And Vijay Says…

I was part of the class of 96 of TKM College of Engineering – one of 90+ newly minted Mechanical Engineers to walk out of the iconic red building . And in the next 20 years , I had not been back in college . That changed on Friday , August 22nd – when my parents dropped me back at the college , which looked a lot lighter in color but much improved . To say I was overpowered with Nostalgia would be an understatement . 

The first stop naturally was my most favorite spot there – the college canteen . It did not look anything like what we had in our days , but what the heck – I walked towards it . Next thing I know , a familiar figure started waving frantically at me from one of the tables to speed up . There he was – Prof Nasar – my favorite teacher . He taught us automobile engineering (One of the very few subjects I was passionate about) , and was my guide for the final year project (which was to design a machine part for Hindustan Latex LTD for rolling up condoms in their manufacturing line without causing tears – I still remember the embarrassment of explaining it to the panel of teachers , and prof Nasar coming to the rescue of Ajith , Anup Nair and me) . 

I asked him if he remembered me – of course he did , including my name , who my parents where , where I lived , my love for dogs and many other little things . He was very proud of me and introduced me to several of his younger colleagues . 

Next on the agenda – after a quick lunch at the Beach hotel with several friends – was a “meet the students” session . The idea was for 5 of us to be in a panel in front of a couple of hundred final year students and impart our wisdom(?) and answer a few questions . Ganesh , Sindhu, Boby and Rejin formed the panel , which I moderated . We had a dozen or more from our former class join in the audience to provide some moral support.

I was convinced – remembering the extreme reluctance I had in attending these kinds of events on a Friday afternoon when I was a student – that no one will show up. But boy was I wrong ! The room was standing room only by the time we started . 

We kept the tone informal , and switched between Malayalam and English . It’s probably the first time in my life that I had a chance to speak in Malayalam in front of a big audience and I loved it . The students gave us their full attention too – and asked some excellent questions on our perspectives on how to prepare for their careers. 

A word on the panelists – what an amazing bunch ! 

Ganesh did his Grad school in US, worked in US and Europe and then became CEO of his own company . Boby worked at BPL straight out of college (one of the very few who bagged that opportunity I might add) , went to US on a work assignment , did her masters there and is now an engineering leader at Motorola . Sindhu taught engineering , and now is a top researcher in Siemens . Rejin – not surprisingly – is an entrepreneur, and has a cool robotics company. I am clearly the under achiever in this group 🙂

A few questions from the students made us dog deep and search our souls for answers . Boby explained how she went through her own career progression , often as the “only woman in the room” . Sindhu explained how to focus on first principles to build a career in research . Ganesh explained the need to build a network  of contacts to get ahead in life . And Rejin brought forward the need to apply the theory we learn in class to make things – which fits his own fame as a master prototype builder in college ( ahem … Not always amusing some of  his teachers who wanted him to stay focused on winning the first rank ). 

When I studied in TKM , I had no such insights . I didn’t know who the alum were or how to find them . I saw first hand how much the students appreciated the candid answers from the panel . It also showed me first hand how important it is to give back to the next generation in a “pay it forward” fashion . 

Just as the day started , we finished off af the canteen . Every single one of us was full of enthusiasm and appreciation for our beloved college . Some even got invited to present again to the students during the week.

The man behind the new found focus on sustained alumni relations is Prof Sudhir, who was a year senior to me in college . He explained how it is now a well organized effort to establish a two way constant communication between the old students and us . 

Prof Ayub , who is now the principal of the college is a forward thinking academician . He is also a big fan of strong alumni relationships and frequently travels the world meeting alumni . It was a lot of fun being in the principal’s office after the panel to have a cup of tea and listening to his vision and plans . To say I was impressed will be an understatement .

Saturday , 23rd July, was the formal reunion day. Our chief guest was Shibu Baby John , who till recently was a state government minister . He is a fellow alum (10 years my senior) , and that too from Mechanical Engineering ! I never had a chance to be on the big stage while at college – and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to talk about the importance of paying it forward . And it was fantastic to hear from the minister , Prof Imtiaz , Prof Sudhir and our very own Ajith Varghese who was the college Union chairman in 1996 . 

Pretty quickly we figured out that there were 6 of us from the class of 96 in IBM – Nitin, Hemant, Jayaraj, Sunil , Teji and me . How cool is that ? We missed two – Jayaraj was in the middle of a project in Abudhabi and Teji in US . 

What an event this was – we had participation from every corner of the world . We picked up conversations from where we left off 20 years ago . It was fantastic to re-establish the old friendships .

None of this would have happened without the leadership of our friends Mahesh Nair , Krishnakumar , Boby Iyer and many others who herded the proverbial cats all over the globe  . Thank you – you are rock stars !

I can’t wait for the next reunion ! 

I joined IBM …again , after nearly a 3 years gap, for my second innings !

Today morning , as I woke up in the morning in my hotel room in Asheville, NC – I reached for my iPhone to check mail . Then , as usual I quickly scanned Twitter and then Facebook . And there it was – FB alerted me that this was the day last year that I joined IBM , with a photo that I had posted from my orientation class in Herndon,VA . Talk about “digital transformation” being real 🙂

I can’t believe a year has passed ! Time really flew by me . In this short time, I have already worked in three roles across sales , delivery and service line leadership . That is one reason I haven’t noticed the time – each role needed me to learn something new and that has kept me on my toes . That in a way surprises me . In my last two jobs – after a few months, I generally had a feeling that I have a grip on how to run the business. Once I came back to big blue – most days I get up thinking “there is so much more to learn”. My current passion is machine learning – and how I wish I spent more time listening to my statistics professor .  All of this comes with its own fair share of pressure , but for the most part – it’s pure fun!

Travel has not reduced significantly – but not as many international trips given my patch is North America now . I have travelled about 70K miles already this year, and probably will do another 80K in second half of the year . But I do get to spend some more quality time with family and have slowly gotten better about not being on email throughout weekend etc . Not sure if my family and fur kids think of it that way 😉

One thing that helped me get settled quickly in my second innings was that I tapped into my network of mentors early and often. Even got a few new mentors along the way . I have also consciously decided to spend more time coaching our new hires and helping them get settled – and nothing is more gratifying seeing them succeed . It doesn’t hurt that I am blessed to have a fantastic team that makes me look good 😉

Our team is very diverse now – across multiple dimensions . I wouldn’t have it any other way now – the business results prove how valuable it is to have a team that is diverse . I have some great partners, associate partners and senior managers in my team – but what makes my gang special is the sheer talent of the New college and grad school hires. These are our future leaders and I already think I will work for some of them before I retire . Absolute rockstars !

I have also had the chance to try a few new things in my job . I now interview candidates at all levels over coffee at the local Starbucks on Friday afternoons . It helps my recruiting team schedule better , and I get to observe them in a neutral setting which helps them be at ease mostly. We even do some joint coding or design to see if we can work together . I am also slowly getting comfortable with interviewing on video via hireview. 

Another experiment that is working out well is changing how my staff meeting works . We meet every Friday morning for an hour . For the first half hour we discuss regular business – pipeline , talent etc. For the second half hour – I invite an eminent external guest to address us. These are customer CXOs, analysts , executives from competitors , etc. These are informal sessions – they talk candidly on a topic and we get to ask questions . No PowerPoint , no recording . Just straight talk ! And it helps keep us grounded and minimize the echo chamber effect . 

There are plenty of areas to improve too – like delegation . At every order of magnitude of your portfolio, you have to relook at how you delegate . I have some ways to go there . The ability to better balance short term with long term is something I am learning from my boss now – and I am sure I will figure it out soon . 

A few things have suffered along the way . Reading list has grown , reading has not . Same thing with blogging . And I generally avoided conferences for most of last year – except two. Those are all in the bucket list to get better at .

Before I end this rather long blog – if I could only thank one person for keeping me productive in IBM, I will choose my executive assistant Thelma Reed (and Andrea Edwards who backs her up, and who is literally a clone ) . I don’t know how she does it all so gracefully and efficiently , but if she wasn’t there – I know I will be paralyzed just dealing with my calendar . Thanks for everything you do Thelma !

Can’t wait to see what is in store for future 

A couple of months ago, my wife and I found a house that we really liked – nice neighborhood, close to our daughter’s school and so on. So we decided to put an offer and see if we could get that house.

Our realtor uses docusign – so the entire offer process was done online. And I started to think that this home buying exercise would be such a frictionless experience. Boy , was I wrong !

Lets start with the loan application.

We had enough savings to put a downpayment .  I have an extremely good credit score and fairly low Debt to income ratio. I have also had my checking, savings and credit card at the same bank for many years. I even had my past mortgage and line of credit with them . The bank would know everything that happens in my life – after all I have been in their top tier of loyalty program . I generally expected to walk into the bank’s office , sign some docs, share my tax info and W2 etc,  and expected a loan to get funded in a few weeks . 

I also wanted to take a home equity line of credit from the same bank and filed an online application for that .

Guess what – turns out , my bank doesn’t know anything about me . My line of credit application went into a black hole . Few weeks later , I called them and forced them to work on it . 90% of information they collected from me are things they readily have with them but didn’t seem to have access to ! 

The end of this process was even more weird . They sent me a letter saying I asked for $X and it is denied because my house appraised at a value that is slightly (by few thousand dollars ) lower than what’s needed for the line of credit . So rather than offer me a slightly lower credit line , they just denied it . So much for all the top loyalty tier and time spent on it . I am still shaking my head on that . Absolutely bizarre !

The actual loan application didn’t fare much better . And finally they came back with a loan that cost me more than what internet lenders offered . Plus they needed several more weeks to close than others . 

Cut to the chase – I went with another lender who offered a better rate and faster time to close . My bank just lost my business – they tried really hard to not win it . 

In hindsight , I should not have been surprised at all . A trained monkey looking at my checking account statements would know when my car lease would end . My bank was never once able to use that information to offer me a car loan . This doesn’t need complicated analysis – it’s just stupid . Clearly, you can’t fix stupid . 

My lender wanted to get a HELOC note for a line of credit I had paid off and closed in past. I  went to the bank only to be given a toll free number . After speaking to multiple people , I found a helpful lady who found the note for me . However she only had two options to send it to me – regular mail or fax . Email apparently is still alien technology for them. I had to call my wife to hook up a fax machine and get the document . My neck hurt from all the shaking .

So yesterday I went to the bank to get a cashiers check for the down payment . I used my debit card – which has my photo – to take the money out of my account . The teller then exclaims she cannot verify my signature because I had opened that particular account online without a paper form showing my signature . My debit card PIN and my photo on it , and the signature on my drivers license didn’t count . She had to get her manager , make me sign more paper before they could get me a cashiers check . Easily an hour lost for me , and three employees at the bank . I now have a bald patch on my head thanks to scratching my head since then till now . 

So that was the bank . Let’s move on to the actual paper work after the loan is secured. Barely 20% of the documents can be electronically signed . Rest needs trees killed and ink spread on paper . Emperically – redundant information to be filled by the title company is probably around 50% across all the forms I had to sign . Chances of making errors are everywhere , let alone the sheer time needed to fill all those forms . Even if “digital” can be ignored , why not at least streamline the paper forms ? 

A company like DocuSign can single handedly disrupt this terrible manual process and bring it to 2016 digital standards . They will have the gratitude of home buyers and sellers across the country – and their money !

These are not insurmountable problems even by technology capabilities of a few years ago – which is why I am all the more annoyed with this . I am not calling out the bank by name – but I am going to find the CEO’s email id and send this information . And then I will wait by my fax machine to hear if he can do something about it .