Ajay Ohri

Book Extract – Beer is good for the Economy

Previously- An introduction to Sixth Street

�

On Wednesday, the younger members of the project team decided to head out on their own. We wanted to stay out on Sixth street , Austin longer than the previous outing which had been cut short to eight thirty pm.The younger members of the project team were a diverse mixture.This included Tom, a white guy from rural Michigan, Lee , a Vietnamese -American and actual boat people refugee , Asok, a bearded guy from South India, another collegue from India – Sanjay , who was actually from Nepal and me the thin tall Punjabi Indian. Together we consitutued a mini United Nations commitee exploring weightier problems of the Austin beer economy.

The news all the week had been about of Wall Street crashes , so it was a comic relief to see a sign called ” Beer is Good for the Economy”. Literally and figuratively this was true. Beer is one of the last products manufactured in the United States. A visit to any local shopping mall to search for American products could be very frustrating as I would find out later. You might as well have landed in China , such is the overwhelming dominance of China made goods. Anyways, as we were about to pull in the parking lot – Tom decided to call his wife. Just as he called up, I shouted -“Hey Tom, Where are the lap �dances”. Tom gave me his all American -glare ,muttered “Tick”, only to be interrupted from some loud noise from his cell phone.” What was that about ,Toooom!” , said a plainly irritaed voice from the cell phone. Tom turned from man to dutiful husband . “Nothing sweety n, just one of the Indians -Nepalese chaps, they are quite randy” he said in a cajoling voice. Another global phenomenon , I thought to myself. The sheepish husband controlled by remote control on the cell phone. I had more things in common with America than I thought.

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Anyways we entered the restraunt ,only to find it was Thai food served with Thai-American waitress, not the usual college All American in short skirts (an undeclared and important fact finding mission of our United Nations commitee). The guys collectively gave a quizzical look to our team’s Chinaman ,Lee, who turned sheepish, shrugged and loudly said ” Welcome to Thai food, guys !”.

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Next – Thai food .

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Note-This is from the upcoming Book tentaively titled “Flying with the Cougars”, . It is completely fictionalized and exaggerated from any reality. Cougars refers to older women in America who prey on younger men, and is a funny term as referred in the Ocean 13 movie.Most air hostess in the US are thirty plus. The book talks of a two week visit to Austin, Texas by a brown guy from India.All rights reserved.Please contact me for publishing or movie rights.

Cutting Employee Costs not Employees.

use more contractors. use company alumni rather than out of town contractors as this saves the time for them to get up to speed.

use more skype rather than phones. get over the headphones discomfort. It is better than the unemployment discomfort.

use more WebEX meetings than flying people around. Money you save for your company will help you in retaining others, and yourselves. Most of the airlines money goes to the foreign oil providers anyways.

shop for cheaper open source software than blindly approve annual license fees. this can save you more money than you think and is less complex. Dont go for 100 % either -or solution. Example replace 20 % of your desktops with open office , rather than microsoft office renewals.

use more variable linked bonus than flat fees for salaries. this helps separates the grain from the chaff. And improve revenue and cut costs rather than employees.

Each unemployed person is a drag on the economy that will take social security that YOU will pay anyways. Employed people spend money on groceries , movies and provide even more jobs or potential markets.

Mahatma Gandhi once said – Be Indian , Buy Indian. It helped India get rid of the British Empire.

Once in a while, think about paying a small premium for being American , buying American

A Framework for Diners

I thought of opening my own diner, but how to decide where to locate it ?

Note this is a generic model that can also be used to things like shopping malls, or even an service dealership , or any facility that is dependent on nearby population density.

Here is the approach and it is called Ohri Dhaba Framework (in case you wish to use it, as I have the copyright ,thank you”)-

1) Take Google Earth or Any GIS data for mapping specific zones of City.

2) Use Market Research to get population density , income levels , ethnic preferences, age range , as well as probable customers for that kind of food/service/mall.

3) Use a KML (thats Google Earth format) parser to recover longitude and latitude of centroids of zones .

4) Add additional columns in each zone like other facilties like that (other malls in area)

5) Keep a shortlist of existing as well proposed new sites.

6) Make two circles for 3 km and 10 km penetration of the service from the existing sites and proposed sites.

7) using radius formula convert longitude and latitude to distance in km

8) Convert each site area into a mix of zonal areas (as in area1_3km = zone 1*A1 +zone2*A2…)

9) run regression on known sites ( whose customers are known) to get eventual customers , error terms and coefficients of additional columns in step 4

10) project probable customers of proposed sites.

11) Use feedback loop for changing time validation or percentage error term.

This is a framework for locating location sites using rules rather than gut instinct or pricing dynamics, etc. I am not sure how existing diners ,auto dealerships choose locations but that is more of perceived demand for new sites, and load on existing facilities rather than scientific. This may or maynot be patentable, as someone like X mart may have already built a facilty locating algorithm., but no framework exists to my knowledge.To the best of my knowledge there are many tools that help you locate a site, but no framework as such.

Flying with the Cougars- Extract from Upcoming Book

Previously-An American Software Guy in an Austin plane

I couldn’t make it to New York. Cougar Airlines wanted $250 for that.Even though the airlines’ staff in Austin told me they were willing to delay�my flight for free provided I delay the Austin leg as well (thanks to the overbooking phenomenon).�When I pressed my point, the chief customer service lady kind of threw my passport back and waved her hand.��I then tried to complain about her- but she interrupted the complaint process by stating that�if she wanted to, she could get me taken off the plane as a “suspicious guy.”��(I am brown, five feet ten inches, and lean. )�

�Her supervisor came, smooth-talked me and said he would take care of it.�But I’m not thinking he’s going to do anything because he did not take an elaborate complaint from me. �
This pissed me off to levels that I haven’t reached in ages.
So I went into the NewArk Airport meditation room and found only Christian and Muslim prayer mats�there.�
I used to be a Hindu before I converted to American football as a religion.No football there.
After lying down (in the Christian section) for a while, I remembered that they threw an�Indian called “Gandhi” off the train some 120 years ago too. �I understood what I needed to�do to get back.�
�So I put up a sign saying ” Silent Protest against Rude Racist behavior of Cougar Airlines”�and took my shoes and sat down next to the young travelers’ section on the ground in front�of the Cougar Airlines office. Cougar Airlines then complained to the customs chief that�I was disturbing people and disrupting traffic.
�(I was on the edge of the corridor).��

So came the blue-clad people of NewArk Airport’s police in gloves and with trench sticks.�I refused to say anything but pointed with silence that it was 6:30 pm and I would�leave at 7:40 pm boarding time on my ticket, which I had kept near my protest site.
I was handcuffed and arrested. �My passport was scanned and a background check was run.��Finally, they escorted me to my airplane. (I think I was actually being deported).�I was disturbing the peace by being totally silent .The cops were superbly professional�and took off my handcuffs after a while, though I didn’t like the threats of being detained for a month. �
There was nothing else I could do,but to protest by refusing to eat Cougar airlines�food for the 16 hour flight. �So I didn’t reach New York to show my poetry book around,but I guess that was just my Karma.

��Fortunately, in India, I am just an ordinary guy.�Like a billion other brownies.
NEXT – Epliogue
Note-“Flying with the Cougars” is a Fictionalized exaggerated book (like Oliver Stone’s historical format)�and a prose novel.It is not a poetry book based on my experiences with poetry sales.
It deals with a 2 week travel of a young brown guy to the United States.Cougars refers to older women and sometimes men who prey on younger men in the US.Most US airlines have older (35+) air hostess.
DISCLAIMER-Any resemblance with reality is purely coincidental. All copyrights are reserved.Contact me in case interested for publishing or movie rights.

Goodbye to Hollywood

Song from Billy Joel- I am leaving America today and will be in India next Friday)

Bobby’s drivin’ through the city tonight
Through the lights in a hot new rent-a-car
He joins the lovers in his heavy machine
It’s a scene down on Sunset Boulevard
Say goodbye to Hollywood
Say goodbye, my baby
Say goodbye to Hollywood
Say goodbye, my baby

Johnny’s takin’ care of things for a while
And his style is so right for troubadours
They got him sitting with his back to the door
Now he won’t be my fast gun anymore
Say goodbye to Hollywood
Say goodbye, my baby
Say goodbye to Hollywood
Say goodbye, my baby

Chorus:
Movin’ on is a chance you take
Any time you try to stay – together
Whoa
Say a word out of line
And you find that the friends you had
Are gone forever
Forever

So many faces in and out of my life
Some will last
Some will just be now and then
Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes
I’m afraid it’s time for goodbye again
Say goodbye to Hollywood
Say goodbye, my baby
Say goodbye to Hollywood
Say goodbye, my baby
Source-http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Say-Goodbye-To-Hollywood-lyrics-Billy-Joel/CBEAEE3E24564BFA4825687000218639

Live Music

Live Music is nice, warm and healthy to hear,

Sometimes debates are too much to bear.

The news is bad and gets even worse still,

But live music rocks with a groovy feel.

…………………………………………………………

Playing Pool is good,

but cool hand Luke is gone,

I am no Fast Eddie, especially

when two beers are already down.

…………………………………………………………

Downtown Austin, the sixth street bars.

Beautiful women dance,

and I look,

missing my woman from far.

…………………………………………………………

The guitar plays, rocks a mean tune,

This kid is good, hotter than June.

The force is strong in the guitar player today,

Rocks your feet, as he comes closer to play.

……………………………………………………………

Moving on , as tourists have to do,

Buying T shirts for a memory or two,

The beer was good, I stumble a bit.

Manage to tumble some T shirts, as my friends go “Oh,Dont stand , Sit”.

…………………………………………………………….

Downtown Austin, one more sixth street bar.

Some more Beautiful women dance,

and I dont look,

missing my woman from far.

…………………………………………………………

Some more photos,

That I may come to rue,

If I ever Stand for President,

And ask for a vote or two.

…………………………………………………………..

Time to go, pizza for the boys.

I am all done, for this night still,

Feeling blue lately,I recommend

Live Music should be heard until.

…………………………………………………………..

Your feet starts tapping , your soul no longer blue,

As the sign said on the Sixth Street too,

Beer is good for the economy ,

And for me and you.

…………………………………………………………..

Ajay Ohri

Wednesday October 15 th

Austin ,Texas………………..

Infinite Marketing ROI

Marketing Return on Investment is defined as the incremental profit generated on making that investment usually in advertising products and services, brand building and increasingly brand recall.

The beautiful thing about the Web 2.0 is the opportunities it offers in zero cost marketing.

WordPress Blogs, Ning.com web portals, Facebook fan pages, Linkedin Service provider recommendations and groups, Feedburner newsletters are all zero cost and infinite marketing ROI tools.

However zero cost does not mean free. There is a cost of your time. However if you can spend 8-10 hours at work, sleeping 1 hour less and building your own personal brand through your blog can give you lots of rewards. It’s a tough economy and this social networking phenomenon is now almost a necessity.