Entrepreneurship- An interview with Debarati Goswami
This month, we take a look at a new venture that has taken a
leap of faith, moved countries and in spite of hardships kept their hearts in
one place.
Today we meet Debarati Goswami, the co-founder of Educocity and talk about her journey that has taken her
from the usual employee role to an entrepreneur. She talks about the hardships if being an entrepreneur
in India, the role that project management plays in their development process
and their plans for 2012!
·
You moved back from US to India to start your
own company- tell us about it.
My
husband Bappaditya and I were both working with Apple Inc. as consultants for
close to 3 years each, when the entrepreneurial bug bit us. After having been
located in the Silicon Valley for quite some time, the ‘big’ question was whether
we should start up in the US or in India. We listened to our heart and moved
back to India in late 2009.
We
wanted to do something in the education space because the roots of a society
lie in its education system. As everyone knows by now, our conventional
education systems are failing us miserably both in India as well as in first
world countries like UK & USA. We thought it’s about time to do something
so that students start taking interest in ‘learning’ rather than mere rutting.
The
need for a common platform where everyone associated with any educational
institution, be it students, teachers or parents can come together and create
an environment for learning was becoming more and more apparent. We wanted to
build a city for education (Educo is the root word for education is Latin) Thus
‘Educocity’ was born.
·
How well is a collaborative platform like this
one being adapted in India? Or is your target audience outside India?
GUIDE is a
cloud based, collaborative, Learning Management Platform from Educocity.com. GUIDE
stands for ‘Grow as YoU Identify Delight in Education’ and is all about making
the process of learning fun and enjoyable, delightful yet more effective than
the conventional methods.
A
conscious shift in pedagogical methods is taking place across the world. Pedagogy is changing from being prescriptive
(where the teacher teaches, the students only listen) to collaborative (where
teachers and students interact among themselves and absorb the knowledge) Collaboration
is no more a thing of the future, rather something we do day in and day out.
While various ’collaborative’ software products are available in the market today,
they are mostly content based. We believe GUIDE stands apart because it is a
platform that the users can use according to their needs instead of tying them
up with a specific set of contents.
India
has been under the influence of ‘prescriptive pedagogy’ for too long. However,
India is gradually opening up to the idea of collaboration within an
educational institution and taboos are dissolving. Some institutions are not
comfortable sharing their private data with the world. Also we have a
relatively young user base, most of them being school going kids. Hence, if
institutions want, they configure GUIDE as a walled-garden wherein the safety
and privacy of the users are not compromised.
India
is at the epicentre of our focus. However, at the same time, we are also
looking at other advanced markets, which are easier to penetrate without much
user training.
·
What have been the few challenges in working in
an entrepreneurial mode in India?
India
is still in a nascent stage when it comes to entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Professionally, the biggest hurdle we faced was amassing a seed-fund. No
investor is ready to invest in a concept and having at least a prototype in
place is a prerequisite for raising funds. Thus, boot-strapping is the only
viable option most Indian entrepreneurs are left with. This makes the process
longer and more difficult and we have seen a lot of people quit their
entrepreneurial journey over it.
Also,
in India, being an entrepreneur pushes you into a minority bracket and is still
considered as an unwise choice by the middle-class society. At times it can
take a toll on the family life, especially with parents and relatives. We are lucky
to have a very sound support system in place. For others, it might be even
tougher.
However,
the current scenario is improving in leaps and bounds and we are hopeful that
India will catch up with its western counterparts in a few years from now.
·
What does 2012 hold for educocity?
2012
is going to be the most crucial year that our venture has seen till date. We
have big plans lined up including an international launch. We are also looking
to raise some serious funds. For our venture hopefully this will mean an entire
new scale to operate in.
We
have also already roped in a few important customers and we will start
operating at these sites as soon as these institutes open doors for new
students in the 2012-2013 academic session.
·
In all these years trying to develop the
product, how have you managed the process?
Having
seen how a world class company like Apple looks like from within, we have been
very particular about processes and quality adherence from the very beginning.
We
try to keep the Product Management, Product Engineering and Service Delivery units all separate from
each other since most of the time they have conflicting interests.
We
also follow the Agile Scrum
methodology to keep our development cycles short. This essentially means an iterative, incremental framework for project management. Scrum is perfect for a
lean organization like us. It reduces our process overheads drastically and hence
the team is almost always able to deliver faster. It also acts as the perfect
remedy against deadline slippage due to scope creeps.
We
are also finicky about following checklists. Implementation checklist,
development checklist, quality adherence checklist, test plan checklist, you
name it we have it. This helps us to maintain the standards without much review
effort.
·
Tell me 3 things we should know about your
product.
We
call GUIDE from Educocity a virtual cloud campus on rent,
which essentially boils down to:
No software installation is required to start using GUIDE. It can be accessed
over a web-browser and low-bandwidth internet which makes it available anytime
from anywhere without being tied to a particular machine. If you want to try,
just hit educocity.com and go for a ‘Try GUIDE Demo’ option.
No upfront capital investment is required from the educational institution’s end. We
only charge on pay-as-you-go basis based on the total number of users. Thus,
GUIDE is especially suitable for small to medium institutions who do not want to
maintain in-house IT department.
GUIDE
is the most intuitive Learning
Management system you would have seen. The user interface is simple and
clutter free and you can get started from the word go. There are no steep
learning curves and hours spent going through elaborate learning manuals. We
believe in the beauty of simplicity.
You can also follow @educocity in Twitter or ask your questions, request a demo directly to @Debaratiz
Interview with PMOT author 4- Lindsay Scott
Wow, its been days since I published- this month turned out to be pretty eventful than I had expected.
This is the last interview of the series with the #PMOT author/s and today meet Lindsay Scott, Director of Arras People as she talks about her new venture of co-authoring a book.
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It’s a big milestone to be an author- why
did you decide to be one?
My experience has been quite unique. I was approached by a
publisher at the beginning of 2011 and asked if I wanted to co-edit a handbook
related to the people aspects of project management. The book is called – The
Handbook of People in Project Management – and it’s going to be published in2013.
Initially when I was approached I was surprised as I’ve never written a book
and certainly never edited one before. When I found out that my co-editor was
Dennis Lock (the eminent project management author) I felt a little more
comfortable and decided to go for it. I was looking forward to the challenge of
doing something completely different yet in a field that I felt totally
comfortable within.
Both Dennis and I had complete authority to decide the
structure of the book and we knew that it was going to be a huge book (63
chapters, 800 pages, featuring over 58 different authors!). The book focuses on
the people aspects of project management so we have parts which focus on areas
like leadership, team management, conflict and behavioural skills. With my
experience working and blogging about project management careers and
recruitment I’m contributing to three chapters – on recruitment, pay and
redundancy.
What was your schedule like while working
full time and writing it?
One of the most interesting things about being part of a
commission for a new (and large) book is the schedule and time involved. From
the initial commission through to the book being on the shelf will be over two
years. During that time I’ve been responsible for setting the topics for the
book, approaching authors to write the chapters, reviewing the content and
working with Dennis whilst he edits the chapters. Later on in the schedule we
will look at the overall layout making sure the chapters are aligned, the index
comes together and the overall design.
Fitting in this project alongside a full time job has its
ups and downs. I’m lucky in one respect that I do own and manage my own
business which is in the project management field. I’m working with people that
I already know and reading about subjects that fit into my day to day job
anyway. I tend to work via email and social networking sites so can be in touch
with authors around the world very easily. The downsides are trying to write
the chapters that I’m commissioned to do; there are never enough times in the
day. Other authors also suffer from this as most are current practicing project
managers too. We’re lucky in one respect that we have a long timeline to work
to but I’ve found that project managers work best when they have tight
deadlines so often the writing happens in the evening and weekends. The bottom
line is, if you want to become an author – whether it is a book or just a
chapter – you need to show commitment, manage your time effectively, and create
a space in your schedule when you can be creative.
How different is authoring a book from
blogging?
As I mentioned I’m also authoring three of the chapters
(about 7000 words each) and it has been a great experience switching the style
of writing that I would normally use on the blog (How to Manage a Camel).
In some ways it has been like being back at University creating a thesis. There
has to be a lot of research beforehand, the chapters have to be correctly
structured so they ‘flow’ and I’ve been really lucky to have such a good editor
in Dennis has he is a great writer with an excellent command of the English
language. One of the main differences between writing for the book and writing
for the blog is the use of informal language. With blogging I tend to write as
I speak so there are a lot of localisms, English sayings or slang. When writing
the book these are removed so you really need to be conscious of what your
author “voice” sounds like and make sure the grammar is correct. I’ve learned
an awful lot so far and I’m still learning a lot!
Name a book/incident/person that inspired
you to become an author.
I’d never really given it much serious thought about becoming
an author before this opportunity landed in my lap but I’m a dedicated reader
and love to read about project management. In the future I’d like to write a
full book myself – something that focuses on the career aspects of project
management. Some of the best books I’ve enjoyed over the years include; I have
to include Dennis Lock’s Project Management book it’s a definite guide to project management with so much detail where its
necessary (especially around scheduling and plans). I love the refreshing style
of Peter Taylor’s Lazy PM and he’s done a great job of creating a breath of
fresh air into project management books. Finally I loved Rework from JasonFried and David Hansson simple to read, great ideas and I wish I’d come up with the layout and concept!
You can find the interviews from this series here.
PMOT Author 3- Peter Taylor
The PMOT author series continues and this time we have Peter Taylor.
Turns out, all you have to do is get the first one published and the rest follows. Peter has another coming out in 2012- watch this space.
It’s a big milestone to be an author- why did
you decide to be one?
Having my first book The Lazy Project Manager
published by Infinite Ideas changed my professional life. I had long wanted to
write but never seemed to get the right idea but then I started speaking at
various conferences and after a while I had ambitions to widen my audience and
to get on to the international speaking circuit. It was only once I had a book to
support and promote me that I began to be noticed.
A book lends gravitas and authority to its
author (assuming it's a good book and all the evidence suggests that ‘The Lazy
Project Manager’ is indeed a good book!) It can set agendas. It receives
reviews in trade media that raise the author's profile.
The book has helped me internationally, too. ‘The
Lazy Project Manager’ has been a bestseller on the Amazon Kindle store in the
USA and I've had a huge number of enquiries for speaking gigs and consultancy as
a result (I have presented in New Zealand, Brazil, USA, Germany, Poland,
France, Romania, Sweden, Hungary, Netherlands and many more).
Honestly a book written by you to sell (or give)
to clients is the best piece of marketing collateral you can own.
What are your published works and where can we
find them?
- The Lazy Project Manager (Infinite Ideas)
- The Lazy Winner (Infinite Ideas)
- Leading Successful PMOs (Gower)
- The Art of Laziness (Infinite Ideas)- eBook only
And in 2012 there will be Project Branding (Gower)
and a new ‘Lazy’ book as well.
All books are available on Amazon and through my own website
How long did it take you to write your last
published book?
Well there is the writing then there is the
editing cycle and all of my books have taken a varied time but, as an example,
my current book ‘Project Branding’ has taken about 9 months to put together –
mainly as this is case study based and this requires time to secure case
studies, support and encourage contributors, and in editing the case studies
before weaving them in to a coherent book. As a comparison ‘The Lazy Project
Manager’ was written much faster with the writing and editing process
concluding in less than 3 months.
What was your schedule like while working full
time and writing it?
Again the two books were very different. For
‘The Lazy Project Manager’ I took time off work and wrote solidly for about 9
days to write the first draft. For ‘Project Branding’ is has been a low level
effort in writing for a much longer period and this will be concluded with a
few days ‘tidying up’ over the holiday season to complete this one.
How different is authoring a book from blogging?
Well I have to say that when I do write I often
look again at my blogs and often there are some ideas or material that can be
re-used, in an expanded form of course. But really for a book I like to
‘architect’ the major themes and chapters and then look at the way this flows
and connects in a logical and concise way. Once I have that then I write and,
often, things change as you progress through the writing period but generally
the high level structure is fairly stable. Blogs can, in comparison, be short,
sharp and specific and the next blog can be (in the words of Monty Python)
‘something completely different.
Three things every #PMOT author should know?
Well three pieces of advice I would say to any
aspiring author is:
·
Don’t wait until you have written the book to
try and find a publisher. Do your research on suitable publishers and check out
their requirements for submissions, and start applying.
·
Use your network to get advice and make
connections.
·
Blog – and blog some more. It is great practice
and a wonderful source of ideas.
Is it difficult finding a publisher?
It can be. I have spoken to many people about
this since I released my first book and a lot have not been as lucky as I was.
Actually for this very reason I have collaborated with the publishers of ‘The
Lazy Project Manager’ and ‘The Lazy Winner’ and I now have a website that offers
some advice (text, videos and a free eBook on ‘Getting Published) to help
would-be authors around the world.
No guarantees of a deal but my publishers have
offered to at least have a chat with anyone who has a reasonable idea for a
book.
And, of course, there are increasing ways to
self-publish these days.
Name a book/incident/person that inspired you to
become an author.
There are many books that I have enjoyed, and
still enjoy, that I could say were inspirations to me but if I have to pick one
author it would be Brian Tracy and if I have to pick one of his books it would
have to be ‘Eat that Frog’.
I like Brian’s books because they are short,
easy to read and to the point, and I like ‘Eat that Frog’ because it deals with
a problem that we all face.
Peter is a dynamic and
commercially astute professional who has achieved notable success in
Project Management. He is also an
accomplished communicator and is a professional speaker as well as the author
of ‘The Lazy Project Manager’
(Infinite Ideas) and ‘Leading Successful
PMOs’ (Gower) and ‘The Lazy Winner’ (Infinite
Ideas).
More information can be
found at www.thelazyprojectmanager.com and www.thelazywinner.com and www.leadingsuccessfulpmos.com – and through his free podcasts in iTunes.
