The StudiDesk pricing should offer the following : For a very base price, it should start putting content that is shared across the organization (newspapers). For a bit more, it should provide content focussed on specific tracks (magazines). Note that we dont ‘learn’ from newspapers and magazines – but they are important to get an awareness. Once we know what we want to learn – we pick up a book. At this time, StudiDesk should provide for deeper learning with training courses. An additional option is workshops that focus on actual implementation walkthroughs.

Would this make more sense to customers? I hope so.

Now when I want to solidify all these identities I’m not sure what I should be doing where – and I’m not comfortable with multiple identities. It’s just so easier to live with one single identity. When you are a start-up, it’s tough to separate oneself from the company. So when I stand up and present at a conference – do I ask people to link up to me – where?

I think what’d make sense is to promote “asthrasoft” as the central piece of all things related to technology. So I think it would be great to tell people to follow blogs.asthrasoft.com/categories/tech and to follow asthrasoft on twitter and also to LIKE the asthrasoft page. That way I can drive all traffic to these pages. And the benefit to people would be when I get more ‘tech’ folks to start blogging and promoting in the same space. That way they don’t follow ‘ME’ but follow all things technical.

So guys and gals – DONT connect to ME – as in praveen, please connect over to asthrasoft – if you are interested in “Making IT Count”.

In fact, the more I think about it, I realize that this is a constant struggle with me. I need my mails, my tasks, my contacts,  my calendar, my notes, my documents etc – all to be organized based on how I work. But they rarely are. Thinking back I realize that it’s because I dont know HOW I WORK. Most people who are successfully organized first have a way they work and then set up a system that mirrors it. In fact this is one of the reasons that software fails.

Rather than get/build software for the way we work, we sometimes change the way we work based on the software. Large ERPs force us to do this. Our daily software – emails, documents etc force us to do this. But it is not all bad. When newer technologies like tablets foray into our world, we need to let them change the way we work.

Let’s get back to me – I need to figure out what it is that I want to do (as part of my work) and what is it that I want to write on as part of my blogs. Is it all technical stuff? Is it about running a IT company? Is it about start-ups and incubation? Or is it about me – where I am, what I’m doing and what I’m thinking? I know that a lot of people like to keep their work and personal lives separate. But in my case, they’re all mixed up. So the first thing on my plate is to decide what this blog is going to be able – for which I need to organize it.

A quick background – I have been working in the software industry since ’94 and have worked at a few larger companies (CITIL – now Oracle Financials, ADITI and Orbit-e). Since ’04 I have been on my own doing independent training and consulting – primarily for Microsoft. I guess in ’09 I settled down to work with a few other clients and to also attempt a software service on our own – studidesk – an online learning platform to learn more about Microsoft technologies to begin with.

With the whole background of consulting with different companies, I get to see a lot of different scenarios. While some are pure technical – this doesn’t work the way it should kinda things – a lot are more around the RIGHT way to do things. Both here in India and even in the US, I find that we are struggling to bridge the gap between technology and the right way to implement it.

One thing that we have to be careful with consulting is the context of your problem. If you ask a F1 pit-stop crew about your car, you are bound to get a lot of ‘feedback’. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get to your work on time or go out somewhere with your kids. There are time and cost elements to most things. Just like the iPad – with all good things being said about it – is not the right device for all (I still dont have one even though I have been a Mac fan and I’m leaning more towards an Android device), a great technology might not be the right choice for you. So I believe that we ought to spend more time on the context of the problems than on the technologies.

I have been a strong proponent and have been urging Microsoft that as part of events like Microsoft TechED etc, they should work at bridging this context (instead of saying what Sharepoint does and what its features are – I think we should say what is a business problem that can be solved using which features of Sharepoint). But I understand that its easier said than done.

This blog is my thoughts and attempts at “Making IT Count”. I think we have great technologies at hand. But the ‘successful’ software are not one that ONLY bank on great technologies. They have a great eco-system that is completely in line with what the business wants to do with it. Let’s face it – at the end of the day the software has to ENABLE business and not be the business by itself.

So with that being said, let me get started with my thoughts and posts about “Making IT Count”