I’m a Social Media Entrepreneur, Professor of Digital Marketing, Author of 9 books, Podcaster and an Organic Farmer.

In a few hours from now, I will be in a conversation with Neeraj Sharma as part of my focus on getting business leaders and achievers to my show at Kiruba.TV .

Neeraj is the President, Imaging & Printing Group, Hewlett Packard India Sales Pvt. Ltd. In this role, he is responsible for providing strategic leadership and direction to the IPG division. He aims to further strengthen HP’s leadership position in India by adding newer avenues and opportunities for the IPG division.

He joins HP with 20 years of experience in managing innovation and building sustainable businesses. He has been on various senior leadership roles across varied technology portfolios. He brings strong expertise in managing complexity, creating different routes to markets, optimizing coverage, and most importantly leading high performing and motivated teams. He augments his background of managing hardware portfolios with three and half years of services experience.

Prior to joining HP, he was on a leadership role at IBM and was pivotal in building the new Lenovo organization when IBM divested from their PC business in 2005. During his years at IBM both in India and at Asia-Pacific level, Neeraj built an excellent reputation for developing, managing and sustaining successful business investments across various divisions. His significant assignment at IBM includes creating complex technology solutions for major clients across the region.

The book ‘Copy Right & Left’ will be released by Mr.Mannar Jawahar, Vice Chancellor of Anna University. Sanjay Pinto, Executive Editor of NDTV Hindu will receive the first copy. The date: July 20. Time: 9:45am

Please treat this as my personal invitation for you to attend the book launch function on July 20 at 9:45 am. Whipped out a simple online invitation card.

R.Chandran ( or Chandy as he is popularly called) is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Daimler India Commercial Vehicles Ltd.  Daimler is better known to us as the manufacturers of Mercedez Benz cars.

Chandy comes with a rich experience of 25 years in the IT space. He carries with him the domain expertise in manufacturing and automobiles clubbed with the IT knowledge. A potent combination for an effective CIO

He has been the overall Business Lead for AsiaPacific, GM worldwide and EDS worldwide. In charge of $ 30 million of business and 400 consultants.

He is credited with implementing the first End to End SAP implementation at General Motors Japan. He has also led successful SAP implementations at Visteon Ford, LLoyd Steel, Sterlite, Kalyani Brakes, Pricol Pumps and Jurong Tech, Singapore.

His expertise lies in People management, Partnership Management,, Project Management and Client Relationship.

The venue for the launch of my book, ‘Copy Right and Left : Understanding Creative Commons‘ has been decided. It’s at the Henry Maudslay Hall in Anna University, Chennai.

There are a couple of reasons why I chose Anna University.
1) This is a university that I have been teaching in for over 10 years. There is a special bond that I’ve created.

2) Two of the three researchers who worked on the book, Sushmitha and Preethi, are from this University. What better way to commemorate their work than in front of their peers!

3) Since I know many of the professors and faculty, it becomes so much more easier for me to organize things. Sometimes paperwork and red-tapism can be irksome but not when you know the right people! 🙂

4) The University has a very rich heritage and history. I’m particularly fond of places that has left a deep legacy. For example, the very hall where the book is getting launched is named after Henry Maudslay, the celebrated tool maker born in 1781 !!

5) It’s economical. That’s the advantage of an educational institution. A similar facility would have costed ten times more.

6) The subject of Creative Commons is directly applicable to the students of Media Sciences department. Since the event takes place within campus, it makes it easier for the students to attend the book launch and the informative panel discussion that follows. It will be a power-packed one hour, a worthy replacement for a class-room teaching.

The date for the book launch is July 20th, between 9:45 am and 11 am. I hereby cordially invite you to the book launch function. For your convenience, here are some pictures of both the university and the Henry Maudslay hall so that its easy for you to recognize the place.

As you enter the campus from the main gate, this is the impressive and imposing building that you’ll see.  At this junction, you take a left and keep going straight.

The greenery along the way.

This is the venue. The Henry Maudslay hall.   Its right next to the Mechanical Department.  When you want directions, just ask for the ‘Mechanical Dept’. You are more likely to get an answer than if you asked for the Henry Maudslay Hall.   BTW, I love that tree in front of the hall.

A closer look at the entrance of the hall.  I couldn’t take the inside pics as the hall was closed on that day.

The map.  Not sure if it makes sense to you.  Getting here is very simple. Enter the campus. Head straight to the main building. Then turn left and keep going until you reach the hall. Its quite simple. Call me at 98415 97744 if you need help.

Hoping you see you at the launch on July 20 at 9:45am.

Fresh on http://Kiruba.TV is a podcast with Seiji Hamanishi, the man responsible for the Camera division at Canon India.

I met up with Seiji San at Canon India’s Headquarters in Gurgoan. Like a good Japanese man, he was extremely punctual and didn’t make me wait. He had requested for the questions and a briefing document on the interview well in advance… a sure sign that he is taking this interview seriously.

We had a 45 minute meeting of which the podcast interview lasted 20 minutes. Usually I try to keep my podcasts short but Seiji San was enthusiastically conversational. Have split the podcasts into two halves to maintain brevity. Do listen in. Seiji San has a heavy Japanese accent and some of you may find it difficult to follow the conversation fully. I’m working on transcribing the audio and will have the transcript put online soon.

Here’s a short brief about Seiji San.

Seji Hamanishi is the Assistant Director, ICP division of Canon India Pvt. Ltd. He has come on board the management team of Canon India after a successful stint at Canon Inc and Canon USA.

With 24 years in the company, Seji Hamanishi has a rich experience across divisions and has worked with Canon Inc. for Laser beam printers, Inkjet printers and Imaging products. He has also been widely regarded for his contribution to Canon USA and Amsterdam in his previous assignments.

Mr. Hamanishi is a photography enthusiast himself and is passionate about cameras.

In my mind, I was clear how I wanted the windows to be for the farmhouse that we are constructing. They have to be French windows. At Least 10 feet tall and 4 feet wide. Lots of them. I love airy room with a view of the greenery. And the windows have to be as close to those seen in British vintage cottages.

It greatly helps to have a vision of what you need so that you can translate that to the carpenters. But I hit upon a challenge dealing with carpenters in villagers. They are brilliant and hardworking but they quite don’t understand the vision, no matter how much you articulate.

Then I found the easy solution to the problem. Photos. Just show the photo of an existing window and they are super quick to latch on to the idea.

I hit upon a big luck when I stopped at Hotel Mamalla near Mahabalipuram on our way to Pondicherry. The hotel had the exact design of the window I had wanted. Lunch can wait. I whipped out my mobile phone and shot lots of pictures.

Its amazing how this window was the exact design that I had in mind!

Notice how the grills camouflage behind the wooden frames. So, when seen from the outside, you never get to see the iron grills. Brilliant.

Perumal, the carpenter and Saravanan, the grill maker, quickly understood the need. What they did next was simple yet brilliant. They brought with them white chalks and began to recreate the design on the floor of our home. No CAD/CAM software, No architecture degrees. They were brilliant in their simplicity and practicality. Seen below are both of them at work.

On the left is Perumal (Carpenter) and on the right is Saravanan (Grill Maker).

That is how the design of the window looks like.  The window that you see on the left is just quarter of the full window. Add four of them and you’ll get the full window sized at 10 feet by 4 feet. Massive one. And there are two of them on either sides.  On the front, we have two 6 feet by 3 feet windows and a similar one on the back.  So a small 20×20 room has 7 large windows. And that’s not counting the two airy ventilators and the large door.

My Dad jokingly said we are actually constructing windows and adding walls to fill the gaps!! 🙂