In god we trust , everyone else please bring data!

The office bay post 10 p.m is a crucible of random conversations. Or to 'ideate' as they say. Like when you are finishing up some last minute number crunching for the final presentation, and the joke doing the rounds is “ So what is your favourite proc?”. “Proc delete”. Guffaws. Do analytics folks have a skewed sense of humour? Probable topic of academic research in social psychology.

Or like Sid walking up to discuss “Hey, so we should have a victory flag when we climb upto 6000m+ in Ladakh this time”.  “Sounds cool , like what?” “Umm..a math geek with oversized glasses climbing up, and the flag says–In god we trust, everyone else please bring data." I am speechless. These are the 'engineer' kinds. And trust me not to initiate conversations on the 'engineering jokes from school' , they can destroy sanity.

Speaking of data , a new report from the Mckinsey Global Institute discusses how the scale and scope of companies' access to data is changing the way they do business. Interesting read for anyone in the analytics space. The report covers five domains in detail - health care,retailing,the public sector, manufacturing and personal-location data. Surprisingly not financial services, given the scale and complexity of information management and analytics in financial services.

The camera-phone-elation in office is a sentiment-high right now. Launch the people survey now I say!! (teehehe). Interestingly, none of the folks I spoke to about getting the new smartphone are thinking about the blackberry. On a seperate note, RIM has warned of Blackberry blues, slicing it's earnings outlook for the year and said it would start laying off employees as rivals like Apple eat away it's once dominant smartphone market share.

The office photography club went for an early morning photo walk at the Bangalore K.R Market, after a long hiatus. Hiatus, especially true for the master (respect \m/) who came along. I, for myself, managed to wake up at 5 a.m , drove all the way to K.R Market , then to Church Street for breakfast and back home without so much as a scratch (somersault!). Abuzz with activity even in the early morning hours, the market is a melting pot offering everything from still life to people photography. Managed to get some decent shots.

We landed up in Koshy's for breakfast after the shoot. My first breakfast in Koshy's. Disappointing (in capital letters). Bangaloreans, beat me up, but I would not go to Koshy's either for the food or the ambience. If it is the classic english breakfast,Bangalore has better places to offer for sure. And if I am looking for old world charm , I would pay for my south Indian breakfast and filter coffee at MTR. Thank you.