How To Be A Successful Swami

Of late, I have developed an interest in godmen from India. I’ve strived to understand the common traits they share, how they attract devotees, and build themselves positions of power and prestige. I call these common traits “the Swami business”.

The Swami business is a lucrative one. It does not require much by way of an education; in fact, the less the better, because you could weave a story claiming that were busy reading ancient texts and could not get a secular education. It does not require much infrastructure, and whatever is needed can be procured through donations. Finally, this is a business with a wide moat, in Buffett’s terms. Indians have a huge and defensible monopoly on the Swami business — so there is no risk of the Chinese, Brazilians or East Europeans providing any competition. Every nook and corner of India is populated with Swamis who have large numbers of Western European and American devotees, willing to shower money and other earthly favors on them, in their search for salvation.

In my study of the Swami business, I have discerned quite a few patterns that are common to successful latter-day swamis, in search of fame, power, money, and the earthly things that come with these three. I have distilled them into 10 “best practices” for aspiring Swamis.

1. Always build on an existing franchise: When a Swami bases his practice on an existing Swami or godman’s business, he can tap into the goodwill already existing for his spiritual “parent”. Even if the Swami whom you’re claiming spiritual descent from doesn’t quite see things your way, there’s nothing much he can do, due to the lack of intellectual property protection. There are quite a few examples of Swamis that have built their empires on someone who came before them:
   • One of the oldest and most successful in the Swami business, Sathya Sai Baba started off by claiming that he was the reincarnation of the original Shirdi Sai Baba. This gave him instant name recognition among the masses, and saved him enormous amounts of money in building his own brand. As time passed, his own brand equity exceeded that of his supposed previous incarnation.
   • Another example of a Swami laying claim to the Shirdi Sai Baba heritage is Kaleshwar. While he claims to be a mere disciple of the Shirdi Baba, he does not hesitate to mention and indeed, draw parallels to Shirdi Baba frequently.
   • A recent Swami who came to my attention is the grandly named Nithyananda Paramahamsa, who claims to descend from the spiritual lineage of Sri Ramakrishna and Mother Sharada. His attire is strikingly similar to Swami Vivekananda’s.
   • Of all the Swamis who appropriate established brand names, none is better than Gopal Baba, who uses both Shirdi Sai Baba and Sathya Sai Baba, claiming to be their devotee, and placing both of them prominently in the pantheon, with him as the third member. Why leverage the equity of only one brand when you can do two?
2. Be attired suitably: Saffron robes and a turban are the preferred gear. They provide an aura of authenticity. Also, try to imitate your franchisor — witness Nithyananda Paramahamsa wearing a Vivekananda-style turban and robes. Gopal Baba wears both Shirdi Sai Baba style whites, replete with the latter’s unique headgear, and Sathya Sai Baba style saffrons. Kaleshwar disappoints here with a white pyjama-kurta. How un-Swami-like! Under no circumstances should the Swami appear in any attire other than those mentioned above. Such robes are primarily suited for a tropical country such as India, but even when traveling abroad to where the rich donors live, the Swami must sacrifice his comfort temporarily, for the achievement of higher goals.
3. Build relationships with celebrities and the political class: A visit from a famous cricketer or film star is sure to get the Swami respectability and free advertising in the choicest of India’s magazines. Celebrity worship in india being what it is, the Swami can also count on the celebrity’s fans becoming ardent devotees. A special class to cultivate is the political. The clever Swami builds a network of politicians among all parties, so that no matter who is in power, the Swami’s interests are protected. Politicians are especially useful in making land grants for ashrams, and getting the Swami out of a bind, should they get caught indulging in un-Swami-like activities. In return, politicians obviously want blessings for success at the ballot box. Cultivating politicians from a wide spectrum ensures that no matter what, there are atleast some devotees of the Swami who are victorious and can deliver the goods. Befriending an IPS (Indian Police Service) officer or two is also helpful, in case the Swami gets entangled in a police case when the inevitable rivalries and palace intrigues emerge. Similarly with the Judiciary.
4. Keep your theology vague: At some point, each Swami needs to form a theology. However, the more vague your theology is, the better. If people don’t understand what the Swami says, they respect him more because it must obviously be divine teaching that they can’t yet understand. In such situations, they pay to buy books, tapes, and attend lectures by the Swami.
5. Be secular: You’re going to be a Hindu swami, for sure. Otherwise you don’t have the cachet of authenticity (who would come all the way to listen to a Christian from India?). Additionally, make sure that you drop approving noises about all other religions. You don’t know where your clientele (a.k.a. devotees) are going to come from; why foreclose your options by disapproving of the religion they were born into? Especially make good noises about Christianity, stating what a good “teacher” Jesus was, and how his teachings are being twisted by this material world. The next point discusses why this is so important. It is important to acknowledge Jesus, but not the Bible, because verses such as John 14:6 get in the way of your claims to divinity.
6. Build a large base of Caucasian European/American devotees: Making approving noises of Jesus Christ will ensure that you don’t frighten off your best paymasters: the liberal, white Europeans or Americans. While getting a good supply of local Hindus is all well and good, it is the westerners who will donate the large sums of money you need to build those grand ashrams, dispensaries, and colleges. Besides, remember that India until 1947 was subservient to the British. There are yet many who associate significant superiority with pale skin. If you’re good for the Caucasians, the Indians will automatically fall for you. While some may argue that the slums of India, and virtually any part of Africa are where the need for service is utmost, don’t make that mistake – there is no money to be made among the slum-dwellers of India, or the poor Africans.
7. Pay close attention to Corporate Social Responsibility: Nowhere is CSR more important than in the Swami business. Spend some of your money in feeding the poor (thank heavens that India won’t run out of them anytime soon). Also, start with eye camps or other mobile dispensaries that will get you honorable mention in the Indian press. As your empire grows, branch out into high schools, degree colleges, and finally, Engineering and Medical Colleges that carry your name. The demand for education being what it is, not only will you make more money from hawking admissions, but such colleges provide plenty of free advertising. They also allow you to dispense admission favors to the high and mighty, thus pulling them into your network. Having your own network of hospitals and educational institutions will provide a significant boost to your brand, while ultimately being no-cost to you (rich donors will build everything).
8. Speak pidgin English: A swami who speaks clearly in English is immediately suspect. Where did he learn it? Did he go to school like the rest of us? On the other hand, a Swami who can hardly string together a coherent English sentence will have the masses straining to parse his every utterance. “Clearly, he was in the forests, studying texts written on ancient palm leaves. How would he have the time to study English”? Acquiring a smattering of Sanskrit wouldn’t hurt. Sanskrit sounds very Swami-ish to virtually anyone. Besides, if your Sanskrit is bad, no one would know unless they were a teacher of Sanskrit. It has no native speakers!
9. Expand internationally: Visit your highest paying customers in their countries. Travel to Europe and America in the summer and fall is particularly pleasant. Leave the tropical countries such as Malaysia and South Africa for the winter months. Poorer countries, such as those in Africa and for that matter, Latin America are not worth visiting. Foreign visits enhance your prestige in the eyes of the Indian masses, and may help you land the odd industrialist in your list of devotees. You know you’re especially skilled when you count foreign heads of government among your devotees.
10. Beware of the video recorder: The video recorder has been the nemesis of many an unsuspecting Swami. Notice, for example this controversy; and this. You need a security outfit similar to the US Secret Service. Sure it costs money, but your empire is at stake — don’t skimp on this. A security team in charge of each ashram will ensure that defecting devotees do not cause you damage, and no pesky Internet videos will destroy the enterprise you have so carefully built.

Free Wall Street Journal

Ever notice that the interesting articles on WSJ.com are behind a pay wall? Here’s one easy way around it… use the article title as a search phrase in Google news; get redirected from Google to WSJ.com. Read entire article for free.

Interview Shenanigans

I recently encountered two instances of resume and interview fraud. What surprised me was the sheer obviousness of the deception; at the very least, the interviewees could have been more sophisticated.

In the first instance, I interviewed a candidate with an impressive resume of eight pages for a .NET developer’s contract. The responses of the candidate in the phone interview were very choppy. Someone who did not have to exaggerate or make up the resume would speak clearly and without hesitation about what they had done. Intrigued, I looked to see if they were on LinkedIn, and sure enough they were. This is where the fun began.

This candidate claimed that they were a senior software developer at a company. In their profile on LinkedIn, the same job was noted as that of a junior programming intern. Secondly, the candidate claimed to work for various companies on their resume that was not borne out by their LinkedIn profile. I can understand that some people do not completely flesh out their LinkedIn profile, but in this instance the candidate claimed to be working for one employer on their resume, and another on LinkedIn during the same time period. And before anyone emails me that the two putative employers might have had a prime/sub relationship, I need to state that they appeared to be from completely separate industries!

A second form of fraud relates to a technique borrowed from “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”: phone a friend. A recent individual I spoke with tended to pause for 20-30 seconds before answering any complex question. The answer would then roll out in an instant (its a different matter that the answer was still incorrect). This led me to believe that the person was interviewing with a helper either available by email or in the same room with them. The 30 second gap was the time it took for the helper to understand the question, and scribble an answer which the candidate could then read out aloud.

There was another curious situation in our hiring process. We asked an interview question of candidates from one agency; let’s call it “When would you use if-then-else statements?”. The actual question was different and more sophisticated, but this captures the point. Subsequent resumes from the agency started showing up with phrases of the form “over four years’ experience in if-then-else statements”. I kid you not! Clearly, said agency was debriefing its interviewees, and adjusting resumes still in the pipeline to reflect what was being asked, but this effort was way too obvious, and appeared disingenous.

Unfortunately, such instances of falsehoods and exaggerations set up an adversarial relationship between a potential employer and a candidate even before the courtship dance has begun. Rather than view a candidate as a potential partner in a shared cause, the interviewer now considers their mission to be one of unmasking a duplicitous adversary. The candidate is guilty of fraud and deception until proven innocent.

My recommendations to interviewers hiring candidates for either temp or perm positions are:

• Always do a web search (Facebook and LinkedIn are places to start; also look in programming forums to see what kinds of questions are being asked by the candidate)
• Look for fluency in answers… a person who answers ina  very “choppy” style should immediately raise a red flag
• Don’t allow time for pauses between questions and answers in an initial phone screen, to prevent sight-unseen googling or “phone-a-friend”
• Always conduct a face-to-face interview, even for temporary positions

And to potential candidates, my message is:  It might take you longer to land a gig when you don’t falsify or exaggerate, but the benefits are priceless; apart from the obvious question of morality, it is trivially easy to keep your story straight, if you’re telling the truth.

India’s Space Ambitions

 

There has been a lot of recent talk about India’s space ambitions, whether it be launching an astronaut into space, or landing a man on the moon. Ambitions are great, but it is also time for some realistic thinking.

 The one consistently successful rocket booster that India possesses is the PSLV. This rocket is designed to put a 1600 kg payload into a sun synchronous orbit, or a 1000 kg payload into GTO. The PSLV has notched up a few interesting stunts, such as orbiting 10 satellites all at once. In addition, ISRO has provided launch services on the PSLV to other countries, thus earning some money.

 India has another, more powerful rocket in the GSLV, that can place 2000 kg into GTO. It is on this booster and its progeny that most of India’s space hopes and promises rest. The story of the GSLV though, is still being written. At this point, it is not even a wholly Indian launcher.

 The GSLV’s third stage is a so-called “cryogenic stage”, which burns liquid hydrogen and oxygen. India has been trying to create this engine since at least the late ’80s. The first engine is scheduled to fly in 2010 after multiple delays. Until now, India has had to make do with ready-to-fly engines sourced from Russia. Before the GSLV can achieve true operational status, the Indian engine has to fly multiple times and prove that the GSLV is a consistent and safe launcher. The record on this score is not particularly reassuring at this point: One outright failure, and two partial failures where the satellites were injected into suboptimal orbits (including the latest GSLV flight). Indian journalists are only too happy to swallow ISRO’s press releases about the country joining this “exclusive space club” or that, rather than questioning why after so many years, India still hasn’t mastered the technology. Also accepted without question is ISRO’s constant changing of timetables. The GSLV was supposed to fly sometime in 2007-2008. At best it will fly in 2010 (and if there is a failure, a further delay of 2-3 years).

 The GSLV-III, a medium-lift launcher, capable of transferring about 4000 kg to GTO was supposed to be launched in 2009. The date moved to 2010, and now 2011 is being thrown around. How they can promise a 2011 launch is beyond me, considering that they haven’t flight-tested the 3rd stage engine on its predecessor (the GSLV-III needs a significantly up-rated version of the engine that India’s been struggling to build for the GSLV).

 None of this is meant to denigrate India’s achievements in space, be they in communications, earth-sensing, or weather satellites. However when it comes to launch vehicles, India’s journalists should develop some basic knowledge and call ISRO on its inability to successfully develop the GSLV, even though almost a decade has passed since its first “semi-successful flight”. The mandarins of India’s space program must give a clearer roadmap of how India intends to achieve its ambitions, rather than spouting fancy targets and goals (manned missions, the moon, Mars, …) at random every few days.

Keeping In Touch With Walkie-Talkies

Families are well served by a communications device when they are dispersed over a wide area such as a large mall, amusement park, golf course, or just the great outdoors. Such devices help family members take some time off to pursue their individual interests, while still staying in touch. Examples of such devices are the cell-phone, and the walkie-talkie.

Cell phones are ubiquitous, almost everyone has them, battery life is good, and overall, they are inexpensive. However, they have their own drawbacks:

• They are expensive to replace if damaged or lost
• They require proximity to a cell tower to function
• They still cost money

 Over the last decade, inexpensive, yet efficient walkie talkies have emerged on the marketplace that may serve a family’s communication needs, while mitigating some of the drawbacks of cell phones. Such gadgets are:

• Inexpensive (they typically run less than $100 per pair)
• Do not require cellular infrastructure to operate (they work fine in the wilderness)
• They don’t cost anything to operate (other than the cost of batteries)

Most walkie-talkies sold at electronic retailers come in pairs, in a bubble-pack. They operate on the FRS and GMRS frequency bands. The former is license-free, and the latter needs a license from the FCC. The license costs in the neighborhood of $85, and needs to be renewed every five years (though a perusal of the FCC licensing database for GMRS will reveal that unlicensed use is the norm, and the licensing requirements are almost never enforced. As proof, there are less than 2000 active GMRS licensees for the state of Massachusetts).

 By law, transmissions on the 15 GMRS and 7 FRS frequencies are expected to be clear (i.e. no scrambling or encryption). With 22 channels and a number of users, congestion and interference is very likely in crowded places (where they are most likely to be used). Manufacturers tout “privacy codes”, which can be misunderstood as a feature that makes your conversations private. In fact, what they do is to keep other conversations on the same channel (but without the same privacy code) from being received by you. So, its more a nuisance-avoidance code rather than a privacy code.

 On the positive side, there are a number of GMRS/FRS walkie-talkie manufacturers, and most devices are fully interoperable with each other. Emergency hand-cranked radios also incorporate these walkie-talkies, thus allowing someone stuck or lost to try reaching rescuers without the need for fresh batteries.

 Another kind of walkie-talkie that has been on the market for the last three years is a new twist on the old 900 mHz cordless phone. This proprietary technology (called eXRS) works on the license-free 900 mHz band. A major difference between this technology and FRS/GMRS (other than the different frequencies) is that these radios change their frequencies every 400 milliseconds from a pool of about 50 , in a pseudo-random sequence that can be set by the user.

 eXRS devices solve the privacy problem rather nicely. Unless a potential eavesdropper has fairly sophisticated scanning equipment, it will be difficult to tap into a conversation. This makes it sufficiently safe and private for the family in recreation mode. There is no one that can listen in on private conversations, and no one that can interject their words into a private conversation — both features making the devices much safer for kids.

 Other advantages of eXRS are that no licensing is required, and the technology is scalable to many more concurrent users (the manufacturer claims that 100,000 users can be using the device in a given area without congestion. Even assuming that they have exaggerated by a factor of 10, there is plenty of scalability built in).

 There are two disadvantages of eXRS devices: They come from a single manufacturer, and are not an industry standard. This means that the rapid pace of innovation in the GMRS marketplace may outpace the lone eXRS manufacturer’s resources. For example, the currently available eXRS radios are not as rugged as the most rugged FRS/GMRS sets available. There are no hand-cranked versions available either. Secondly, they don’t help much as an emergency radio — the privacy features get in the way. The same frequency hopping that affords privacy, also prevents rescuers from communicating with someone lost, using this technology.

 With these caveats in place, I would make the following recommendations for a family that wants to stay in touch in the outdoors:

• Purchase and use a pair of eXRS radios for general communication among dispersed members
• Those going camping in out-of-the-way places might also want a hand-cranked radio with GMRS to use in emergencies

US Consulate warns visa aspirants

Its open knowledge that the H1B visa offers significant opportunities for fraud. Now the US Consulate in Chennai has finally taken notice, with its warning to visa seekers.

Visa fraud is so rampant, that anyone either Stateside in the USCIS or in the consulates can pick out fraud cases all day without stirring from their desks. Some examples that I’ve come across:

• The 80/20 or 90/10 scam: “Consulting” companies in the US will offer to do  your H1B and Green Card paperwork for you, run payroll, and generally give you legal cover in exchange for 10-20% of your billing rate. What makes this scam illegal is that there is no real job. The consultant creates a fake job to get you in. Then, you find your own consulting gig on Dice.com or similar sites, and have your “consultant” do the billing. If you’re on the bench and you need to show income, then just hand your “consultant” a bunch of money that he will then run through the payroll system and hand back to you.
• Fake experience: You can find any number of screen printers in Chennai and Bangalore who are expert at creating fake experience letters on absolutely-perfect looking letterheads. And if someone does attempt to verify, just give them a friend or cousin’s phone number. When they call, your relative can verify your fake credentials easily.
• Bank statements: There is a requirement when obtaining an F-1 visa to show a sufficient amount of money to support yourself in the US. This is easily taken care of by a very short term loan from the neighborhood shylock.

Ultimately what’s shocking is not the fact that the US Consulate thought it fit to write a rather stern open letter. What is shocking is that so few cases are prosecuted, either at the USCIS or the Consulate level. All that an interested USCIS enforcement officer has to do is to browse over to sulekha.com, look at the classifieds all day, and start shutting these operations down one at a time. At consulates, an easy way to detect fraud — check to see if the degree matches the job. Someone with a Bachelor of Arts or Commerce or Bachelor of Science in Zoology asking for an H1B for an IT job should set alarm bells ringing fairly easily.

On choosing an eBook reader

Barnes and Noble has released its “Nook” ebook reader.  Sony recently released a couple readers. There are rumors of others waiting in the wings.

 The blogosphere is all abuzz comparing the relative technical specifications of each one of these readers, recommending the one or the other. But I think that technical specifications of the hardware ought to be only part of the consideration when purchasing an electronic device, especially one that is a closed system such as an eBook reader.

 The first consideration in the purchase ought to be the longevity of the service. Generally, you can only buy the “software” (i.e. books) from the company that sold you the hardware.  This is important for two reasons… one, you want newer titles to be available for your device in the years to come. Secondly, you want the device to be supported for a long time, so you can read the books you have purchased, which are useless outside of the device.

 The question to ask yourself is… if I invest money in buying from Barnes and Noble or Sony, will their service be around for the next few years, or  are they likely to leave the market? Those who purchased music from Sony’s online store a few years ago must now be regretting their decision, given that the store has shut down, and the DRM’ed tracks are useful only if copied to a CD and ripped back. Similarly, B&N’s financial woes do not exactly inspire confidence. Of all the major players, I think Amazon’s the most likely to stick to the Kindle or its successors.

 The second consideration is the variety of software, and its price. Sony strikes out here, because it is primarily an electronics vendor, with little experience in book retailing. It is not at all clear that selling eBooks will be Sony’s core business. Thus, it is likely that new titles which are outside the pulp-fiction mainstream may not ever make it to the device. The struggles being faced by Barnes and Noble also raise questions about their willingness to invest in selling books outside mainstream bestsellers. They are an also-ran in the Internet book retailing business, and their brick-and-mortar bookstores are under assault from Amazon. Even on this count, Amazon is most likely to succeed, because books are core to their retailing business.

 A third, and final consideration, is what value is sought to be derived from an eBook reader. Certainly, the readers are more portable, and occupy far less shelf space than the thousand or so books each can carry at a given time. However paper, too, has significant advantages — the primary one being that it is far more resilient to falls or liquid damage. The replacement cost of a paper book is minuscule by comparison. And, it can be read, then given away or resold. It is for this reason that I haven’t yet taken the plunge into the eBook world, preferring instead to read a few limited computer titles directly on my laptop. I’m holding out for price drops on the large Kindle though… when I can read my collection of non-DRM’ed PDF books natively without re-flowing the text, then an eBook reader will make sense to me.

Desi vs. Desi

Note to my American readers: Desi is a colloquial term used by people of Indian origin to refer to each other. Somewhat similar to the word paisan.

You know your community has finally reached the mainstream when it has its own crooks. Not dealing in penny-ante robbery, but doing it Venti-size. And a US Attorney prosecuting them, who also happens to be of Indian origin.

Such is the case with Indians as of a couple days ago. The scandal involving Raj Rajaratnam (nominally a Sri Lankan, but an ethnic Tamil-speaking Indian) also ensnared a whole host of Indian characters ranging from a VP in Intel (Rajiv Goel) to a senior partner at McKinsey (Anil Kumar) and a Moody’s analyst (Deep Shah). The US Attorney prosecuting them is Preet Bharara.

Now the quiet-wage-earning-professional-Indian stereotype can be safely laid to rest.

PS: Recommendation to US Attorney Bharara… send these guys to Tihar jail in Delhi (general ward). That will be far greater punishment than any American judge can ever impose on them.

Dragging paper into the digital age

True to my reputation as Inspector Gadget, I recently bought a Pulse Smartpen from Livescribe.

The Pulse Smartpen is a little contraption that writes on special paper and does two things ordinary pens can’t… it captures handwriting digitally, and optionally, captures an audio recording that is synchronized with the writing. It is a brilliant idea that will appeal to a whole class of users in business and education, provided that some issues are addressed.

The first issue I can perceive is the legality of recording a conversation and people’s comfort with their voices being recorded. This being a state subject, different states have different laws regarding this. The state where I work (Rhode Island) appears to allow it, provided that people have no reasonable expectation of privacy when the recording is being made (e.g. in a business meeting). The state where I live (Massachusetts) forbids this, unless all parties agree to the recording being made. Additionally, people are sensitive about their words being recorded, and may not give their approval for such recording.

If both these objections are overcome, (say by far thinking managers, who make it OK to use the smartpen in meetings for their department), the pen is an excellent business tool that kicks corporate notetaking and minuteing a few notches higher.

A second issue is that the smartpen can only work with specially printed paper. The software uses a minute grid of dots to help it discern the position of the pen on the page. Livescribe sells notebooks with this special dot pattern (“dot-paper“) for a reasonable price (good paper quality, not that much more expensive than generic notebooks). Livescribe also provides a way for users to print letter-sized smartpaper by themselves. This requires a 600-DPI color printer capable of interpreting PostScript. One can print to PCL-only printers, such as the HP range commonly found in offices, with some kludging. In general, there should be no need to do this, because Livescribe’s notebooks are inexpensive and convenient (and for those who have Amazon Prime, shipping is fast and at no extra cost).

By far the biggest impediment I foresee to the success of the smartpen is the complicated technology licensing that goes with the dot-paper. This is licensed from a company called Anoto, based in Sweden, that also has a US office in the Boston area. Anoto has licensed this technology to other companies as well. Most of these licensees are system integrators that provide turnkey forms solution to businesses, along with the pen. Anoto makes money off the royalties from the technology, as well as a cut per sheet of dot-paper.

Some of Anoto’s other partners (e.g. Talario) sell a solution that could be the killer application for Livescribe’s Pulse. This solution provides the ability to print any office document with a dot-paper pattern behind it, effectively enabling the document to be used with the smartpen. An example would be to print a Microsoft Word document or an Excel document, take it to a meeting, annotate it in the meeting, and upload the document with its annotations back to the PC for recordkeeping and emailing. Unfortunately, I do not see this particular application showing up on the Pulse anytime soon… for one Anoto would not want to kill off its other partners’ businesses. For another, Anoto charges the Talario end-user a royalty of 10 cents per page for the dot pattern. I believe that this is excessively expensive, and would significantly hinder the market acceptance of the tool. A student could conceivably print her professor’s lecture notes on dot paper, and then directly annotate them if she could do so free of royalties. At 10 cents per page, it would not be cost effective. It’s similar to Microsoft selling you Windows, and then charging you a fee per mouse-click.

If Anoto were to allow royalty-free printing, and if instead it derived royalties solely from each pen sold, I think in time that it could significantly expand the smartpen market into the business and education markets (all the way from school through university). In the aggregate, it would make a lot of money from the initial pen sale, and subsequent replacement sales to a vastly expanded market.  As an aside, I would be interested in seeing if a smart software developer figures a way of printing a bootleg pattern without using Anoto’s software. That would probably infringe on Anoto’s patents. But, as RSA Corporation’s experience with early bootleg PGP versions would indicate, it is impractical to sue every single end-user.

Nevertheless, students or professionals who like to take notes on paper would be well served by the inexpensive device. Head on over to Livescribe and order your own. Before you do that, look around the Internet for coupon codes (I found one for 25% off in September 2009).

Nasscom and the US “Service Visa” proposal

It is stupefying how a supposedly expert body such as Nasscom could come up with a proposal for a “service visa”, as described in this article. Any PR company worth its retainer could have advised them that their proposal was both ill-timed and delivered to the wrong forum.

To ordinary Americans, it probably smacks of arrogance. The message says “we’re here to take your jobs, and we’re giving you advice on what you can do to make this process easier”. To Congress, it says “never mind that we’re a foreign entity, here are some suggestions on how you ought to tackle immigration reform”.

Outsourcing is a huge concern in the US today, especially with the record levels of unemployment seen in the last year. Now would be a really bad time to publicly announce cockamamie visa suggestions to a foreign government. If Nasscom had any sense, it would:

• Publicly commit its members to hiring more stateside employees, to build goodwill (or to erase at least some of the ill-will).
• Make a highly visible gesture to demonstrate that outsourcing can coexist with a good job market in the US. One example would be making a noticeable endowment to a US University for an MIS professor.
• If it does want to influence visa rules, by all means it has the right, but to do so through targeted lobbying and not through grand public pronouncements.

I’m afraid that Nasscom’s ill timed lecture to Congress will only make matters worse for any meaningful increase in H1B visas.