Chicago

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View from my room in downtown Chicago - night and morning. :)



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Why don't you love Chocos, America?

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A few days ago I had the following conversation with a customs agent at San Francisco airport - as an Indian returning from India I get sent to the customs line even when I check "No food" on the customs form. :-) Agent: "Any food?" Me: "No" Agent: "Sure? No jira or cadipatta ? Me : "No....     well actually I do have a box of cereal." Agent: "Huh. What? Really?" Me: "Yes. Its a brand you don't get here." Agent: "Seriously. Even in the Indian stores? I've never heard that before." Me: "Ummm....yeah." I love reading local customization stories, particularly about how international chains tailor their offerings to local markets - the food industry has the best examples of these - check out this McDonald's story about the McPaneer , or how KFC is incredibly successful in China . But I seem to have missed that the customization extended to breakfast cereal. Turns out the ...
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A short love letter to ~8 years on Google Search - 8 things I’m grateful for.

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  After a few weeks off, I started a new gig within Google yesterday and it hit me that for the first time in almost eight years I won’t be working on some part of Google Search. Eight years ago, I told the team when I was interviewing that I was “looking for a place to call home for a while and grow there”. My experiences here more than met that need.  I used to write a regular “10 things about…” listy column for a while at a college newspaper. So in that style here’s 8 things (one for each year) I feel grateful to have experienced/learned in this time. Also, like that column which I banged out the night before it was due, this post is something that I don’t need to do, yet I feel somehow compelled to do (and so it’ll likely be longer and less crisp than it should be :-))    It actually is awesome to work on something so many people use and love, and that positively touches people’s lives. There’s a talk I give externally about Search and a line I often end up ...
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The BarCampBlock experience!

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I'd been hearing about BarCamp for a while, and decided it'd be really cool to go and check one out. A big one ( BarCampBlock ) was taking place a couple of minutes from where I live, so I registered last week and drove back early from the Sacramento suburbs last night to check one out. You've got to love the idea, as I did when I first heard about it! Basically, its a conference "of the people, by the people, for the people." There isn't a fixed agenda or known speakers. People show up, sign up on a big open board for sessions they'd like to lead or help out with, other people show up to listen em and a discussions/presentations take place. The agenda can be tweaked through the day and sessions can be just a few people chatting or larger lectures. It works really well and the topics are wide-ranging: from geeky to super-geeky to wannabe-geeky. The same applies to the participants.:) I really enjoyed my first BarCamp and I might actually head back tomorr...
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