Wireless Utopia

Harsha Bhogle's podcast.

If you love cricket and care about it, dont miss this. I am amazed at what this guy has achieved. Truly inspirational.

Few quotes.

When you are earning a lot, when you had too many possibilities in front of you, then you got more to loose. And actually you start to take fewer risks. Because what you have is very comfortable.

- On the young guns.

And you can never let the viewer down. Because the viewer is doing you a favor by switching it on. You're not doing the the favor by saying listen, you must be hallow because I'm in thy presence.

- On viewers.

I know the answer but I am getting it from a quality resource.

- On Geoff Boycott

The Australian cricket board is about cricket. The Indian Cricket board is about finance.

- On BCCI

Tendulkar comes once in a lifetime.

- On Sachin Tendulkar.

I dont go to watch cricket matches in India. I feel the shame. I think its a disgrace to our cricket lovers who fund the game, that we put them up in such sub human conditions, its a disgrace.
...
Its an absolute disgrace the way we treat our spectators. And the reason is we dont care for them, absolute disgrace. Money itself is not a disgrace, but obsession with money is a disgrace.

- On stadium facilities in India.

I think he just buried his ego and played for his side. When he was a part of four bowlers his job was to run into the wind. And because he ran into the wind the others could bowl into the wind behind him.

- On Courtney Walsh.

Nobody, nobody has the right to come and throw stones at you because lost a cricket match. You didn't leak military secrets of your country, you didn't go and kill your countrymen, you played a cricket match that you lost. That is it. You talk about playing for India as a matter of life and death. I'll let you hear a stupidier statement than that. This is not about life and death. You are making fun of people whose job is life and death. Are you telling a jawan in Siachen that Yuvraj is playing for life and death. I mean its a joke. Our lives can never be compared to theirs. There's this guy in Siachen, there's this guy in the western border. He's been really looking at death in the face. We need to look at his life and say that all we are doing is playing a cricket match. You win a cricket match you go home. You lose a cricket match you still go home. You lose a war you don't go home. And I think we need to put cricket in perspective in this country. I think cricket gets way to much importance, far far too much importance. A lot of things said about cricket is stupid, because we have lost our sense of perspective about cricket. Cricket is a game, cricket is a sport, and that is it. At the end everybody goes home. And I think we need to understand that.

- On the cricket crazy Indians.

The passion comes out so clearly!

Tags: Harsha Bhogle, Cricket, BCCI, Cricket Stadiums, Cricket Crazy India.

Its fascinating to see how Bangalore Barcamp is evolving. I have attended all the four events till now. My main motivation being a) network with like minded people and b) attend the interesting talks. To get an idea of how it has changed, here's a comparison of the format, the focus of the event and the position of the topics and participants page on the website.

The first one was a one day event with the classic paper wiki. The theme was Web 2.0 and the participants and talks was on the first page itself. It featured talks from Tara Hunt, Pete Demmer of Yahoo and even Chirs Messina. Its was relatively a small event, with around 100 or so people turned up. It was definitely a good start.

The second one happened six months later at the wonderful Thought Works office. This time it was a two day event and and the theme was entrepreneurship. The website seems to be empty, but if I remember right, the participants and topic page was one click away from the main page. True to its character, the best discussions happened in the vast main hall. One memorable moment was when Sandeep Singhal asked the audience how many wanted to start off on their own and almost all the hands shot up!

The third one happened around four months later at IIM Bangalore. The format was modified a bit to have rooms dedicated to each topic. The theme was more or less centered around Technology. The participants and topics were on different pages, one click away from the main page. The best of talks were in the Mobile track. That room was always full! I loved the session by Savita Kini about services vs. products.

The fourth one happened four months down the line and was a two day event. This time the format was changed to group topics into collectives and were given a shorter time in each room. The official theme was Technology and Social Implications. The topics page was three pages away from the main page depending upon which collective you were interested in. The organization left a lot to be desired and it chaotic at times.

The fifth one has just been announced. The theme and the participants/topics page is not up yet, but I expect it to be similar to BCB4. But reading this gives me a distinct feeling that it is moving away from its unconference roots.

To my mind, BCB3 was the peak and the decline has started. One of the most attractive aspects of Barcamp was its simplicity. It was easy to find who was attending and who was talking about what. With each Barcamp it got progressively difficult to do so. With BCB4 it was impossible to get a quick snapshot and I dont expect BCB5 to be any different.

To think of it, the significance of Barcamp has also diminished over the past year with more events and unconferences cropping up. Barcamp itself has played an important role in germinating these events. These spinoffs have taken over the role of bringing together people around a narrower common interest. And as such Barcamp in its bloated form does not really interest me any more.

But still its hard not to feel nostalgic about BCB. It was fun while it lasted.

Edit: Check out Jace's response here. Have a look at the comments as well.

Eidt 2: If you are one of the organizers and want to suggest that I should do something instead of whining, pls. stop here. Read this, read the post once more and spare yourself the trouble.

Edit 3: OK. If I look back at this thread with a cooler mind, it does seem very harsh. Its embarrassing in fact. Sorry for getting carried away.

Tags: BCB, Barcamp Bangalore, Entrepreneurship, Startups, India