Now you can check train time tables & availability on Cleartrip.com (www.cleartrip.com/trains). Although you cannot book the tickets from here, you can atleast get the status of the availability of seats right upto the Waiting List number. Another interesting feature is that you can check the route of the train with respect to all the stations it passes through !! :) It's exciting for me since I never ever figured out how to read the Train Timetable book that the Indian Railways publishes. This makes it a whole lot easier :)

Here's a snapshot of how it works.

Prajay & Devi's wedding website

Got a mail this morning from a friend who is getting married this February. Along with his mail he sent me a link to his pre-wedding website This is not the first time I have received a link to a pre-wedding website but it definitely isn't a medium that has been a part of the wedding culture before in India. It definitely is great for NRIs who are living abroad who cannot send a thousand invites to their relatives in India. but for some reason I feel it still lacks the personal touch.

The question is.. Is the personal touch a matter of design or the medium itself?
Check out www (dot) prajayanddevi (dot) com

Interestingly there is an Indian website (www.ourwedding.in) that provides a service to (as mentioned on their website) "announce your wedding the 'i'way' " (sad tagline i would say). Apart from giving a you space to create your own web page and add content related to your wedding it also provides you auspicious wedding dates, a marriage halls directory, options for wedding invitation designs,an entire wedding vendors directory AND to top it all (something that is really relevant and important) they have a list of wedding traditions!  I really wonder if this is a profitable business, considering people spend so much on their wedding (especially in India) and of course.

Just came across this awesome vectorizing web service from Stanford called VectorMagic. My first and foremost 'delight factor' is the simple fact that I can use the service without signing up. In about 3 minutes of landing on the home page of the website for the first time, I was well on my way to downloading a vectorized file in .EPS format after having uploaded a .JPEG on VectorMagic.

With do-it-yourself services like there coming up, DTP (desktop publishing businesses) need to figure out ways to provide more value than just image editing capabilities, etc.

Here are a few initial screen shots.

VectorMagic Screenshot

Decided to get my long due haircut today after my workout this morning. It was about 7:40 in the morning and I was doubtful whether the barber would be open. But as soon as I entered the gate I was received by a young guy who welcomed me inside the salon and directed me to where I should sit, etc. There was no other customer around as yet...

While I sat down and waited for him to make preparations to cut my hair, I experienced my first *service delight*... "Sir... would you like some tea or coffee?". Since I did not expect it and I was very tired and just wanted to get home after the haircut, I was not up for a tea or coffee.. so I replied "No.. thanks.". He immediately replied... "Sir.. little sir."... As soon as he said that, I realized how much this was a part of Indian behaviour!! ...the fact that we like to make our 'guests' feel comfortable and go out of our way to make sure all their needs are met. This same behaviour might not be translated completely in business but iot definitely does show its traces. The above behaviour from the barber demonstrated, in my opinion how important 'hospitality' is in a human-human service. (hospitality = the friendly reception and treatment of guests or strangers)

Another ingredient of service design that I noticed in this place was 'knowledge transparency'. Allowing the users of the service make informed decisions by giving them enough information about your service. Since I went to this place pretty early, I was curious to know when they officially open.. so I asked the barber the time when they open. He instantly replied "7 'o' clock sir" and after a short pause.. "but on Tuesdays we open at 7:30.". Although I hadn't asked for this information, it was most valuable to me for two reasons. Firstly, I now knew that they were open on Tuesday (most barbers aren't in India) and secondly that if I decided to come for a haircut on a Tuesday, then I should go only after 7:30 or else I'll have to wait for sometime.

Lastly, it was nice to see that his service wasn't isolated but was part of an 'ecosystem'. As a barber, his primary job is to cut and style hair. He could be happy doing that and earning money, but there was more to his shop than just the service of cutting hair. He also sold products that he was using to style his customers hair. Hair, atleast from the mens perspective is something that we have on the top of your head and if it needs maintenance then we use shampoo and oil in regular cycles. But when we go to the salon you find that the barber using so many cool products (Loreal hair-care products and other brands) but we have no idea where to get them. This salon, bridged the gap by selling all the products he used. Now if a customer liked what he used then he could buy it right there! (See the trend Tryvertising)

So those were my learnings for the morning ! :)

Instablogs logo

An excellent blogging site. Along with Cleartrip.com, Instablogs has become my second favourite Indian website ! There aren't too many well designed India webservice sites online today. Instablogs kicks ass for many international sites as well. No discrimination intended... but who would have imagined a family run startup from Shimla would come up with something as awesome as this...Bravo!

Hp Pavilion dv6000

Murphy's law is an adage in Western culture that broadly states that things will go wrong in any given situation, if you give them a chance. "If there's more than one possible outcome of a job or task, and one of those outcomes will result in disaster or an undesirable consequence, then somebody will do it that way."

It is almost certain that no presentation or event can pass without something going wrong. In my case it was the centre of my universe that shutdown .. My laptop ! And when?? Just 2 days before I was supposed to head to Copenhagen for a presentation. 

That day was chaos.. The guys at the HP Service Centre said they would give it back only in 3 days, which of course was of no use to me since I would be cruising at 30000 ft. above ground over Afghanistan on my way to Europe. In anycase there was no other way... so I rented a laptop !! and took my hard drive with me on my trip to access any data that I needed.

I just collected my laptop today and its awesome !! Since my laptop was in its warranty period they replaced the entire LCD screen for me free of charge ! :) This incedently was the only part of my laptop that looked oldish due to some scratches... but now.. it looks BRAND NEW!

Proto: The start up event in India

Does that title make any sense to you? "Sexy. Trendy. Design. Technology" was the topic give to me as a speaker at the 3rd edition Proto.in in Chennai. For those who are unaware of what Proto is - Proto.in is a conference that aims to create an ecosystem for start-ups (mainly in the digital space i.e mobile & web) in India.

This was my first conference talk and with a topic like Sexy. Trendy... Design I had no clue what to talk about initially. Another factor that confused me about what to speak about was the fact that there were 2 parallel tracks - Business track & Technology track' on Day 1 of the conference and I was to speak in the Technology track. This meant that I would have an audience who talked in PHP, Python, Java, SQL, etc, etc trying to understand or listen to a designer to whom all those languages were gibberish or Greek!

But the question still loomed over my head.. what do I talk about? Sexy. Trendy. Design. Technology... how could I possibly present this topic?

OPTION 1
Sexy + Trendy + Design + Technology
Do I talk about how all these add up in the creation of a new product?

OPTION 2
Sexy & Trendy : Design & Technology
Should I seperate the two clusters and talk about what defines Sexy and Trendy products and then move on to how Design & Technology are integrated?

OPTION 3
Sexy & Trendy Technology enabled by Design
Or should I talk about how Design thinking can be used to create Sexy, Trendy products.

I decided to choose option 3. This topic seems to come a lot naturally to me than any of the others. It is something I practice and therefore was much more comfortable talking about.

Unfortunately because of the parallel Business track there wasn't much of an audience in the Technology track. (around 25 listeners). I guess most people who were attending Day 1 we there mainly to learn what it takes to start a company and this was exactly what was being discussed in the other room. Eitherways,I had a great experience.. the people who did listen in, showed interest and engaged in interesting conversation after I had finished my talk.

All in all !! Was a great FIRST !! Looking forward to lots more...