What do i envy?

I envy:

• people who know nature of things
• people in love with Allah and his Prophet
• people who are bay-niyaz, i.e., to whom nothing matters except will of God
• non-mercenary, really patriotic and morally aware FIGHTER PILOTS! [My only janoon/extreme passion-obsession-love: a realm beyond that of love/ishq and anything else you know; pure passion: in which one personifies his target job/field/role and behaves like one everyday; only such janoonis as per psychiatrists outperform the rest and do miracles no one else can dare imagine doing]
• productive people, especially academically 
• people with expertise
• people with encyclopedic knowledge of fields that really matter, like philosophy, medicine, fiqh, history, mathematics, physics, metaphysics, etc., not fluff being taught in universities - the outliers in non-outliers
• people with indomitable courage
• with vision, wisdom, perseverance, people knowledge
• bloggers who get lot of comments
• people who can theorize and explain through essays and even books with lot of evidence (either factual or mental/logical/metaphysical/philosophical)
• people on the right track! fixated please...
• people with cute children [can i adopt one being single?] and devout wives (hoors later)

Academic Wish-List: Path i want to tread

i've wasted a lot of time in relation to my quest. wasted 4 years as such in a degree that is hardly of any worldly utility and nor for my stammering, scholarly ambitions. having failed to fulfill the janoon to become a fighter pilot, i'm lost!!! thoughtlessly going into a job field seems a cowardly act. i've one more chance to re-boot and pursue a dedicated, no matter how inter-disciplinary field that fits my grand non-monetary, unworldly, intellectual quests.

My quest is ultimately search for Absolute at personal and academic level. For that i've to master many disciplines including logic, grammar, philosophy, metaphysics, irfan, methods of analysis & description, mathematical thinking at deep levels, jurisprudence, legal theories, and above all knowledge and understanding of the Revelation. These are the fields our Muslim forefathers would have mastered at 17 or 18 as in case of many. I know none!

To do list of a lost wanderer

Inspired by this: http://spotlesssoul.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/to-do-list/

• to know myself
• to learn how to argue and think razor sharp
• to learn to read
• to learn ahadith
• to learn Qur'an
• to master urdu, english, german, persian, arabic, french
• to become a multi-disciplinary social scientist
• to achieve highest stages of spiritual path (am i sure?)
• to become a historiographer
• to become an expert on modernism and post-colonialsim and post-modernity
• to become a mureed of Rumi (ra)
• to take care of my health
• to jog and excercise regularly
• to learn to focus by spiritual and psycho-therapatic practices
• to learn to write books (not not just another book)
• to not to be a mere book-worm
• to wage jihad against forces of disruption, injustice and oppressors with heart, mind and life
• to reflect constantly
• to fulfill my obligations to attain my shariah granted rights
• to be faithful to my country and ummah
• to not to back bite
• to take care of presentation of my physical being
• to be near to nature all the time
• to make a home in a mountaineous regions and work there
• to be an academic in the service of deen and humanity
• to love and be loved
• to take care of my parents and family
• to marry a devout woman
• and on and on and on

Why am I not perplexed? Ignorance.

Well crises are coming ahead, for sure. An ignorant person is hardly perplexed. When i go into realm of philosophy, political philosophy, and specific issues as well, I'll have to take years to resolve, integrate or critique ideas, philosophies and methodologies... Because i'm not a thinking man with no vocation for knowing things with curosity, i'm floating on the surface and content with it. Isn't this what Iqbal prayed for:

khuda tujhay kisi tofaan say ashna kar day, 
k teray behar ki mujoon mein iztarab nahi. 

(my very bad translation)
May Allah send a storm your way, (or) May Allah familirize you with a storm
for there's no movement in waves of your water

This reminds me of the intro lines of dark knight rises' trailer: "a storm is coming." The defeated Batman was defeated by his victory. External peace rusted him and destroyed his inner peace. As Seyyed Hossein Nasr describes a momin, true Muslim: "peace inside and always at war outside" to destroy forces of disintegration (or something to that effect). Without feeling the agony, the angst of intellectual crises, i do not know any major Islamic contemporary thinker who could overcome the 'challenges of modernity' that easily. Although for the 'initiated ones', the illusions don't really matter.

i'm in search of a cohesive serenity of mind, action and body, both at metaphysical level and at academic and societal action level. and surely, turning things around for the sake of deen of Allah has been a major aspiration, goal of which is to increase faiz in akhrat, in words of Roomi (ra).

Anonymity: A Way of Life

Qairouan (about 800AD)

One of the characteristics of this age is that people no more want to live a secluded and anonymous life. Social networking sites have dissolved this spirit completely even for those who lack the 'genius' to engage in relationship with others in the real world. If you read the Sufis of Anduslia by Shaykh Ibn e Arabi, r.a., you'd come across many stories of men and women who're very successful, because Allah noticed them, and disdained worldly pomp, caprice and self-projections.

i've been on holidays for a while and been cut off from distant friends after deactivating my Facebook account during ramadan. Some of my closest friends complained where had i been for so long?! Why am i leading a gumnaam (anonymous or secluded) life? May be i wanted them to say so, thanks to the whisperings of my carnal soul. I confess i had not been on a spiritual quest seeking the company of Allah that i've confined myself to the home, but such a lifestyle is very enjoyable to say the least... i've not really practised khalwa (seclusion) at all - i've spent lot of time on internet, watching videos and playing an online strategy game while ending up spending negligible time on reading books...

Nonetheless, like all others i want to have a certain way of life when i start earning inshaAllah. i wish to be economically independent. i like to be like one of my neighbors, a reporter - (about whose house i'd talk about in the next post inshaAllah) - who's living a seemingly comfortable yet a simple life with beautiful and intelligent kids... A life dedicated to travelling to gain knowledge for the sake of Allah and to quench the thirst of curiosity, may it never die. A life of seclusion with least mixing with people. A life of least activity and most reflection, study, chores, and routine cyclical daily activities that keep adding more and more spiritual light to my home and its dwellers in a mosque-like environment... A life not dedicated to competition with people in riches but in knowledge; not dedicated to piling gold and worldly things, but spreading excessive wealth to those in need... A life of labour and hardship yet peace and serenity in close proximity with natural things, like mud. A life of least acceleration yet tiresome...

To Bark or To Bite

i entered a home. No one was in the porch. i headed to the main door but the sight of the dog (i's familiar with) stopped me to think before leaping. A motorbike stood like destiny between the two - me and the ferocious German Sheppard dog. The dog turned on the other side, i though it was leaving. It only took a second to realize that it was trying to come over to get my calcium deprived bones. Terrain was such that if i tried to run towards the main door, i'd be in trouble. Hence, i turned back towards the gate. I didn't just turn my back - i ran like an athlete starts a 100m sprint in Olympics. Just before reaching the doorknob i looked back to be aware of the situation and to my vehshat (fear) the dog was madly jumping and running towards me. Those moments between my opening the knob, getting out and sighting the vicious dog were very . . . dreamlike exciting xD because i knew i'd make it...

Pitrus Bukhari, an Urdu writer and MA English, makes a point about this assertion that barking dogs don't bite: how do you know when they stop barking and start biting?

'Restructuring (my) Time'

This post is inspired by this post by this blogger. JazakAllah for sharing the excerpt. 

****

i've 1 month of holidays left before college starts again... Here's my attempt to sturcture my timetable so that i don't act like cattle and keep doing whatever comes up in mind or as a whim of my nafs. I pray to Allah that he never leaves me and all of us for one instance to our nafs e Ammara. Aameen...

Planning to Succeed: An flexible timetable

- i's supposed to do a project with sir of transcribing certain audio recordings [totally classified], home-based. The equation goes as:

Daily workout = Full time project work (that means after i subtract all other variables) + prayers + domestic home work + 1 hour cricket game (i love bowl and lead team) + 6 hours sleep = 100% preoccupation.

Unfortunately, the project hasn't started yet because of a delay - not from my side.

- If that occurs: post-Fajr best because everybody asleep, and no domestic work

Plan B - :D


Let's suppose I never get to work on the project, Allah na karay. Then, the problem arises and proposed solution goes as following:

- Post Fajr: 6 - 8
        Khanacadmy.org mathematics lectures [anytime i get liesure time]
        Qur'an memorization
        Islamic lectures online (limited time offer - i listen too much, act upon too less)
- Domestic work till Zuhar
- Lunch
- Qailoola / domestic work
- Asr
- Game, game, game
- Maghrib
- Take deep breaths and restore hydration
- Domestic work help
- Earning gold in the night from 9-12 after Isha
- Deep sleep inshaAllah

Professional Education: Who am I?

In October this year i'll enter in the last year of my college education in business, specifically operations management. What a waste of time had been these past 3 years! Absolute delusion. Its professors are as confused about the program as its students. It is not a very useful program: this is true for most of the university programs imported from West. Apart from core social sciences, most of the hot programs are delusions, whose etymology is as confused and useless as its practitioners. I don't wanna go into debate about it right now. i'm concerned with the fact that how do i define myself professionally. After a lot of introspection which stem from feelings of depression caused by the study of past 2 semesters, i've come to the conclusion that i must wake up and spend more than half a decade in a technical (and useful) program that has a greater impact factors in terms of value creation and huge capacity for research and innovation.

I admit i'm more at home with social sciences which are very important. Its all about ideas these days. Pakistan has the one of the strongest armies in the world, and one of weakest social science base that is authentically rooted in its own Tradition, i.e., Islamic world view. It has been able to re-engineer its F-16s for up-gradation; build local aircrafts and tanks, but its universities have failed to free themselves from the idols of Western ideologies which reappear with different names, yet having the soul of secular fundamentalism in it.

There are other plans that can save the day: joining civil service not for power or social glory. It's something that i dislike doing. Yet, i've been called to the task of performing jihad by an elder brother, a doctor, a civil servant and a mentor ('these' are 1 person). But, if you go into this hell with no technical background people will manipulate you. In that case, you're either CS or you're nothing, and they will exploit you. Perhaps that's why don't allow a doctor to be CS anymore - Allah knows best.

If that plan fails, and there are no parental obligations, i'll pursue the limitless fields of engineering which will form the power base for social science knowledge. Remember knowledge these days is tied with Power.

Reflections on keeping beard

In Pakistan, and perhaps in India too, keeping or not keeping beard for muslims is a big issue. In previous times, if one didn't keep beard, people used to inquire as to why he didn't keep it. Today, the situation is the opposite. This is a very personal topic for all. For me, as few years of successfully keeping beard have passed, it is important to revisit this matter.

One way to measure the authenticity or truthfulness is to see if one group of people dislike/condemn a thing, and other group like it (as in the case of Mutta Imam Malik). Same is the case with beard. On the one side, you've people having schizophreniac, fundamentalist and paranoid-al reactions to it. They're most often modernists to dislike from their very core religious symbols and statues. And on the other side, you've people who think Islam is manifested in true colors in white, brownish, black or grey beard on men.

Both are extremes and do not follow the middle way. I kept beard - though i don't know telling about my reason to keep of would be of any use - because i read an answer by a Mufti which mentioned a hadith which clearly condemned not keeping beard. Alhamdulilah, i fulfilled this sunnah, which is an awesome weapon of protection from various fitnah in this age, amazingly. Its amazing because how a physical feature can stratify you from evil, and create repulsion in things evil from coming to you. Its amazing because in reality one assumes that battles are fought at the nafs level, against the cunning-ness of Devil. This is where the exaggerated reverence from beard dies out. It alone cannot do any good to a believer. It is just like another aspect of sunnah or obligation that one has to fulfill. I thought that since i have kept beard, i will not be prone any serious and dangerous sin. But i have remained fully exposed to hundred more fatal sins and diseases that beard protects one from, like hypocrisy, bad manners, not praying, etc.

In conclusion, i would like to glorify this feature on believer because it differentiates us from most non-believers, easily giving us an Islamic character, which in case of women happens to be hijaab. Also because, it forces us sometimes to reform our other matters to achieve harmony and completeness of Islamic character. As for fighting off more fatal diseases, one can take lot of help from spiritual shariah, or Sufism of our islaaf, and not the one favored by West (see small book, Sufism, by Hamid Algar). This guidance is needed by all to counter deceptively creative and subtle attacks of the Devil.

Models that Measure Customer Demand

I ran with my friends a small juice cafe in university. Unlike many Pakistani businesses which think about customer demand and all of it after spending millions, we searched for ways to determine, in fact, accurately measure consumer demand, elasticity of demand (i.e., effect of price change on customer demand of our products), quantity consumers would like to consume, product choice, prices, etc. We did that by giving samples to our faculty who we were not our customers actually (sounds funny isn't it!). Our customers were (poor) BSc/BA students only, for whom cost is a major factor, for they come to this university (confirmed from university surveys).

So we used widely used survey thing, without carrying out any reliability and confidence test. What our survey proved was that people on campus are addicted to cheap (& nasty) food. Not many care about the quality which has caused yours truly food poisoning for couple of time. And, that not many would love to pay more than Rs. 50 as regular customers. Because juices were different and each juice had 4-6 fruit or fruit juice(s) as inputs, it justified high prices of Rs. 70-80 per 450 ml glass. I visited Dunkin Donuts in Lahore, and they sell smoothie at Rs. 150. What can you do about ingratitude ! :P (Nah, I'm joking.)

The survey prediction came true. Sales fell as we moved forward. We ran out of friends. Repeatedly, our customers told us, often instructing us, to cut down prices. Unfortunately, we couldn't continue with low prices due to excessive end-semester workload, and had to close the beloved cafe. It has disappointed many, and if i get permission next semester, I'd definitely do it, primarily for my own self, I'm sick of low quality items sold. This experience is shared by many, hence I believe I can create value. Again, I need to research again, and that's were Marketing Models of Consumer Demand, a research paper Chicago & Stanford professor kicks in. It does just the thing.

Here's the abstract of the paper, and you can download its pdf from here.

"Abstract:
Marketing researchers have used models of consumer demand to forecast future sales; to describe and test theories of consumer behavior; and to measure the response to marketing interventions. The basic framework typically starts from microfoundations of expected utility theory to obtain a statistical system that describes consumers’ choices over available options, and to thus characterize product demand. The basic model has been augmented significantly to account for quantity choice decisions; to accommodate purchases of several products on a single purchase occasion (multiple discreteness and multi-category purchases); and to allow for asymmetric switching between brands across different price tiers. These extensions have enabled researchers to bring the analysis to bear on several related marketing phenomena of interest.

This paper has three main objectives. The first objective is to articulate the main goals of demand analysis - forecasting, measurement and testing - and to highlight the desiderata associated with these goals. Our second objective is describe the main building blocks of individual-level demand models. We discuss approaches built on direct and indirect utility specifications of demand systems, and review extensions that have appeared in the marketing literature. The third objective is to explore interesting emerging directions in demand analysis including considering demand-side dynamics; combining purchase data with primary information; and using semiparametric and nonparametric approaches. We hope researchers new to this literature will take away a broader perspective on these models and see potential for new directions in future research."

Pradeep K. Chintagunta
University of Chicago

Harikesh Nair
Stanford University - Graduate School of Business

Work of Tableegh: How ignorant i've been

At the tender age of 16, my heart became hard and shut to the light of Tableegh movement. Since then i've never went out of home with them to "strive (your utmost) in the Cause of Allah", let alone strive in the way of Allah with my property, assets and life... I have been repellent to their simple message which can make one a true Muslim - belief in the kalimah and following the way of Prophet, and spreading his message to millions of people who are in need of the light of Islam... This so far nascent awakening has come from this talk given by a former devoted Christian who came to Islam after a long journey of searching for Allah.

Anything that can go wrong, will

And today it did again with bursts of cunning, demotivating laughter, but more with comedy. In our MIS course, we're required to make a story board - an artificial model or replica of our business model or project. Its great, because instead to boring people with story of imaginary things, systems and business processes - just show them its prototype of model ! It makes every clear, eliminates need for boring PowerPoint presentations.

1st mess. I worked on my business idea's - eTuition.com - consistently, although less, for more than a month. And, thanks for being not reading long and tedious manuals of Micrsoft's Publisher software, it didn't work on another computer. Actually, when you make a thing as a web file, you've to set it as 'global' or something, for the html to work on other computers... Instructor informed us about it; means he was sympathetic, i hope =)

2nd mess. i'm becoming more and more convinced that i'm a victim of Small and Medium scale memory loss problem... How could i forget to bring the Key Performance Indicators report ! However, just before the talk i realized what i've done with the group, i managed to download a month old version, which had no entries of data ! Even instructor did not seem about it... It also generated bursts of laughter... Bit embarrassing though :P Who cares though... The real thing is doing the thing in real world...

My Entrepreneurial Venture: Long way to go

We've planted a seed of a start-up. We wish it goes a long way. i wanna talk about elements of success and appreciate how "smarter our parents" - in fact smartest!

Its all about perseverance some say. Our professor talked about Pakistani businesses. He said that they are not doing any thing brilliant - making fans, constructing houses, etc. Yet making a fortune. They do things consistently over a number of years. Now a days we've this trend where people do one thing, then leave it and move on. When you meet them after 20-30 years, they're still saying, "Ah, i'm going to do something great soon." It never happens, because perseverance is not a part of such entrepreneurs.

As i reflect on our juice cafe. i've been exposed to things related to this business - customer perceptions about food brands, having just-in-time production system, food hygiene & other bio-tech problems, accounting systems for such a business, etc. I've opportunities to grow. I'd better grow in this sector than haphazardly starting another. i can diversify and move to other food and drink items; its essence remains the same. What i can leverage over the number of years by having a staying power, i'm more likely to do innovations and remain more competitive than a start-up.

But that does not mean i cannot or should not start other businesses if i can. The example that i'd give also explains how smarts our parents are, who're doing businesses or remained part of markets over decades. My father today discussed with me the idea of exporting straws produced as by-products from crops such as wheat. He made an accurate calculation of investment and found that one can make 200% profit by collecting this waste which many people here burn (hence increasing its price), making its batches and storing to wait for the time of export. He is mashaAllah already into many diverse markets. One of my friend's father also has done so many things which are herculean. He made that point.

Visit to a Factory

(How things are made: same expressions as mine, although chocolates were badly missing from the highly mechincal and electrical scene)

Last semester i was studying production planning and controls - useful for firms that manufacture where demand is uncertain and it has to decide how to much produce, but also useful for scheduling, sequencing of jobs, marketing, etc. So my senior told me about his friend who runs a factory and has welcomed to do course project on his company, especially in inventory management. As i had already done half the work, i had to let it down.

This semester we contacted and met, and today we finally paid first visit to the factory with the owner who is an engineering student in mechanical. The visits got cancelled due to a geniune problem. we rescheduled and then, thanks to my ability to do work at 11th hour, i had to cancel visit as i had to go to another firm... We Pakistanis are very good at it!

I'm learning how to run factories, and i haven't been into a factory before, apart from a textile mills which was very machine-intensive, but i learned production planning and saw concepts in action. We've been learning lean production tools which is about reducing waste (like, time, transport, handling, defects, wrong worker motions, etc.), achieving full worker involvement in continuous process improvements, and stuff like that. The way we're learning these things in the class room is genuinely amazing for we do things using Lego blocks, simulating factory environment here. (Here's such a class demonstration from MIT lean academy session: Lego Simulation.) That's been a very effective teaching environment. Now i feel ready to do it in friend's factory. And that's exactly what we'll do next time.

The firm produces some electrical devices on demand that means they don't make anything extra or less. And since product is big and parts or not made or assembled on a moving assembly line chance of defects, as per the friend (= owner), are almost zero. I don't know where the losses are taking place, or where the inefficiencies lie.

Nonetheless, we began the tour of the plant by switching on tv and watching a glimpse of Pakistan's cricket match (and yes we won against Australia! Yahoo! - by hook or crook, indeed by pure luck :P). i commend myself for having the sensibility to be ready to give up watching match because i understand "opportunity costs". Off the topic again. Owner took me to the floor. I couldn't see everything of the plant from one point, although i could see 75-80% of the work station. Because of small space it looks like a mess, and that's a problem they're working on, we'll talk about problems later.

He introduced me to the product by familiarizing with the machines, its process, the material machine deals with. We went through all the work centers and process step by step; i saw the product transforming from totally raw metal sheets to highly sophisticated electrical panels used in grid stations. It felt good to discover the product from scratch to finished-good. I felt manliness in that rough and tough, and noisy environment. This is what men are created for (at least partially) :P - biologically and psychologically speaking. This is where metal was crushed, bent, grind-ed, welded, polished, painted, heated, given bath of acid water, phosphate and what not. Then, taken to electrical parts assembling room where locally manufactured (in the company and else) and imported parts where being carefully assembled in a quiet fashion, although background music was generated from mechanical shop.

We sat in the room and talked about the problems, things that we could do together and i as independently. He explained the process flow by drawing a diagram of the factory, i got to make it on visio and on Flexsim, do remind me (i'm talking to the blog... :P).


This is called As-is Process Model where we show what processes are exactly happening - be it how you register for a college, or how you make a car. For illustration see the following picture - fun isn't it!?

Opportunities/Problems with the hidden factory: Spring To-do List
- Time & motion study of each process with a normal worker

-There's no documentation of bill of materials (which shows which materials are used & its details), or the process (of manufacturing, assembling, etc.)

- There are safety issues due to disorgazined work flow

- There are no visual instructions which any person, even if he's dumb and deaf can see to understand what to do without asking anyone

- Space: there's less space and more things - got to think out of box here

- Line balancing: got to organize the physical location of work centers/machines in which workers don't have to move any where

- Cycle times

- Cost accounting: would be an interesting exercise to invoke old concepts.

Doing less but quality work is the key my friend...

To home at last!

The phrase (=title) is reminiscint of Free at last! for both express same feeling :D I live in another city, although in a home, minus father, rest of family lives in Sargodha. Its Friday, and tomorrow's school holiday. i get homesick quickly, as i study more at home ('cause there's little else to do there ;). its been a month i've not seen mother, ammi jaan, as we call her. So following things are on the agenda:

1. Big hurray! once i land in 'the promised land'
2. Rub eyes to show disbelief, and suspend it afterward :D
3. Jump, sway, dance, shout, enjoy
4. Hug mother and brother, do it again
5. My first cousin's kids! Awwwww! They came in dream even.... So cute... I survive this city of Lahore by remembering their magical awesomeness... Hug them, kiss them, play with them, video shoot their brilliance moves and dialogues... pray for them!
6. Finally, before you do anything (yes, even to-do # 1) open the to-do list page of home works, around 6-7 things to do :S :/ :( ;( :o :x <_> cheer up! for god's sake, its meant to be play...

Offensive or Curious?

Today i got results of a quiz and assignment in a course . It was depressing, although as a whole i'd get 5/5, but individually i was way behind the toppers. Complacency was the problem. i've not been taking it passionately, often dozing in the class. The result of quiz/assignment was a message to change, and i decided not to miss any opportunity of participation and questioning from that moment on. Usually, my classmates appreciate quietness, and deem speaking/questioning in classroom as an impure state of mind, which can rust their faculties. They believe and act on it only during class time. The moment the painful hours finish off, the oily tongues are unleashed :P :D. (No they're sweet people too...)

So i charged, and multiple times asked questions just out of excitement that i wanted to create in myself. i tried to comment on every element in the topic. Instructor found some questions wide off the mark as it were mere anticipation, and were beyond the scope of discussion. He critiqued the irrelevance of some points, which i did not pay heed to, and despite roars of laughter by the audience (class), i tried to participate to the maximum.

Was this offensive? May be because i's smiling and often laughed when instructor asked to stop being productive... May be i didn't ask questions with more linguistic respect... Yes, questions were out of excitement and curiosity, but it did not fit the temperament of the new instructor, because in many other classes, we're snubbed for not participating... Also because in other courses, teacher doesn't allow one person to ask questions, but our instructor didn't turn down my question/comment whenever i raised my hand... In future i'd try to ask questions that fall in the scope of the topic being discussed, and focus on qualitative comments which combine couple(s) of topics and are case-based...

The Machine that Changed the World: Hands on!

These days i'm reading on how Toyota, essentially Japanese firm, revolutionized the production methodology from a book called The Machine that Changed the World. Toyota's innovation was named as Lean Production by the book written back in 1990, 21 years from now. Previously, mass production was pursued in US and Europe, invented by Henry Ford, in which standard products were produced in a very high volume, leaving little or no room for customization. Before that, as we all know, there was craft production, in which there were highly skilled masters who would make customized products.

Lean production takes the qualities of both outdated methodologies, and eliminates their negativity. The book gives the history and characteristics of all 3 ways of production, and step by step shows how lean developed in Japan and was successfully implemented in US as well. The 2nd book in the series, Lean Thinking, as per my professor, is more important that the one i'm reading.

What has all of this got to do with me? I'm excited about it for i'm going to visit tomorrow a generator producing factory of a mechanical engineering student, who's a friend of my senior. I feel fetting into the shows of Ohno and Toyoda, Toyota guys who innovated lean... i got to make a checklist of lean tools that we need to implement there, study the plant, share it with professors and come up with improvements....

New Zeal: Opening Ceremony of Umer Toor Blog 2!

Ceremoniously !

First thing first. I miss good old days of blogging! But after my previous blog Umer Toor Blog (1) was hacked, I couldn't get into the rhythm.

But, recently, I received a streak of comments on previous blog to do more, and keep updating posts. I feel compelled to start again!

There's so much i miss out that ought to be published here, just for myself though :P

Blogging has been so rewarding, to say the least. Reward: knowing a niche of rare people who like to reflect and are pure from the profanities and various illness of modern times... I want to be in touch with them, it helps walking straight on the straight path... And as the caption reads on the top right header, this is the purpose of this blog: Few mid-day breaks can suffice for this celestial purpose that uplifts my soul...

Vending Machines: A Dream Gone Sour

Dawn Lahore, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2010. See page # 10, read an article by Miwa Suzuki.

Now, i bought this book on starting up a business of vending machine, which i didn't know about the time i bought it. Since it was published by a magazine called Entrepreneur and was about entrepreneurship, so i bought it blindly, also it was quite cheap. "People respond to incentives."

Today I read this article (see top) about flourishing and much saturated vending machine market in Japan, with only 2.5 million drink-selling machines generating 27 billion dollars last year. They've placed it everywhere from streets to the 'icy summits of Mount Fuji'.

So, this seems like a dream business idea. Pakistan's is filled with the absence of these machines. We can do reverse engineering and reinvent and redefine what a vending machine is, and spread it everywhere!

There's one little problem, and difference b/w how things work in Japan and Pakistan. In Japan, people are not the likely to crime than in Pakistan. That's why they've spread it everywhere.

I talked about this v machine to the cook at home. I surprised him how they're selling chilled bananas with mind-reading devices (that can tell with 75% success rate what you'd like most to purchase), and he said, "Yahan tou banday nahi miltay, machine kya bachay gi!" ('Here people are missing from home, who cares about a vending machine.')

I stopped day-dreaming and went back to my Philosopher's Corner in search of a billion dollar idea!

Breaking the Ice: Benchmarking Army Personnel's Social Networking

My friend comes to my home, and asks me for help. He wants me to count people in my neighborhood whom i know. I struggled to name any at all, but eventually 3 people came to my mind in a town of of over a lac people, i presume, at least! I said to him that i'm in trouble. I ain't no good at knowing my neighbours, this is a serious lacking from Islamic perspective. So i asked him, how to penetrate and break the ice with these people in this modern town.

Remember, its a characteristic of modern cities, according to sociologists, that communal life doesn't exist there. In modern cities, neighbours usually don't know each other much, but people are very active socially on networking platforms (offline it mentioned, but online as well). What a paradox.

He suggested me a tested tip: Send a formal letter with minimum words, in most elegant manners, to your neighbor calling them on a tea. This is a practice of many an Army people who do this when they come into a new place.

I'm writing the letter as a BETA version here.

______________________________

House # ABC
Street # Alif. Bay. Pay
Mr/Mrs _________

Assalamualaekum!

I'm Muhammad Umer Toor, a business student at a university in Lahore. I'm living in ______ with my father. I'm new here, so I want to have chat with you over a cup of tea at my home.

This is mobile # ________. My notify me your arrival date and time, and we'll catch up anytime of your choice.

Regards
Muhammad Umer Toor
[university name]
External Researcher @ R&D Labs,
Kirana Bar School.