Source Bits BitSpace 2011 Issue 2

Designs by Sourcebits are

drop dead gorgeous, state

of the art, and a pleasure to

use. We are utter perfection-

ists when it comes to putting

pixels together

to design

something stellar. A clean,

compelling interface trumps

all.

DESIGN

Sourcebit builds world-class, best-

selling applications tailored to client

specifications for various platforms

like iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry,

Palm Pre, RIA at its development

center. Our programmers and user

interface experts leverage the latest

development trends and the freshest

techniques in the projects they work

on. Sourcebits is an industry leader in

advanced software, Web portal and

visual design. We take pride in being

one of

the most

creative and

forward-looking software

develop-

ment companies in the world.

L E A D E R













one of

the most

creative and


develop-














one of

the most

creative and


develop-


L E A D E R

WE PROVIDE SOFTWARE DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT SERVICES FOR

IPHONE, MOBILE, MAC, AND THE WEB. AND IPAD, OF COURSE.

The Leader In The World of Mobile Apps & Games

Sourcebits is the leading iOS developer in the industry, with a

stupendous app portfolio. Our iPhone Software Development

services necessitate impeccable code and UI for everyone – from

small startups to majors like GE and Coca Cola. Sourcebits' Web

development team has the expertise in modern Web technolo-

gies to bring your online presence to life. We build custom, state

of the art websites and Web Apps to your specs — from bullet-

proof code to one-of-a-kind user experience. Sourcebits has a

dedicated Android Software Development team - experts at the

latest technologies and committed to providing the best solu-

tions in Android Application and Game Development. In fact,

Sourcebits is behind some of the most downloaded apps on the

Android market. Sourcebits is the leading iOS developer in the

industry, with a stupendous app portfolio. Our iPhone Software

Development services necessitate impeccable code and UI for

everyone – from small startups to majors like GE and Coca Cola.

Sourcebits' Web development team has the expertise in modern

Web technologies to bring your online presence to life. We build

custom, state of the art websites and Web Apps to your specs —

from bulletproof code to one-of-a-kind user experience. Source-

bits has a dedicated Android Software Development team -

experts at the latest technologies and committed to providing

the best solutions in Android Application and Game Develop-

ment. In fact, Sourcebits is behind some of the most downloaded

apps on the Android market. Sourcebits is the leading iOS devel-

oper in the industry, with a stupendous app portfolio. Our iPhone

Software Development services necessitate impeccable code

and UI for everyone – from small startups to majors like GE and

Coca Cola. Sourcebits' Web development team has the expertise

in modern Web technologies to bring your online presence to life.

We build custom, state of the art websites and Web Apps to your

specs — from bulletproof code to one-of-a-kind user experience.

Sourcebits has a dedicated Android Software Development team

- experts at the latest technologies and committed to providing















Designs by Sourcebits are





pixels together

to design



all.

DESIGNDesigns by Sourcebits are





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com

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one of

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L E A D E R













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Sourcebits The Leader In The World of Mobile Apps & Games

magazine

INDEX

01 New Dawn for Sourcebits

03 Introducing Sourcebits Hackspace

06 Branding of Technology Products

09 Flow

12 Art & Web Design

17 The Months Buzzword: OPEN INNOVATION

20 Press Start : 2011

24 NFC

26 Video Compression for the Curious

34 The Birth of an Icon

39 Social Innovation opportunity

44 Employed at Sourcebits! What Next?













one of

the most

creative and


develop-














one of

the most

creative and


develop-


L E A D E R

This past month has been quite an adventure for the Bitizens of Sourcebits! No sooner did we celebrate our 5th birthday than we also officially announced an investment of $10 million from Sequoia Capital and IDG. That’s far from chump change, and it’s a bit

humbling when you consider how far Sourcebits has come in the past half-decade.

Letter from the Editor:

Letter from the Editor

a new dawn for Sourcebits













one of

the most

creative and


develop-


Sourcebits is the leading iOS developer in the industry, with a

stupendous app portfolio. Our iPhone Software Development

services necessitate impeccable code and UI for everyone – from

small startups to majors like GE and Coca Cola. Sourcebits' Web

development team has the expertise in modern Web technolo-

gies to bring your online presence to life. We build custom, state

of the art websites and Web Apps to your specs — from bullet-

proof code to one-of-a-kind user experience. Sourcebits has a

dedicated Android Software Development team - experts at the

latest technologies and committed to providing the best solu-

tions in Android Application and Game Development. In fact,

Sourcebits is behind some of the most downloaded apps on the

Android market. Sourcebits is the leading iOS developer in the

industry, with a stupendous app portfolio. Our iPhone Software

Development services necessitate impeccable code and UI for

everyone – from small startups to majors like GE and Coca Cola.

Sourcebits' Web development team has the expertise in modern

Web technologies to bring your online presence to life. We build

custom, state of the art websites and Web Apps to your specs —

from bulletproof code to one-of-a-kind user experience. Source-

bits has a dedicated Android Software Development team -

experts at the latest technologies and committed to providing



























Honestly, how many companies are started in

a garage every year, only to flame out before

they ever even get off the ground? How many

firms never manage to secure any funding, let

alone ten million dollars? Sure, in some ways

we’re lucky that we landed this investment,

but more than anything else the cash is

validation that what we’re doing is working

and people are starting to take notice.

We’ve got some big plans for the money,

including opening an office in the Bay Area so

Sourcebits can really be in the middle of all the

action. Putting operations smack in the middle

of Silicon Valley will give us easy access to tons

of talent and resources, not to mention major

media coverage and an enhanced public

profile. We’re among the best development

companies in the world, so it’s time to literally

take our place right alongside them in San

Francisco.

Of course we won’t be forgetting our amazing

team in India, without which none of this

expansion would be possible. We’ll be taking

steps to further strengthen the home team

and continue to be one of the shining jewels

in India’s tech crown. We’re definitely poised

to lead the charge as the high-tech sector

continues to boom.

Finally, we’re also going to be announcing a

contest which will allow developers to pitch

their app ideas for a chance to have the entire

venture funded and developed by our top-rate

Sourcebits team. More details will be coming

out on this venture soon, but suffice it to say

we’re going to be making a very attractive

offer to get people pitching us their ideas.

It’s a testament to every single Sourcebits

employee and our devotion to quality,

originality and design that we’ve made it this

far, and this is only the beginning. Our

company has so much more room to grow,

and we’ve only just started to hit our stride. I

can’t wait to see where this company goes

over the next five years, and I would imagine

that our tenth anniversary celebration will be

a joyous time indeed.

Can’t wait to see you all there.

Brad Hilderbrand

Page 02

Introducing

Sourcebits HackSpace

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower" -Steve Jobs

Do you know why companies like Apple and

Google continue to dominate the tech indus-

try? Their two most essential ingredients -

Innovation and Creativity help its walking on

the success path. In line with the same spirit of

nurturing our dormant but creative cells, we

have decided to launch an initiative 'Hack-

Space' - our own playground to come up with

some really interesting projects and research

works. Confused? Let’s get to know it better.

So, what exactly is HackSpace?

HackSpace provides you the opportunity to

come up with some brilliant,innovative

projects, big or small, which would be shared

to a larger tech community. These projects can

be anything- interesting games, Mobile and

Desktop Applications or even some scripts that

is unique, awesome, fun to use and shows up

innovation in technology . If they are brilliant,

they will be featured on Sourcebits website as

well. This can open up a whole new experi-

ence of user reviews and feedback. And if

developed well, there is potential for some of

these projects to evolve as our major prod-

ucts!! We are creating a "Research" section in

HackSpace which will . feature in-house

research papers and tech articles of the high-

est quality.

How does it work?

HackSpace consists of two-level membership,

Community & Elite level. You have to submit

your expression of interest to the Hackspace

panel in writing, which will be followed by

intensive discussion & evaluation. The discus-

sions will lead the panel to either accept or

reject you into the HackSpace community.

Once a member, you must attend Hack meet-

ings and get involved in knowledge sharing

sessions with other members. You can gradu-

ate to the Elite level only after submitting a

cool project on HackSpace. Your project would

be hosted on HackSpace page & based on the

user reviews, the project would be then be

taken up for further development. Friends,

there is a sweetness to success, the Elite

community membership gives you certain

privilege, and here it is :

20 additional number of holidays, which

you can freely utilize to develop your

projects !

A $1500 USD reward, if your project is

patented !

Fully paid tech conference trips within

India!

And last not the least,a fully paid vaca-

tion outside India if your project turns into

a full blown product !!

We are looking forward to host some of the

most innovative projects and research papers

1

2

3

4

Page 04

on the web. So, make the most of it! We would

be launching HackSpace in June 2011. You

would soon be getting detailed information

regarding HackSpace. So, take out your think-

ing caps and awe us by your creativity!

Talk to / write in to

to know more about it.

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

Page 05

To most technology companies, branding starts and ends with a domain name and a

reasonably well-made website. Branding is often seen or believed to be the playing

field of the Retail, FMCG and Lifestyle companies that work hard in building a recall

among its target market segment. Is it unwise for the technology bigwigs that spend

fortunes on R&D and talent acquisition to put a proportional amount of mind space &

budget in building a brand for themselves?

Let us explore.

TECHNOLOGYPRODUCTSBRANDING OF

Philip Kotler defines Brand as a ‘marketing tool

that allows consumers to recognize the maker

of a product’ and Branding as ‘the set of

decisions that establish an identity for a

product with the goal of distinguishing it from

competitor’s offerings.’

So what differentiates a product from a

brand? This difference is the basis of the

equity, that is reflected in the way consumers

think, feel and act with respect to a brand. It is

this difference that differentiates a DETTOL

brand in India from any other antiseptic

product, and it is this very recognition of the

need for branding and differentiating oneself

from the plethora of “me too” companies that

has created world class technology trailblazers

like Google, IBM, Apple and Microsoft. Fun fact,

did you know that these companies rank as

the world’s top 4 most valuable brands? They

stand above international giants such as

Coca-Cola, McD and Marlboro.

It is probably ironic to reveal that even while

the world’s top 4 brands are technology

players, most other technology companies

forgo the need for branding and focus on short

term objectives such as increased product

features, price differentiation and evolution on

the underlying technology

It is often forgotten that the end user of these

products first strikes an emotional resonance

with one of the many brands available in the

market and justifies the reason to buy with

the brand image on which the equity for the

brand has been built, over time.

When your core positioning is the technology

advantage or a tangible benefit in terms of

design and features, it should be clear that as

the market matures, your unknown

competitors will copy these so-called

differentiating factors while also providing an

additional cost advantage to the customer. At

this juncture, when your differentiating factor

has lost its uniqueness, it is only the brand

preference that will insulate your company

and pave its path for continued growth.

Buyers of technology products are often

recipients to volumes of contradicting

information and claims. Technology

companies should acknowledge the fact that

their customers are in the line of maximum

exposure to the online blogs and forums

where self-proclaimed critics manipulate and

influence buyers with their personal vendetta.

This makes it all the more important for

companies in this industry to strike a chord of

assurance and recognition with their target

group.

Page 07

Hence when it comes to technology industry

where product sophistication is complex and

intangible, product lifecycle is short and the

entire market life is directly proportional to

the evolution of technology, the first logical

step for a long term existence is to develop a

brand strategy for the company.

Having said this, let me also acknowledge the

difficulty in successfully branding technology

companies. To built a successful brand across

the complexities of technology change and the

constant need to provide a tangible value

proposition is not an easy task, to say the

least.

It first requires the biggest assets of the

technology companies, i.e. the strong

engineering minds, to embrace the need for

an effective brand management. It is

important for these thought leaders to realize

that everyone has different reasons to buy

products and their reason to buy might be

completely unknown or unimportant for an

average customer.

It then requires the company, in its totality, to

undergo the exercise of strategic planning;

where the logical direction towards which the

organization wishes to progress is discussed,

debated, finalized, documented and circulated

across its employees and other key

stakeholders. To an average layman, the need

for a Vision statement , Mission statement and

values might look as a collateral waste of time,

but it is through this very action of

un-complicating the overall purpose of

existence of a company and thereby defining

its plan of action in simple sentences (via

Vision/Mission and Values), that the senior

leadership sets the agenda or builds the

foundation for the Branding and Marketing

team to identify a strong brand vision for the

company.

The faster that these companies realize that

the need for branding is fundamental, the

better their prospect to succeed.

Vivek Menon

Page 08

FLOW“Sometimes I just can't get anything done.”

“Sure, I come into the office, putter around, check my email every ten seconds, read the web, even do a few brainless tasks like paying the bills. But getting back into the flow of writing

code just doesn't happen.”

FLOW

These bouts of unproductiveness usually last

for a day or two. But there have been times in

my career as a developer when I went for

weeks at a time without being able to get

anything done. As they say, I'm not in flow. I'm

not in the zone. I'm not anywhere." - Joel

Spolsky, Fire And Motion.

Now this does happen quite a few times to

me. To rectify this, I searched for “flow” and

found a wealth of highly useful information on

the topic. As per Wikipedia, the term “flow”

has been coined by a Hungarian psychology

professor, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. According

to him, flow is the mental state of operation in

which a person in an activity is fully immersed

in a feeling of energized focus, full involve-

ment, and success in the process of the activ-

ity. Flow is completely focused motivation. It is

a single-minded immersion and represents

perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emo-

tions in the service of performing and learn-

ing. In flow, the emotions are not just

contained and channeled, but positive, ener-

gized, and aligned with the task at hand. The

ultimate aim of achieving flow is to forget

oneself, surroundings, emotions and feelings,

while performing a task.

Why does the state of flow matter?

The authors of Peopleware (the best book ever

on people, productivity and project manage-

ment) did a study on productivity of program-

mers in different environments. In this study,

more than 600 developers from 92 companies

participated. From the findings, they

concluded that programmers in a state of flow

outperform counterparts by a ratio of 10:1, in

terms of productivity. Now this is HUGE. A 10x

differential in productivity is not insignificant!

When do you remember the last time, you

achieved the state of flow? For me, it usually

happened in the late night hackathons where I

was unaware of time passing by. It can be also

achieved in different activities, such as sports

like table tennis, chess, watching movies, etc.

Imagine achieving the same state while you

do your work!

On achieving flow

Let us now dig into how to achieve the flow.

One cannot force oneself (or somebody else,

for that matter) to get into the flow. Like love

just happens, flow just happens! However,

according to Csíkszentmihályi, there are some

pre-requisites for achieving flow, along with

some required environmental factors.

When your skill level is high, and the task

presents a high level challenge, the chances of

you getting into flow are high. Likewise, when

your skill levels are low and tasks present a

Page 10

high level challenge, anxiety sets in, which is

quite the opposite state of flow. Consider the

graph below, representing different states

based on skill levels and challenge levels.

Getting into the flow is not easy. When you try

to measure it, it takes like 15-30 minutes to

start working at maximum productivity.

Sometimes, when you are tired or have been

into the state of flow for quite a few hours

already, you just can't get into the flow and

you spend rest of your day playing around.

However, getting knocked out of flow is quite

easy - the state of flow is very fragile. Noise,

phone calls, meetings, interruptions by cow-

orkers and, *ahem*, bosses, all knock you out

of the flow.

If a co-worker interrupts you for a minute, to

solve his two minute problem, he effectively

wastes your 15-30 minutes of productivity (as

you'll have to start all over). Now if this hap-

pens 2-3 times a day, consider that day to be

shot! This is why you should always consider

somebody else's state of flow before interrupt-

ing him/her for a small task.

Apart from all this, if you are curious about the

task at hand, you like what you're doing and

you're intrinsically motivated by the task, the

chances of you getting into the flow are very

high.

A lot of companies, including Google, Micro-

soft, 37Signals, Fog Creek Software, Campaign

Monitor, etc. have built their work culture

around this concept and we already know the

results.

So, it is high time! Let us be proactive, and try

to integrate this into our working methodolo-

gies.

Links -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXIeFJCqsP

s [TED Video about Flow]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0

000000339.html

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0

000000043.html [Step No. 8]

http://javatroopers.com/Peopleware.html#Cha

pter_8

Dhaval

Page 11

Art andWeb DesignArt andWeb Design

A Revolutionary Period

Sometimes I wish I could go back to the first half of the 20th century

and become a part of all those revolutionary changes which were

happening in the fields of arts and science. It was during this time that

Albert Einstein came up with his brilliant theories which totally

revolutionized the world of Physics. The same period is also known for

emergence of various art movements like Cubism, Futurism and

Surrealism, which were led by some great artists like Picasso and

Salvador Dali.

A Creative Burst

While the early half of the 20th century saw creativity in paintings and

sculptures, the 21st century is more about creativity in web designing.

Every now and then, we come across some beautiful websites from

designers all over the globe. But the question still remains – Are we

witnessing the same creative burst in web designing which we saw in

art in the first half of 20th century? It’s true that there are some

beautiful websites out there, but still most of them (including mine) are

quite normally designed.

Let me explain this in more detail.

Four major art movements emerged in the first half of 20th century –

Cubism, Expressionism, Futurism and Surrealism. All of them had

distinct art styles and were led by painters like Picasso, Umberto

Boccioni, El Greco and Salvador Dali. The idea is to blend these distinct

art styles into web designing.

Cubism and Web Design

Let us first begin with Cubism. In cubist artworks, objects are broken up,

analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form―instead of depicting

objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a

multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context.

Following are some examples of cubist art:

Page 13

These artworks

might look a bit

complex at first look.

However, if you look

at them carefully, you

will notice that

several elements

have been arranged

creatively to present

the big picture. This

type of approach

may be suitable for travel blogs or science & technology blogs wherein

several photographs (elements) can be arranged in a creative manner to

present the central theme (big picture).

SpaceCollective

It comes close to this idea but still it’s not cubist.

You can surely take this idea to the next level by arranging the elements

more creatively to give a more cubist touch to your design. You can

even just design your header and footer in cubist style if you don’t want

the entire designed with this approach. However, you should take care

that the final design should not look a mess. Designing with cubist style

will take some practice, but I assure you that it’s worth all the hard

work.

Surrealism and Web Design

The surrealist art movement began in the late 1920’s and was

pioneered by great artists like Salvador Dali, Magritte and Max

Ernst.Following are some examples of surrealist art work:

Page 14

Surrealism as an art

movement meant to

expose psychological

truth by stripping

ordinary objects of

their normal

significance, in order

to create a compelling

image that was

beyond ordinary

formal organization.

Surrealism is all about

imagination and no

logical explanation can

be given for such

creative works. . In fact,

surrealism has been

defined as pure psychic

automatism, by which

one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other

manner, the real functioning of thought. Truly speaking, surrealist art is

much more than yet another art style. This art movement in the early

half of the 20th century was deeply associated with expressing free

ideas amidst the then prevailing political environment and restrictive

customs and structures. Certainly, you cannot blend it entirely with web

design as this can result in a complicated and a hard to understand

design for the user.

So, how do we include surrealist art in web design? You might have got

the idea that surrealism is all about free thinking beyond the limits of

logic and standard trends. In web design, it means thinking beyond the

regular standard of header, footer and two column layouts. You should

express your thoughts in your web design rather than restricting them

with the standard column layouts. Surrealist web design is ideally

suited for portfolio websites. Following are some examples which

depict free thinking in web design:

Camellie

Page 15

Expressionism and Web Design

Expressionism was a cultural movement originating in Germany at the

start of the 20th-century. In expressionism, heavy emphasis is placed on

communication through emotions. Similar to surrealist art, you cannot

blend it entirely with web design because it is built on complex psychic

structures with strong depiction of emotions.Following are some

examples of expressionist art work:

In web design, expressionism can be associated with social awareness

websites like those related with global warming or aids and anti-drug

campaigns. Social awareness requires a strong message to be sent

among the masses and this can be achieved effectively with

expressionism in web design.Following is an example of

expressionism(to some extent) in web design:

Final Thoughts

There are numerous art movements which can give all the inspiration for

your web design. Thinking as an artist can really do wonders to your

design.

To summarize:

Cubist art style is suitable for travel blogs and science & technology blogs

Surrealist art style is suitable for portfolio websites

Expressionist art style is suitable for social awareness as well as

portfolio websites.

The Staff Republic

Esteban Munoz

Adit

Page 16

OPEN INNOVATION

The Month’s Buzzword:

GUI (Graphical User Interface) has become

so predominant in our daily lives that when

faced with the simple terminal, we start biting

our nails and start Googling for ways to avoid

it. Yet, this was not the case a couple of

decades back. DOS and UNIX were the most

prevalent operating systems and one had to

use the services of the humble terminal to do

one’s work.

GUI was first developed at Xerox PARC and

used windows, icons and menus to support

commands such as opening files, deleting files,

moving files, etc. Xerox introduced a

pioneering product, Star, incorporating many

of PARC’s innovations in 1981.

Another very commonly used gadget, the

mouse (to be precise, the mechanical mouse),

is also a product from Xerox PARC labs. The

ball-mouse was invented in 1972 and came as

part of the hardware package of the Xerox Alto

computer.

We all use the internet extensively on a daily

basis. A very integral part of the internet is the

Local Area Network or the LAN, also known in

technical parlance as the Ethernet. The

Ethernet is what we use to connect computers

locally. It may come as a surprise that this

technology is yet again a product from Xerox

PARC labs!

Now, the question to ponder is why are we

discussing these inventions? It is quite obvious

that all these technologies have become the

mainstay in today’s computer-driven world.

Yet, all that we associate with the company

Xerox is the much less glamourous cousin, the

photocopying machine!

The reason I wanted to focus on XEROX PARC

inventions is because they are the classical

examples of the Open Innovation ideology.

Although, Xerox did not not view these

inventions as promising businesses for itself,

yet companies such as Apple and Microsoft

reaped huge benefits from them.

In the past, internal R&D was a valuable

strategic asset, sometimes a formidable

barrier to entry by competitors in many

markets. Only large corporations such as IBM

and AT&T could compete by doing the most

R&D in their respective fields. The game has

completely changed in the present world.

Upstarts, with little or no basic research on

their own, are posing serious threats to

market dominance of established companies.

Internal R&D is no longer the strategic asset it

once was. The dramatic rise in the number and

mobility of knowledge workers compounded

with the availability of private venture capital

Page 18

has boosted innovation and

commercialization outside big corporations.

In this new model of open innovation, firms

commercialize external (as well as internal)

ideas by deploying outside (as well as

in-house) innovations to the market. The idea

is that an organization should not keep its

research to just itself. The way forward is to

open all such research to the world through

licensing agreements, joint ventures and other

arrangements.

The key for a firm to be successful is “Time to

Market”. Only open innovation can help firms,

especially startups and smaller firms, to beat

larger corporations in this game. Shared

technology is a far better recipe than spending

huge amounts of money in just in-house

research.

Now, reading through all the boring stuff, the

question in your mind would be - What have I

got to do with it? Well, you are the one who

can make it possible. Innovate, think of ideas,

find ways to solve the same problem

differently and apply for patents. Not only

would you have a patent in your name but you

will receive royalties from not only your

company but also all firms that use your

technology!

Hmm, do I see a promising millionaire in you?

Aurindam

Page 19

PRESS START: 2011The game industry is a Godzilla-sized monster that has smashed Hollywood

and the music industries into dust. Games are the single biggest

entertainment product on the planet and they are only going to get bigger!

Hello Sourcebits! Bruce here from the games team!

The game industry is a Godzilla-sized monster that has smashed

Hollywood and the music industries into dust. Games are the single

biggest entertainment product on the planet and they are only going to

get bigger! With this in mind I wanted to highlight some things to look

out for during 2011 in this exciting and fast moving sector.

3D is coming, but at what cost?

Long have we dreamed about the day when 3D in the home would

become a reality and 2011 looks like the year it will finally happen.

Nintendo is releasing the 3DS handheld console, you can buy a 3D TV

and even kit your PS3 out with a pair of rather silly looking 3D goggles.

I tested all of these devices last year at the Eurogamer Expo in London

and while found them to quite impressive, I was not the only person to

raise an eyebrow at the costs: $250 for a DS, $1000 + for the TV and

$150 for the PS3 goggles - none of which warranted such a high price

point.

The bottom line is that 3D in 2011 is going to cost you and the

consumer uptake will be slow because of this.

Social Games will kill somebody

It’s already happened in World of Warcraft and there was the famous

case of the 28 year old Korean who dropped dead in an internet cafe

after a 50 hour session of Starcraft. With social games and the freemium

business model becoming more and more popular it is only a matter of

time before the dark side of games addiction rears it’s head in the

casual gaming sector.

Smartphone Gaming will continue to drive the market forward

2010 was a bad year for publishers trying to turn a profit on PSP and

Nintendo DS. Causal gamers baulked at the cost of software on these

devices compared to Android and iOS platforms; why pay $40 for a DS

game that is only $5 on the App store? Impulse buy pricing for

Smartphones has really shaken up the industry, alongside the massive

Page 21

leap in technology shown by games such as Infinity Blade for iPhone.

iOS was the fastest growing sector of gaming last year and this trend is

set to continue in 2011 as mobile gaming continues to accelerate

towards world domination.

Digital Distribution will erode retailers

The App store has proven how easy it is to purchase digital content and

Valve’s Steam network has gone from strength to strength over the last

eight years; releasing games before the official street date and at

greatly reduced prices compared to buying them from a retailer. While

the publishers will try and find new ways of making money from boxed

games while they still can, retailers are going to find it harder and

harder to keep making money in a market that is quickly becoming

obsolete.

Angry Birds will hit Facebook - the world will end

It’s going to happen: entire nations will collapse as infrastructures fail

due to work not done as Rovio desperately try to become the next

Disney. Expect toys, cartoons, t-shirts, movie tie-ins and who knows

what else from the flappy critters this year.

Android will give iOS a run for it’s money

Google’s OS is currently soaring with a huge uptake of developers and

users taking the plunge. While it’s early days yet the fact is that iOS now

has a real contender to the throne - it’s going to be one hell of a fight!

Page 22

EA will announce “CoD Killing Game”

Jason West and Vince Zampella have already jumped ship and are

working on the next big FPS title for EA. Activision will hit back with Call

Of Duty: World of Alien Zombie Warfare Combat Warcraft 2.6 starring

the Troll face meme and Captain Price... ;)

And that’s it until next time! If you have a game idea, want to know

more about games or take me on at Street Fighter then ping me!

Bruce Brodie

Page 23

NFCNFCWhat is NFC?

Non Fiber Carbohydrates?

National Football

Conference?... ?Recently I found myself standing in a long queue to buy a CD. I stared

at the customers in other lines, watching them zip right through as I

seemed to simply stand in one place, unmoving. Suddenly I saw a

guy go to a counter, flash his mobile phone towards the desk and

walk away with all his stash. I later found out that he used a Nokia

phone to make the payment using NFC.

So what is NFC? Non Fiber Carbohydrates? National Football

Conference? Close, but not quite, it’s actually Near Field

Communication. NFC is a set of short-range wireless technologies,

typically requiring a distance of 4 cm or less just like RFID. Since this

is a hardware feature, it’s up to mobile manufacturers to support it. I

wondered weather anyone would buy these phones when I saw

Citibank endorsing Nokia 6212, but it seems like it’s catching on. Now

you see these vendor machines in many places, and I wouldn’t be

surprised if the technology is trying to replace cash or credit cards.

Currently NFC has been enabled in places like airports to collect

boarding pass. Now you needn’t fear getting in the security line only

to scream “Oh damn! I forgot to take the printout! Arrgghhhhh!” .

There’s also no need to stand in a long queue to get the boarding

pass, just tap with your mobile phone and it pops right up. NFC, is

also enabled in some bookstores and grocery stores. And best of all,

your phone need not be swithed ON for it to work!

There is also news that Google is testing out NFC payments for mobile

phones, and it is purchasing the specialized payment hardware itself in

New York and San Francisco where it will be piloting the near-field

payment systems:

“The company (Google) will pay for

installation of thousands of special

cash-register systems from VeriFone

Systems Inc. (PAY) at merchant loca-

tions,” said [an anonymous source]…The

registers would accept payments from

mobile phones equipped with so-called

near-field-communication technology.”

This means that most android phones would soon support NFC. If there

is some 50% discount for purchase with NFC-enabled Android phone

and its twice as easy, your friend walking with you won’t be quite so

enamored of his iPhone.

Currently there are quite some handsets that support NFC including:

Nokia C7-00,6216,6212,6131,3220

Samsung S5230 Tocco Lite/Star/Player One/Avila,SGH-X700,Samsung

D500E,Galaxy S II,Wave 578

Google Nexus S

SAGEM my700X

LG 600V

Motorola L7

Benq T80

Imagine cash and credit card

replaced with your phone.

Pay for coffee with just a tap

No more scrambling and fum-

bling at electronic tolls for change

No need to hear “no change

sir,” from bus conductor

Darshan Sonde

Page 25

Video Compressionfor the Curious

The need for video compression is encountered in various contexts.

There is the need to compress so that storage is less expensive, so that

transmission bandwidth is minimally used, because consumption form

factors are different and because a lot of data is noise for an application.

Most of the video compression techniques rely on either using statistical

properties of the data to eliminate redundancy or on eliminating

content that does not have a major impact on human perception.

Compression can be lossy or lossless. The names are self explanatory

and so we will not delve into their meanings. Suffice to say that what is

lost is raw data and not necessarily information or content of value. A

good, though indirect, example of lossy “compression” is the analog

telephone communication which chops of frequencies above 4 Khz. This

scheme works because the telephone is used to convey information

carried over human voice. The human voice and ear use frequencies

below 4 Khz to carry useful information.

Another way to classify different video compression methods are as

techniques applicable to compression of single images and techniques

that are applicable to compression of a sequence of images. To be a bit

more precise, there is spatial compression and then there is temporal

compression. Spatial compression comprises of tools (techniques) that

reduce redundancy in the two dimensional image space while temporal

compression takes advantage of redundancy between images at

different instances.

In all the discussions that follow, our starting point for video

compression is digitized video. It is a point worth explicitly stating

because some of the concepts mentioned have an analog counterpart

and hence can cause confusion.

In a few places in this article a bit of ingenuity has been used in trying

to address things at a conceptual level without sacrificing technical

correctness too much.

And now onto some specific tools.

1. Quantization

Changing quantization to achieve compression is easy to understand

and simple to do. If a pixel is stored as an 8 bit sample, knocking off the

least significant bit will make the data size 7/8th of the original. The

quality degradation may be absolutely unacceptable for the kind of

Page 27

work we do at Sourcebits but might be acceptable in many other

situations. Figure 1 illustrates the point.

Figure 1. An image (Lena) being encoded with increasing quantization

step size. Successive images use 1 bit less per pixel and this is achieved

by chopping off the least significant bit.

Though Quantization is a simple concept and easy to implement, let’s

also use it to illustrate the omnipotent space vs time tradeoff that also

happens. Increasing the quantization step does give us a gain in space

(data size). The trade off is in terms of computation required. The first

computation required is to eliminate a bit, which could be implemented

with ease. The second and more subtle requirement is to pack the bits.

If one bit is eliminated from a byte, a mechanism would be required to

use this bit to contain useful information from the next byte. In effect, a

sample could get split over multiple bytes. Putting all this together

takes computation and hence time.

Page 28

This is also a good time to point out that most processes in

compression would have a corresponding counterpart in the

decompression, i.e. consumption, phase.

It is essential to mention that quantization is also used in the frequency

domain. We have discussed the time domain example because that is

easier to comprehend.

2.Downsampling

The concept of downsampling is used for multiple purposes in video

technology. In this discussion, we will limit ourselves to the use of

downsampling in achieving compression with no change to resolution.

Downsampling means having fewer samples to represent an image.

This could mean storing data for every alternate pixel instead of data

for every pixel. The skipped pixels could be regenerated approximately

using some pre-defined rule. One mechanism could be to interpolate

from adjacent pixels.

The most commonly used downsampling scheme is a bit more

complicated than the explanation above. It works best in the YUV space.

And therein lies another interesting fact. YUV decouples luma (Y) and

chroma (U & V). Luma is the brightness aspect of an image while

chroma holds the color information. The human eye is more sensitive to

brightness than it is to color. This is used to advantage while

downsampling. Different downsampling schemes are possible in the

YUV space. One possibility is to store the luma values of all pixels and

the chroma values of alternate pixels. If you are with me thus far, take a

moment to work out what compression this scheme would if the

original image had 24 bits per pixel (8 luma, 8 + 8 chroma).

In practical image compression standards, much more compression

than implied above is obtained through RLE. As is to be expected, this

Page 29

comes at the cost of computation complexity. The RLE is applied not on

raw image data directly. Instead, the image is divided into blocks and

the blocks are converted to frequency domain by doing a DCT. The RLE is

then done on this data. In the next section we discuss DCT and will add

to our discussion on RLE in that context.

4.DCT (and then some)

Choosing the title for this sub-section has proved to be a little difficult.

DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) is the commonly used technique to take

advantage of a few neat and related ideas which are as much

psycho-visual as mathematical. For the sake of your sanity we will not

delve into the math.

Communication theory and systems use frequency domain

representation of signals to great advantage. One of the reasons for this

is the fact that many physical systems can be best described in terms of

their responses to different frequencies. For example, the human eye

does not see ultraviolet rays and human ear does not respond to

ultrasound normally. This stems from the systems' frequency response

characteristics.Tuning of a radio or a TV is also an activity which

depends on the frequency response of its subsystems.

Conversion between frequency domain and time domain

representations are interchangeable without any loss.

With that as the backdrop, let us take a look at what all this means in

our context of video compression. Performing a DCT on digital video

data would convert it into spatial frequency coefficients. IDCT (inverse

DCT) would do the reverse process. Conversion to frequency domain

does two things for us.

Firstly, it is the nature of most signals that a large portion of the

energy would be concentrated around the DC component. So,

this conversion would give us a representation where the larger

values are clustered (around the DC component).

The second advantage is that the frequency domain

representation allows us to take advantage of some of the

psycho-visual aspects of the human eye. The eye is not very

sensitive to the higher frequency components and so these can

be discarded with acceptable perceptual distortion.

We have kept things at a conceptual level. There is another concept that

needs to be brought in before we look at a concrete example. Thus far

Page 30

?we have been implying, without explicitly stating, that all these

compression techniques work on the image (a frame in video) directly.

In practice, the image is divided into blocks. So, the image might be of

720x480 pixels and a typical block would be 8x8 pixels. Most of the

processing would be done on the blocks. One of the consequences of

this is the blockiness or small squarish artifacts we encounter in low

quality video. There are various reasons why the image is broken into

blocks, and we will explore one of these when we discuss temporal

compression.

So, what does all this mean? Take a look at Figure 4. This has been

copied from a presentation called “Introduction to Image and Video

Coding”, by Iain E G Richardson. The image on the left is a frame from a

video of a newsreader Akiyo. It is one of the standard test samples and

the lady's eyebrows, eyes and lips have been intensely studied by

countless video professionals. The middle panel is the zoomed image of

a block around the eyebrows. This is a pictorial representation of the

output of a DCT operation on this block. Here is where the magic starts.

We find one big DC component and all other values being less than a

tenth of it. In addition one sees that most of the bigger values are

clustered around the DC component.

If one uses all the frequency components (8x8 values) and does an IDCT,

the original block will be completely regenerated. This would not result

in compression because now we would have 8x8 frequency samples

rather than 8x8 pixel values. The interesting part is that even if we

approximate most of the smaller components (typically the high

frequency components) to zero, the regenerated image would be very

close to the original. This is seen in the third panel in the figure. The

first column in the third panel shows the basis pattern a frequency

sample represents (this is something we are not discussing in this

Page 31

5.Variable Length Coding – VLC

VLC is a coding scheme where codes of different lengths are used to

encode different source values. So, a VLC for the english alphabet could

have character 'a' encoded as a 1 bit code and 'z' as a 10 bit code. VLC

codes are designed such that the symbols that have a greater

probability of occurrence are assigned shorter codes. In the context of

our discussion on DCT, if there is going to be a preponderance of value 0,

it would make it efficient to have a very short code word for 0. In reality,

this picture is a little bit more complicated because it is not the value 0

that is encoded, instead it is the value along with the run lengths of

different symbols including 0. So, code words are assigned to the value,

run length pair. One of the best known VLC schemes is Huffman coding.

6.Inter-frame compression

All the techniques we discussed thus far are intra-frame compression

techniques, i.e. image compression techniques. All these are effectively

used in video compression. The big conceptual step forward when it

comes to video is inter-frame compression.

In inter-frame compression, data from one frame is used in compressing

another frame. Let us examine the simple form of this, which is

compression based on the preceding frame.

Most video content has a “scene” running for some length of time. This

means that a lot of content in a sequence has video content with small

changes between frames. Imagine a video shot of a car moving with

the camera stationery and illumination not changing. In this situation

the differences between frames are going to be minimal. The

background is going to remain the same. The body of the car will be the

same. The relative positions are going to change and some changes

could happen because of the change in lighting due to the position of

the car.

We have examined the concept of blocks earlier and we will need to use

this concept here also. Visualize two adjacent frames in the scene with

the car moving. To keep things simple, assume the first frame is

compressed without reference to any other frame. The second frame

would have lot of similarities with the first with some differences

caused by the movement of the car. Hence there is a lot of redundancy if

the first frame is available for reference.

The mechanism to take advantage of inter-frame redundancy is

Page 32

extremely simple conceptually. Each block in the second frame is

compared with the blocks closest in location in the previous frame. The

block that matches most closely is chosen as the predecessor.

Conceptually this can be thought of as the block in frame 1 that has

moved to a new location in frame 2. The displacement is captured in

terms of its shift in x and y coordinates and this is called the motion

vector. The difference between the block in frame 2 and the predecessor

found is encoded as an error block. Since this will have small values

compared to the image data, this can be encoded with fewer bits and

hence contributes to a large portion of the compression achieved.

In the example of the moving car, the blocks representing the

background would have a zero value motion vector. For most blocks

representing the body of the car, the motion vector would depend on

the speed and direction of the cars movement.

The frames that are fully specified are called I-frames (Intra), while the

predicted frame is called a P-frame. A related technique used in various

codecs is to predict based on both preceding and succeeding frames

and these frames are called B-frames (Bi-predictive).

To make things more interesting, the newer standards like H.264 allow

a mixing of predicted and fully encoded blocks in the same frame. This

allows greater compression but spare a thought for the amount of work

the processor needs to do.

7.Summing up

Video compression is a fascinating and continuously improving field of

study. Many of the techniques are clever implementations of common

sense ideas. These brute force methods have been mixed with some

interesting mathematics and psycho-visual concepts to result in some of

the stunning advancements that have been made.

Video compression today involves subjective and objective trade-offs

between compression ratio, quality of compressed content,

computation required, computation time required, memory constraints

and degree of human intervention required. With the proliferation of

handheld devices, this has become an even more pressing need.

Consumers who are used to a certain experience on an HD TV would

find a vastly lower quality on a handheld device irksome.

All this has ensured that video compression is field where there is a lot

of innovation happening right now and potential for a even more in the

future.Joy Prabhakaran

Page 33

THE BIRTH OF AN

ICON

An icon, that small bunch of shapely pixels is the gateway to great and powerful

things, new unexplored worlds, It helps you pay your grocery bill, predict the

weather and even help you get to know that girl your too shy to talk to. There is

an app for almost everything and every one of these apps needs a symbol a

graphical representation. To distinguish it from the next one and show us what

it does.

We are living in a tech age, gadgets are an essential part of life. With all these

gadgets, icons are everywhere on mobile phones,computers,home appliances

and almost every gizmo you could lay your hands on.This ocean of symbols all

around us makes creating an icon no simple task. An icon needs to be simple yet

attractive and eye catching. It should clearly represent the function its

connected to. The user needs to instantly be able to comprehend exactly what

taping or clicking that icon will do, just by looking at it.

Nightstand our flagship app that simple clock that all of us so fondly love and

adore. We've seen that clock face icon a thousand times But did we ever for a

moment sit back and think about why the Nightstand icon looks the way it does

and how it came to be.

We have a shiny new Nightstand icon in the making and would like to share

with you the process of how this icon was created.

Page 35

Every Icon begins first as an idea, fleeting images bouncing around in someones head. The big bright ones get snatched out and come to life on

paper. These are a few of of the initial concepts for the new Nightstand icon.

The ON/Off switch with the time

displayed. This concept shows the

basic function of the app an alarm

clock.

A digital clock on a wooden table.

A nightstand clock, a perfect

representation of of what the

nightstand is. I have a hunch this

could be the one.

Coffee mug with a crescent moon

in the cream. We all want to wake

up to a nice cup off coffee every

morning and the nightstand lets

us wake up on time to do just

that.

A vintage alarm clock

Those noisy clocks which would

literally fall off the table if you

didn't wake up and turn it off.

Next comes the process of analyzing each icon both visually and conceptually. Only the best ones survive to the next stage which is the most

exciting process "The visual design". Here those pencil drawings turn into colorful shiny pixels.

Page 36

Cut, carve and paint. Bring those ideas to life give them color, shape and form. The weapon of choice - Photoshop

Now thats a great looking cup of

coffee, but as great as it looks it

remains disconnected from what the

nightstand really is " a clock face".

Now thats more like it. A digital clock

on a wood table. One word comes to

mind "Nightstand"

This one looks like its counting down

to doomsday, Turn if off quick!

A beautiful alarm clock but it doesn't

really match with all the nightstand

clock themes.

Now its on to reviewing polishing and cleaning the icons to make them look their pixelicious best Once they are all decked up in their best livery its

time to face the final test. The final selection where only the best will survive.

Page 37

Julian Wright

And we have a winner!

The final icon has completed its long and arduous path to pixel perfection. Slap on a coat of varnish and its good to go. It will go on to live a

glamorous life, be seen, clicked, tapped and even admired by scores of people until one day another shiny icon comes along to replace it.

Page 38

Social Innovation

Opportunity

As the handset market has developed, competition has intensified at

every step of the value chain. The result of this competition has been a

need for players at every link of the chain to increase the value that

their products provide to customers at every step of the way and

ultimately to the end user. Rising handset production, marketing and

sales, as well more emphasis on design capabilities, software and cost,

has created a whole range of activities in each of these areas that

require a different strategy and more resources to sustain growth.

The handset value chain that was envisaged at the outset of the mobile

market has since undergone many significant changes.

As below survery indicate the App developers will command significant

value in coming years .

The outlook above offers unique opportunity for the companies in the

App development business to do more now than they ever could

before. Certainly creating knock-offs like “Talking Tom,” Fruit Ninga” or

“Angry bird“ won't help us drive that value chain.

Where is the Value Filed ?

If we look closely, there is a change in way smartphone usage is

propagated. These devices were once solely for consumption of rich

societies, but are now reaching the mass marketplace. With the device

manufacturing cost set to drop even further, the smartphone market of

the future will be today's feature phone market. The opportunity lies in

addressing the mass market needs while offering the innovative

solution for empowering the society and for social well-being .

Business need to find the niche in burning issues of greater society like:

Empowering people

Creating value for everybody

Addressing social challenges

Potential to Thrive on

To fully capitalize the potential the issues outline above and drive

significant brand value for business, innovative solutions need to be

offered in the horizons of:

Page 40

Producer (delivers products , services and solution)

Platform (empowers others to co-create solution)

Incubator( distributes expertise to grow solutions and ventures

together)

Some global issue areas where application development companies

can drive value for mass market are:

Health

Learning

Livelihood

Advocacy

Application development companies need to see the opportunity in the

areas such as:

Creation and sharing

Group interaction

Means to relevant information

Incentive

Validating the world

Group Interaction

Solutions need to be offered to people which will help them to better

collaborate and connect to community local interest and affinity. If we

try to map the theme of collaboration to global issues then we can see

the relation of people behavior to solutions emerging .

Health

Behavior

Solutions

Allow people with similaraliments to align with

each other.

Diseases related solutions andsupport group.

Learning

Behavior

Solutions

Allow people to form and sharegroups of similar interest.

Platform to support contextuallearning group on relevant

subject matter.

Livelihood

Behavior

Solutions

Allow people collectivelymanage their resources.

Services for managingcollective finance.

Page 41

Means to relevant Information

It is critical we support efficiently finding and contributing to the

development of relevant information and knowledge .

Incentive

Create engagement with beneficially effective and/or reinforcing

interaction that catalyze action and participation.

Validating the world

Provide tools for identification, authentication and verification of

everything, from products to people.

Health

Behavior

Solutions

Allow people health basedinformation and options that returnsmeaningful options for health care.

Health monitoring, datacollection, remote diagnose

Advocacy

Behavior

Solutions

Allow people find and joinpeople of a similar

interest group.

Services for finding andcontributing the affinity groups.

Learning

Behavior

Solutions

Allow people to ask for andhelp create relevant knowledge.

Services for finding andcontributing the affinity groups.

Livelihood

Behavior

Solutions

Allow people collectivelymanage their resources.

Services for managingcollective finance.

Health

Behavior

Solutions

Allow people to receiveincentive for the participation

in health care activities.

Mobile coupons, credit for people toparticipate in health-related activities

performed by an NGO or the government

Learning

Behavior

Solutions

Allow people to learnthrough fun and interaction.

Social sharing rewards forpositive reinforcement.

Livelihood

Behavior

Solutions

Allow people to feel secure inadoption and application of

new beneficial livelihood strategies

Positive credits for people adaptingthe new services like money

transfer through mobile

Page 42

Content creation and sharing

Facilitate (co-)creation of business, information, forms of expression,

media, solutions - and sharing them with others.

Final thought:

We are at the crossroads of digital revolution. Mobile phones have

initiated the first phase of this revolution, but now it's our turn to come

up with effective solutions on top mobile platforms for the

empowerment of society and improving social well-being.

Health

Behavior

Solutions

Allow people to access to healththeir own health records

and relevant information.

Mobile medical record accessand identification solutions.

Learning

Behavior

Solutions

Allow people to learn throughengaging the world around them.

Augmented Reality, location-basedor interest-based learning solutions.

Livelihood

Behavior

Solutions

Allow people to gain access to capital by social and technical andproxy trustworthiness verification;Allow people to access the critical

information pertaining to their livelihood.

Mobile Banking solutions , credit historyverification solutions, land record

access through mobile.

Health

Behavior

Solutions

Allow people to create and sharehealth care-related information.

Content creation and sharing of best practices for heath

care-related issues , ill effects of addiction,community-based consumption

of heath report.

Livelihood

Behavior

Solutions

Allow people to createtheir own solution togenerate livelihood.

Modular web and phone basedsolutions to further the

means of livelihood

Learning

Behavior

Solutions

Allow people to learn by doing.

Step-by-step learning solution thatteaches with creation of content.

Vivek Rajanna

Page 43

EMPLOYED AT SOURCEBITS!What Next?

For most of your working life much of

what you’ve been evaluated on is the

ability to master specific areas of

knowledge, expertise and your ability to

make things happen, to get things done.

The criteria for success is clear - whether

or not your performance is better than

someone else’s performance!!

For most people, one of the most frustrat-

ing elements at work is to let go of a

focus on ‘being right’ and shifting into

‘being effective’. As you move to more

senior roles in organizations―or start on

your own― you are responsible for what

we call creating a context― an environ-

ment in which others can excel at getting

the right things done.

Setting the context in Sourcebits is about more

than being effective and requires timeless

strategies for success. Even if you’re already on

top of your game, here are some useful

reminders! I would still bet on the first three -

the best shared characteristics: optimism,

initiative, and learning

• Think positive: The power of optimism and

confidence

• Why not do it yourself? The excitement of

initiative & passion

• Make the most of it: The ability to turn

learning into luck

The next two will help counteract some

common misperceptions. Use them to avoid the

traps others may expect you will fall into:

• It has to work buddy: the benefits of

pragmatism

• Clear the air and move on: The satisfaction

of direct discussions―and letting go

The last one, in some way is a timeless

suggestion― Do the hula: The role of grace

under pressure

You face choices about how to interact every

single day―how to mesh your expectations

and preferences with whatever reality you find.

To get noticed more quickly, and earn greater

influence and responsibility, let’s dwell on the

‘hows’ - ways that work to get things done @

SB.

Think positively: the power of optimism

and confidence

A lot of what happens here happens because

the person advocating a course of action or a

particular position exudes confidence and

energy about the choice. That confidence

draws others in.

Happily, most of us start out with a healthy

dose of self-confidence and self-esteem. Unfor-

tunately, maintaining a sense of confidence in

some ways runs counter to the fundamental

philosophy ― being effective. Appearing

confident goes far beyond the clothes you

wear. It includes the amount of preparation

you’ve done and the way you react to new

challenges. One of the worst mistakes you can

make is to signal that you are not in control of

a situation or project or you haven’t given

your project the attention it deserves.

The value delivered @ SB is confidence. Don’t

lose it―use it! Exude confidence, and you will

be given even more interesting challenges to

tackle.

Why not do it yourself? The excitement of

initiative

Whenever you hear yourself thinking, “Why

doesn’t someone. . . ” consider whether it

might be possible to do it yourself. Take on

responsibility for making your firm a better

place! We don’t want to complain without

offering constructive suggestions right? And

let’s not be afraid to step into a leadership

vacuum!!

What are you best at doing? Are you spending

your time trying to get good at what you are

bad at instead of getting better at what you

are good at, sounds familiar ? Yeah, discover

your passion and do it well. That’s the success

story of Sourcebits itself!

Make the most of it: The ability to turn

learning into luck

The ability to get something useful out of

virtually any situation is one of the great skills

of successful people. Learning is probably the

best way to make the most of an otherwise

less-than-great situation. So even if you get

momentarily stuck in a company or position

you don’t like, challenge yourself to see how

much learning you can draw out of the experi-

ence.

Your top workplace values are “the growth

potential” in a position and “intellectual

stretch”.

Start by being curious about how the business

operates. Can you see any ways for improve-

ment? I’m always a bit impatient with people

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who tell me they’re bored; it tells me that

they’re not using their imagination to look at

what they can draw out of the situation. Also,

get to know people up the chain of command.

It has to work buddy: The benefits of

pragmatism

It is about being a hotshot and a rock star.

From my vantage point, its good to be articu-

late, bright and on coming up with the “best”

possible answer― brilliant, logical, well

supported― just what would earn you high

marks in school. But I figured out that what

really mattered was how well your recommen-

dations work.

Success is not about having the most brilliant

answer. It is not even necessarily about being

“right.” It’s about making things work―and

that means developing a really good under-

standing of the organization you’re trying to

affect and the people you’re trying to convince.

You need to get away from thinking ‘I have the

right answer’ to ‘I can help make this work’.

Asking your colleagues questions about how

things work is a sign of good organizational

sense, not of weakness or inability. You’ll learn

the culture more efficiently and develop better

insights into how to get your ideas across. This

leads to an increased likelihood that your

ideas will get implemented.

Clear the air and move on: The satisfaction

of direct discussions and letting go

Even with the most astute understanding of

the organization and the greatest ideas, there

will be times when you’re not going to

agree―or even get along―with some of your

colleagues. It’s about how you can air disa-

greements and address difficult issues face-

to-face. In the workplace, it is critical to

address issues openly and constructively, even

if they’re difficult. In most cases, there is no

option for picking up your toys and going

home (unless you plan to leave the organiza-

tion). Instead, you need to make the relation-

ships you’ve been dealt, work.

Do the hula

The role of grace under pressure

I have to warn you: the odds are that you’ll

find yourself in some awkward and uncom-

fortable situations over the course of your

career―ones you wish you could wiggle out

of. I know, I have.

In one of my training sessions, I dragged 3 of

my participants on stage and encouraged

them to do the hula. Clearly none of them was

thrilled, but they reacted in very different

ways. Two of them resisted, protested,

squirmed, and basically refused to play along.

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They came off looking ridiculous. The third one

pasted on a smile, gritted her teeth, and did

the hula. She looked like a champ. And she

taught the other two, the hula.

There will be lots of times in business when

you find yourself, figuratively, in situations like

the hula ―assignments that don’t match your

skills, clients who are making unreasonable

demands, truly embarrassing social moments.

But there will inevitably come times when you

are in the situation with no obvious route of

escape. So, do the hula, with grace. Grit your

teeth and give it your very best. The worst

thing you can do at that point would be to

squirm and complain.

Throw yourself into it. Your “good sport”

attitude won’t be forgotten.

So what Sourcebits constantly looks for is

innovative ideas, including products and

services that will connect with choice-oriented

consumers. It has lot to offer in return! But

talent alone is not enough. To make the most

of your talent, you have to plug in to your

workplace, to connect with the people, to get

your ideas across in ways that are compelling,

and to address potential roadblocks in

constructive ways. And as you do, your capa-

bilities will grow materially. Soon you’ll be

ready to make a new impression― you’ll be

doing something that will trigger your cow-

orkers to take out their cameras. Each new

picture will reflect a new step in your contribu-

tion.

Anita Menon

Page 47

Content creation and sharing of best practices for heath

care-related issues , ill effects of addiction,community-based consumption

of heath report.

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