The Randomness of Randomness

OCC-Kol became OCC kAdda 2.x, I joined my first job, etc…

// September 20th, 2008 // No Comments » // BarCamps, Events, Gadgets, Life, Open Coffee Club, iPhone

The blog-lethargy is back..

There’s been a lot since I last blogged.

Now, I just got 1-month old at my first job at Convonix and I am enjoying it like anything. I find the environment much better and more flexible than those conglomerates around. Convonix has just grown out of the startup phase a short time back and is now over 4 years old. The learning curve is definitely going to be steeper and more diverse than what it would have been had I been with one of those biggies. Although there are some aspects I will miss out on, viz. large-teamwork and exposure to systems & operations of a company that is huge, but the diversity that I am in for here at Convonix clearly covers up for what I am going to miss.

Pulling off Open Coffee Club in Kolkata, which is now OCC kAdda 2.x, was a great experience in itself and it is really gratifying to see the shape that it is taking in Kolkata. Even more gratifying are the efforts of Amitabh right out of Bangalore, towards co-ordination of the kAddas.

The next kAdda is supposed to be held at the Oxford Bookstore, Park Street tomorrow(21st Sept 2008) at 12 PM. To be there check http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1103922/ and to join the Google Group you may visit http://groups.google.com/group/occ-kolkata.

Meanwhile, my desperation for the iPhone has been killed by the helpless Airtel & Vodafone. They have still not got their 3G licenses and they might have to pay premiums to acquire them. So, they priced the iPhone 3G as high as you must be already knowing, also banking on the Indian market trends of initial sky-high prices.

While my want for the iPhone 3G was already turned down, I evaluated my options, and zeroed in on the HTC Touch, but ended up buying the Nokia E61i after the Touch that was ordered for me by The Mobile Store guys had some issues with its packaging PLUS my friend recommended not to go for the Touch, because of his confirmed reports of service issues(he is a Dopod user). So, now my new 20-day young E61i is something that I am intrigued to use after having used Nokia 3315 for 2 years and LG RD3330(Reliance) for another 2 years.

With regards to events, here in Mumbai, we have been meeting up every week to plan the next BarCampMumbai4 which is happening on the 4th & 5th of October. The next meeting is tomorrow in IIT. For more about BarCamps & BCM4, check http://barcampmumbai.org

Open Coffee Club kicks off in Kolkata

// July 28th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Business, Entrepreneurship, Events, Open Coffee Club, Technology

It’s been long since I posted anything out here, thanks to all the OCC preparations.

OCC stands for Open Coffee Club, which was founded by a London-based entrepreneur, Saul Klein. To know more about what is the original philosophy behind Open Coffee Club, you should check out the following posts on Saul’s blog:

• http://localglobe.blogspot.com/2007/02/opencoffee-club.html
• http://localglobe.blogspot.com/2007/03/opencoffee-club-structure-vs-free-form.html

We pulled up the first OCC meet out here in Kolkata at Oxford Bookstore this Sunday. For a first OCC meet, it had an exceptionally amazing amount of energy, interactions, networking and bonding among the seven of us present out there. Two veteran entrepreneurs, two about-to-startup entrepreneurs & 3 wannabe entrepreneurs.

The discussions ranged from introductory to fact-identifying to debative ones. We went on for four & a half hours with a lot of useful chitter-chatter, and most importantly, we did not follow the so-called agenda that was set. That is what is an OCC meet is supposed to be. The meeting is supposed to take its own course.

I would rather call it an OCC mashup. A meeting sounds highly formal. Isn’t OCC supposed to be synonymous with informal..

Ohk. So the next OCC mashup is expected to take place on the upcoming Sunday, supposedly at the same place. We will keep you updated.

Also, folks in Mumbai are now enthusiastic to start off with OCC once again, and hopefully the OCC scenario can really rekindle again.

If you are an entrepreneur or OCC sounds interesting to you, you can catch up with us on our Google Groups. Visit the following links to join them:

• http://groups.google.com/group/occ-kolkata/
• http://groups.google.com/group/opencoffeeclubatmumbai/

Hope to see you at the next meet!!

Also read:

Angsuman’s blog post on yesterday’s OCC meet.. oops sorry mashup