Creating a Wikipedia Infobox

Folks,

I've done my biggest contribution till date to Wikipedia by creating a Infobox for Wikipedia Campus Ambassador Program. For those who don't know what is an Infobox, this is what wikipedia says about it...

"An infobox is a fixed-format table designed to be added to the top right-hand corner of articles to consistently present a summary of some unifying aspect that the articles share and sometimes to improve navigation to other interrelated articles."

The idea of getting quick and concise information came from few articles mostly biographic.

So I started working on it yesterday and worked quite late, till the wee hours of Sunday(that's today!), got frustrated coz something was not working and I went to sleep :P

I got up and again took it as a challenge and fixed it.

You can see one of the working prototype at following locations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ramshankaryadav/Sandbox and 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Courses/Fall_2011/Data_Structures_and_Algorithms

The template/documentation can be found @

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_WikipediaCampusAmbassadorProgram

Helpful links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Infobox

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Designing_infoboxes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Transclusion

Please feel free to use it for your respective course pages.

Finally! I'm done with it and that awesome feeling of creating something is here to stay for sure :)

The Joy of Life series

“..count your blessings”…I’ve always said it to my friends/colleagues/family and whosoever I’m related/connected with at some point in time!

So from today I’m going to start this series of Joy of being something, that something which we either forget or start taking for granted has so many special things attached, and it brings so much of value and enrichment to us. This is my bit of discovering that “special thing” in my life from my experiences…so stay tuned~!

The Joy of Life begins…now!!!

…getting back to blogging(once more ;)

Just before getting into the blogging mode once again, this is a very short and sweet message for my followers(if any ), that folks you are not alone, I’m coming back with a bag full of awesome experiences to share with you…

…stay tune

Meeting with a CEO

Yep, I never expected it but today I met Glen Tullman, CEO of Allscripts, the occasion was Allscripts India townhall, and it was Glen’s first visit to Pune after merger of Allscripts and Eclipsys.

My day started in a bit unusual way, yep I skipped my gym to attend the townhall. So reached Hyat, Pune almost on time at around 8:55 am, and the townhall was suppose to start from 9am.

Like usual townhall of a big company, we went thru the introduction of speakers and later a presentation by Glen. Frankly speaking the presentation was sort of redundant, coz as of now I’ve seen no less than 3 webcast of Glen, and he almost repeats the same stuff

So after presentation and before usual Q&A Glen asked people “How many of you feel proud on what you did in past 60 days?”, after a while we seen few people raising their hands, starting with the first answer “I feel proud to be with Allscripts”, yep as it sounds, it was just a buttering answer . Even I raised my hand and got the microphone and told about my achievement of “Creating an augmented reality app for iphone(although it was way before the merger of Allscripts and Eclipsys, but I’m still proud of it!!)”.

After the Q&A there comes the funny part of “virtual inauguration”, yep it only sounds cools, as a techie I thought they will do come ribbon cutting virtually to inaugurate our new building, but the funny part was Glen pulled a curtain on some white board which has the pictures of the new facility LOL

After all these interesting things, we went out in the breakout area for the tea and cookies. As per the feedback tea was okay and cookie was also ummm. So I thought it’s time to leave, so I rushed to take my helmet and drive back to home pickup my lunch and go to office as usual.

While coming back I met few colleagues of mine and we started a small gag session, and suddenly a guy in his suit comes and yes it was Glen Tulman, the CEO of Allscripts!!

He asked about us and our teams, and we did asked a few questions. While he was answering I was observing him and looking on his face and expressions and thought how cool he is!!! We had our chat for around no less then 10 minutes when somebody called him for something, and we dispersed as well!

So what are the takeaways in short:

• Energy : CEO doesn’t stand for Chief Executive Officer rather it stands for Chief Energetic Officer. This is the guy who infuses the energy of his thought inside and outside the organization.
• Reinforcement : They might sound redundant but they reinforce their vision inside and outside the company.
• Engagement : They reach out to people directly, skipping many level and try to seek feedback and clarify doubts(if possible). 
• Leadership : They lead from the front, for them action speak louder than words.

The list is not exhaustive enough, but I was a great & exciting learning experience(although just 10 minutes).

The inner experience of happiness comes on its own when we meet such an awesome person.

Happy Learning

Shyari…direct dilse

Dil kehta hai usse poonchu, ke tu kaisa hai,

Kya tera bhi haal mere jaisa hai,

Kya tu bhi dhal gya hai nayee zindagi me,

Jaise maie badal gya hoon meri zindagi me,

Jise bhoolna tha naamumkin kabhi is zindagi me,

Use yaad karna bhi shyad mumkin nahi hai,

Dil kehta hai usse poonchu, ke tu kaisa hai,

Kya tera bhi haal mere jaisa hai!

- ram

Posting from Rumzum(my iPod Touch)

My first post from Rumzum :)

The “Shit List”

Yep you heard it right! They call it “Shit List”, the term came in one of our meetings with our Leadership team and frankly speaking I liked it!

So what is a “Shit List”?
Hmm it’s a list of those things which you find really bad! The context here can be personal or professional, but in simple terms it’s a list of things which are blocking us from achieving our goal.

So how you create a Shit List?
Simply start noting down the 5 or 10 most blocking issues. Prioritize if possible.

How can I use a Shit List?
Now lets be pragmatic, we can not all of the problems/issues at once, so all we need to do is to focus on 80:20 rule, i.e., just focus on fixing top 2 or at max 3 issues at once.

Now I’ve identified the top 20% of the issues, how to proceed further?
After identifying the most shitty issues, let’s start writing down their fixes and we need to restrict ourselves to at the max 3! After we are done with the fixes it’s the implementation time, so go ahead and religiously follow your fixes.
After you are done with the top 2o% move back the the Shit List and identify the new 20% shitty items to fix and on and on….

“..repeat and repeat…till you become perfect!”

The important thing to note here is not to identify what works, but to identify what doesn’t work!

Happy Shit Listing / Fixing