Introduction                                                                                                         (top) 

The BbyB Beacon is an electronic publication to keep the members of Bit by Bit informed about the current affairs of the company. It contains announcements of important events like training programmes, Management Review Meetings, etc.

Contact Information

Any contribution to the newsletter in the form of technical articles, or items of general interest, are welcome. Please send them to pratima@bbyb.com or sreedhar@bbyb.com

From the Management

Another month as has gone by and for the first time we have been having employee reviews. I have received a lot of feedback from you, some positive, some negative... but all of them are most welcome. I hope people who have had these reviews have seen the management's perspective on their performances. As I had said before these reviews need to be totally frank and no point patting each other on the back when we hold serious grievances against each other.

Let me make a start to this frankness by bringing to the open one issue that has always irritated me. .NET migration !!!. I have a feeling that no body is thinking about the implications of moving to .NET. Let us take a look at this from the company's point of view.

The last time I checked BbyB was a commercial organization and not a training institute. I really don't think we have exploited the existing technologies of VB and SQL 2000 to its fullest. The day we require functionality which can't be provided by VB 6.0 / SQL 2000 we will look at porting across. There are enough technologies there that we haven't bothered to look into OLAP, Data Mining, XML, English Queries... to name a few.

Projects like StaffBank, Sepia and MESaLS are massive and the cost of converting them to .NET will run into crores. I guess every employee is looking at this .NET porting from their point of view but from the company's point of view it is an expense running into crores with absolutely no increase in functionality. I haven't pulled that figure out of my hat, development cost for these three projects in total has already crossed 3 crores and we are looking at around 1/3 that for a .NET porting.

This reminds me of JF Kennedy's famous words "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country". The company will spend what it takes on training that makes commercial sense to the company. If any employee feels that training in some field is required then please put in a proposal saying what benefits will accrue to the company from this training and what the cost of that training will be. The company is interested in what makes commercial sense and not what may look good on your personal CV.

Raghu

From The Editor

"Self-Appraisal"

Anyone who is interested in ones own career growth and would want to know where he / she stands, so that he / she can plan the way ahead. They would like to know if their superiors find their work satisfactory. If not, then they would want to learn about the mistakes they are making so that they can correct them. This calls for periodic appraisals.

The annual review of all staff at Bit by Bit is underway. It aims at evaluating past performance, identifying achievements and shortcomings of an employee. It also aims at giving the employee an opportunity to air issues that he / she may have with the organisation.

But, not every organization has an employee review system. Formal reviews happen to be a rarity in small organizations. Sometimes, even in bigger organizations, the review system may not be well defined and may be limited to a certain section of employees.

In any case, it is good practice for any person interested in advancing his / her career, to evaluate oneself. This process of self-appraisal involves a methodical analysis of past performance and a plan for self-improvement.

In order to evaluate oneself, the individual has to have a clear description of his functions and at the same time, he / she should chart out time-bound objectives. Having them reviewed by the immediate superior helps.

One could break up one's functions into discrete components like: Communications, Technical and Administration and then review each one of them separately. The individual has to make a checklist to cover all these areas and to make sure that all these are done.

One has to devote about half an hour on the last working day (after work) of every week, an hour on the last working day of every month or a holiday, for introspection. This has to be done regularly.

A person is the best judge of his / her own strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, through the process of self-appraisal, one can come to know of the areas in which he / she needs to improve and where one's strengths lie. Through this process, the individual can go on improving one's performance year after year.

Pratima

News From Abroad                                                                                              (top) 

Shashi is in U.K. between 13th of November and 20th December 2003.

Meetings and Events                                                                                             (top)

Internal Audit

An Internal audit was conducted on 27th November 2003. Vinay was the internal auditor. The project selected for the audit was Sepia

Bijo Issac, obtained his Master's degree in Computer Technology in 2002, from NI College of Engineering, MS University, Thirunelvely. He is also a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer in VC++.

Vacation                                                                                                                (top)

	Destination - Summer Sands Beach Resort, Ullal, Mangalore
	Duration - 4 days and 3 nights (31st December 2003 to 3rd January 2004)
Places of Interest
For those who want to go around : The St.Mary's Isle - a basalt columnar wonder. The Bekal Fort, a massive structure, on a cliff, overlooking the sea. The City of Mangalore with its 1000 year old monuments
For others: Beach hikes to the lagoonsBeach treks along the coastlineCollecting seashells from the beaches Sunsets from atop of the Someshwar rock Thaneerbhavi, a pristine retreat