After my long trip to New Delhi, I’ve been many things. Changed would certainly summarize how I feel. Having never really gone to India, it was an eye-opening experience. One reason, of course, is the striking difference between our lives here and the lives of people there. I won’t begin to describe that.

On the other hand, there’s also the awakening of development in India. I’ve worked with a variety of teams over the last 10 years - everywhere in the world, from India to Brazil. Managing a team of developers thousands of miles away is always a challenge. It wasn’t until stepping into the shoes of my team did I realize the difference in perception. Ironically enough, one of our team members sent a link today to a site that I’ve frequented many times in years past:

Of late, there are uprisings everywhere, emotionally among Programmers in many software companies. They are yearning to do something on their own, something out of the ordinary due to the increasing feeling of dejection. Many programmers want to get out of their routine monotonous coding which no longer excite them. Programmers are toying with ideas of moving out of some of th reputed companies, where they are like caterpillars climbing a wall without knowing how high the wall is.

Brajeshwar | Are you a Programmer or a Coder?

Looking back, and forward, this is definitely a distinction worth remembering - and understanding. As I consider the difference between the proverbial “programmer” and “coder”, I’m reminded that the difference, in my mind, resolves around one’s willingness to see and address problems. True problem solvers are not saatisfied solely with the answer but with the process of uncovering it. This quote seems quite apt:

Unrest of spirit is a mark of life; one problem after another presentsitself and in the solving of them we can find our greatest pleasure.

KARL MENNINGER, “Take Your Choice,” This Week Magazine, October 16, 1949, p. 2.

Do you solve problems or wait for the answer. If you do, we just might have a job for you.

technorati tags:programmers, coders, software, people, problem+solving, brajeshwar

I’ve been hard pressed to find time to report back on all the exciting things happening here at Blue Whale Labs - New Delhi. Once I return I’ll do some reflection on just how I feel about being in India, but for the time being, I’ve posted a quick update on how our first Developer Pod (ya know whales travel in pods, right?) is doing:

Today, the first Developer Pod (each class of recruits) entered the Aquarium (our New Delhi office). There’s something very exciting about a new group of energetic, excited, and undoubtedly nervous developers preparing to try something new. And new it is, indeed. As might be expected, Blue Whale has its own way of thinking about application design and development. In many ways, we’re quite outside the norm for traditional software development in India and there’s a mild learning curve to get inside the process.

Blue Whale Labs

technorati tags:bluewhalelabs, new+delhi, developer+pod

Ranvir and I have been waiting at the airport in Amsterdam for the last 4 hours. We’re on our way to New Delhi to meet with the team and give our India operations a kickstart.

It’s difficult, to say the least, making this trip out here.  Somehow, you end up having an entire day evaporating out from under you.  We left Newark yesterday at 4:40pm and we’ll be landing in New Delhi at 11:30pm local time - the next day.

We’re here for a couple of weeks and it looks like an exciting time, to say the least.  Right now we’re plotting a number of work and social related activities for the team - including a mini Super Bowl party.  Of course, in New Delhi, that means getting up at 7am on Monday morning to catch the kickoff.

technorati tags:bluewhalelabs, ranvir+gujral, greg+narain, new+delhi

I’m happy to report that Blue Whale Labs are growing in leaps and bounds. We’ve been adding clients to our roster is expanding much faster than we initially expected. Of course, with rapid growth comes the always-difficult growing pains. Despite our own super-human powers, we’re starting to get more and more worn down (in a good way, of course). More importantly, we are always eager to provide better experience and specialized knowledge to our clients.

To that end, we’re on the hunt for more mammals to add to the pod. Stowe’s crafted the main piece of this:

Here in the US, we are tryng to attract a few good mammals (whales aren’t fish, you know) to join us in growing our exploding consulting service. We are interested in bringing aboard some more folks who are interested in the things that obsess us, like social applications, user experience, application design, product design and management, social media, and helping us to reinvent the way that software consulting works.

[…]

Do not send us a resume. Collect the ten most important posts on your blog (You aren’t blogging? You’ve got to be kidding!) and write a blog post entitled Why Blue Whale Labs Should Care About Me (or the like), and tag it “a few good mammals”. Send us the link. Let’s see where this goes.

If you are shy, you can send it as email: mammals@bluewhalelabs.com.

Source: Blue Whale Labs, “Blue Whale Is Looking For A Few Good Mammals”

So that’s the official word. We’d love to know who you are - just follow the rules ;) If you know someone who you think is a great fit, please send them a link or e-mail.

technorati tags:bluewhalelabs, a+few+good+mammals

I’ve quickly posted some thoughts on the increasing trend towards parallel entrepreneurship over at the Blue Whale Labs blog. Read The Rise of the Parallel Entrepreneur.

Since I’ve moved out to San Francisco, I’ve made it my personal mission to try and bring as many people together as possible - mostly just to see if I can. To further that agenda, I’ve been working with my partners at the Lab and good friend Brian Solis to organize something new and interesting.

The Crawl will take place on November 10th, 2006 at 5pm.
Here’s the details:

The Bubble-Free Bar Crawl is a celebration of our sacrifice. This event is for everyone toiling late at night to launch their own startup and take a piece of the pie. Most importantly, it’s a time for you to bring all those who are supporting you out for a good time and a thank you.

The Crawl will focus on the emerging tech corridor in downtown SF. There seems to be a huge number of startups cropping up and down 2nd Street. We’re starting at the Embarcadero and moving our way towards Market.

We’ll be hitting these places:

5:00 pm - Web 2.2 Conference / Citizen Space Open House
6:00 pm - Momo’s
6:45 pm - Nova
7:30 pm - Bacar
8:15 pm - Thirsty Bear
9:00 pm - House of Shields

We welcome anyone and everyone, just bring a friend, a happy disposition, and be on time.

Hope to see you there. RSVP here.

I’m happy to announce my newest venture, Blue Whale Labs. The Lab’s goal is to provide “Strategic consulting, design & development for innovative social applications.” Although this is a new venture, it is more a formalization of the services I have been providing for the past few years. I am still working furiously to launch SocialRoots as quickly as possible and the lab will provide me with a better launch pad when all is in place.

Most importantly, though, is I am solidifying my relationships with my co-founders. I’m working with both Stowe Boyd, our CEO, and Ranvir Gujral, a fellow entrepreneur. The notion of the lab emerged from some discussion we were having several weeks ago circulating around the challenges we’ve faced building out socially-enabled products (both Ranvir and I are launching soon).

Stowe made the official announcement yesterday at Office 2.0 as well as on his blog. Expect more soon.