I know what you did last Spring

As we built our business in Europe, I had a chance to visit Rome last April. Our colleague, Philippine Reille, finally sent me a picture of the Forum Systems Team in front of Castello San Angelo, Rome.

I did get to see Pope Benedict from a hundred yards or so - very impressive & charming - at least to look at :-)

I recall being offered Authentic Italian cuisine by our gracious hosts, however, I have come to realize that I am more fond of American Italian foods that are less greasy and salty than their "authentic" Italian counterparts. I hear it gets progressively salty and greasy as one heads South.




There's nothing more fun than serendipitously walking around the streets and discovering historical artifacts and sites in Rome.

It's anything but Boring

Last Sunday, February 18, Mikaeel decided to perfect his flying kick at Samar's birthday party. On his 3rd try, he overlooked the fact that one of the helpers at the gym was still standing behind the "tackle foam." Newton's laws are indeed irrevocable, at least at the macro level: Mikaeel bounced off the foam and broke his right arm's radius and ulnar bones. He was quite the trooper. I had him hold his broken arm, walk to the car and then bear the bumpy ride to the ER.

Mika was quite the joker after the Morphine kicked in. After the X-Rays, the Orthopedic Surgeon, Bobby, & ER Doc, Michael Butler, tried anaesthesia drugs. After a couple of doses, they started looking at each other wondering why it wasn't knocking Mikaeel out. At one point, Mika shut his eyes slowly and after a few seconds, startled everyone by saying "fooled ya". After 4 doses, he was finally sedated and we were kicked out to the waiting room.

I was really impressed with the ER staff at UMass Memorial, Worcester - the waiting area was poor, but the staff was world class. I guess they get to see a lot more than the clean & sterile ERs in our neighborhood. We were back in our local ER after Mika and Tylenol with Codine didn't get along.

Emaan, my 5-year old, picked up a bug while waiting in the ER, and was throwing up 2 days later. And today, a week after Mika's accident, Emaan's virus caught up with Mika and he spend this third day in the ER after throwing up 11 times. I think we should get him a membership rewards card for ER visits.

So Grandma & Grandpa (Morji & Baba) got to see a week in the life of Mamoon, Zehra & Co. As usual, Zehra did most of the work, but I took a lot of the credit.

Nano, Abbas and Hussain were all there in full support and helped us get through the week. I hope next week is a bit better.

Mikaeel's Winter Piano Recital

Mikaeel's first "independent" recital yesterday evening at the Steinert Hall, Boston was quite an event. The day began with both parents pushing Mikaeel to practice incessantly. Mikaeel must have rehearsed over 10 times just on Saturday. This was his first lesson in disciplined prep for a "big" event. It reminded me of my days of cramming before exams.

An entire contingent showed up to support Mikaeel. Attendees included Mom and Dad, both GrandMa's (my mom especially made the trip from Pakistan to make sure she was there for this event), Haroon, Tehmina, Samar, Abbas, Hussain, and Jessica. Everyone was dressed up as if it were Mika's wedding.

Mika's performance was spectacular. Great etiquettes with well done bows and pauses between different pieces. Mikaeel played:

1. Allegretto 2 by (C. Czerny)
2. Good-bye to Winter (Folk Song)
3. Allegretto 1 by (C. Czerny)
4. Chant Arabe (Anonymous)

All kids made their parents, friends and family proud of their hard work and performance. The final presentation was especially impressive: Sonata No. 48 by J. Haydn. The Sonata was performed without reading notes and purely from the performers memory. I look forward to the time that I fulfill my promise to Mikaeel and buy him a Steinway when he gets to that level. Better start saving up today.

Congratulations to Dr. Fumei Huang on her excellent work with all the kids at the recital.

Mashup Camp - Day 1

MIT hosted Mashup Camp that I attended today and listened to an interesting company Dapper, funded by Accel Partners. The idea is pretty cool: taking any old website and wrapping it into XML structures that can be assembled for content aggregator. I like the fact that the Founders are making a strong attempt to simplify this aggregation so that little-or-no programming skill is required. This gives mass appeal to the technology. I think in the short to medium term, Dapper will have appeal. I have seen plenty of aggregators Yodlee that have sold into the Financial community successfully. However, as an end user, it doesn't do much for me. Dapper will have good success with end-users since it give them control to aggregate information. And I like the fact that they have thought through a proxy model, where users go through their infrastructure, and an SDK-based model where users can deploy their technology.

With a high degree of probability, enterprises will demand that their aggregation is controlled by them for security and SLA reasons. Dapper doesn't store passwords, but will have access to clear text to passwords since they will have to proxy it to the end service.

Also, modern websites/applications will be more AJAX based, hence API driven to begin with, thus diluting the value proposition of companies like Dapper. However, millions non-API pages will continue to exist for a long time and this is where Dapper will shine.

Finally, content ownership/copyrigths will be an issue. Now, I guess this would be the responsibility of the aggregators, but regardless, it is something that will result in an impediment to pervasive content aggregation.

Overall, impressive Team, impressive Backers and an interesting Market. Best of Luck to them.

Riz is on record in saying these guys will be wildly successful. I am a bit more cautious in my prognostications.

Salami: The Accelerating Cultural Divergence

It is becoming apparent that the cultural divergence is widening and that we are more American and Western than we were 20 years ago. Let's consider my brother-in-law's recent engagement where he insisted on returning to Karachi, Pakistan for a traditional ceremony. He was briefed by his buddies in Karachi that he would be getting "Salami." He was amused that such processed meats are a part of traditional Pakistani events. Salami is money that Pakistani elders give their kids on weddings/engagements :-)

Last Moments of 2006

With just 5 minutes left in 2006, it is fun trying to keep Mikaeel up for the countdown. 2006 has been a great year professionally and personally. My biggest achievement for 2006 has been teaching my son the pleasures of basic algebra, geometry and trigonometry. It is tough explaining sine and cosines to an 8-year old, but its amazing how receptive kids are to new concepts.

Every year I think that I cant possibly work any harder, but it seems there are few limits to human perseverance & hard work. I guess I will find out in 2007 whether there are limits. The countdown has begun, I have 731 left ... it's everything I have teed up for.

In the last few moments of 2006, Riz wonders what Lauren is up to.

The winter has been kind so far - no snow on the ground and the forecast of temperatures in the 40s all next week.

Best Wishes to all my friends and family for a healthy, happy and prosperous 2007.

The last days of 2006

I have had a good time entertaining guests the last couple of weeks. It was especially entertaining to see Mikaeel interacting with 5 year old Shyaan and 7.5 year old Jadeer. The half is important when you're younger - as you get older you tend to round down. The boys go after their dad, Joudat, my high school buddy, now some hot shot Government official. So needless to say that like Joudat, they are anything but boring. Mikaeel got his fill of conflict resolution and in now ready for his cousin 6-year old Shamrez to arrive. I think it will be a gentle transition.

Teaching Kids conflict resolution and negotiating skills is tough, especially when you try to push for polite, non-physical, gentle and positive behavior. The goal is to make kids assertive yet polite, tough yet gentle, social yet disciplined and critical yet obedient.

Blood Diamonds

Two weeks in a row. After watching Apocalypto, I didn't think I would be that impressed with Blood Diamonds, but it turns out that it is an exceptional movie. Not that I was much for diamonds and other ornaments, jewels, expensive watches, etc. to begin with, however, this movie really drove home the fact that anyone who cares to compensate for their shortcomings by wearing jewelry, should at least be cognizant of where that jewelry comes from. Even now 15% of the world diamonds are conflict diamonds.

That reminds me of one of my mentors, Mony, who wisely said that anyone who accessorizes excessively is admitting that they have a vacuum that they are attempting to fill with ornaments. Over the years, I have thought of her statement almost before every meeting. I tend to dress up when I am least prepared for a meeting. If I wear a tie to a meeting, I have essentially cut-off circulation to my brain and am just there to look good and nod my head.

Apocalypto

What a great, disturbing and thought provoking movie. All I could think about during the movie was how nothing has changed between the brutality of the Mayan culture then and our "modern civilization" now. Yes the movie is ultra-violent, but so is what really happens in battles, imprisonment, and imperialzation. I did wonder whether a movie about the misery of our soldiers in Iraq and the people of Iraq would be any less violent and gruesome.

For all those that call it ultra-violent, I would agree, but it is not fictional, unlike the violence shown in games like Grand Theft Auto or silly horror movies whose names I don't care to remember. Movies like Apocalypto, Gladiator, Brave Heart, Alexander, Kingdom of Heaven are all movies that are fully justified to carry violence to portray reality of those eras.

This movie will touch a nerve with fathers and their instincts to protect and provide for their families. The only difference is that instead of waking up every morning and lining up for a hunt in a jungle, we now wake up an line up for intellectual battles.

This movie will definitely make it into my collection of Epics.

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify

Products have become too complex. Even after a couple of graduate degrees from MIT, I find it hard to navigate software products, gadgets, websites, search engines. Perhaps it is an early on set of senile dementia, so I was pleased to see a couple of articles and events that point to the return to simplicity:

1. Sergey Brin, Co-founder of Google recently wrote about focusing on simplicity. See: http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/biz2/howtosucceed/index.html

2. Business Week published and article on simple products for puzzled seniors only. The article talks about simple cell phones with no email and other frills, printers that periodically dial out to your email address and print your emails. Although the article is for Seniors Only, I would generalize it to a large community of folks that would like to see simpler things. See:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2006/tc20061129_628050.htm?sub=techmaven

Call me a hypocrite as I dream of simplicity while I type my blog on a chilly Sunday evening in Boston. Shouldn't I be simplifying my life and reading a book instead of staring at a screen and typing a blog for strangers.