Why stress?


While working with freshers we notice that they get stressed quickly… We can very well understand the reason behind this mindset because they have never been exposed to;

  • Criticism
  • Humiliation
  • Aggression
  • Pressure
  • Targets
  • Provocation etc

When they get exposed all of a sudden they get bogged down which leads to stress… One thing they fail to realize is that their first 3-4 years of their career is their honeymoon period… As they grow their responsibility will grow personally and professionally…

In my case I took up entrepreneurship as a career and first four years were really like a hell… When I look back those were the days I learned a lot… As a fresh entrepreneur I had to learn the nuances of business like;

  • Marketing
  • Sales
  • Project Management
  • Operations Management
  • Human Resource Management
  • Finance Management
  • Operational Knowledge
  • Public Relations

And a whole bunch of things… When I was exposed all of a sudden I suffocated… But situation made me not to quit which eventually carved a personality in me and an identity in me…

Likewise when people start their career they must realize that they are working on their;

  • Soft-Skills
  • Interpersonal Skills
  • Communication Skills
  • Technical Skills
  • Team Work

They are in the verge of carving their own identity… So, one needs lots of patience and perseverance… They must have trust and belief in their leaders who are going to be their mentors…

Last thing I’d like to tell people is to think and take time to choose their leader or mentor… Once decided one has to show patience, belief and trust in their leader and never quit until the mission is accomplished…

Last but not least remember these quotes friends…

Heated GOLD becomes Ornament!!!
Beaten COPPER becomes Wire!!!
Depleted STONE becomes Statue!!!

So more the pain you face in your life more valuable you become…

This would be my bed room cum wardrobe soon…


Am fond of carpentry and modular designs… When I came across this marvel somewhere online I’ve decided this is going to be mine one day…

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Build a team which accepts criticism and absorb pressure


One of the latest learning in my team building experience is quitting for criticism and bogging down for pressure….

Also this has happened with my top management and core team… From the beginning they were shielded from  facing criticism and pressure…

Once left open to face the reality they immediately bogged down and quit without even trying…

With this hard learned lesson we now decided to put people under pressure and  criticise even smallest deviation… In this method many people quirt and a handful of people stayed… Now we have a bunch of folks who could handle pressure and criticism…

Situations which needs to be addressed;

  • meeting commitments…
  • fixing process deviations….
  • pushing to accept change…
  • managing peer pressure…
  • breaking hurdles…
  • increasing benchmark…
  • increasing lateral thinking…
  • developing problem solving skills…
  • build go-getter attitude…

Made my contribution to Kamal Hassan


I was in no mood to follow the controversy running behind Viswaroopam… But I was standing behind Kamal without showing my support by sending him the ticket money or by shouting in Social Networks…

Also I missed to watch the movie on the first day with my friends… Normally I watch a movie like a mass crowd by shooting at heros intro…

After a while I was too stressed because of some if my relatives and wanted to walkout of home… What is the best place to distract from stress, a place to rest and to pass time… Decided to goto a theatre and the immediate choice was Viswaroopam…

Most people who watched the movie said it was a mediocre movie… But I didn’t get bored at any point of time and importantly I was watching the movie alone…

Come to the controversy part where Muslims were shown as terrorist… I saw more of a reality than exaggeration and I didn’t feel any community being targeted…

What can be done with  Hollywood movies where Muslims are shown in bad light?? Also I saw huge crowds of Muslims coming with family… While coming down I heard a Muslim asking her relative about his thought and he gestured it was like seeing a Hollywood movie and he didn’t see anything wrong in the movie…

Finally movie helped me to relax my mind and my urge to watch Viswaroopam…

It is OK to disobey Parents


Normally an Indian middle class family has too much of caring and intrusion into the upbringing of children… For Indian parents their kids remain a kid always… In my case which is common Indian parental syndrome I still;

  • get approval for taking decisions…
  • career choices had to be discussed…
  • show credit card bill and explain the reason for expenses…
  • tell them the reason for terminating a policy or for delaying any payments…
  • liberty to read my personal emails and mails…
  • liberty to police my blogs and social media posts…

Over a point our parents gets out dated and most parents resist to update themselves… In such cases it is better to disobey them… In India disobedience means a big crime and you will have to face the warmth of relatives and neighbours explaining them why we are irresponsible… In my case;

My parents and grandparents look at me a different person as I took entrepreneurship and my approach towards things… My practical approach has often or always offends them and they keep complaining my behaviour… In reality from my angle they look different 🙂 which they don’t realise…

If you are a person with dreams and a prisoner of parental obligation it is ok to break it by means of ignoring or disobedience… What all it matters if success and when you can surpass tough times and show success you can always win over their confidence… Sometimes even when they don’t recognise your success or efforts there is nothing to worry as they are tuned to be ordinary…

Overall folks don’t bother much about disobeying because;

  • Gandhi got us freedom because of civil disobedience movement and today we are calling him father of the nation…
  • Many successful entrepreneurs like Dhirubhai Ambani, Naraya Murthy, Muchael Dell disobeyed their parents and ran behind their dreams
  • We wouldn’t have got a SuperStar Rajini Kanth if he had obeyed his father

Though emotionally it is tough and difficult to disobey our parents we have to do it considering we have a genuine dream and goal which is not against law or anti social…

My Business Ventures and Failed Venture Lessons


I started as a freelance at the age if 18 and evolved as an entrepreneur from the age of 20… In last 13 years I’ve had my hand on couple of ventures…

FreeLancer: Between 1998 – 2000 I’ve been a freelance and I’ve been into web design and manpower consultancy…

Agriya: This was my first entrepreneurship venture… Agriya was a Web Services company… I learned the nuances of entrepreneurship… I’ve been a part of this company for 8 years and it was a #success…

Distributor Of a Pharma Product: Invested in this venture to help my friend and I had no earlier experience on the domain… This venture was a #failure…

People Justice: Invested and Operated a fortnightly Tamil Magazine which is into investigative journalism… Learned the nuances of the business where I came to know the types of printing, selecting paper, networking with journalist, editorial, layout design, proof reading and distribution…This venture can also be considered #failure… But still we occasionally keep releasing the issue…

Real Estate Venture: Tried my hands on Real Estate which has created a lot of millions in India… Unfortunately this venture is also a #failure…

Cogzidel Technologies: Cogzidel is a Web, Mobile & Social Media services company… I’m a part of this company for last four and half years…

Cogzidel Consultancy Services: CCS is an accounting and business services company… I’m a part of this company for last four and half years…

In all my #failed ventures I was an investor and I invested to help a friend of mine to settle down… Though I learned from those ventures my main take away is;

– Don’t invest if there is no investment from other partner…
– Don’t invest until the person requesting investment does a business plan and show you some commitment…
– Make tough things in written (agreement) and especially make exit difficult for the person…
– Never invest to help someone… If they give-up you loose your money and the purpose of gesture gets defeated…

Planning to set a Stationary Shop


For sometime I’m looking at options and opportunities in setting up some shop either directly or a franchisee… Looking at options where investment is less and less risk… This is more to engage my dad post retirement…

Also I’m fond of entrepreneurship, trying and learning new things.

Yesterday my friend was telling me about setting up a Stationary Shop ti engage his dad or dad-in-law… He chose a Stationary Shop because he has his cousin who is already into the business for some time and knows the nuances of the trade. His cousin has also volunteered in helping in shop choice, setting the shop, introducing to dealers & vendors, guiding in customer spotting and creation…

Mostly by this week we might start with Business Plan and understand the risks and opportunities… As we did an oral planning it was low investment and low return business… But I’m thrilled as I’m entering into trade and retail…

Am very eager to prepare the business plan… Also friends if you have any subject experience or any ideas or thought please share it….

Some People Create a Mark


Human Resource at Cogzidel has always been a challenge… First four HR concentrated more on recruitment and was not up to expectation… Faced many challenges with them like;

– They were too much aligned towards management or with the employees…
– They failed to carry management point to employee and didn’t carry employees grievances to management…
– Were not aggressive or innovative when it came to recruitment…
– Some misused power and became abusive…
– Didn’t understand the expectations of the role…

After failing four times we moved our SEO as HR…To my surprise he understood the dynamics of HR… He managed well between management and employees… He helped solve lot of challenges… Most important thing was he successfully executed things said by his superior… He was with us for year and half… As an HR he served for 7 months…

He called me on 2nd Jan and I thought he has called me to wish for the new year… As expected he wished me and slowly came to the topic… He said he was planning to quit… Without me asking he said he is planning to go abroad and he has taken a call… He said he can give notice as we expected…

All we told him is to give 45 day notice, find a replacement, train him and give Knowledge Transfer… He never shows the exit mood and he worked with same enthusiasm… He fulfilled all our expectations…

Yesterday was his last day and I couldn’t believe we are going to miss him…

I’ve never blogged about the relieving of many core people who had a descent exit… But this guy deserved more and he will always have a special place in our heart and Cogzidel… He has set a new benchmark for the role and for his successor…

I take this opportunity to wish Mr.Senthil Ganesh best luck for a successful career and future….

How CogzidelHR FaceBook Page Brand Positioned?


Two years ago I wanted a platform to reach to talent locally… I was thinking how Yahoo groups worked 10 years ago and was thinking how I can take it up socially… That is when I created this page http://www.facebook.com/cogzidelHR… I asked my HR to post Cogzidel’s job openings there and asked them to get 10000 followers in 6 months…

For many reasons we couldn’t take it the way we wanted the page to be… Also we were able to get only 400 followers in a year and most of them were our employees or ex-employees… Another thing started to happen was there was very poor patronage on the page none of the job posted on the page got shared or got the result we expected…

We came to know only by increasing followers and posting our job openings is not going to help because people were forced to join and we are not offering any value or giving anything… That is when I used the common question in my b-school days “What is in it for me?”…

Four months back we decided to have a person hired and concentrate on the page dedicated… First thing we wanted was to engage the audience and getting more followers was second priority…

When we started started by posting a puzzle or aptitude question every day… Slowly engagement started to grow…

With frequent conversations we were able to generate more ideas to engage the crowd and we slowly added more variety of topics to engage our audience…

Over a point we realised that we have become more like a finishing school… Then I thought it would be a good Corporate Social Responsibility for bridging the employability GAPS faced by Tier II & III youths…

This is the Brand Positioning Campaign for http://www.facebook.com/cogzidelHR

Cogzidel HR is a Social Media CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiative by Cogzidel Technologies Private limited, for bridging the employability GAPS faced by Tier II & III youths…

What are employability GAPS??

      Soft-Skills
      Interpersonal Skills
      Aptitude
      Communication Skills
      Team Work
      Technical Skills
      Technology Trends

What is offered?

      Puzzles
      Interview Tips
      Opinion Polls
      Technology News & Updates
      Aptitude Test
      Self learning Tips
      Training Material on PHP & PHP PHP powered frameworks
      Video Tutorials on Soft-Skills, Communication Skills, Interpersonal Skills
      Corporate Etteqites
      Job Openings @ Cogzidel
      Cogzidel Job Culture

What you get?

If you are a student or fresher you will get to exercises and tools to become market ready…

If you are experienced you can be updated technology and industry trends… Also you can help your friends and relatives by sharing Job Openings @ Cogzidel…