How to be a Specialist in Technology

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The Indian Information Technology (IT) industry always respects the professional certificates – even though the candidate is having experience and knowledge in his respective technical domain.  There are many professionals I see around me, are having brilliant knowledge in technical domains, especially in Microsoft technologies. There are designers, programmers, administrators and many – while discussing with them, I found that, they have very good knowledge to become a professional and improve their career values, but not having an idea about it.

So, what should be the next step – from a career strategist point of view? Well, go for a certification in your technical sphere of influence – right, but what to choose! I suggest starting with Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist Certificate.

If the candidate is having one or more years of experience, and knowledge in implementing, troubleshooting, and debugging a specific technology – the small medium size enterprise owners should push the candidates to go for a certification – because, it not only improves the career value of candidate, but also the business value of SME.

Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist certifications are for Windows Operating System, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Project and Project Server, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and even for Microsoft Biztalk and Microsoft Dynamics.

“Earning a Microsoft Certification validates your proven experience and knowledge in using Microsoft products and solutions. Designed to be relevant in today's rapidly changing IT marketplace, Microsoft Certifications help you utilize evolving technologies, fine-tune your troubleshooting skills, and improve your job satisfaction” – says Microsoft.

So, what makes you waiting? Start your career in right path with an industry standard certification to prove your knowledge values to the world around you.

All the best dear friends

Professional Certificates and Career – How to Plan

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Professional Certificates are keys for your Career growth in any industry. A certificate confirms your professional knowledge to your organization, clients and opportunities. In a recent discussion with group of students and professionals from various businesses, for a social media purpose – we discussed about this topic elaborately. I experienced that, many of them were not having information and plan regarding which professional certificates are suitable for their career growth. Here, I am sharing a quick plan for my readers.

The Plan: It works well with a blank white paper and pen.

• Make a Quick note about you and your current career. Add points about what is your career plan for next 3 years.


• Choose the right professional certification suitable for your career plan.


• Discuss with your mentor, and with the organization which provides the certificate to understand about the possibilities of growth with this certification. [Try to get information about alternatives too]


• Schedule for preparation and follow it. Preparation is not just paid class-room sessions. Learn from Internet, Books, Magazines, Social Media and Friends. Read Case Studies, Articles, Q&A if required. Work-out Templates with real-time data if possible. Ask questions.


• Go for the Professional Certification and earn it.


• Update your Profile, and promote yourself in Social Media and Friends Circle.


• Don’t stop learning – Continues learning helps you keep fit for future. Share your knowledge as articles, Tweets, Social Media Posts with friends and community.


• Build best practices inside your organization with earned knowledge.

All the best..!!

Coming Soon: Information about Professional certificates for various IT Careers in my future posts

Top 12 Knowledge Requirements for 2012

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2011 gave a very powerful positive impact on specialized business life for Social Media and Smart Phone Professionals - many new Gadgets, Applications, Job Profiles, Start-ups and Success Stories.

2012 – Definitely, is coming with lot more new opportunities for IT communities.

Well, what is essential for your success in 2012 – Let’s take a quick look on top knowledge requirements.

• Mobile Application Programming – It is not just Android, Windows Phone and IOS Programming. Look into HTML5, CSS3, Advance Java-script, JSON, JQuery and PHP. Mobile WEB Frameworks are going to be an excellent option for “Develop Once-Deploy to All” Concept.


• Customized Agile Project Management – Agile is still not professionally implemented in many organizations. Most of the Small and Medium size companies are using it as simplified version of traditional project management – but in the name of Agile. Certified Scrum Master and Agile Scrum Trainings for your Project Team are essential for a success with quality.


• Location Based Services – There are very few applications with Location based Content Identification as a feature and most of them are just social and Infotainment. There are lot more requirements which can be fulfilled with LBS – for Example: Tourism, Education etc.


• Data Center / Networking Technologies- The demand for networking professionals is high with virtualization and cloud computing projects. Virtualization and the Cloud could also be behind the increased need for IT professionals with backgrounds in data center operations and systems integration.


• Smartphone Security – Smartphones are becoming part of corporate network elements now days and security for official and personal data becomes major question. Data Security Applications, Anti-virus Tools, Remote Content Management, Policies for using Smartphones are high in requirement.


• User Interface Design – UI Design and Development is an important presentation layer element, which decides the success of many Smartphone and Tablets apps, and also PC and WEB Apps. There are certification course available to educate you about best practices and standards and it is a hot item in job market too.


• Mobile Commerce / Payment – Smartphones and Feature phones are fully capable for Money Management now days with Applications from various vendors. There were few banking apps, mobile malls and payment apps showed success stories last year, and I am expecting more to come in 2012.


•  Context Aware Applications – A new technology provides improved user experiences by using the information about a person's interests, intentions, history, environment, activities, schedule, priorities, connections and preferences to anticipate their needs and proactively serve up the most appropriate content, product or service.


• Gaming Smartphones, Devices – estimated to $800 million business, it provides numerous opportunities for business owners and technical professionals.


• Help Desk/Technical Support–Mobile operating systems have added a new dimension to help desk and tech support community and this will improve a lot in future.


• Business Intelligence – from Cost saving to investing in Technology, I am expecting many new prospects with BI.  There are certifications, Business Analysis best practices to improve it.


• Life with Open Source – Open source is not just limited to PHP and MYSQL, but there are more useful, free to use, efficient platforms for developers, designers, project managers, analysts, testers, business owners and general IT end-users.

I wish you all the best in this New Year 2012 for many new success stories, career improvements and business values.

Personal Goal Planner 2012

Dear Friends,

This Simple Goal Planner 2012 will help you to Plan your Goals, and Track it with milestones periodically.  Give me your comments.

I wish you everything success in this New Year 2012.

All the best.

Download your copy here

HTML5 Frameworks for Mobile Apps – What you need?

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HTML5 is definitely a winner for Mobile Apps Development. It gives you the power of simple App programming and efficient device compatible app standards. Recently I started to explore few HTML5 Frameworks for Mobile apps developments, because we wanted to try something more efficient then native apps. Unlike Native apps, HTML5 gives an extraordinary advantage of ‘Create once and Deploy for all devices” and that’s the important reason for our search for a suitable framework. Here, I am sharing few experiences of the explored HTML5 mobile frameworks with my readers.

When I checked with Google, the first HTML5 Mobile framework captured me is ‘JO’. It is a very simple application framework for HTML5 and it supports almost all the mobile device browsers. iOS, Android, WebOS (Surprise..!! It is still working) and Blackberry. Yes, we didn’t tested it with Symbian – coz now days, the primary crowd is with Android and iOS only. JavaScript plays a major role here, and a little knowledge in CSS3 makes things perfect.

‘JQuery’ Mobile is the next option suggested by many friends – it is a touch-optimized Web Framework for Smartphones and Tablets. It is a unified user interface system across all popular mobile device platforms, built on the rock-solid jQuery and jQuery UI foundation. [I am learning JQuery UI with UX standards for few client works] - Its lightweight code, built with progressive enhancement, and has a flexible, easily theme able design [It makes life easy with colors].

I explored ‘The-M-Project’ last weekend with one of my friends – he is a HTML5 Guru. It is another JavaScript based mobile framework for writing cross-platform mobile apps. Ok – this M-Project contains all UI and Core files to build jQuery Mobile based mobile HTML5 Apps – so If you know JQuery – you’ve got another weapon to hit.

Yes, Of course, we tested the basics only for Proof of concept development – but still working on it for more new things. I am sure, this HTML5, JavaScript, JQuery, UI and CSS3 will be an excellent combo against Native apps – but for people like us – It is another way to make new business. Happy… !!

How to Promote HR in Social Media Marketing

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Human Resource is a business area, which always needs continuities interactions with individual candidates, groups, communities and Small/Medium/Corporate groups. The style of communication in various channels decides the greatest number in its business growth. Recently, I met a Client, who works for a renowned HR unit at Bangalore, for HR Portal Development and Social Media Strategy support services. Our meeting touched various success points as goals and strategy plans, in-fact I learned few ideas from him. I am sharing few simple ideas here, for any Human resource development businesses – which are into hiring, training, resource development, placements and management.

• Publish the available opportunities as small text notes in facebook, twitter, likedin and other common social networks. People need information about opportunities to get prepared for the same.


• Publish small notes about the current and future opportunity market trends, required technologies, knowledge base for opportunities. For example: Candidates should know that Java is still a major requirement for Mobile apps, and PHP plays a major role in Mobi Web Development. HTML5 is emerging as a next generation trend technology.


• Write and Post Human resource related articles in Social Networks with your Brand name. Educate the users about ethics, work cultures, Work – Life Balance and even personal finance management. These support areas are required for a healthy human resource management


• Create discussions on common interview questions and monitor how the attitude is changing with current scenarios.


• Ask Questions, Create Polls and Share them – let people participate and it helps for create a knowledge-base community

Our team of professionals, work for the above mentioned activities in content development and content presentations. The core idea is to create a community, where knowledge and professional values are connected together as growth.

Mobile Website Testing – the strategy

Testing is an essential part of any software / website development. Testing is not just to fix and improve the functional quality, but also helps to improve the performance and non-functional values too.

Mobile website testing is little different from traditional website testing procedures. We normally use different browsers for traditional website testing - [Ex: Internet Explorer (all recent versions), Firefox(all recent versions), Opera (all recent versions), and Apple Safari – now days Google Chrome also added in the list. But for Mobile websites we follow a different strategy.

• Test cases should be based on different devices and its functional capacity – Ex: processing speed, battery level etc.


• Test cases should be executed in different real devices and different browsers in same device.  Sometime, a same device will do different things with different browsers. The screen size and the network also matters in performance.


• Emulators and Online Standard verifications should be used for DotMobi Compliance Tests – Ex: ready.modi – The result should be atleast 4/5 for quality.


• Data Access, external application access should be verified – Ex: Video Play, Upload Picture etc.


• The Testing should happen from the early stages of development itself to avoid major issues in final stages. The Testers should have awareness about devices, Device specifications, Mobile internet browser specifications, settings and knowledge about other mobi websites too.


• A quality standard document should be prepared and published with all design and development guidelines, and it should be followed strictly. If the developers are using Wordpress Templates or Joomla Templates, the same verification strategy should be applied – if required the customization should be done.


• The performance [download image & media], and non-functional [clear view] should be verified before certification.

Testing is basically a common sense activity with little knowledge on usability. Mobile website testing, and mobile application testing varies with little differences, but a Skillful tester can easily manage both the areas.

Programming .Mobi – Mobile Websites

Are you a programmer? What programming languages are you using currently – C#.net, Java, PHP, Perl, Ruby, SQL … don’t worry – you got some new career opportunities in mobile web site development too.

Even though all the above mentioned programming languages can be used, I strongly suggest going with PHP-MYSQL combination – because of its tremendous advantages in dynamic content design and delivery.

Also – the Wordpress, Joomla and other Content Management Engines mostly follow PHP-MYSQL as preferred programming. Personally, PHP-MYSQL programming is very easy to learn, and a average developer can do wonders in 10 days with right challenges.

• XHTML and CSS knowledge - required – Very important but can be easily handled with Dreamweaver type of Software Tools.


• Javascript knowledge - required – but can be handled with customizing available downloaded code blocks.


• SQL – required – Database Programming, Query based applications.


• XML – required – to handle simple and complex data structures


• Knowledge in using popular IDE tools for PHP – this reduces development time by instant help, and programming support.


• Preferred knowledge – HTML 5, Mobile detection using WURFL, Multimedia and Streaming, Mobile Wordpress, Location Detection, Widget Design Patterns, Mobile SEO and Social Features and MIME Types for Mobile content.

I strongly suggest having a code library for all required functionalities, so that the plug-and-execute can happen with little or no modification.

Career opportunities in Social Media Marketing

Every day is a new day, and every day opens new doors for opportunities – Not just for fresher, but also for experienced professionals. Social Media Marketing is another new door – come let’s see what kind of opportunities are there and what skills we need to get that…

UX Developer/Designer

• You need some hands on experience with XHTML, CSS, HTML5


• Ajax, Javascript, Jquery


• Prototyping skills, platform specific UX knowledge (Iphone, Android etc), PHP, MYSQL

Social Media Specialist

• Knowledge in creating social media content – Text, Pictures, Polls etc


• creativity and documented immersion in social media, including viral marketing campaigns


• Familiarity with website content management systems and professional graphics software.


• Excellent written and oral communication skills and success in presenting information/data.

Social Game Designer

• Experience in game and entertainment content of Social Media


• Knowledge in PC game development – with Flash


• Logical Thinking &  Creative mind


• Action scripting, PHP, MYSQL programming

Social Media Account Manager

• Updating Client's social media accounts with meaningful content to effectively engage audience.


• Weekly companywide social media tips and updates


• Monitor client’s brands and campaigns.


• Administration and moderation of multiple client social media accounts


• Building client social media accounts and pages


• Development and implementation of Facebook and Twitter promotions


• Conceptualization and project coordination of mobile applications and mobile optimized sites


• Coordination and development of custom Facebook content


• Project management, including managing contracts, budgets, project schedules, vendors, and staff

Social Media Strategist

• Ability to develop best practices and policies regarding use of various digital media


• Recommend and deploy an appropriate mix of communications strategies and approaches as they relate to websites, mobile technology, blogs, social media networks, social bookmarking, discussion groups and forums, to drive brand awareness and engagement.


• Facilitate ways to measure, test and optimize platforms, leveraging tools that will aid in driving programs


• Three to five years experience in a digital marketing role at a digital marketing/development, advertising or public relations firm preferred

Are you guys ready for these opportunities – why waiting, Just update your resume and try the new world… !!

Wordpress Mobile Pack – advanced .Mobi Development

Wordpress Mobile pack is another very powerful complete toolkit, to help mobilize the corporate Wordpress Site. It comes with excellent mobile switcher, to select themes based on the type of the user, that is visiting the site, a selection of mobile themes, extra widgets, device adaptation and a mobile administration panel to allow users to edit the site or write new posts when out and about.

Note: PHP 5.x is also highly recommended, although the plugin also works with PHP 4.3.

Some extraordinary features include:

• A set of advanced themes for Nokia and WebKit devices, designed by Forum Nokia. These also look beautiful on Android, iPhone and Palm devices


• Standards adherence, ensuring that mark-up is valid XHTML-MP 1 and the site scores 5 on mobiReady.


• Device adaptation, including the rescaling of images, intelligent splitting of articles and posts into multiple pages, the simplifaction styles, and the removal of non-supported media.


• A mobile admin panel, that allows the blog managers to access the admin interface via a mobile device, with simplified access to the most common features such as editing a post or approving comments.


• Mobile analytics, allowing you to track your mobile traffic with PercentMobile, and view simple local traffic tallies


• A mobile ad widget to easily enable mobile ads with AdMob or Google's Mobile Adsense.

Estimations – Some best practices

Estimation is a decision about how much time and resources are required to carry out a piece of work to acceptable standards of performance. Fine, most of the project managers do this estimation practice, with the help of tech leads, or key team members. Here, I would like to share some best practices based on my experiences in estimation process.

• Schedule full-time team members at three and a half to four working (productive)days per week to allow for holidays, absences, and training sessions
• Always include management time where appropriate as an additional 10%
• In planning, avoid splitting tasks between individuals – when tasks are split between two individuals do not reduce the time by 50% - allow time for communication and coordination
• Take individual experience and ability into account
• Allow time for cross functional data transfer and responses
• Build in time for unscheduled urgent tasks arising on other non-project activities
• Build in spare time for problem solving and project meetings

For each key stage keep a record of
• Any assumptions made during estimations
• Where contingencies have been added & how much added.

W3C Initiatives - for .Mobi Website Development

W3C had developed several number of web technologies that unequivocally take into account the specifications of mobile devices. Try the following in your .Mobi Website development, and let me know your experiences.

• CSS Mobile, a profile of the cascading style sheet language that matches the need of mobile Web authors


• SVG Tiny, a profile of the Web’s scalable vector graphics format well-suited to the capabilities of mobile devices


• XHTML For Mobile, which defines a subset of XHTML for mobile

The latest generations of mobile internet browsers are capable of using more advanced Web technologies, including features from HTML5, CSS 2.1 and 3, a number of rich JavaScript APIs, opening the way for Web-based mobile applications (including widgets).

I am working on the technical document now for some sample models, which can help the beginners to get started with .Mobi development quickly.

Quick Tips .Mobi Web Development

.Mobi is the extension for Mobile websites – websites that can be browsed in Mobile Phone Internet browser.  Just like .com, .net and .info, the .modi extension is also becoming popular based on the popularity of smart phones in market. Numerous corporate companies and news media agencies are having their Mobile website to present news and content directly into the hands of end user. Many social media websites – including facebook and twitter posts are also getting presented in this way through various mobile websites.

.Mobi websites are opening a new world of opportunities for web site designers, developers and testers. I see many small and medium size companies are also participating in these developments powerfully now days. Recently I presented a demo about .Mobi development and its standards to a client. I would like to share some points here for our friends.

Number #1: Visualize the .Mobi website based on a straightforward template, which is suitable for almost all the mobile browsers. Try to see visit the existing mobile websites and build a standards document. It will be helpful for your designers and developers, and also for estimations.

Number #2: Plan the .Mobi website with limited content. Don’t fill it with everything from your Internet website. Plan for the images, media content [videos, audio etc], and RSS feeds in design time itself. Use images with less DPI, and size reduced audio video content. Don’t use animated GIF kind of media in professional websites.

Number #3: Create a personalized CSS Template, and tailored theme for your website. It should be impressive, at the same time, it should be lite to get downloaded quickly in mobile device.

Number #4: Less usage of Javascript and Flash will be good, but these things are helping a lot in presentation and interactivity. Try using Javascript libraries and Flashlite swf files wherever you feel required, and test its performance in real time mobile devices. Don’t rely on Emulators. Emulators will not help you to find and fix real time issues.

Number #5: Use the CMS based Frameworks, if you are familiar with such architectures. I used Wordpress, and I see many are using Joomla too. The development time can be optimized, and many standards related things will be taken care by these frameworks automatically. There are Templates for Mobile Devices available for Free, and you can customize them for your requirements.

WordPress and .Mobi Development

Wordpress is a well known name in cross platform open source blog publishing application market. It uses PHP and MYSQL – and it can be used as Content Management System also.  It has many features including plug-in architecture and custom templates – best for beginners to advance level users.

Wordpress is providing Mobile template and functional extensions for .mobi development.  Wordpress Mobile Edition is a Plug-in that shows an interface designed for a mobile device, when visitors come to your side on mobile devices. Mobile Browsers are automatically detected using WURFL, the list of mobile browsers can be customized on the settings page.

The Installation is very simple – just like all other Wordpress Plug-ins

• Drop the wp-mobile.php file in your wp-content/plugins directory


• Drop the carrington-mobile-(version #) directory in your wp-content/themes directory


• Click the 'Activate' link for WordPress Mobile Edition on your Plugins page (in the WordPress admin interface)

Mobile template themes can be created, and customized for your business requirements. You can also add other plug-ins such as RSS feeds, Micro Blog Panel etc. You can create and edit pages to customize the PHP/XHTML content – add your Facebook Badges, LinkedIN profile connecters etc.

Visit my Mobile blog – http://m.gvmuthu.com – I created it using Wordpress – just as a beginner. Share your comments and suggestions – let me see, how best I can improve it.

3 Gifts from my CSC Team

As many of you already know, I am not in my responsibilities of Photon and CSC Roles from Feb 4 2011. I resigned from Enterprise project management Office role, and now looking for opportunities in Delivery Management and Operations - also supporting to few SMEs as Consultant. My CSC Friends gave me a good party and few good books too – as a gift. Thanks to Neel, Veera, Shajahan, Sambit, Anthony, Kumbesh, Elumalai, selva and others.

I am yet to read these books but I am happy to share its titles to everyone.

1. JACK – straight from the gut – This book is written by Jack Welch. As CEO of General Electric for the past twenty years, he has built its market cap by over $500 billion and established himself as the most admired business leader in the world. His championing of initiatives like Six Sigma quality, globalization, and e-business have helped define the modern corporation. At the same time, he's a gutsy boss who has forged a unique philosophy and an operating system that relies on a "boundaryless" sharing of ideas, an intense focus on people, and an informal, give-and-take style that makes bureaucracy the enemy. This book is laced with refreshing interludes, such as "A Short Reflection on Golf," that capture Jack's competitiveness and the importance of friendship in his life. JACK: STRAIGHT FROM THE GUT is destined to become both a business classic and a deeply personal journey filled with passion and a sheer lust for life.

2. The Management Gurus – Lessons from the best management books of all time – Chris Lauer - Insightful summaries of fifteen outstanding management books.

3. The New age of Innovation – C.K. Prahalad, M.S. Krishnan - Named one of the "Best Books on Innovation, 2008" by "BusinessWeek" magazine. From the greatest minds in business today comes a groundbreaking new blueprint for executing the next stage of customer-created value. C.K. Prahalad, the world's premier business thinker, and IT scholar M.S. Krishnan unveil the critical missing link in connecting strategy to execution--building organizational capabilities that allow companies to achieve and sustain continuous change and innovation.

Once again, Thanks to everyone. All the best for a great time.

Management Magazine Websites

In today’s world, the knowledge is the key. Knowledge comes not only through own experiences but also from continuous reading – Yes, I mean Magazines. Magazines will help us to understand the current trends, market and business strategies, views and focus points etc. Many of us are not reading even news paper now days – we all watch it in TV. But reading is a good habit per me. At least – 30 mins of reading can give a message / idea / or solution even. Fine, let me introduce few online magazines – for business managers. Try to visit these websites at least once in a week – or get the RSS feeds.

- Perdido - Features articles, profiles of organizations and their programs, and book reviews in the fields of leadership, human relations, and management

- Selling Power - Magazine for professional selling skills, motivation and sales management know-how in the business- to-business environment.

- strategy+business - Delivers penetrating insights and practical guidance about management, innovation, public policy, strategy, and more.

- Workforce Management - Provides information on employment law, human resource development and human resource management.

- Chief Executive - Magazine written for CEOs and their peers. Provides ideas, strategies and tactics for top executive leaders seeking to build more effective organizations.

Best Sellers in Management shelf

Recently one of friend introduced me the store manager of landmark at Chennai. We discussed a lot about the change in reading habits of people now days, the growth of new age Indian writers, book exhibitions, and the type of books they sell in recently business scenarios.

I saw these books on stand – and found that these are the best sellers now days.
- Leadership @ Infosys by Matthew Barney
- Destination Work : Getting People Excited About Coming To Work And Working Hard by Harry Paul, Ross Reck
- Being The Boss : The 3 Imperatives For Becoming A Great Leader by Linda A. Hill, Kent Lineback
- Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down by Vineet Nayar
- Marketing 3. 0: From Products To Customers To The Human Spirit by Philip Kotler
- TEN MUCH- Ten Ordinary Processes For Extraordinary Success by A. G. Krishnamurthy
- The Maruti Story by R C Bhargava

Friends, Try these books and let me know your comments.

Gandhi, CEO: 14 Principles to Guide & Inspire Modern Leaders

Two months before one of my friends suggested this book, when we were in Landmark Chennai. I finished reading it just last week. It’s an interesting book from Alan Axelrod. Alan is the author of more than 60 books, including the bestsellers Profiles in Audacity 9781402745317 and The Real History of the Cold War 9781402763021. He has appeared on MSNBC, the Discovery Channel, CNN, Fox, and numerous radio news and talk programs. Axelrod and his work have been featured in Business Week, Fortune, Men's Health, Cosmopolitan and many newspapers.

The book is very useful for new generation leaders and practical managers. Gandhi’s Personal Leadership and Institutional management are well explained through his management principles and personal/political life. Learning and Experience, The nonviolent CEO, Deciding, Revaluation and Revolution are very interesting titles to read. Every chapter is having collection of lessons. There are 14 Chapters and 100 lessons – every single lesson is giving a practical path for a leader of this generation.

How to Motivate your Employees

The business success comes from a team of motivated, hard/smart working employees – in any small and medium size company. In a seminar, I attended few years ago – I noted few valuable points about this topic, and I would like to share them here.

Creating a Positive Environment – Every employee should feel worthwhile and important. Such office environment gives a positive energy to employees, and it makes a productive office. The manager’s office door should be always open for staffs – their questions and concerns.

Career oriented growth – The manager should help the employees to reach to the next level professionally by providing on-site coaching – through their day to day works. There is professional one-to-one counseling available, which can help people learn how to overcome personal and professional obstacles on their career path.

Acknowledge every contributions – A manager can make a very big difference in employee morale simply by taking the time to recognize the contributions and accomplishments of every members in team.

Incentives – Offering incentives to members for best performance is a good practice. It can be something small like a gift certificate, or something more such as performance based bonus. “Employee of the Month”, “Star Performer” kind of treats will help a lot in motivating employees.

In my experiences, I crossed many success stories in my team – of course by implementing the above mentioned ideas.

Android Development Guide

In one of my recent discussions with mobile application developers community [online], I found that most of them are following the Development guide http://developer.android.com/guide/index.html.

This online guide is really useful for the beginners and intermediate level programmers – because it gives an excellent introduction and examples on basics, framework, development concepts, best practices, and deployment trouble shooting management.

User Interface, Data Storage, Security, Bluetooth are well explained with appropriate examples. This site also contains a blog for latest updates, SDK Downloads, and Videos of popular Demos and Discussions. There are many articles and tutorials available for beginners and even for advanced programmers.