Personal blog of Prasad Ajinkya
One more infographic to share here … it’s interesting to note how pedagogy is changing and how certain education systems (US in this case) are able to adapt faster to this.
In India we have technology oriented innovations in education … companies such as EduComp who have penetrated the Indian education market … yet the pedagogy of a classroom is still vastly remained unchanged.
Miles to go before I sleep.
King Henry VIII had come into power in the 15th century. Now being a ruler who commands (and demands) respect, he also participated in jousting matches. In one such jousting match he was heavily injured and had almost lost the ability to climb stairs. In order to continue functioning as a ruler, he had a special system of blocks and tackles made, wherein his servants could lift him up and down the stairs. One would wonder why not simply lift him on four shoulders and carry him … to those I say, you need to know how heavy he was … 30 stone, that’s 190 kgs!
The same principle is used in stair lifts these days. A stair lift is a device used to transport wheelchairs and people up and down a flight of stairs. The lift is attached to a rail which either runs along the ground or along the wall, and it is strong enough to bear the weight of one person. Here’s a brief schematic of how it works … simple and yet ingenious. The system involves a chair attached to a rail (which goes along the stair case), in most cases the rail is taking the support of the wall, however it can also be running parallel to the ground. The individual has to sit on the chair, and he is transported along the stairway.
This device shows great promise … especially in nations where the average age is on the other side of 30. A device that can help the disabled, the elderly to easily navigate stairs. Now this is an interesting device. Technology that not only enables, but also aids the needy.
This is not a new technology, there are companies out there like this one for example, who have the capabilities to fully customize a stairlift in your home. Not only will they make a custom design for you, but also deploy it at your home. This device seems to bring joy to so many people.
Kudos to Henry VIII for coming up with this solution, and thanks for modern manufacturing, this device is not just meant for the royalty anymore!
LinkedIn had done a survey among career women and came out with this brilliant infographic. It’s encouraging to see these trends … stuff such as around half the women surveyed considered their appearances did not play a major role in their career. Was this questionnaire designed by an MCP sexist? Jokes apart, I really like the fact that a majority of the problems faced by women are pretty much the same as that of men.
So, if the answer to this post is what Men want … well, then every one knows that all offices will have a giant screen TV airing cricket/football, a fridge full of beer and a comfortable sofy at every desk!!
Yes, I am still clueless about what they want :-|
Came across this infographic in my email, worth sharing and something to mull over.
Interesting to note that the incremental costs of a higher capitation does not necessarily translate into commensurate incremental benefits. Is brand value in education at such a premium?
I remember when I was in IIM Indore, the fees were fairly low and I was happy to get into a first grade b-school at less than 4 lakhs INR. These days when I see the fees, I tell the MBA aspirants that forget a b-school degree, the opportunity cost would be too high. Shouldn’t this rising cost of higher education consolidate somewhere and correct its ever rising trend?
What do you think?
Google is one organization which I will always respect. The amount of products and web apps that it has released over the years is awesome … it’s not that other companies are not releasing as many products (if not more!). What gets to me is that the sheer number of products that Google releases which I FIND USEFUL.
I agree that as an early adopter I am one of the first to sign-up for betas and also lucky enough to get sneak peeks at a few private betas. However, in any given day the amount of time I spend using Google products is as high as 5 hours (and I am not even including Gmail! Else it could be twice as much).
One such product which I use was Google Reader. Now if you have been around the Google EcoSystem, you would know that Google has decided to pull the plug on Google Reader. Having used Google Reader for the past 8 years, this has come as a shock for me … I have read, shared and liked literally thousands of articles on this great feed aggregator. I realize that over the months, the usage was dipping down .. especially after the integration of Google Plus!
Here’s my small note to a dear friend –
Dear Google Reader,
We had some good times didn’t we? All the starring … and the liking … and the sharing … and even sending a few emails. I always considered you a social network of well informed readers and intellectuals. A social network which was not about looking at photos, but about reading good content.
The great thing was that I could find out which content my friends are recommending and filter all the crappy content out and read the good stuff. You made that happen … and for that I thank you.
All good things have come to an end I guess … and tis with a heavy heart that I am abiding you farewell. I am considering Feedly as your alternative … but Feedly will not replace you. It will simply function as a feed reader which I sorely need.
I will miss you. Rest in Peace.
I have been writing about the basics of SEO and search based advertising on my blog for quite some time. The common thing in both is that the first interaction in search is always the keyword based search.
Yes, this is the part where our user goes to his favorite search engine (Go Google!) and searches for this keyword. Based on how well this search engine has indexed content, it will display the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
This bit, every other person will tell you. That you need to be listed for your main keyword.
What people do not realize is that normal people like you or me are beings which adapt to a situation. In the heydays of Google, one simple search term used to help me find the right content.
The problem is that since then a lot of things have changed, and the sheer amount of crappy content on the internet has increased.
What this means, is that I do not find the right page even after searching the right term! So what does the normal user do after this?
Well, he refines his search … he adds a couple of other terms after his original term … that whittles the search results by a few thousands … and he keeps doing that until he finally finds the page he wanted! The user started with one term … and has finally ended up with a series of terms! But this set of terms has helped him reach to the right piece of information. That’s what matters in the end.
This set of terms the user used in the search engine is called a long tail keyword.
The name is because the number of terms keep on growing over a period of time. The longer the tail, the more specific you get about your search.
As content generation and content indexation in a search engine keep on growing … the number of terms required to recall the correct page also grow. Neil Patel discusses this very matter in a very information post on how content length affects conversions.
So now you know what is a long tail keyword … but what do yo do with this piece of theory?
Well for starters, you get to understand that the longer the keyword, the more niche the audience. This increases the chances of a conversion (if your keyword research and targeting is spot-on). Longer keywords will have lesser impressions, but higher conversions.
This also means that as time goes by, the pressure on publishers (that’s me and you if you are a blogger!) would keep getting higher to write in a much more well defined fashion. I can certainly see this in my writing which has evolved in the past 3-4 years of writing on this blog.
I know Mahul through CrazyEngineers (CE), and was in touch with him recently with regards to changing the link to my blog (was getting a fair amount of 404s!). During this time, I chanced upon one interesting post he had written on Inequality and Fairness.
In fact, to a certain degree, I agree with Ayn Rand’s theory of objectivism, and agree with the concept of the free market in principle. I am the firmest believer that people should not be given anything for free, because it acts as a deterrent to motivation to work hard, which, at the end of the day, is what creates value in a society. In principle, everyone should have an equal opportunity to succeed in a free market, and whatever product holds the greatest value should be the one to succeed.
Here’s an excerpt from the post, I (go on, read the rest of his post in the link I provided, then come back and read this counter post!).
In real life, there are no ideals. There are no whites and blacks … there are 50 shades of grey :-)
People do not get equal opportunities, because those opportunities are the fruits of their predecessors. Mr. Anil Ambani is living in such an abode, because of the efforts of his father (who came from very humble beginnings). How he managed to get there is a different story … but lets not write-off those efforts which ensured that his children get better opportunities than the common man.
The beggar on the street is getting no opportunities not only because of his circumstances, but also because of his lineage.
In a real free market however, this is hardly the case. Because the humble 5 rupee lemon soda, though holds more value, is significantly less likely to succeed.
The humble 5 rupee lemon soda does not come with an international FDA approval. Pepsi, Coca-Cola and other pesticides do :-)
Sometimes, it’s the overheads which have to be set off. It might be true that the concentrate costs INR 1 to produce, however if you add the advertising, marketing, inventory and distribution costs on top of it … not to mention the corporate salaries … then INR 10 does not seem that high. What’s more important that people are willing to purchase it at that price point.
As a service/commodity provider, I would always go for value based pricing! Which is what a true real free market would behave like. However, we are in no real free market … there is a regulatory body and the price is capped at the Maximum Retail Price (MRP).
Life is not fair, people are not equal.
Your efforts will pay dividends for your descendants … and other people will say that they are lucky and life is not fair :-).