Proper project management is key to a successful project. To manage multiple projects and teams which are geographically spread across the globe, you need a quality project management tool.

As a medium sized web development company, we looked around for some quality software which suits our requirement and does not burn a hole in the pocket. Here is our pick!

Basecamp HQ:- A nice, minimalist simple to use software true to the philosophy of 37signals, the company which built it. This software is only available in a SaS (software as service) model. IMO this software best suits small projects which are communication centric. It lacks version control, task management, project tracking along with cost-benefit analysis.

Overall, very easy to easy and adapt, but reporting is not up to the mark. If you are a small business and you do most of your project management yourself, this can be a good choice for you.

Intervals:- It seems to have picked up the baton where Basecamp HQ has left. It also works on a SaS (software as service) model. It has more features (specially in terms of reporting and role management) than Basecamp HQ, thus making it suitable to manage complex projects across a large organization.

Overall, it is a good attempt to overcome the shortcomings of Basecamp HQ. However it needs to improve on its usability. It also needs to provide staged progression in terms of features and complexity so that small businesses can adapt the system. I am sure that this software will become popular as they keep improving and become old. For a SaS model company, time-tested reliability is more important than anything else.

Ace Project:- A comprehensive project management software with user friendly interface and short learning curve. It has different licensing policies and therefore you can rent or buy off (with our without source code) the software to suit your organizational needs. This software is around for quite some time and therefore seems to be reliable.

It has decent reporting capabilities, but not as good as what Intervals claim to have!

Dot Project:- The best free open source project management software that I have come across. This software looks flexible and extendable. You can plug in various modules, including Mantis (for bug tracking). The usability and reporting leaves much to be desired. So if you are looking at free project management software with access to source code, Dot Project is a good choice.

Conclusion:

There is nothing called a perfect project management software. The usage, the users and the desired result determines the one which suits best for a given organization. So take your pick from the above mentioned toolset.

 

Reliance’s BigAdda, Rediff’s iShare and Naurki’s Brijj.com are the latest dotcoms to hit the Indian social networking marketplace. It may trigger the next dotcom explosion with many more mindless dotcoms in line with these me-too networking sites by public listed biggies of India. Soon, we will forget why the first dotcom boom wave came down crashing after showing colorful dreams to thousands of tech-entrepreneurs worldwide.

I will personally advise new startups to keep away from such me-too type projects unless they have a solid niche, a risk-managed business model and a proper revenue model.

In fact, I am not at all optimistic about success of any of these new ventures unless they offer a great reason to be a part of it. The market place is already saturated and people are finding it difficult to manage their multiple social networking accounts and commitments. Besides, most of these sites do not offer any value addition apart from entertainment. Gautam Ghosh, an avid blogger shares a simmilar view on the subject.

If I have to select a possible winner among these biggies, I will go for brijj.com, which can take a turn towards the business model adopted by yellowjobs.com of NDTV. Another reason for possible success of brijj.com is that it is designed to be a business networking portal. It offers you a reason to spend time and have a clearly marked revenue model. In comparison other sites, just like their global originals heavily depend upon a speculative value creation and are looking for a buy-out similar to youtube.com which will make them rich overnight.

Do check out how many times people are referring to "Internet advertising" as their business model for their social networking website. It is not that Internet advertising is not BIG business. But it will just not work for social media websites in long term. And it is a foolishness to bet on Internet advertising as a revenue channel. We know it from the Y2K dotcom meltdown. In fact I can see the same madness as Y2K. We are not yet there, but we know it can peak very quickly  

Do you think these sites will bloom?

 

A lot has been talked about call center outsourcing.

We have heard and seen how it is changing the lifestyle statement for the young Indians who are now earning a handsome salary and (many of them) living a bohemian lifestyle!

On the other hand there have been voices against it for reasons ranging from cultural differences, inappropriate implementation and job losses.

It is nothing less than a “boom”, similar to that we have seen in the dot-com era. And yes, a “bust” is inevitable. I am not drawing an analogy between sunrise-sunset and boom-bust. But, the reason is more deep rooted.

The model of call center outsourcing needs unprecedented changes in socio cultural changes which cannot take place at a pace businesses expect. This is a fact - even if it brings a sigh of relief or sounds very depressing.

Let us consider the situation at both the ends:-

Hundreds of companies from USA and Europe are outsourcing inbound and outbound call center operations to operators in India. Most of these operators hire young graduates (and sometimes even undergraduates) at attractive pay scale and train them. They are trained in western culture, accent and lifestyle (by showing them TV serials).

Let us see their priorities in brief:-

• Money (live life king size)
• Entertainment
• Friends
• Career!

Yes, the last one was “career”. I have spoken to many call center executives and very few of them consider the current job to be their goal. They understand that their current job does not have enough scope to add value and they need to move up the value chain to make an alternate successful career.

They care about the satisfaction of the person at the other end of the phone line because their job depends on that. It is not a passion! Besides in many cases, even if they want to solve a problem or answer a question, they are unable to do so, since they do not know what should be their reaction in the given situation. The cultural difference is clearly visible when they communicate with the person at the other end.

Now, let us examine what happens at the other end -

A normal call center employee in USA/ Europe will be middle-aged (around 35 or so). He is a graduate (even if he is not a graduate, he is knowledgeable about the subject or have received enough training) and working in a call center for a career. His priorities in life are very different -

• Family
• Career (A stable, safe job)
• Money (House, Car, Mortgage, if any)
• A decent lifestyle

So the priorities are very different here. Therefore the attitude towards work has to be different and much more serious.

This clearly makes a cause of better quality call handling by a person who is from the same cultural background (as much as possible).

So what are we going to see in days to come? 

1. Call center outsourcing will go down over the next decade. It may not dip immediately, because the problems are not surfacing and even if it is surfacing the cost difference is making the manager turn a blind eye towards the same.

This cost difference will thin down as the Indian economy picks up and per capita spending increases, resulting in further surge of salaries.

2. Call center outsourcing will be selective! People will realize that only “certain type” of communications can be outsourced and managed.

3. Several call centers will find it impossible to meet up to the quality expectation of their clients and may go out of business.

4. Selected call centers will retain their hold by focusing on those selective areas which are feasible for outsourcing. They will have excellent quality process in place and will offer call center jobs as a definite career option. We might even see hiring of middle aged professionals in call centers at that time to bring in further stability.

This consolidation is inevitable. It has happened in the “medical transcription” industry and the generic call centers seem to follow the same route in long run.

5. US/European countries may bring up a special “Do not call” list for people who do not want to be called by overseas call centers to stop the menace of unwanted sales calls. We may even see a blanket ban on outbound call center (making sales call)!

6. Company owned call centers will continue to operate in selective areas.

Conclusion 

We know that the bubble will burst. It is just a matter of time. And I really hope that this time it does not take the industry in the state of despair that the dot-com bust did. It is unlikely because now we have much more business than staring at the hoardings with some silly dot-com imprinted on it.

Disclaimer

My comments and analysis of the industry, people profile and their goals are a generalist view I have gathered during my interaction with several people. They are entirely based on my experience and I totally understand that they may be incorrect or wrong or may not apply to a certain segment of people.

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On July 15th, the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) had sent ISPs a list of sites to be blocked. R H Sharma, senior engineer with MTNL, said that the list of sites ran into some 22 pages. - A blog at Rediff India

This directive led to blocking of several sites including hundreds of blogs. This was an unpredecent ban on online media in recent times. I have been following the entire event closely and here is a quick summary of the events and the current situation:

Which sites were banned?

The list is quite long if we go by the statement of R H Sharma of MTNL. However I have been able to lay my hand of this partial list:

http://censorship.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Sites_Banned

Here is a scan:-

The worst part was that this mass media censorship was done wrong. They ended up banning the entire domain which includes thousands of blogs. How come all blogs be banned if some blogs within these sites were not appropriate.

ISPs were lazy and they found that it is easiest to block the second level domain instead of typing few extra URLs and banning individual blogs! May be they have not heard about Blogspot or Typepad!

Listen to a podcast interview of spokesperson from Sify, a leading ISP of India.

An excellent post about Censorship Done Wrong is worth reading, which highlights how a normal censorship procedure which was hardly ever felt by internet users of India got blown out of proportion. Blocking genuine sites and blogs have got DoT their share of trouble in form of flames and rants of thousands of internet users (mainly bloggers) and the matter is even going to court in form of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL).

Isn’t India a democracy with “freedom of speech”?

Indeed. And this is the reason why I am shocked over this ban. Since freedom in 1947, Indian nationals have enjoyed an environment of free speech. There have been few exceptions, but the current young generation have never faced such censorship.

It has been very nicely summed by by Mr. M Raj at BloggersCollective -

“As part of a generation that has NOT experienced first-hand censorship of the mass media (the last time this happened was during Emergency in 1975) this ‘blogger block’ has come as a deep shock to all of us. Living in India prepares you for some of the toughest realities that LIFE could throw your way but freedom to say what you want has been largely a sacred cow, especially since the trauma of Emergency.” - Mr. M Raj at BloggersCollective

Over past six years, DoT has blocked more than 100 websites. Generally sites are blocked when they are anti-national, illegal or adult in nature.

However this is for the first time that such a large number of websites have been blocked in one go. And besides this, it was done wrong making matters worse.

Is this censorship lawful under The Indian Constitution?

Inspired by the ISPs, I also showed some laziness and borrowed the legal research done by Rediff.

Under the Information Technology Act, 2000, a body called the Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT-IN, was created along the lines of similar authorities the world over. Although its main task is in the domain of Internet security, it also oversees Internet censorship under a clause that seeks to ensure ‘balanced flow of information.’ Any government department seeking a block on any web site has to approach CERT-IN, which then instructs the DoT to block the site after confirming the authenticity of the complaint.

Web sites can be blocked if they contain pornography, speeches of hate, contempt, slander or defamation, or if they promote gambling, racism, violence or terrorism.

“Such sites may be blocked within the provision of the Fundamental Rights to free speech and expression, granted in India’s Constitution,” said cyber-law expert Praveen Dalal, adding, “If, however, the blocking is arbitrary, unreasonable and unfair, it would be in violation of Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India.”

Read the full Rediff.com story.

Therefore it needs to be analyzed, if banning so many sites in one go was well thought out and planned after reviewing the content closely OR was it a ad-hoc decision to simply divert attention from the failures of the Mumbai Serial Blasts!

How are people reacting to this ban?

There is an outrage among bloggers, who is the most vocal supporters of freedom of speech. However the general mood of people is against this censorship as people see this as censorship of mass media, which has its own drastic implications.

Some reactions can be read here:

• BloggersCollective Rant Thread
• DesiPundit’s Collection of Reactions
• Reactions at SiliconBeat

Some people believe that the government has taken a well planned step in favor of national security (excerpt from SiliconBeat thread):

Mihir and Bala,
This is not a knee jerk reaction, this is being done to track the SIMI (Islamic fundamentalist in India) blog community hiding inside sophisticated blog community. Read more on this in http://indiauncut.blogspot.com/

It has noting todo with free speech and politics.
SK on July 18, 2006 08:10 AM

What are people doing about it?
Apart from the most evident rant and verbal protest, a Public Interest Litigation has been filed (no concrete confirmation has been received yet)

People have protested to ISPs and it seems things are moving in a positive direction with ISPs understanding their lazy blunder and removing “full domain” censorship and retaining censorship to specified areas of the censored websites.

BloggersCollective group has been formed and lots of active bloggers are joining the group. See the growing list of members.

Want to know how to bypass the ban and see if the sites really deserves to be banned?

You can simply use any proxy service which is hosted outside India. The one I use very often is http://www.the-cloak.com/

There are tons of reseources which tells you how to by-pass the ban and read on! They are listed on http://censorship.wikia.com/wiki/Bypassing_The_Ban

So whats going to happen next?

A lot happened over last few days. With ISPs correcting their mistake, a lot of sites are already showing up. Again many ISPs have not followed the DoT directive in full.

The latest status of the censorship can be seen here.

The DoT & Government of India should come ahead to clarify the situation and put an end to an unwanted controversy which is taking up quite some time of the intellectual mass of India. And yes, they should not forget to mention that the subject got blown up due to laziness of ISPs.

Lets hope for an early end to this controversy.

Abhishek