1998 to 2008

I got my under grad degree in 1997 and an year later, my alma mater published a directory of all alumni. Just as any good directory, they had included all known public contact information of alumni. I laid my hands on it recently and realized that the directory did not have any email addresses on there! Cut to 10 years hence. I do not know of any business or person who does not provide email as a contact mechanism. In fact for many transactional relations, people qualify their contact info by adding a line - "best way to contact me would be email" or "just email me and I will be sure to respond quick". Thats how much has that changed. Cut to another area of life. Think B2B IT sales. I remember distinctly that in 1997, when I was stepping into the industry, everything in IT was considered competitive advantage or a means of securing markets sooner etc. IT was core to a good business strategy. Circa 2008, IT is very core to business strategy, however, I will be naive to think that its positioning has not changed. For one, skills have become ubiquitous. In other words, if an IT strategy has been formulated, it is very easy to get it executed. Remember this talk is all in relation to how it was in 1997. For the very act of strategy formulation, there are plenty of companies who are able to do great IT strategy formulation. Some are large and purport to be one stop shops for entire IT function. Others slice and dice the market and specialize in very specific corners of the market. But, there is major proliferation. How will this play out in the future? In other words, just as email addresses and other personal usage of Internet becomes so ubiquitous, what else in the B2B world will the Internet commoditize?

A letter I sent to my House Rep

This is a letter I wrote to Congresswoman Judy Biggert (Rep, Illinois 13th District) as a part of a campaign being run by my friends at IV.

27th Feb 2008

The Honorable House Representative
13^th District of Illinois State
Ms. Judy Biggert
6262, South Route 83, Suite 305

Willowbrook, IL, 60527

Re: Administrative fixes to alleviate issues faced by highly-skilled immigrants in Illinois.

Respected Congresswoman Ms. Biggert,

I am a constituent of the 13^th District of Illinois State and an employment-based highly-skilled immigrant to the United States. I develop highly complex software for major nationwide business corporations in the United States. To be able to do this job, I am educated with a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering and also a Masters in Business Administration. Further, I have almost 8 years of progressive experience in my area of expertise. I'm also a member of Immigration Voice, a not-for-profit grassroots organization working to fix the issues faced by highly-skilled legal immigrants like myself. Currently a million immigrants and their families are stuck in the immigration process due to insufficient visa numbers and processing delays at the agency US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Going by the publicly available statistics, these legal, highly capable and skilled immigrants may have to wait anywhere between 6 to 12 years to receive their green cards. During these 6 to 12 years, large corporate US-based employers for whom these immigrants work face declining productivity and lack of flexibility to employ these skilled immigrants. This is a huge deterrent to new immigrants and an encouragement for skilled labor to flee the United States. This is also a personally and professionally harming situation to be in for the highly skilled immigrants like me. This situation can be alleviated if your office decides to take positive action directed towards the economic betterment of these immigrants, your district, the state of Illinois and the United States. Your person and your office have the power to change the law and in effect change the lives of many people – including these immigrants.

Though Immigration Voice is interested in seeing positive legislative change enacted by the US Congress, we want to participate in the legal process and allow it to happen through the constitutional process of introducing bills that get debated, voted upon and ultimately signed into law. In the meantime, Immigration Voice has proposed the following points to President Bush's administration to fix some of the issues administratively. I urge you to support this cause by writing a letter to the President of United States to implement these administrative fixes as soon as possible. I have provided the content of the letter that you could possibly send to the 43^rd President of the United States Mr. George Bush.

“

Respected President Bush,

I urge you to implement the following administrative fixes immediately to help the highly-skilled immigrants waiting their turn in a severely backlogged system.

1) Recapture 218,000 unused visas wasted over the past few years administratively, in line with Congressional intent of providing 140,000 visas annually to our community.

2) Flexibility in the USCIS interpretation of "same and similar" jobs, to allow promotions and job mobility. Current USCIS rule is restrictive and pushes the applicant to the end of the line, if they accept promotions.

3) Allow filing of 'Adjustment of Status Applications', even when visa numbers are not available. This will not create an increase in visas, but will allow a number of immigrants to avail the benefits of changing jobs while waiting for their visa numbers.

4) Increase the period of Employment Authorization Document (work authorization) and Advance Parole (travel permit) to 3 years instead of the current practice of providing it for 1 year. This will reduce the burden on USCIS and on immigrants. It will also make travel to an immigrant's home country easier during emergencies.

5) Allow visa revalidation in the US as before. Currently, immigrants have to travel to their home country to renew their visas. If it was performed here in the US, it would be helpful in making it easier to travel back and forth during emergencies.

6) Restart premium processing for I-140 applications. Now that USCIS has cleared the receipting backlog, premium processing should be made available. Without it, many immigrants are unable to extend their stay beyond 6 years, if their labor certification was applied for after the completion of their 5th year of stay in the US.

"

As a really relevant opinion, I want to bring to your notice paragraph 2 of page 407 in the book titled “The Age of Turbulence” written by Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank Mr. Alan Greenspan. This paragraph is part of the book’s 21^st Chapter that focuses on issues related to “Education and Income Equality” in the future of United States. He clearly states a business case for easy and flexible immigration policy as far as skilled labor immigration is concerned. I hope you and your office will use this to formulate your political case on the same cause: “Education and Income Inequality”. Please read the enclosed copy of this opinion.

Respectfully,

Mr. Sachin Sudhakar Dole

3615 Arlington Ct
Aurora, IL 60504
(630) 270 3102
sachin.dole@gmail.com
Web-site : http://www.immigrationvoice.org

AG on Immigration

These are two images I scanned from Alan Greenspan's book "Age of Turbulence" for my friends at the IV.

table photos

this has the photos of the breakfast table i am making at home.

Oil change

Last weekend, I finally raised my car on two jack stands and changed the engine oil on my own. Tinkering with my car and making it work the way I want has been a dream for me since childhood. When I got my first bike and took it to the mechanic, I would watch the mechanic's every move. I would ask him "can you make it go any faster" and he would explain how it could go faster and how much gas it would consume and all that. During the 4th year of my Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering, Automobile Engineering was my favorite subject. I was fascinated by the topic of how automobiles work. Ever since, I wanted to do my own car and bike.
This year, I had planned to do this during the winter when there would not be anything else to do outdoor for many-a-weekends. My first try at it was bad. I raised the car, put the jack-stands under it and squeezed into the little space between the car and the floor. I realized I could not see a thing under there. Obviously, the whole car was between the engine and the overhead light. I overcame that lack of visibility and found the drain plug. Then I realized I did not have the right wrench! How stupid. That was it for the first try. The weekend after, I asked the guy at Pepboys as to what is the right sized wrench (how intelligent of me!) and he recommended me to get a complete tool-set - which I bought. Again, I raised the car and tried to undo the drain plug! AH! It wont budge! But after applying plenty of brute force the nut suddenly moved and I unscrewed it all the way by hand. Out came the completely black colored warm oil and the drain pan underneath started filling up! I was ecstatic. Then, I went for the oil filter and changed that as well.
All this took 30 minutes and no sweat at all. Here is my invitation to all my friends to get their oil changed for free! You know my address. Just bring the right spec and quantity of oil with you.

My accent

A couple days ago, I took my son to the Barnes and Noble in Naperville. He likes to visit Thomas the Tank Engine train table assembly at the second floor when he is there. There was another family of 4 there and one of the son's name was Drew. His mother's voice somehow sounded as though she was calling out Dhroo with a mild sound on the 'h' and a rather pronounced 'r'. It definitely did not sound like Droo with heavy 'D', very little 'r' and long 'oo'. So, I was surprised and I asked the mother if his name was Dhruv. Thats my son's name too. That was it, that was the end of my curiosity and surprise. However, later on, it looked like I surprised the mom too. You see, this family was not Indian-born immigrants (as I am). They were many-generations-born-in-America Afro-American and the mother immediately shot back with a wide smiling face - " Where are you from?". Now it was my turn to be surprised. Why am I being asked within the first 30 seconds of a conversation as to my origins? Somewhere in my mind I felt like I'd ticked off the woman. I searched for an answer - Should I say Aurora or Naperville? Then I saw the really perplexed yet know-it-all look on her face and got the drift. I said I am from India. Pat came the next question - "yeah but which part". I go "Mumbai - Bombay". She goes - "Ah!". I go "why?". She goes, "no your dialect sounded like you came from the southern part of India". That honestly is the first time I ever heard that. Especially so because she mentioned dialect. When could I have changed my dialect? However, it was delivered with such confidence that for a moment I thought. "Really?". Then I went, "you seem to know quite a bit about India". And so on until the conversation went into easy territory.
Well, I don't think either of us meant anything else than surprise at each other's pronunciation. But, I just felt like writing about this little piece. God bless her on the very holy day (holiday) today and tomorrow.

Found in a gym bathroom

This is what I found stuck to the wall of the bathroom in my gym. Very good, factual and accurate reading material for all who are interested in fitness - despite the unlikely location!