The Biz of Coding

NYT snubs snobbish Top US B-Schools & Rankings

In a revealing report “Five Ways to Fix America’s Schools” The New York times tells all the well known secret - about how US B-schools game the ranking system and make-believe applicants that they can get in — when in reality they cant because they arent wanted. NYT points out that top B-Schools just want a lot of applicants via their slick yet deceitful marketing statements to improve their “Selectivity Rankings” by dinging students that take the bait. (Anyone who has gone through the US B-School app grind knows this).

Here is the open secret revealed by Harold O. Levy of NYT

Unseal college accreditation reports so that the Department of Education can take over the business of ranking colleges and universities. Accreditation reports — rigorous evaluations, prepared by representatives of peer institutions — include everything students need to know when making decisions about schools, yet the specifics of most reports remain secret.

Instead, students and their parents rely on U.S. News & World Report rankings that are skewed by colleges, which contort their marketing efforts to maximize the number of applicants whom they already know they will never accept, just to improve their selectivity rankings. Meanwhile, private counselors charge thousands of dollars claiming to know the “secret” of admissions. Aspiring entrants submit far too many applications in the hope of beating the odds. Everyone loses. Opening the accreditation reports to the public would provide a better way.

The question is, “Is the Obama Administration Listening”? There is a bigger question. Even after these questions are raised in respected Media reports can’t folks still correlate the current economic crisis with the murky business ethics of MBAs trained by big-brand B-Schools who lend them the fake halos of authority, riches, and the amoral right to cheat? Who will force and twist the arm of B-Schools on the issue of ethics in recruitment practices that leads people - who know the game to become gameplayers themselves? As I write this post my stomach chruns with disgust.

By Ujwal Tickoo -- 0 comments

Facebook giving out Vanity URLs

After Google its Facebook’s turn to allow users to create vanity urls aka username aka profile name. I logged into my Facebook profile today and got the following notification:

Starting on Saturday, June 13th, at 9:31am, you’ll be able to choose a username for your Facebook account to easily direct friends, family, and coworkers to your profile.

Check out the Facebook Blog for more information or send yourself an email with the details.

What it means is explained on the Facebook Blog:

Till now The one place…where your identity…(on Facebook wasn’t reflected was)…in the Web address for your profile or the Facebook Pages you administer. The URL was just a randomly assigned number like “id=592952074.” That soon will change.

Your new Facebook URL is like your personal destination, or home, on the Web. People can enter a Facebook username as a search term on Facebook or a popular search engine like Google, for example, which will make it much easier for people to find friends with common names. Your username will have the same privacy setting as your profile name in Search, and you can always edit your search privacy settings here.

We’re planning to offer Facebook usernames to make it easier for people to find and connect with you. When your friends, family members or co-workers visit your profile or Pages on Facebook, they will be able to enter your username as part of the URL in their browser. This way people will have an easy-to-remember way to find you. We expect to offer even more ways to use your Facebook username in the future.

By Ujwal Tickoo -- 0 comments

Lessons from the Satyam Scandal

Today I read an interesting news report that mentions that the Satyam Scandal started with a small “adjustment” of Rs 10 crore 5-6 years ago.

Its been four months since the Satyam Scandal became mainstream news. Four Buyers (L&T, Tech Mahindra, Cognizant Technologies, and investor Wilbur Ross) have also lined up since Ramalinga Raju resigned as Chairman, stating Satyam’s balance sheet of 30 September 2008 contained:

What is most important to me is the lesson from this scandal. The reason such scandals happen is because there are Assumption of Truthfulness in Corporate Hierarchy; that in integrity and trutspeaking CEO > VP > Dir > Mgr > Individual. This to my mind is the only reason that Raju could get away with “adjustments” for 5-6 years. This is the reason that other large scale scandals such as Enron happenned and powerless individuals could not come out fearing they wont be heard after all. The media makes too much out of CEOs and Business Leaders — making societal gods out of them for their power, influence and wealth.  Who would then dare to go against such media “gods” even in normal corporate interactions? Our society and media need a fix not just Accounting standards before Satyam like scandals would get arrested.

By Ujwal Tickoo -- 0 comments

Mindomo — Free Online Mind Mapping Tool

If you have used desktop based Mind Mapping tools then you might be interested in Mindomo. This is a web based mind-mapping tool promising "mind mapping software in a Web browser - with no complex software to install or maintain….Create, edit mind maps, and share them with your colleagues or your friends….Mindomo offers the business user an online, always on, and everywhere accessible project and plan organization, scheduling, and presentation tool."

The Basic Account is Free and a Premium Account costs $6 per month. I did a quick test drive and found the UI very slick and responsive. Dragging and dropping various elements was a breeze, so was editing text. Zoom-in/out is slider easy. Though I am yet to run this app through a stress test — first look is very positive. Try it!

Read More - Mindomo — Free Online Mind Mapping Tool

By Ujwal Tickoo -- 1 comment

Facebook Employees Selling Stock at Valuation of $4-5 Billion

Facebook that has been widely reported with a valuation of US $15 billion is allowing its employees to sell 20% of their vested stock options at a company valuation of $4 billion. This was first reported by Eric Eldon at VentureBeat. The news has been confirmed by the company (Facebook) and BusinessWeek is carrying an article also. Eric had believed that it was a move good for employees but BW suggests that employees are unhappy:

Eric: "this is a nice early windfall for Facebook employees, assuming my sources are correct. the company values its common stock at $4 billion but also values its preferred stock at $15 billion. The reason for the $15 billion preferred-stock valuation is that preferred stock holders have certain rights, including the right to sell their stock first and get their invested money back before common stockholders are allowed to sell any stock. "

BusinessWeek takes a pessimistic view of Facebook: "in recent months, a number of current and former executives have put some of their common stock up for sale. Laurence Albukerk, who brokers the sale of stock in private companies in the Valley, says he knows of at least nine people who have sold or are trying to sell Facebook shares. He estimates that "dozens" are unloading stock, through him or other brokers…Among those who have reportedly sold are founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and departing vice-president Matt Cohler…The sales at Facebook have led to controversy within the graffiti-covered walls of its Palo Alto (Calif.) offices. After employees heard that Zuckerberg and Cohler had sold, there was grumbling among the rank and file, say two sources who have spoken with staff….There are several reasons that Facebook is likely worth less than the $15 billion value it cited when announcing the Microsoft deal. The public equity markets have gotten crushed over the last year, and skittish investors have also lost their appetite for IPOs."

Read More - Facebook Employees Selling Stock at Valuation of $4-5 Billion

By Ujwal Tickoo -- 2 comments

Recession Proof Tech Jobs

BusinessWeek has published results from an interesting survey that points out that having a Product Management job is a sure way to survive a Recession. I am actually surprised as typically engineering jobs are considered the safest — I mean you need someone to code the product and typically "management" thinks thats good enough ;). Very often startups have only engineers and product managers are added when the team realizes that they dont know whether they are coding the right product, for the right consumer or market! Similarly Sales people can often survive a recession *if* they can close orders.

Other jobs that are in the Tech Industry and considered Recession Proof by BW:

• Software Design / Development — this is a no brainer! I have explained why I think this job is quite recession proof — especially if you are at mid level and not too expensive ;) 
• Quality Assurance - fair if management believes that minimum quality checks are requried. My guess is the QA ship will be tightly managed
• Project Management — fair, these guys keep projects on track.
• Networking / Sys Admin
• Technology Executives (execs who understand Web 2.0 are in demand according to BusinessWeek — my guess is that they mean Engineering Execs not Marketing / Business Leaders)
• Customer Support — this seems fair. Customers have to be kept happy during a recession. However typically teams are kept tight and people are kept overloaded.
• Database Admins

By Ujwal Tickoo -- 0 comments

Mobile Usage beats PC Usage by more than 3:1

In 2008 Mobile Usage has already overtaken PC usage by a ratio of over three to one. World wide Mobile users topped 3.3 billion by the end of 2007 with emerging markets showing the fastest growth in adoption. PC Adoption on the other hand would reach 1 billion users by the end of 2008, according to Forrestor Research.

3.3 billion mobile users is about 49% of the world population! According to ITU the global annual average growth rate  for mobile adoption stood at 22 percent. No wonder that mobile application developers and startups are cropping all over the place. PC adoption is much slower than that of mobile. Further according to Forrestor:

there will be…more than 2 billion (PC users) by 2015 — a 12.3% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2003 and 2015. It took more than a quarter of a century to reach the first billion users, but with advancing technology, lower prices, and global demand for a technology-aware population, it will take only seven years to reach the next billion.

By Ujwal Tickoo -- 0 comments

IBM - Only Tech Firm in Top 10 for Interns - BusinessWeek

BusinessWeek has come up with rankings where Tech companies haven't fared well for Interns. Four of the Top 5 spots are taken by Big 4 consulting firms (some of which have Tech consulting practices). Only 1 pure-tech firm IBM is in the Top 10. The next spot 15th is taken by Intel.

If you are surprised that this ranking does not correlate with the popular FORTUNE's Best Places to work - Top 10 then the reason is in BW's methodology — they began with BW's Top 100 Best places to launch a career in 2007. For example in 2007 FORTUNE ranked Google as #1 place to work but it doesn't have a top 10 rank for Interns. However Delloite & Touche, E&Y, and PwC were in Top 3 of BW rankings in 2007 for launching a career and Google ranked 5th — however it didn't end in Top 10 for interns. So, FORTUNE's worlds best place to work isnt the best place to launch a career. ;)

Top 5 firms for Interns are (IBM is ranked 9th):

1. PricewaterhouseCoopers
2. Ernst & Young
3. Deloitte & Touche
4. Goldman Sachs
5. KPMG

See the slideshow at BW

Read More - IBM - Only Tech Firm in Top 10 for Interns - BusinessWeek

By Ujwal Tickoo -- 0 comments

Facebook Leads MySpace world-wide but lags in US where Ad-$’s are

Even as Facebook is looking to find a way to make big money to equal the hype that surrounds it on the web, it recently surpassed MySpace as the world-wide King of Social Networking. According to ComScore (CNET report):

Facebook…pulled in 123.9 million unique visitors in the month of May, beating MySpace's 114.6, and 50.6 billion page views compared to MySpace's 45.4 billion.

However, e-consultancy notes, MySpace still leads in US traffic which is much more valuable to Ad Spenders:

While MySpace maintains a significant lead over Facebook in terms of US audience (73.7m unique visitors in May to Facebook's 35.6m), Facebook attracted 123.9m total unique visitors, solidly ahead of MySpace's total of 114.6m.

But this triumph over MySpace might be a hollow victory.

For better or worse, the majority of the Madison Avenue advertisers that upstarts like Facebook hope to court spend most of their dollars trying to reach consumers in the US.

Some international traffic is notoriously difficult to monetize and as many online businesses know, traffic from certain countries is virtually impossible to transform into revenue.

Although many brands serve international markets, as anyone who has sold online advertising will probably attest, international traffic is often a turn-off.

This means that Facebook will probably have to look beyond Madison Avenue in an attempt to monetize its international traffic.

Per Times Online Facebook's expected revenue in 2008 is around $ 300-350 m:

Read More - Facebook Leads MySpace world-wide but lags in US where Ad-$’s are

By Ujwal Tickoo -- 0 comments

Yahoo’s future gets murkier with Carl Icahn on Yahoo! Board

After publicly criticizing each other severely many times over, last week Yahoo! Board and Icahn reached a peace deal. Carl Icahn got a seat on Yahoo! board along with two more seats. Wich Ichan on the Board, Jerry Yang would have difficulty in driving his "keeping Yahoo! independent" agenda given that Ichan is a strong backer of selling whole or parts of Yahoo! to Microsoft.

Yahoo! hardly needs more management battles at this hour of crisis. It needs vision and execution that will transform the company into a competitive Internet and Mobile player. Selling Search to Microsoft is a very short term solution. Long term Yahoo! really needs to leapfrog Facebook and Google and build new assets that will emerge as the next generation of magnates for audiences and advertisers by the end of 2009 - early 2010. Till now, I haven't seen any such strategy spelled out in various Yahoo! presentations.

By Ujwal Tickoo -- 0 comments