Unaccounted Artwork.....

In my last post, I talked about the Eatmoshphere project I did in April 2010. Its been doing great and my work has been appreciated. But sometimes it is also the small peices of art or just a little splash of colour helps make a difference. Its not always that I like to paint big things and hence, this time, I have showcased all the little sub projects I've done so far...unaccounted and solely out of interest...

I'll start with 4 name plates I have done for a few friends! They were fun projects and done while my work load was low...



The one below is my very own....done in a hurry and not so good but it still brings colour and life to my entrance.



My friends tell me that these name plates have made so much difference to their entryways and not only that, they have recieved a lot of compliments on them.



My friend Sayali a very romantic person and wanted her and her husbands name painted instead of their last name...and hence painted something cosy and romantic for them...



Aside the name plates, I also did my husbands office, one of my big projects. The space came out great but it needed some colour bursters. I decided to make them instead of hunting for something. Hence I came up with a theme..flowers, fruits, animals, in amulgamation with humans. Not all paintings are original here but there is certainly a touch of my imagination....



I wanted colour in this corner of the office and hence decided to use the vibrant reds and blues...the corner does look gorgeous..



I did this for my husband's cabin. He is very passionate about his drums...the Djembe, an African drum and in his cabin, I wanted to show all the elements of nature come together and hence the fruit, the human and his passion, his drum!



These paintings are in the entryway - bright, bold and welcoming!



A painting of a fruit is very important since my husband owns a coldstorage and one of the very important thing that is stored there is fruits and hence the artwork...

My next set of artwork was done in Eatmosphere..an abstract canvas which has a mèlange of the colours used in the cafe.



These mirrors below are 4 different mirrors all put together to give one big feature in the cafe. It also gives a perception of space and adds to the vibrancy or the liveliness of the space.



So this is some of my unaccounted but well appreciated work of art..I am sure I'll work on much more because they are my stress busters and they make me happy and keep me going...

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EATMOSPHERE it is.....

The Hanging Sign Board outside the Café

I am so sorry for not being around in the month of March. I totally missed being on the blog but time just flew and I didn't get my hands on till today. Anyway this month, I have a whole new exciting feature and that is "Eatmosphere". Now that might sound a bit odd but let me explain. The reason I have been away from my blog for so many days is because I was working on this beautiful cosy café owned by my dear friends Rhuta & Manish.


This is how Eatmosphere look from outside


Manish & Rhuta behind their healthy and tasty Menu Counter designed by Kanchan

This wonderful couple has a quaint story about how they landed up starting this little eatery of soup, salad, sandwiches, crêpes, & chillers. Manish a guy so passionate about food started off as a chef at Taj, Mumbai and then switched to a whole new world of IT. Rhuta has always been in IT and worked for IBM while in India. The duo shifted to Dubai and made a stressful living working for 12 hours a day in the field they thought was right for them. As time passed, they realised that life was much more than slogging. The feeling of owning, sharing and meeting different people would make them happier than earning a good salary without any personal life. And hence, they decided that they have had enough and want to achieve their little dream of owning a place where they can serve a wholesome meal with love and keeping health in mind. And this is how Eatmosphere budded after a lot of hardwork from all of us.


Glimpse of the café

Now you might want to know why I am talking about all this? Well my friend Kanchan and I, did play a fair part in this project...yes I did the interiors while Kanchan who owns Southpaw Creatives designed their logo, menu, did the marketing & communication collaterals and above all suggested the name Eatmosphere! She too is a wonderful artist who also did up my logo and came up with the wonderful name Lively-wood for wich I recieve a lot of compliments! The rest of my blog is going to be the pictures of the place, the signboards and the little nook and corners of Eatmosphere.


The mezzanine seating with warm comfortable seatee designed by me


Another cute African Corner...I love the amalgamation of colour here!

In the above two pictures, I have tried to provide different types of seating...each comfortable, cosy, gives a choice of seating high or low and breaks the monotony of the place. My idea was that, everytime someone comes to grab a bite, they should want to try a new seating which is unlike the one they've tried before.

One more beautiful and interesting feature about this part of the café is its flooring which makes the whole place different, I mean very different!
Infact when I started doing the interiors, I was very pleased to see that the mezzanine did not have tiles. I decided against tiling this corner and did what my friend Sheetal has done at his ashram called the The Urban Ashram. So here is a picture of the flooring to see what is different.....


The leafed floor


The washroom area

Though small, we wanted this area to be pleasant and comfortable for people to freshen up. In the whole process, I did not want to forget about the colours and theme at the same time make the place seem bigger than it is. Hence the combination of blue and turquoise with a mirror facing the café worked in our favour.


The Lover's Corner as I call it...

This is another nook outside the café that I really like. It is secluded, colourful and awfully cosy! I call the orange and red stools, Oranges 'n' Cherries and the little table Kesariya which contrast and gel with the 'Geru' or Teracotta flooring!


Some more outdoor seating..


Hand-painted turquoise-blue table which has a great combination of metal, wood, tile in-lays and glass

There is another concept we have tried to promote...the idea of recycle! Manish and Rhuta lost a lot of cups & glasses in their shipment from Dubai to Pune, I was thrilled to see them and decided to make use of the lovely colourful crockery. We also got hold of some bottles which was basically going to be trashed and restored them and check what and how we've used them!


The Recycle Corner

So this is the café and this is the work we all did to make it so bright, colourful, welcoming, cosy and of course, can't forget the food. Hope you have liked it and I would love to have comments and suggestions on it! Till then, if you wanna grab a bite, Eatmosphere is open from 10a.m. to 10p.m. in Wanorie, Pune in the lane of Kedari Petrol Pump.

For more details on branding, logo designing, advertising and more, please contact Kanchan @ +91 (0)9011012454 or just send an email to kanchan.gokhale@gmail.com

For more details on Eatmosphere, please call Manish +91(0)9967514019 or just send an email to rajpalmanish@gmail.com

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Vision, or blindness?

David Fisher once wrote...

“What often characterizes visionaries is their lack of vision. It's a popular idea that people of genius see farther and clearer than other people, but perhaps the truth is actually the opposite. Visionaries often don’t notice the enormous and obvious impediments to realizing their technological dreams – roadblocks apparent to more practical people”.

I think he makes an excellent point, as relevant today as at any time in history. Maybe more so.

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As a species, we almost always over-estimate how fast things will change. But we always underestimate how much things will change. Thus….

My ten predictions before the world is slated to end in Dec. 2012....

·10) Eric Schmidt will no longer be CEO of Google. As giant media foes attempt to absorb excess profits in part derived on the backs of their content, things will get sticky. Eric will grow weary of the countless battles, stock price pressure, and growing discord in the senior ranks. One key factor? Bing. Why? Well, it’s like Pepsi, or Burger King. As Americans we are comfortable with virtual oligopolies, but not monopolies. We require an alternative to Coke and McDonalds. Yahoo by itself has failed at being that alternative. On the other hand, if there is one company that can challenge Google’s hegemony with pockets every bit as deep, it is Microsoft. Forget whether you think Bing is ‘better’ or ‘worse’ – irrelevant. It is a credible substitute, and it will be used by major media to try and squeeze Google’s profits. Which leads me to my next prediction….

·9) Paid search and natural search will become…. Search. We have grown comfortable in the knowledge that those slippery marketers are relegated to the internment camps of the paid section of search pages. But users really don’t care – what they want are good results – paid or not. The state-of-the-art today for paid results has them look and feel just like the real thing. Which they often are. In the near future, result hierarchy will be, in part, based on pay - but pay for performance - not just ranking. The gotchas leading to pay-walls and other poor user experiences will sink in the listings no matter the dollars thrown at them, in favor of a single search stream where dollars will play a role (but not the only role) in influencing rank. And this will happen in real-time!

·8) Steve Jobs and Apple will go one of two ways, and neither is great (but one is decidedly better than the other). In scenario 1, Jobs is permanently sidelined due to illness. To my memory, there has never existed a major corporation more personality-dependent than Apple (at least in modern times – I put him up there with Howard Hughes). Thus, within a very short period of time the brilliant, legendary, maniacal focus he possesses will be lost, and decisions that appear to be ‘better’ for the organization and its products will be made. These half-steps will be compromises designed to keep up with the world while preserving Steve’s ‘legacy’. This will not go well.

Scenario two – and in my mind also problematic for Apple -- Steve Jobs sticks around but doesn't 'think different'. In this case, we run the risk of a 2.0 version of the capitulation that was Apple 1.0 failing to discern the tea leaves and license its software to other platforms. We are beginning to see this play out now. In fact, Android exists because Apple was unwilling to work out a deal with Google. Jobs’ personal demons may not be suited to an alternative path. Android has already begun to eat the world. History may not repeat, but it usually rhymes. Hence, my next prediction…

·7) Android will have 3x the number of applications in its app store than the iPhone / iPad / iTouch triumvirate does. Not too long ago, there existed a thriving packaged-software industry, and a trip to Computerland circa 1984 would have revealed shelf after shelf of Apple-ready software, along with a smaller section of IBM & compatible boxes amidst strange Charlie Chaplin posters. How long did it take the era’s ISV’s to swap over to Wintel? Not long. I know not a single example of a company with an iPhone app today that hasn’t either a) already ported, b) is about to port, or c) is planning on porting their application to Android. With Apple, the hardware is better. The vision is better. The usability is better. And it is a closed (curated is the current term of art, though iTunes is far more than just curated) system in a world that prefers open.

·6) Major media companies will erect pay-walls & windows where they can, attempting to suppress the notion that everything wants to be free on the internet. Actually, we are multi-generation-conditioned to pay for stuff (one way or another) on every medium ever invented. Will the efforts to erect a pay-wall at the NY Times go over well? No. Will it eventually work? Probably. Will the WSJ - under Murdoch - attempt to de-index Google? Probably. Will they be alone? Certainly not in threatening to do so.

A decade ago the world faced a fork in the road…. In one direction was a universe with pay-for-crawl deals where search engines shared their excess profits with the content vendors. Down the other road? Well, that’s where we are now. Those same media giants were too scared, disorganized and ill-prepared for the tectonic shift the free-wheeling internet posed. Thus, they were only too happy to have their wares crawled and displayed somewhere. Free distribution! In fact, that’s how they described it. Suffice it to say, their opinions have changed. In the end, those with (good) content tend to get paid. It certainly will not happen overnight, but by the end of 2012? I would say that fork will have merged.

·5) Google’s hegemony has a half-life about half that of Microsoft. Meaning, it will reach the populist doesn’t get it / is a death star stage in half the time. Some would say it’s already there. These would be the bleeding-edge types. Incumbents always have trouble transitioning to a new era. Despite a smorgasbord of books written on the subject, the issue is rarely the way they react to such situations. It’s in how they perceive them. Which is to say… they don’t. When you're at the top of the mountain, it's nearly impossible to overcome the feeling that you can see all. Until you actually feel it in the pocketbook. Then you panic and seldom make the right choices.

Does this mean Google won’t be meaningful? Does anyone truly believe Microsoft isn’t still meaningful? Of course it is. Both are and will continue to be giants. But as outsized profits are re-distributed back into the ecosystem to the creators and owners of content, quarterly results will go from reduced 'up-trajectory' velocity, to flat-ish, and maybe even down-and-to-the-right in some areas. Stocks will dip. In Google's case, people will speculate about what they will do with with all that cash. My guess… they will buy a big media company :-)

And for a change of pace, I predict...

·4) Lloyd Blankfein will not be CEO at Goldman Sachs. His crime? Being too Googleable. Zero-sum-game hedge funds (like GS) do not do well in the spotlight; they are at their best working within the shadows, extracting profits from inefficient environments (or selling stuff nobody understands – you decide). At any rate, Goldman CEOs have always been notable for their distinct lack of notability outside of Wall Street. Blankfein no longer qualifies, and will ‘retire’ as soon as it’s clear he wasn’t forced to by outsiders.

·3) An accidental release of nano-particles will occur in a major body of water, killing an untold number of fish and other creatures as the tiny objects pass through the blood-brain barrier. This will lead to renewed cries for stricter regulation and temporarily slow down advancement in the technology. In an odd twist, this same core technology will one day dramatically improve the health of our world’s seas by delivering anti-pathogens to vast ocean-dwelling populations. But that will come later, after we kill a bunch of fish.

·2) People will begin to discover relatives they did not know they had – via the intersection of DNA sequencing and the internet. This will bring to the masses what is only experienced at the leading periphery today; that one can meet and then dislike relatives not just based on physical proximity (which for all of history is how it has been done), but via the internet.

·1) Tiger will again win the Masters…. In 2012. Then the world will go boom. Or not. If it does, it will have nothing to do with the Mayans. Solar Cycle 24? Maybe.

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Howard Lindzon from StockTwits interviews me about tech, stocks and, um, porn - VIDEO

Howard Lindzon interviews @jdrive from James D Robinson on Vimeo.

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Quick Tips for Home Office Organisation

A lot of us work from home. For instance, even though I have my workshop, I carry a lot my painting and artwork back home so that I can work at my own leisure and mood. Just a cup of coffee, some good music and the comfort of my home motivates me to do better. There are times when my office space gets cluttered with papers and paints, brushes and catalogue books and it doesn't help me achieve my agenda. To avoid such clutter, I have gathered a few quick practices and no matter what, I abide by them.

Cables and Wires - what a mess!

a) All the cables that are connected to the computer or speakers or TV can be categorized and bundled up in groups. For example, keep computer speaker wires with stereo speaker wires.

b) Some times you do not need all the cables, hence tag them and store them well. Don't forget to label the cords that connect different components.

Position of Peripherals



a)Position your equipment by frequency of use. If the printer is used daily, it should be within easy reach.

b) When setting up hardware, be conscious of access to drives, trays and cords. Don't block access to drawers or take up leg room with tangled cords.

Do have an Activity Centre?



The efficient office should be zoned into activity areas:

a) The Work Area: This is a clear workspace, the computer and frequently used office products

b) The Reference Center: which includes binders, manuals, dictionary and professional books and materials. In my case, my refernce centre is paints and brushes, varnishes...etc. I have a small collection of reference books which I need as and when. Determine your reference area in your study or office.



c) The Supply Center: This area is widely used. It needs to be segregated very well. This contains office and paper supplies.

Project Files, Reciepts and Rough Work...

a) Create an area for storing your current project files and paper work.

b) Establish a permanent filing system for papers you will reference, but not on a regular basis.

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Interpol chief slams body scanners at Davos

Speaking to the Associated Press at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Interpol Secretary-General Ronald Noble argued that better intelligence and information sharing is required, rather than wide-scale body scanning technology.

I think he is absolutely right. We throw money at technology and award contracts to giant government contractors on systems that will do little more than spook the general public while providing some illusion of security. Meanwhile, we have sparse data on who is actually doing the traveling. Detroit is simply the latest example of paying attention to the wrong thing... an inter-departmental database check would have prevented the incident. It also might have flagged many of the terrorists involved in 9/11 before they boarded their flights.

Last year the TSA in the US (which has not had a leader for 14 months and counting) let an entire industry die - the Trusted Traveler industry - rather than help foster its growth. How big a deal was that? Well, a quarter-million people had provided more detailed information about themselves than is actually known about the airline employees moving bags under your airplane, so you tell me. Had the industry survived, that number would likely have been in the millions within a couple of years.

Knowing who a traveler is - and what disparate databases show about their activities and associations - is far more valuable than the cat-and-mouse game played at the screening stations, which is mostly theater and will again be bypassed. First it was box cutters, then exploding shoes, then came the 'liquids" scare, and most recently, exploding underwear. What's next, TSA-issued one-piece jumpsuits and changing rooms? ("...Remember, all clothing, including undergarments, must be checked or you will not be allowed to board the aircraft...").

None of this is meant to knock the hard-working and decidedly overstressed 'blue shirts' on the front lines. Imagine walking in their shoes for a few moments and the thankless, unpleasant task they face on a daily basis becomes apparent. Are a few clueless? Sure, but most are hard-working folks trying to earn a living while enduring countless under-breath comments and eye-darts.

What we need is a new mindset in how we think about foiling the tactic that is terrorism. After all, Wellness is to the Emergency Room as Information is to the Security Checkpoint. In a word: Prevention. This doesn't eliminate the need for the ER -- or the Checkpoint -- but certainly helps to minimize the heroic (and uber-expensive) efforts at the last line of defense. Yet we simply do not spend the time or money building - and linking - the systems we already have. The interest isn't there. Nearly a decade back I was on the board of a company with leading-edge data mining technology considered the best in the world at the time. This company sold tens of millions of dollars worth of software to many if not most of the Fortune 500 and their global counterparts. We contacted the FBI and offered to give it to them for free after 9/11, no strings attached. Also said we would help them integrate it all, gratis. After a few months, we gave up calling back.

In the end, it is a mentality, and it permeates our Congressional psyche. We want the big, expensive toys - the B2 bombers, the drones, the 70-mph tanks - but then we end up with nasty low-tech attacks like zodiacs ramming destroyers, vans with fertilizer, knife-wielding hijackers, exploding garments (and undergarments!), and IED's. Even in the information game, our strategy seems to be 'go big or go home'. Projects like Carnivore/Raptor/Echelon are supersize-ticket items that result in amazing data velocity and gobs of 'analysts' (in all governments, assets = power). No doubt these programs have had their wins (as have bombers, drones and tanks) but in the 21st century they are not enough. Nor is the silo ethos that doggedly persists amongst the alphabet agencies. Creating the DHS (One Ring To Rule Them All, I guess) has done little to combat that.

So I applaud Interpol's Noble on having the chutzpah to even suggest the system is getting it wrong as the 'Scan Baby Scan!' battle-cry marches forth. We need more of that. Wonder how long he will keep his current job. I hear there's an opening at the TSA.

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