Growing Beans

About a month ago, I planted 9 bean seeds in my garden. I placed them near the grill so that they would climb over it and grow. Each of them received (roughly) the same amount of sunlight, water and soil nutrition. However, the growth rates were dissimilar. 

• 6 of them needed support lines (white threads) to use the grill
• 2 of them were not strong enough to use support lines
• 1 of them not only reached the grill but started curling around it as well

In a typical organization, this could be related to a team of 9 members, with one delivering spectacular results, 2 under-performing and the rest being average.

Now, here's the interesting part - once in 10 days, I apply some manure to all my plants. I have 3 choices - 

(1) Apply manure equally to all plants

(2) Apply more manure to the plant curling around the grill (high performer!)

(3) Apply more manure to 2 plants that aren't strong enough (under performers!)

Without thinking too much about it, which option would you choose? I admit its hard to choose objectively. As the saying goes, "what people say and do are not always alike". In my case, I didn't think about these choices earlier, I was just working unconsciously. So what do you think I chose? Option (2). I admit that with some regret.

Perhaps its the conditioning of seeing high performers being rewarded and under performers being left behind in almost every aspect of my life - be it school or work. Logically, it seems right to feed the high performing plant, chances of it bearing fruit (beans) are much higher. On the other hand, don't the 2 under-performing plants need the extra serving of manure more than the others? 

This may sound trivial but this could be applicable in other areas of your life too. You may be a parent of 2 children or a manager with many people reporting to you. Do you tend to favour the high performers and give them more rewards (thus neglecting the weaker ones)? Or do you handle each one with equal care? Or do you give the weaker ones the extra support that they might need to realize their true potential?

Review of BusyWallet

I came across Prem Sagar's blog and his post about his side project of creating an expense tracker for busy people. I've always been using tools to track my expenses right from my college days (where I used pen & paper!). 

One of my pain points with expense tracking is getting bogged down by minor details. I always attempt to assign an expense to a meaningful category that looks good on my dashboard (monthly summary). Inevitably, I start organizing categories into sub-categories. Even after all this work, I come across expenses that don't seem to fit into any category. Rather than creating a new category on-the-fly, I assign it to a Miscellaneous category, thinking that I'll get around to fixing that odd expense, which never happens. 

Another pain point is missing out on cash expenses despite my best efforts. Earlier, I used to note down exactly how much cash I had in my wallet at the start of each week. By the end of the week, I would check if I missed out on cash expenses that I didn't track and assign them to Misc category. This continued for a few years, until I finally resigned to only tracking those cash expenses I could remember.

This is where I found Prem's approach with BusyWallet simple & rather unique. Instead of breaking your head over expense categories, he proposes to just track your overall monthly expenditure. The Dashboard provides a visual to track this metric over many months. This metric is also one of the key factors for financial freedom planning, which I feel is a natural progression for this tool. Since you're tracking your bank accounts, there is no chance of missing out on any expenditure.

Positives

• Simple & unique approach for tracking monthly expenditure
• No complications with expense categories (there are none)
• No issues with missing out on cash expenses

As Prem mentions in his post, the learning curve for using this tool is rather steep. I've compiled a list of steps that anyone can use to make good use of this tool in short time.

(1) Download your savings account statement in Excel format 

(2) Note the ending balance for each month 

(3) Note the starting balance for the first month 

(4) Repeat the following steps for each month -

(a) Filter out rows that correspond to expenses

(b) You should be left with only records that correspond to other transactions (not expenses)

(c) Label each record as Investment, Income or Transfer.This serves as a sanity record to validate that you are indeed left with records that are not expenses. The actual label you use is not important. 

(d) Add up all records under the withdrawal column

(e) Add up all records under the deposits column

(f) Compute the difference = deposits - withdrawal

At this point, you have ending balance and the "Adjustment-In" figure for each month. Enter this in the tool. Repeat this for each of your savings account. Although there is some manual work here, its a lot less when you compare it with tracking your day-to-day expenses. 

Suggestions (ordered by priority)

• Clicking 'Add Transaction' in an account page should have that account selected (by default, it goes to the first account)
• Support adding multiple transactions
• Show the average monthly expenditure in the dashboard (maybe a red dotted line in the graph)

Caveat

I wouldn't go as far to say that there is no benefit of breaking down your expenses by category. This is absolutely essential if you are looking to cut down your expenses. Just having one number is not going to help you there.

What I think people need is a tool that automatically assigns expenses to predefined categories, thus letting the user focus on why they really track expenses - to know where the money goes and which categories to target for reduction. 

Work Smarter, Not Harder [University of California, Irvine] [Coursera]

Photo Credit: Taken from one of the lecture slides

I achieved a personal record of completing a MOOC in a single day. The overall video content was short (< 1 hr) and its based on one of my favorite topics - personal productivity. 

There's a lot of stuff we learn on the job such as setting priorities and coming up with estimates. The tips provided in this course are elementary in nature but they reinforce the basic principles. How do you distinguish between important & urgent work, which time of the day are you most productive and what sort of work do you schedule during those hours, what does work life balance mean to you?

One of the topics that stuck a chord with me was teaching people how to treat you. For instance, if you wanted to take a few days off next month, which approach would you prefer? 

(1) Ask your boss if he's ok with the dates and adjust them if needed

(2) Inform your boss & work with him to make it happen (this may include getting critical work done before the vacation)

Note that in both approaches you are being respectful of your work commitments. Its just how you approach it that's different. Make a conscious choice to choose the approach that works for you, communicate it, stick to it. This applies to other aspects of your working life, such as your availability after work hours - do you share your home number, are you available for calls on weekends, do you answer your phone during vacations?

I liked the section on multitasking. I'm particular bad at doing many things at the same time. I prefer to focus my energy on one task, get it done and move on to the next. Unfortunately, its not always possible to spend the whole day doing just one thing. At times, that can slow you down as well. The key to doing multiple things at once is to leave some context on the unfinished task before moving on to the next. Personally, I like to use the Pomodoro technique when working on a task.

Here's some reference material that I came across while taking this course - 

(1) Short online quiz to discover what kind of a productive person are you

(2) A follow up article to the above quiz listing all types of productive people

(3) 5 part video series by Mike Sanders on multitasking (in particular I liked Part 5 & Micro-meditation)

Why not challenge yourself to complete a MOOC in a single day like I did? Regardless of your work experience, you might find some interesting insights. 

Link to the online course.

Discover the strengths of your child [Workshop by Bhoomi Network]

I attended a workshop conducted by the Bhoomi Network called "Discover the strengths of your child". I have a 3 year old daughter and figured this is one of those golden opportunities where I can learn to become a better parent. 

I walked in expecting a typical instructor-led kind of workshop, but I was in for a pleasant surprise. Right from the start, the participants were engaged in group exercises. I don't want to get into specifics here as it would spoil the fun for others interested in attending this workshop. Suffice to say, you will be on your toes throughout the workshop!

This is similar to the Active Learning Methodology where participants learn from each other and instructors act as facilitators. I had a great time interacting with parents with kids from different age groups, it was like a preview of wonderful & terrifying experiences to come :) The instructors did a good job ensuring that the exercises were timed and the participants moved on to the next activity, otherwise we (the parents) would have rambled on in our little group exercises.

A serendipitous moment occurred for me when I realized that the workshop is focused more on the participants. Each participant learns how to identify their own strengths. My understanding is that once you are able to do this, you can extend the same process to someone else (like your child). 

This workshop was largely based on the book, "Now, Discover Your Strengths" by Marcus Buckingham & Donald O. Clifton. I realized later that I have actually have this book at home, but never bothered reading it! Of course, that changed after this workshop.

In the end, I walked away with more questions than answers, which I feel was a good thing because it meant that I was actually processing this information and working with it. The workshop was inclusive of lunch, which was wholesome. It was a pleasure to be at Prakriya campus with their vegetable gardens and all round greenery.  

Positives

• Active learning methodology
• Participants learn from each other
• Instructors were good facilitators 
• Chance to meet parents with kids in different age groups
• Workshop focused on the participant (pleasant surprise)
• Learn the process to discover strengths in yourself, then apply it to your child
• Good reference material from the book
• Walked away with more questions than answers (actually a positive!)
• Lunch was homely and nourishing
• Pleasure to be in the "green" campus

Suggestions

I recently came across this video where the instructor conducts a 60 second micro-meditation that ends with a key question. The idea is to prepare your mind to use what's called the prefrontal cortex or the analytical part of your brain. I thought this might be an effective approach for the "Define Yourself" exercise conducted during the workshop. 

Taking a cue from the book, it might also be a good idea to give participants a chance to say one thing they liked most about the workshop. The book is all about focusing on your strengths rather than your weaknesses, so perhaps if the instructors found out what participants liked the most, they could do more of that or make it even better.

Lastly, some of us felt the workshop ran out of time, perhaps because our heads were buzzing with more questions. Maybe the workshop can be structured to spend some quality time with the instructors, not just during lunch while we are feeding our hungry stomachs!

• Micro-meditation to start off the "Define Yourself" exercise
• Give participants a chance to say what they liked most about this workshop
• Give time for Q&A with instructors

Conclusion

Overall, an excellent workshop for parents. The heartwarming message came from one of the instructors when she mentioned that they also learn from the participants, so you can expect this workshop to get better over time.

Marketing in a Digital World [University of Illinois]

This is the second Coursera course I completed last month. My motivation to take this course was to refresh my memory on the basic concepts of Marketing. I was keen to see how the digital landscape was affecting the ways in which Marketing is done today. This course exceeded my expectations and I found great value in taking it.

Here are some of the key elements I liked about this course - 

(1) Great Structure

Prof Aric Rindfleisch & his team have done a great job at the design & structure of this course. The entire course consists of 4 modules, with each module focusing on one of the 4Ps of Marketing - Product, Promotion, Place and Price. 

The video lectures are well thought out and structured as well. Prof Aric typically uses the following format when introducing a new digital concept -

• starts with the basic idea of the concept
• brings out examples of its use in everyday life
• formally defines the concept 
• brings insights from academic research
• ends with practical recommendations

(2) Peer graded assignments

When it comes to a marketing course, peer graded reviews work best because most of the time there is no right/wrong answer, it really depends on the context and facts used to support a point of view. I learned a lot from my fellow students as I reviewed their answers and saw perspectives that were different from my own. It was a good feeling to see comments & constructive feedback for my own answers as well.

(3) Concept Application

This is perhaps what I enjoyed the most about this course. Its one thing to read about 3D Printing, customer co-creation or pay-what-you-want pricing, but when you actually see how these concepts are applied by firms, the abstract idea or concept starts to become real. Not only were the caselets enjoyable to read, the exercises really helped me grasp the concept. For instance, I contributed to my first Wikipedia article as part of the exercise for user generated content. The following mind map shows the 8 digital concepts covered in this course with their respective application examples.

Conclusion

This is an enjoyable course to take and I highly recommend it. Being self-paced, you won't have to worry about any pending deadlines, but I do suggest completing the lectures at a regular pace so that the material is still fresh on your mind. Towards the end of the course, you start seeing how different digital concepts interleave with each other, as none of them typically work in isolation.

This is the first course of the Digital Marketing Specialization track on Coursera. I'm looking forward to completing the remaining courses this year. 

R Programming [Johns Hopkins University]

I took the R Programming Course (part of the Data Science Specialization on Coursera) last month. The experience has been fulfilling to say the least. I always wanted to learn this programming language, one because I was (and still am) intrigued by it and second because I felt it would be a great asset for me as I work further on my academic project related to mutual fund investments.

Here are some of the key elements I liked about this course - 

(1) Course lectures

The lectures are detailed and cover everything from the origins of the language, to the basics of the programming language like defining variables and programming constructs (such as if, for and while loops), to more advanced concepts such as subsetting a vector and filtering out missing values (NAs). 

(2) Reading material

photo credit: Carlos Porto (flickr)

All slides used in the lectures can be viewed / downloaded for later reference. This helped me quite a bit. I always feel when you learn something new, you don't always get it the first time. But when you review a week later, you discover something new or understand the concept a lot better. Here's something that I've come to appreciate -

"Repetition is a form of change"

(3) Not too long, not too short, just right [Goldilocks]

This course is actually in its 14th edition. It is pretty much running on auto-pilot, starts on the 1st day of each month, and runs for exactly 4 weeks. In fact, all courses of the Data Science Specialization are designed this way. So you can choose any course you like, and by the end of month, you are pretty much done and can move on to the next course. Depending on your experience and bandwidth, you can even take up more than one course in parallel.

Coming to the course content itself, I felt each week had something new to offer and the accompanying quizzes and assignments were quite engaging. I'm sure you might read the Goldilocks story as a child, people refer to the Goldilocks principle these days for describing a task that is not too hard or too easy, but just right, just enough to get someone in the "flow" of things. This course felt exactly like that for me.

(4) Community help (including tips on completing the assignments)

This was one of the reasons why I persisted with the course. The assignments are challenging, as they not only test your understanding of the lectures, but also your ability to search for material outside the lectures, which will be needed to complete the assignment. For example, the first assignment requires that you know how to subset a data frame. Although the lectures covered subsetting in great detail, I still couldn't get myself to complete the assignment without searching for some help online.

It turns out that other students did the same thing in previous editions of the course, and a couple of them have collected resources that might help others do the assignments a lot faster. These includes tips, guided assignments (with step-by-step instructions), unit tests and a cheat sheet covering the contents of all lectures in a concise way (which is great for revision).

(5) The e-Book

Roger D. Peng (the course instructors) has released an e-book using the pay-what-you-want (PWYW) model, which means exactly what it sounds like. If you want to download the book for free, he allows you to do that. 

I recommend paying something as a token of gratitude for the hard work the author has put into making this book. I purchased a copy for myself at the end of the course. I plan to read it this month and write a review on it. 

(6) Swirl

Learning R in R!

I saved the best for last :) 

This was my most enjoyable experience with this course. Swirl is an amazing module that works within the R console. It has interactive courses that are organized by difficulty (beginner, intermediate, advanced). Each course comes with one or more topics that relate to a specific concept. After choosing a topic, you are provided with a series of instructions which aid you in understanding that topic / concept. There's also a neat progress bar at the end of each step. 

I completed the R Programming course module (within Swirl), which covers 15 topics in total. Its a great compliment to the content provided with the main course (lectures, quizzes and assignments). I look forward to completing the other interactive courses in the coming months.

Conclusion

This is one of the best courses I've taken on Coursera, well designed and great support from the community. If you are a programmer, a product manager looking to pick up some analytical skills or just someone interested to learn more about Data Science, I encourage you to take up this course.

Jugaad in Action

I was about to pickup my daughter from school. At the school gate, I had to use my umbrella as it was drizzling. Just as it opened up, it brushed against my face, threw off my glasses, which fell into one of the small openings of the storm water drain right outside the gate. 

One of the openings through which my specs fell into!

If you think about it, the probability of this event happening is astronomically low! And yet whatever can happen, will happen (Murphy's Law). Now, anyone with an eye power of over -3.00 can tell you they are effectively half blind without specs. Still I could see my specs at the bottom of the drain but it was well beyond my reach and the opening was too thin for my hand to get through anyway. I had to drive back home with my daughter. I wished I put my spare specs in my car's glove compartment. 

As I was wondering what to do next, the school's minivan driver noticed my predicament and offered to help. He fashioned a simple hook using some metal wire and a twig. A few moments later, he was able to pull out my glasses out of the drain. 

I was grateful to be able to see the world again, and amazed to see how ingenious this guy was to make something with a few parts in such quick time (less than a few mins). I'm not just lucky to come out of that incident easily, but also to witness Jugaad (a term used to describe low cost innovation in India) in action.