the meaning of life, the universe and everything

The MontRed logo design steps are a nice demonstration of the fact that design is an iterative process.

But, imho, from a cultural context point of view it will not have worked in Turkey and in some other middle east countries.

The red crescent is a really recognized symbol in the middle east.
Just like the red cross in the Europe.

http://www.kizilay.org.tr/images/thame_01.gif

When I see the logo I recall anything but diamonds:
eartquakes, floods, blood, ambulances... and so on.

Besides "crescent" is a recognized symbol in all islamic societies and when a muslim sees something crescent-like the last thing she remembers will be diamonds.

If MontRed aims to be a global brand, it should take cultural considerations into account.

Dear Petros,

Dear Volcan, from reading your letter to Ms. Atlas it becomes quite clear that you know the official Turkish take on what happened, in your case what didn't happen, to the Armenians.

Yes, I am quite aware of Turkish Government's policies. But imho, me and the Turkish Government are two seperate entities and I may or may not think in the same way the government thinks. Though, the issue is independent of my point of view; it is about denying right for free speech.

But do you know, do you really know the Armenian point of view, or what I'd rather say the the Truth!

I'm not a historian, but I have read several books both from the pro side of view and from the con side. The conclusion I have reached so far is, you cannot be %100 sure unless you know with %100 confidence, the historical perspective at that time, along with social, political, economical scenes in those days. Everything has a reason. And every side is right when they see the scene from their own paradigm. Again imho, it is something more than an "agreeing on the definitions" thing.

I do not live and never have lived in a country where people can get arrested and prosecuted for thinking,

Nor do I. That was long long ago. Besides, there is an overemphasis on Turkey's laws restricting free speech and free thinking.

We are not China, nor Saudi Arabia. We are a democratic republic and everyone has their right to express their thoughts.

my views are based on having free access to information and free debate, something very difficult to achieve in Turkey.

As I mentioned above, I disagree with you.

There is an overwhelming amount of prejudice and incorrect beliefs about Turkey around. That's mostly because the geopolitic position of the country:

• Turkey is Muslim, but it is Laique at the same time.
  
• It is not ruled buy Scharia (the arabic law steming from Quran and Prophet's sayings), it is a democratic republic on the contrary. (Of course in every democracy some people are more equal than others and Turkey is no exception to this, I admit).
• It is on the conjunction of Europe, Asia and Middle East.
• It has a cultural mosaique: Schiis, Sunnis, Alevis, Bektashis, Christians, Jews, Armenians, Greek and Romans, Kurds and many more live together sharing the same culture. Most of the time cultural motives and traditions are so similar that you cannot distinguish one cultural segment from another.
• I mean, Turkey is not a salad bowl, as in the Unites States. It is more like a boiled pot.

Dear volcan, I challange you to go beyond what your government tells you, and come to a decision based on your abilities to judge.

I hope I was able to clarify at least some of the misunderstanding.

Best Regards,
Volkan.

This is an open letter to PBS US not providing a national platform for Armenian Genocide deniers.

---

Dear Ms. Atlas;

As a citizen of the Modern Republic of Turkey, I appeal to you to reject the wrong-headed petition being prepared by Armenian Americans who wish to stifle all research, debate and expression that takes any position other than that the Armenian tragedy of the late Ottoman Empire constituted genocide.

The petition, available at http://www.petitiononline.com/pbspanel/petition.html, seeks to prevent the airing of a discussion produced for PBS by Oregon Public Broadcasting in which diverse views on the Armenian issue were presented.

I have noted that some people are participating in the petition just to comment that the petition is against free speech.

By no means does the Turkish seek to deny Armenians their voice to tell their story as they perceive it. Yet many Armenian-Americans work tirelessly to ensure that their view of history is the only view that shall ever be known.

If rewarded, these efforts would harm the fundamental rights of many Americans, not just Turkish-Americans, to learn an historic controversy from a plurality of viewpoints and to make up their own minds. Moreover, PBS' standards of balance and objectivity would be crushed by accepting the petition in question.

In addition to urging you to reject the petition, I therefore congratulate PBS for supporting the OPB program and urge you further to consider programming that presents views other than the
Armenian viewpoint, which, to date, has exclusively been represented in PBS programming.

Thank you for your consideration.

Kind Regards,
Volkan Ozcelik,
Just a Turkish Citizen
defending the right of mutually sharing ideas.

---

As an dumb-headed engineer, still not leaving his engineering habits; I think I have an optimization problem somewhere:

1. I have several blogs which I spare for different topics.
2. My todo list is expanding.
3. My incoming mails far exceed the number of e-mails I read.
4. I haven't looked at my rss feeds for weeks.
5. I haven't called my friends for months!
6. I have three or four articles to write.
7. I have several blog entries, photos etc to share.
8. sardalya's add on's todo's and optimization.
9. I have sevaral lists and forums (both native and global) to participate.
10. I have to follow the recent technical buzzes,
    
11. and the recent marketing buzzes.
12. My MBA graduate project has weeks to its deadline.
    

Moreover, I focus a considerable amount of my time for the (viral) marketing and development of my (quote and quote) "secret" project.

Yes, obviously there is an optimization problem somewhere.

As I observe from my web stats I have a crowd (okay less than a crowd) of readers who mostly visit my blogs through google queries.

Since I don't blog regularly I am doubtful that I have regular passionate readers.
Some people find my entries worth reading anyway.

So my words are to you, my anonymous reader who is not likely to visit my blog again until you google and find something of your interest at some time later on.

I know what to do to gain your loyalty:

1. Write quality and useful stuff,
   
2. Write them daily,
   
3. focusing on a particular subject / area / field of expertise.
   

And I have zillions of (imho) quality ideas to share.

It's that simple. It not magic. Nor it is about luck.

However I cannot :(

I don't know whether it's just me running out of time.

Anyways, for anyone who are interested:
I will be participating less frequently on my blogs until things settle down a bit.

Later, when I have time to breathe, I will go back to my collaborative days.

As I said, I rlly rlly need some time :)

Currently, I am elaborating on a high-risk (and hopefully) high return (secret) project.

I will not share the name (or URL) of the project until I see it's worth sharing.

However, I thought it would be a good thing to share my risk analysis decisions.

Define the risk factors

The first thing in a risk analysis (also known as requirement analysis) is to define the risk factors. Here are my risk factors at a glance:

1. I possibly will not have a project sponsor unless the project is successful. So I need to go on my own for a long time.
2. I need a high system availability requirement (in terms of server uptime, notification and support)
3. The technical requirements of the project are new and complex.
4. The database schema is relatively simpler (9 tables, 2 of which are lookup tables), however the data storage and data mining requirements may not be that simple.
5. The product (or release) is new to the market (the current buzzword for it is: it is a beta product)

Given those risk factors; let us try to analyze what each item will cause and what strategies may be taken to overcome them:

I possibly will not have a project sponsor unless the project is successful. So I need to go on my own for a long time.

Results:
The project may not get the resources it needs. This may delay the project. Issues may not be resolved in a timely manner. And time is more is much more precious than you imagine (because in order to be first in a market you need to act fast.

And acting fast requires money.

You should have known that, financial requirements, time requirements, and quality requirements cannot be decreased together. You have to sacrifice from one to decrease the other two. For instance if you have less money to support a project you either lower the quality or extend the project development time.)

Action:
Either try harder to find a sponsor. Or spend some more money (since time is important and you can't sacrife from the quality then it's the only choice). Or do not start the project at all (and just watch others skim the market, helplessly). Note that if you need return, you have to take risk. As the Turkish proverb says: "bogulacaksan, buyuk denizde bogul." (if you're gonna be drown somewhere, be it a large deep ocean; instead of a small little lake -- Yes Turkish is a really compact language)

* * *

I need a high system availability requirement (in terms of server uptime, notification and support)

Results:
Downtime problems may result in productivity decreases and loss of revenue. Newer and advanced technology may be required. More procedures and processes are needed to maintain the system environment.

Action:
Allocate more time to design, analysis, testing and quality assurance activities. Think twice when designing the database schema. Focus extra time and energy on technology architecture (both software and hardware). Use industy best-practices whenever possible. And determine exactly which portions of the system has a high availability requirement. And finally, look for outside experts to validate overall technical design and architecture.

* * *

The technical requirements of the project are new and complex.

Results:
May be difficult to understand the requirements and the implications of design decisions.
You may need some integration between old and new technology. It may be difficult to test a complex technology. Hence, the more complex the technology, the greater the risk that the problems will occur.

Action:

Document any and every single bit of code. Have printouts of your ddl statements. Have a copy of your database schema diagram on your desk. Have detailed explanations of all your DB tables, and code modules.
Define the overall system architecture and have it approved by knowledgable people (remember anyone can make a mistake, included but not limited to you. The more people approve your architecture, the higher the possibility that you're on the right track)
Create sandboxes, pilot tests and prototypes before a full launch.
Try to substitute more proven and familiar technology in the architecture.

* * *

The database schema is relatively simpler (9 tables, 2 of which are lookup tables), however the data storage and data mining requirements may not be that simple.

Results:
Solution may have a more limited value if all required data is not present (due to inefficient mining). Solution will take longer to analyze and test (if the data grows too much)

Action:
The large amount of data is not a problem if you have a reliable database. However, make sure that you really understand the relational integrity of your database design. It is likely that some elements will be discovered missing until the system constuction. Make your design flexible to be able to handle that situation. And lastly as an expert's opinion on the issue.

* * *

The product (or release) is new to the market (the current buzzword for it is: it is a beta product)

Results:
Learning curve may result in lower initial collaboration and productivity. It may be difficult testing the new technology. Technology may not be installed or configured correctly which will lead project delays. A new technology may require substantial conversion efforts. Finally, system performance may be poor while expertise is gained in configuring and optimizing the technology.

Action:
Provide as much training, help documents, tutorials on the technology as possible. Train everyone who needs to use this technology. Ensure that solid analysis is completed regarding the new technology functions, features and capabilities. Create procedures and standards on how the new technology should be utilized. Create and test a small prototype before a full launch (that's the second time I'm saying this :) )

* * *

That's it.

Hope this analysis was as useful to you as it was to me.

I'll have more things to write here when I become a millonaire ;)

Cheers!

Although Microsoft does not care at all, google is one of the largest companies in the internet industry whose products and services are invaluable in my humble opinion.

Let us dive into the reasons for google's sucess.

1. google was the best among the first, which helped it win its fight with the giants and dinosaurs of the internet market.
   
   
2. Text-only ads and it's simple yet innovative interface. It gives what you need. Nothing more, nothing less.
   
   Simplicity, they offer. That's it.
   
   (to have an idea compare google search and yahoo search, or MSN search. Even finding where to type the keywords is a real pain in the rear on other sites.
   OTOH, google home page consists of a simple text box which the cursor auto-focuses, to make life even easier on the end-user's side)
   
   
3. And of course the speed and relevancy of its search results, which stems from the effective and efficient search algorithm.
   
   Speed is both due to an army of small PC that split up the search cache into pieces, and to the HTTP GZIP compression when it sends the results to the end user.
   
   
4. Just one word: innovation.
   
   They have more creative and happy employees working to get google to a better place. They are very selective on choosing employees.
   
   
5. B(to the power 3) : Big Brains Behind.
   
   
6. Google diversifies its risks by creating more than necessary services. Some succeed, some fail. They give google a "dynamic" appearance on the whole and make it win on the long run.
   
   
7. Google quickly learns from its mistakes.
   
   
8. Even as they add more functionality to their service, they remain amazing at their core business; that is search technologies. That's their core competency and as long as they hold on it, they will remain successful.
   
   
9. They have ads on their pages which you can hardly notice.
   
   
10. The last but not the least is right time, if google were founded before dot com bust, it would have been in a much worse place.

The list above is a blend of brainreaction results and my personal judgements.
Google "why is google successful" for details.

Before the dot com bust (in 2000) internet was not well-known. Internet companies were following rather pushy and agressive marketing strategies. They were thinking that creating content was simply enough. Good content would sell itself none the less.

However, pushing the services to the current and potential customers without judging their needs and wants was a key miscue, leading most of those companies away from the scene.

The ones that were not busted in the 2000 dot com crisis all shared common behaviors:

- They knew that the means of getting, keeping and growing customers was delivering and communicating a superior customer value.
- They all analyzed their customer-base, their browsing habits, clickthrough rates. They determined their segmentation strategies accordingly.

The way things work are exactly the same today as well. Except, there is way a lot more competition, rivalry and innovation around.

Thus, any enterprise or initiative wanting to survive, let alone make profit, should leave selling concept, product concept and production concept aside.

To be successful, one should follow a customer-oriented, data-driven, proactive, "sense and respond" philosophy.