost the middle of the book, the path treaded to reach the secret is equally enriching.
Well, now you see, how could I keep my readers from getting to know about a life changing opportunity? I had to do it… finally after trying my hand at it many times before, I have finished the review of one of the most amazing books I have ever had the opportunity to lay my hands on. Now, you bet I would recommend reading the book and keeping it in your personal library for easy access for whenever require to refer it.
Indian Cities – Mumbai – The Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation Building
Recently I came across an assignment from a digital marketing company to develop a digital marketing strategy for a food home delivery services company in India. This led me to research some aspects of the industry in the country. I will write a multi-post series on the subject that will cover the following topics:
Overview of the food home delivery services industry in India
Operating models of the companies
Business model adopted by each company
Services provided by the companies to customers and to restaurants
Logistics of the food home delivery business in India
Competition analysis of the industry
The digital media marketing requirement of the food home delivery services business
Current status of the digital marketing and online presence of each company
Recommendations with a power point presentation
Introduction to the food home delivery industry in Indian cities
The online food ordering and delivery services industry in India is a new phenomenon and have created a new segment of business by catering to a real need increasingly evident in the Indian cities. The industry has started a few years ago in the country, and is still in the nascent stages and so it is difficult to call it a success story. There are some companies that are making money but there are many others who simply are unable to find traction.
The need for food home delivery companies in Indian cities
The concept of food home delivery is not new to the country and especially the cities.
Companies: – There are two categories of food outlets who deliver food to customers homes – the normal pizza chains that cropped up around the country’s mega cities initially during the 90s, and the regular as well as famous restaurants that serve regular meals.
There are many pizza delivery companies in Indian cities like McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Papa Jones and others. Even good restaurants have their own home delivery services.
The customers: Those who want their food delivered are generally those who love pizzas and hamburgers (well, that may not be true for all instances) and other similar food stuff. Although this concept might have been true a few years ago, it doesn’t hold true now for sure. Now the young as well as families have started to avail these services.
Factors involved:
There are many factors that might have contributed to the rise in home delivery of food. Some of them are listed below:
Rising complexity of cities transportation infrastructures
Increased waiting time at the more famous restaurants – this may hold true for the young as well as the families headed by not so young parents. Reason for this may be the demand for a particular restaurant in an area being too large compared to the seating capacity, especially during weekends and festivals.
Changing lifestyles of the young populace ( the BPO and IT crowd as well as the young professionals)
What do these companies provide that others don’t
These home delivery companies provide one advantage that no regular restaurant provides. They provide the customers the much needed choice of a wide variety of food items from a menu not just of a single restaurant, but from possibly all restaurants from a particular area where you reside and it will be convenient to deliver the food from.
Quality Service delivery: there are two choices of mode of delivery, either using other service providers or hire delivery guys of their own. Most of the companies seem to have opted for the second option because there were no other companies that specialized in food delivery services. This ensures better control over the service delivery and ensure prompt response to any customer requests.
Wide coverage: The industry has spread its reach to all the metros and is becoming popular in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Other cities like Hyderabad, Noida, Gurgaon, Chennai and Kolkata
Competition in the Indian online food home delivery service industry
The competition in the industry that itself is at a nascent stage of development is increasing by the day. Many companies have entered the space, some domestic as well as some multinational. I will discuss about each company in considerable detail in my next post. Till then.. stay tuned.
How revolutionary is the iPhone 5S going to be. Is it set to take the world of mobile computing by storm, or will it simply make a blip. Here are the tall claims of the Apple staff while they unveiled the App iPhone 5S and the iPhone 5C today.
iPhone 5S – Some features that were announced
The claim: – The 5S is the most forward thinking of our devices; in fact, it might be the most forward-thinking device ever”. Is it really so, let us examine the feature announcements one by one.
iPhone 5S launch with multiple new features
Processor: The iPhone 5S will come with the A7 processor. A7 is a 64-bit processor, the world’s first and only such CPU in a smartphone.
Operating System: iOS 7 – to be unvieled and made available to all iPhones starting iPhone 4 and iPad 2. The iOS 7 is also built for the 64 bit. So, does it not defeat the purpose, how fast will it run on the other devices that do not have a 64 bit processor? This needs to be examined and tested.
Extra chip for motion sensing: iPhone 5S will also come with an inbuilt chip for motion processing. The new Chip – M7 will perform the tasks of continuously measuring motion data, accelerometer, and gestural data.Apple sees this opening a “whole new generation of health and fitness applications”. It can identify user movement, determining whether you’re walking or driving. – Apple has collaborated with Nike to come up with some health related usage for the motion sensor chip. Is this not old news? Already the market has seen some other smart phones that ship with an extra chip for motion sensing -the recently announced Moto X has separate motion sensor chips.
Security: Enhanced biometric Security – Finger print reader. Touch ID – reads your fingerprint at an incredibly detailed level. The Touch ID fingerprint sensor is capacitive, 170 microns thin, has a 500 ppi resolution, scans sub-epidermal skin layers, and has 360 degree readability (no matter how you train the sensor to read your finger, it can read it from any rotation).Apple claims that they are the first to bring in this feature in a smart phone and they are wrong. What is new in this? you can simply touch the home button to unlock your phone. Since it’s built in, you can also use it to make iTunes purchases [without typing your password]” Apple is not the first to bring in biometric security / finger print security on a smart phone. Motorola Atrix already launched this feature earlier this year. Toshiba phones too had this feature way back in 2007/08.
Enhanced camera functions – An 8 megapixel camera with advance features is what Apple has on offer for the iPhone 5S. The camera has a larger, f/2.2 aperture. It’s got a new, 15% larger active sensor area”. Apple said, they believe that bigger pixels mean better pictures. Their sensor has 1.5 micron pixels. The camera flash in the iPhone 5S has two LEDs — one white, one amber. It analyzes the lighting in the room, adjusting the color of the flash accordingly. The phone has the ability to take slow motion videos – slow – mo that is. But, is that not a simple copy of features from somewhere else? Only this time, it was Motorola’s latest launch Moto X.
Battery life: in the words of Apple, “it is even better than that of the iPhone 5”. Now, it is upto the users to judge if that is a true claim. The 64 bit processor must need some more juice out of the batter for sure.
Features of the low cost Apple phone – iPhone 5C
iPhone 5C – low cost smart phone by apple
Plastic Make: The back is made from a hard-coated polycarbonate. Inside, it’s built with a new steel-inforced construction method. So, it is plastic outside with a steel frame inside. The entire back and sides are made from a single part, its front one glass, multi-touch surface. As close as you look, you wont see joints or seams”. The build quality of apple products is indeed better than the others.
Processor: powered by an apple-designed A6 chip.
Battery Life: It also has a higher-capacity battery than previous iPhones
Camera: It’s got a 8mp camera on the rear, and comes in Blue/white/red/yellow/green
Price: 16gb model will be $99 and 32GB for $199 on a 2-year contract
Cases: He moves into discussing Apple’s new 5C cases. “The soft, matte texture of the case is a contrast to the bright, glossy back of the phone”
Software and apps
Software: iOS 7 – available free from September 18th -it will support the iPhone 4 and later, ipad 2 and later, iPad Mini, and iPod Touch (5th Gen).
AirDrop – peer to peer file transfer with a tap
iWork –
apps –
Keynote (for creating presentations for iPhone and iPad),
pages – create and edit documents,
Numbers – spreadsheet software,
iPhoto,
iMovies
All of these 5 apps have been made free and will come bundled with all new devices and will be downloadable freely for all devices.
So, overall the new iPhone has not brought anything new to the market. They have only recycled features that were used earlier by competitors and have since been abandoned.
Again, looking at the cost announced for the iPhone 5C, does not seem to signal it to be really a low cost phone. Sources say, if bought without a subscription, it would most likely cost more than USD 500 that doesn’t make it a low cost phone from any angle for sure.
