Swami Shri Prempuriji Ashram Trust

Preamble :-

CBO has just finished a prestigious website redevelopment project for Prempuri Ashram Trust of Mumbai.

The trust runs Prempuri Ashram, an age-old institution of great repute, dedicated to the promotion of Indian spiritual learning in the revered Vedantic tradition.

Innumerable wise scholars, philosophers and saints of contemporary India have resided, lectured and an taught in the august precincts of the Prempuri Ashram over the last three decades.

The Ashram is a prime centre of Bharatiya Sanatan Dharma (Eternal Religion of India) in the city and the spiritual lectures and discourses on Vedanta philosophy that take place there on a daily basis are held in high regard by the Satsangi fraternity not only in Mumbai but all over India.
Since about a decade, the Ashram had been recording these lectures and discourses on audio cassettes which today run into thousands in number.

About a year and a half ago under the advice and guidance of a senior member of CBO, the Ashram took up the herculean task of conversion of the audio cassette collection into MP3 format that could go first on CDs and finally to the internet.

Project Obective and Focus :
The Prempuri Website project is the logical culmination of this ambition to make the knowledge and wisdom that is preserved in the custody of Prempuri Ashram available anywhere in the whole world at any moment at the click of a button.

As per the revered Indian tradition, the proper and prescribed way to gain spiritual knowledge is not reading, but hearing. "Guru-vaakya Shravan" (Hearing of the words uttered by the Guru) is a sine-qua-non of the process of enlightenment. So the singular focus in this project has been on delivering the Audio archives of Prempuri online, to a world-wide audience via the medium of the Internet.

The Main Challenge:-

The main challenge of the project lay in setting up not just a website but a bi-lingual content management system, that was easy enough to be used on a day-to-day basis by the staff of the Ashram who have just basic computer literacy.

The only way to get daily discourses and lectures online on a timely basis was to train the resident service staff and non-resident administrative staff of the Ashram in the process of digital audio processing and conversion and then to equip them with an absolutely user-friendly yet powerful online web-authoring interface that would allow categorised uploads of the daily audio files to an ever-growing online database. CBO rose to this task and delivered a working solution that has been well received by the Ashram administration which decided to launch the site right away.

Significant features of the site are :-
Streaming online audio and video; Automated and controlled User registrations; e-commerce enabled subscription plans for different types of membership; e-commerce enabled web-shop for selling MP3 CDs, Bilingual site structure and content with possibility for multilingual extension; Front-end content editing with access control; Comprehensive backend administration panel.

Launch :
The site was inaugurated on the occasion of the commencement of the annual Bhagwat Saptah function at the Ashram premises at Babulnath, Mumbai, on the 30th of November by the honourable Shri Morari Bapu.

Please visit : http://www.prempuri.org/

Remember to keep your computer audio switched ON at an audible level before visiting the site else you will miss something wonderful :-)

Om Shanti Shanti Shantihi !

Couple Talent Dance (Sonal & Makarand)

Couple Talent Dance (Nanda & Henry)

Badrinarayan - Famous Indian Artist

Art by Badrinarayan, one of India's foremost illustrators and artists was added to the Samsara Art online art catalog.

Enjoy.

Marine Drive Article on Times of India

Plan was originally ours, say Marine Drive residents

Ashley D’Mello | TNN
Date: 24th Oct 07

Mumbai: Marine Drive residents are upset by comments made by Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad, who has said that the MMRDA wants to pull out of the Marine Drive makeover due to interference from residents in the area.

Gaikwad told mediapersons that the residents were finicky about the colour of the paint being chosen for the benches and regularly interfere with other aspects of the project. “We are fed up of interference,’’ he emphatically said.

But the residents say they had long planned their own makeover—albeit on a smaller scale—so the MMRDA should have no problem if they offer suggestions to the MMRDA’s grand plan.

President of the Marine Drive Residents Association, Anil Bhatia, said the refurbishment has been discussed by residents for the past 16 years before the government came along and offered to execute a larger plan.

Neera Punj, a member of the Marine Drive Council which represents nine associations in the area, concurred that the refurbishment had been discussed by residents and added that they were also going to finance a smaller, more basic upgrade.

“We are stakeholders in the area and so we also have some suggestions for the way the area is being beautified. There is nothing wrong in discussing issues before you go ahead with execution,’’ she stated.

Bhatia added that the problems being faced by the MMRDA are mainly due to glitches inherent in the plan itself. The committee which changed the design of the road medians was appointed by the government, not us, he said. The problems faced by engineers due to three water pipes running under the drive are also not caused by residents, Bhatia said.

However, there are a few changes along the stretch, like where the gymkhanas are, that residents asked for. Locals also opposed some tree felling.

The heritage committee of BMC had also raised objections over the makeover, saying its approval had not been asked for despite Marine Drive being a heritage area.

Ratan Batliboi, state-appointed architect for the project, said the website, www.marinedrive.org, had been started so that all plans could be accessed by the public. He said the website ensured that there is transparency in the project and that residents are informed every deatil of the plan and the changes made in it.

LHC Meeting Minutes - 25th Oct

Time: 14:00 - 14:30

Attendees

1. Priyank
2. Nanda
3. Richa
4. Henry
5. Jagruti
6. Devatanu

Discussion Points

1. Service Design Document to be completed on Wednesday - 31st Oct (Priyank / Jagruti)
2. Condensing the service design document by Monday - 29th Oct (Priyank / Jagruti)
3. New offficer appointed in place of Richa will be Abhishek
4. Richa will handover the roles and responsibilities to Abhishek
5. New chart needs to be updated. The chart will have two columns, one for Nov and one for Dec (Nanda/Henry)
   
6. One copy of the charter document is to be with each member (Henry/Jagruti)
7. Regular housekeeping of collateral will be done by LHC. (Priyank/Henry)
8. The main activity to be taken up immediately is Induction Kit (Jagruti/Priyank)
9. Induction Kit will have the org chart and a separate list of employees with designations and photographs (Jagruti/Henry)
   
10. 3rd Nov, LHC presentation in Pune (Priyank/Jagruti)
11. Collateral for LHC needs to be prepared and handed over to Priyank (Henry/Nanda)
12. Ideas for improving inhouse training to be collected by 1st Nov (All members)
13. All points to be updated on grouphub (Nanda)
14. All meetings for LHC have to be minuted on the blog (Dev/Henry/Jagruti)
    
15. Next meeting on 1st Nov
    

Marine Drive Website Launched

Well we finally launched the Marine Drive website. This site has been submitted to the Urban Age Awards as part of the Marine Drive Refurbishment Project.

Please revert with your feedback on how we can make this site a forum for citizen participation.

LHC - Angel Of the Month (Aug 07)

Angel Of the Month (Aug 07) Sonal Bagal - Designer.

Devil & Angel of the August 2007

Priyank received 2 stars and 4 crosses.

Sonal received 4 stars and 1 cross.

PIG TEST

Sonal:
Facing left, she believes in tradition, is friendly, and remember dates(birthdays, etc.)With few details, she is emotional and naive , she cares little for details and is a risk taker.With less than 4 legs showing , she is insecure or living through a period of major change .The size of the ears are medium that indicates she is a good listener.

---

Richa:
Her pig facing left, she believes in tradition, is friendly, and remember dates(birthdays, etc.)With few details, she is emotional and naive , she cares little for details and is a risk taker.With 4 legs showing , you are secure, stubborn, and stick to your ideals.The size of the ears are small that indicates she is not a good listener.

---

Nanda:
Facing front (looking at you ), she is direct, enjoy playing devil's advocate and neither fear nor avoid discussions. With few details, you are emotional and naive , you care little for details and are a risk taker. With less than 4 legs showing , she is insecure or living through a period of major change .The size of the ears are small that indicates she is not a good listener.

---

Jagruti:
Facing left, she believes in tradition, is friendly, and remember dates(birthdays, etc.)With lots of details , she is analytical, cautious , and distrustful.With 4 legs showing , you are secure, stubborn, and stick to your ideals.There are no ears at all..........so that indicates??????With less than 4 legs showing , she is insecure or living through a period of major change.

---

Abhishek:
Facing left, he believes in tradition, is friendly, and remember dates(birthdays, etc.)With lots of details , he is analytical, cautious , and distrustful.With 4 legs showing, he is secure, stubborn, and stick to your ideals.The size of the ears are medium that indicates he is a good listener.

---

Priyank:
Facing left, he believes in tradition, is friendly, and remember dates(birthdays, etc.)With few details, he is emotional and naive , he cares little for details and is a risk taker.With 4 legs showing , you are secure, stubborn, and stick to your ideals.The size of the ears are small that indicates he is not a good listener.

---

Devatanu:
Facing left, he believes in tradition, is friendly, and remember dates(birthdays, etc.)With few details, he is emotional and naive, cares little for details and is a risk taker .With 4 legs showing , he is secure, stubborn, and stick to his ideals.The size of the ears are small that indicates he is not a good listener.

---

Henry:
Facing front (looking at you ), he is direct, enjoy playing devil's advocate and neither fear nor avoid discussions. With lots of details , he is analytical, cautious , and distrustful.With less than 4 legs showing , he is insecure or living through a period of major change . The size of the ears are medium that indicates he is a good listener.

Samsara Art crosses the 500 mark

Great news folks!

Samsara Art crossed the 500 paintings mark last week. On the web content is king and our best wishes go out to them. We hope that they become India's premier site for contemporary Indian art.

Samsara Art is also conduction an Art Exhibition called An Arrangement Of Colours. This is not only an online exhibition but also on being displayed at the Taj Lands End Hotel in Bandra. We wish them a grand success.

Web Development Trends

From Manageability.org >

1. Virtual Applicances - Ever since VMWare releasd its player and server for free, there's been a groundswell of virtual appliances being built. These applications have the entire software stack including the operating system bundled as a VMWare virtual machine. Rather than worry about the complexities of building an installer to conform to an endless list of customer user environments. These virtual machines are pre-optimized disk images of an actually tested envrionment. Installation costs take out a huge chunk of the overall cost of deploying software, take this to zero and you are in good shape to contain your dwindling software margins.
   
   
2. Virtual Ofice Spaces - With all the Web 2.0 application emerging, add to the mix the more powerful tools available for distributed development and you have a platform that makes it increasingly unnecessary to even maintain an office. Consider for now that talent and resources are spread out all over the world. To remain competitive, one needs to effectively leverage distributed teams. The tools to that are dirt cheap and do expect more people to be spending their work week in their local Starbucks and Kinkos.
   
   
3. Multimodal Portals/Widgets - So now that we aren't even in the offices, and walking around the park instead, I can't really tell what kind of device I'll be lugging around at any given moment. So when I need to jot down an important thought, work out an urgent task, schedule a new appointment, enjoy some media, I would like that piece of information available to any device that I happened to be carrying. Expect to see more Apps that make it easy to embed themselves in more kinds of portals. Expect to see portals that reside in multi kinds of devices.
   
   
4. Portable Social Networks - Social networks are really big, MySpace is an example of one that those humongous entities that is bordering on scaring. But let's be real, as these people grow up, the context where they live their lives becomes more varied. It's simply inevitable that one has social networks that are separate from each other. In addition, one interface can't fit all, the structured interfaces of linkedin don't play too well in the chaotic environment of MySpace. These networks are going to be extremely valuable over time, expect a lot of tools devoted to making your social network more portable.
   
   
5. Participatory Media - Blogging, Flickr and now YouTube. More and more people are sharing their media, from text, to photos and now video. Expect more kinds of media being shared, and expect more mashups/mixins. Expect to see Web 2.0 applications to support this demand. In addition, expect more content originating from your own social circle.
   
   
6. Voice Enhanced Apps - If you've been in a conversation with a TellMe voice
   application you would appreciate how much this field has progressed in the last decade. Let's get real, not everyone can 'text' without looking at their keypad. In fact, a lot of these background widgets that reside on your phone are making driving extremely dangerous. With American spending more and more time on the road, expect more people to use voice as the medium of interaction. There's a good reason why podcasts like ITConversations are so popular. I couldn't figure out why, that's simply because I have a 5 minute commute to work. But for the rest of the world, well reality is, they've got their hand on the wheel and eyes on the road most of the time.
   
   
7. Information Diet Programs - So now that we are bombarded with information and media from all sources and all our social networks, what then will keep us from becoming overloaded? We need applications to better manage how we respond to the constant barrage of information demanding our attention. Although we can always choose to shut it all off, however I suspect we can't. Like any bad habit, we'll need an effective 'diet program' to help manage our intake.
   
   
8. Peer to Peer Monitoring Systems - As we become dependent on portals, widgets and mashups, essentially distributed applications with multiple owners, something needs to ensure that they all are working together in harmony. The current management and monitoring systems of today are inadequate for the task, too complex to setup and inflexible to maintain. What is needed are more dynamic monitoring systems that can slice through networks.
   
   
9. Lightweight Non-Ruby Web Frameworks - People want their applications yesterday. Therefore developers need to take the shortest path to a solution. Yes, we all want to become quick, however we want to avoid being dirty. So new web frameworks, taking their queue from Rails, will emerge to provide solutions. See, not everyone can get a gig programming in Ruby. So these frameworks will eschew traditional standard frameworks and focus more on what works and what works quickly (see: rife, trails, grails and trimpath ) at the sametime preserving existing technoloical investment.
   
   
10. Guilt Reduction Apps - Finally, despite all these attention consuming applications, there is always something that we continue put away for a later day. Procastinating endlessly, in the hope that we have more time in the future to focus on it. Well, over time the guilt builds up, and over time it becomes unbearable. Unlike background applications that are used constantly, these apps are use once applications. Applications that once your done, absolves you of the guilt of not doing it.

___

Software Development, ECommerce, Web Design

LHC - Tel. and Meeting Etiquettes + CBO Chart

Photograph of telephone card glued to the phone. Read while you speak
detailing the telephone conversation rules needed for service delivery.

P.A.F.T - Danglers hanging on the doors.Understand how to conduct a meeting. Make your client to help you to help him.

Pirates of CBO Chart
A chart to evaluate all the CBO members using stars and crosses. Who is the angel and who is the devil?

How to become indispensable at the office

Read the original article from Rediff >

Suman Chhabria-Addepalli
August 08, 2007

One of the most difficult statements to digest but one that's very true (specially when it comes to work) is: "Nobody's indispensable!"

In today's competitive environment, where HR costs translate into one of the major expenses of a company, one must leave home with this thought somewhere at the top of mind, if not on our laptop's welcome note!

However, most companies find a way to hold onto their best or key players. So, without referring to situations as serious as downsizing, anyone drawing a salary need remember that his/her existence in an organisation is under scrutiny during every appraisal.

Right from the office peon who is made to multitask to the head honcho, everyone needs develop personal strategic plans to ensure that their bosses cannot afford to lose them. Here are some tips on how to do just that:

Become the chosen one
A winner is one who develops "fast-start" actions to make himself/ herself the favourite one in the eyes of the management right from day one. The good old analyising of one's strengths, weaknesses and how they can add value to the organisation sets the foundation of a long-term relationship.

"Can Do" what others won't
Employees who can get things done are highly prized in an organisation. "Can do" people rarely turn down a new assignment and always give their best despite possible initial rejections. They believe that new challenges improve their cross functional capabilities.

Communication
All employers want employees with good communication skills -- starting with 'willingness' and ability to listen. Business communication should be accurate and brief. No long winding sentences where short ones would work. Also, perhaps the most damaging error in communication skills is losing your cool or whining. However justified your complaints are, cool down and peacefully express yourself if you want to be heard at all.

It's not personal
This may seem a difficult proposition in a place where you spend most of your waking hours, but you just have to learn the art of being objective at work. In a growing organisation there are bound to be differences of opinion. The ability to stay focused on issues and remain impersonal helps you to stick to the work objective.

Says Vaishali Achrekar, marketing manager at one of the leading FMCG companies in Mumbai, "I always thought that my efficiency justified my anger at those who wouldn't deliver. It would naturally become personal when I lost my cool with my team. Finally, my appraisals revealed that my team was petrified of me. It was an eye-opener that without a team, my efficiency was of no use to anyone."

Be caring
Think of the favourite senior in your office and it is easy to point out that he/ she is someone who genuinely cares about people and so can get anyone to deliver.

Helping sincere colleagues from other departments too during bad days, and being empathic towards one's team is always recognised. Also, such people command leadership and fierce loyalty from their teams/ colleagues. Organisations would definitely not question such leadership.

Be proactive
Take responsibility for your career advancement. In a forever "right-sizing" workplace, don't expect anyone else to hold your hand and take you to heights you wish for yourself. In times of transition, individuals must be proactive and make themselves useful in related departments.

Puja Masand, wealth manager with ABN Amro Bank, started her career in banking as a junior level customer service officer. Her career graph has soared to unbelievable heights over seven years, with every team she worked with labeling her indispensable.

"Being in a service role I was good with people, and went that extra mile to solve any customer problem that reached my desk. Gradually, I won confidence of our top-notch clients and helped the bank achieve their sales targets for many new products," shares Puja. "I overshot sales targets for my team month after month, along with my other duties. It was a consistent performance, and I made sure targets didn't slip after a good month's performance. That's when my boss realised that I am capable of moving to a more pivotal role of wealth management."

Puja is now working on complete penetration of the banks existing customer base and customising products and services for high net worth individuals. She unfailingly manages to win a trip abroad every quarter as incentive on beating huge sales targets.

No chalta hai attitude
Employers don't like people who restrict their job profile. Take ownership of all your responsibilities by seeing your department as a profit centre (even if your productivity doesn't easily translate into numbers) and yourself as an integral driver of that profit.

Give your best to the company
Remember, it is positive attitude and experience that hold weight above skills, between two equally qualified employees.

Prashant Panday, CEO, Radio Mirchi, selects three defined traits that make an employee valuable, in a high-growth competitive media environment. "Employees with a good (positive, helpful) attitude, energy (passion for their job) and an ability to successfully work in teams, definitely clinch the attention of top management," he says.

Health/ fitness
Health is key to reliability. Frequent absences or poor performance related to neglected health puts one on the short list when it is time to downsize.

Appearance
Having said that, all companies generally have an acceptable dressing requirement. Most media companies don't enforce dress codes, but even the most fun-loving organisation will not take an employee dressed like a hippie seriously. The perception of whether or not you belong has more to do with appearance than you might think.

Loyalty
This is a rare commodity in times of frequent job jumping and three-month stints. Loyalty can be demonstrated through refusal to gossip, delivering high performance and sticking with a company through its highs and lows. You can also project loyalty by carrying out instructions as best you can, by disagreeing civilly and when you have been overruled, doing the job the way the boss wants you to.

Says Ankush Agarwal, founder and CEO of Mint International (a human resource consulting, resourcing and training organisation), "Today, while recruiting CEOs, middle and junior management levels, organisations are reference checking for high levels of integrity. They seek people with high energy who take pride in their work and have the capacity to make themselves feel like part of the bigger picture."

"Even during our corporate training sessions, we stress on qualities such as humility and work ethics, along with ownership for one's work, which goes a long way in forging a relationship between employer and employee."

Avoid bad blood
It is not easy for huge organisations to appreciate everyone all the time. This naturally leads to some dissatisfaction, which can be dealt with a talk with your immediate senior. However, if an employee chooses to proclaim and believe that he/ she is the only undervalued, overworked, underpaid professional, his/ her whining may boomerang to make the HR department feel that the office might be a happier place without them.

LHC - Launch

Dear All,

CBO is proud to announce the launch of LIGHTHOUSE CLUB on Saurday 4th August,07 at CBO Mumbai office.

Your support and guidance is required to make it more meaningful.

Regards,
Jagruti

A blog is born

Hello all!!

This is the official blog for CBO - Cyberbackoffice. The black theme has been intentionally chosen as part of the Eco Responsive Initiative based on the ideas put forward by the Black Google concept.

Watch this space for more updates from CBO.