"As an entrepreneur, if you think that you don't have any competition, then it means one of two things: What you're working on is not worth working upon or You don't know how to use Google" - Guy Kawasaki had once told this to Peter Panas...

Every year, I set aside some time to "think". Typically, it has been during the month of December, but this year it ended up being the month of October. While throughout the year, mind is always on a relentless pursuit of thought, followed by action,...

(last in series - which company should I start?) We've identified factors/criteria that an entrepreneur could use to select a venture, and have talked about the importance of Bigness of the idea and understanding of people's needs. I believe that the...

From the three identified factors/criteria that an entrepreneur could use to select a venture, we discussed applying Maslow's hierarchy of needs to identify and size up the market. I've always been fascinated by the bigness of an idea and its impact....

Earlier I had identified three factors/criteria that an entrepreneur could use to select a venture: What are you most passionate about (and where can you add value)? Ask Maslow: Which need in Maslow's hierarchy of needs is your idea addressing...

An entrepreneur (or a wannabe entrepreneur) typically has a list of ideas and when a million other things align, the entrepreneur has to pick one idea and give it all he/she has. Selecting one idea can be a daunting task and a lot of thinking should be...

Continued from tres ... After spending the first 12 minutes of a design interview for a program/product manager role in learning more about the user, requirements, constraints and scenarios, as per the design template , you could spend the next 30...

continued from dos .. Once the requirements are gathered, constraints are taken into account and the mental model of the user is understood, you would have laid a solid foundation to start talking about key user-types and the scenarios in which the...

Continued from uno .. I'll attempt to describe the notions of "mental model" and "affordances" in this quick post. Our mind constantly picks up pre-conceived notions and expectations about certain things. Mind assumes certain object to have a particular...

I've received a few notes from friends to explain the my template for answering a design question in further detail, so let's use one of the cliche interview questions to walk through my approach of answering design questions in Product/Program manager...

Three years ago, I asked myself and several of my mentors within and outside of Microsoft - "What's the closest thing to entrepreneurship at Microsoft?" The unanimous answer was - "Become a Program Manager on a product that's about to grow/explode!!"...

It is rare that I would share an email publicly. But this one is pretty interesting. Microfinance, poverty elimination and Unitus are gaining popularity in the Microsoft community. Ed Bland, former General Manager of XBOX marketing (he and his team first...

In spirit of the ongoing TechEd conference, I thought this would be an interesting post.. I've been to six conferences in the past year and have organized a few mini-conferences here and there in the past. I've been always fascinated to learn about...

As a bootstrapping entrepreneur, if you have $100, you would first give them to your lawyer, then to your accountant, and then lastly to your market researcher. Facebook launched polls recently, which enables the users to quickly and cheaply($5 basic...

If you are going to read only one book on design during your lifetime, my recommendation will be to read - The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman . This book has been instrumental in shaping some of my own approaches to design and I'm sure it...

IBM recently announced the introduction of the first suite of social networking applications for the enterprise, thus validating the usefulness and applicability of social applications. When, I had first blogged about the implications of social networking...

I was fortunate to realize very early in my career that there are "different" companies and there are "difference" companies. I have always strived to get involved with latter, because they are more likely to change the world. When it comes to changing...

Robert Scoble and Channel 9 decided to shoot a video on my team's products, specifically about Microsoft Office Live Communication Server. So here are a few of my friends (or shall I say colleagues) and me in the video. The video is now live at: http...

Historically, we've seen that the applicaions that have been popular/successful in the consumer world have been usually successful in the enterprise space. Instant messaging is a great example. What started out as ICQ , has been so immensly valuable and...

Design has essentially become one of the key competitive advantages of the killer apps of Web 2.0. Why has design become so important - all of a sudden? Or was it always important? Scott Berkun once said that the best user interface is "no" user interface...

A few people have asked me about some introductory resources to ATLAS and Ajax.NET. I had asked the same question to Alex Barnett some time ago, and he had pointed me to some useful resources. http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2005/06/28/416185...

I've always wanted to start a company around Stanford, in the bay area. But through a course of highly exciting and interesting events, I've landed up in the pacific northwest. I believe firmly that geography does make a huge impact on the success of...

I had heard stories about free lunches and onsite massage centers for Googlers, but I didn't find those stories appealing. A friend of mine had invited me to visit her at Google, so after finishing up my recruiting duties at the Stanford Computer Forum...

On my recent recruiting trip to Stanford, I got an opportunity to listen to and meet with John Chambers (CEO, Cisco). He shared his views on the sustained market leadership position maintained by Cisco in several market segments (networking - routers...

Emails have become the official means of recorded conversations in corporations. At Microsoft, a typical program manager writes an average of 30-40 emails every day and reads many more. It would certainly help improve productivity, if the emails are crafted...