Wednesday, May 10, 2006

The Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Tool by the National Cancer Institute may be an effective way to start looking at your personal health/risk. By default it is only for women >35. My mom, a successful gynecologist in India, detected my grandmother’s breast cancer before it got any worse, about 24 years back. My grandma is still one of the big smiling faces at the airport every time I visit home.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Importing.

“Reeling in Asian Riches” on cnnMoney.com is a simplified note on importing from Asian countries in even simpler procurement, supply and demand words.

Monday, May 08, 2006

A Product Management Question?

“Feature Bloat” on the HBS review talks about keeping your product clear and simple. On the outside it appears to be a fairly simple thing to do. But to boil a product or service down to this level takes a deep understanding of the end user, and to subsequently address his/her needs before requirements.

To think of it, this concept captures some key basics of managing a successful product such as product consistency, ease of use (though some may like it complex), and building expectations that can be met. ipod, the garage door remote control, and Wikipedia are pretty good examples of products/services that get the job done without frustrating or guess working the user.

But to add a layer to this article, I have always been in love with Excel and Google. The reason being both are designed so well they can be molded by the user to fit his/her needs, and grow with changing and increasing requirement. When I started using the Excel sheet, to me it was just a table, but as I grew up it grew with me to help in Poisson distributions, decision trees etc. That is a great product.