My POM Experience

Adobe Systems

Adobe Systems

Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American multinational computer software company headquartered in San Jose, California, United States

— Adobe was founded in December 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke, who established the company after leaving Xerox PARC in order to develop and sell the PostScript page description language

A BRIEF ABOUT ADOBE

Adobe's corporate logo was designed by Marva Warnock, wife of John Warnock, who is also a graphic designer.

Adobe's first products after PostScript were digital fonts, which they released in a proprietary format called Type 1. Apple subsequently developed a competing standard, TrueType, which provided full scalability and precise control of the pixel pattern created by the font's outlines, and licensed it to Microsoft. Adobe responded by publishing the Type 1 specification and releasing Adobe Type Manager, software that allowed WYSIWYG scaling of Type 1 fonts on screen, like TrueType, although without the precise pixel-level control. But these moves were too late to stop the rise of TrueType. Although Type 1 remained the standard in the graphics/publishing market, TrueType became the standard for business and the average Windows user. In 1996, Adobe and Microsoft announced the OpenType font format, and in 2003 Adobe completed converting its Type 1 font library to OpenType.

In the mid-1980s, Adobe entered the consumer software market with Adobe Illustrator, a vector-based drawing program for the Apple Macintosh. Illustrator, which grew from the firm's in-house font-development software, helped popularize PostScript-enabled laser printers. Unlike MacDraw, then the standard Macintosh vector drawing program, Illustrator described shapes with more flexible Bézier curves, providing unprecedented accuracy. Font rendering in Illustrator, however, was left to the Macintosh's QuickDraw libraries and would not be superseded by a PostScript-like approach until Adobe released Adobe Type Manager.

In 1989, Adobe introduced what was to become its flagship product, a graphics editing program for the Macintosh called Photoshop. Stable and full-featured, Photoshop 1.0 was ably marketed by Adobe and soon dominated the market.

In 1993, Adobe introduced PDF, the Portable Document Format, and its Adobe Acrobat and Reader software. PDF is now an International Standard: ISO 32000-1:2008. The technology is adopted worldwide as a common medium for electronic documents.

Arguably, one of Adobe's few missteps on the Macintosh platform was their failure to develop their own desktop publishing (DTP) program. Instead, Aldus with PageMaker in 1985 and Quark with QuarkXPress in 1987 gained early leads in the DTP market. Adobe was also slow to address the emerging Windows DTP market. However, Adobe made great strides in that market with the release of InDesign and its bundled Creative Suite offering. In a failure to predict the direction of computing, Adobe released a complete version of Illustrator for Steve Jobs' ill-fated NeXT system, but a poorly produced version for Windows.

Despite these missteps, licensing fees from the PostScript interpreter allowed Adobe to outlast or acquire many of its rivals in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In December 1991, Adobe released Adobe Premiere, which Adobe rebranded to Adobe Premiere Pro in 2003. In 1994, Adobe acquired Aldus and added Adobe PageMaker and Adobe After Effects to its production line later in the year; it also controls the TIFF file format. In 1995, Adobe added Adobe FrameMaker, the long-document DTP application, to its production line after Adobe acquired Frame Technology Corp. In 1999, Adobe introduced Adobe InCopy as a direct competitor to QuarkCopyDesk

VISION AND MISSION

Adobe's vision

To revolutionize how the world engages with ideas and information

Adobe's diversity mission

As an organization we are committed to expanding, strengthening and leveraging the diversity of our workforce. Our goal is to treat all employees with respect and integrity while valuing the differences and mirroring the diversity of the locations where we do business

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

Since 1995, Fortune has ranked Adobe as an outstanding place to work. Adobe was rated the fifth-best U.S. company to work for in 2003, sixth in 2004, 31st in 2007, 40th in 2008, and eleventh in 2009. In May 2008, Adobe Systems India was ranked 19th of great places to work in India. In October 2008, Adobe Systems Canada Inc. was named one of "Canada's Top 100 Employers" by Mediacorp Canada Inc., and was featured in Maclean's news magazine.

PRODUCTS

Adobe products list is endless. They usually come with updates almost every year for each and every product. Some of the products are :

Desktop software:

Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Fireworks, Adobe Soundbooth, Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Audition

Server software:

Adobe ColdFusion, Adobe Content Server and Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite

Formats:

Portable Document Format (PDF), PDF's predecessor PostScript, ActionScript, Shockwave Flash (SWF) and Flash Video (FLV)

Web-hosted services:

Adobe Kuler, Photoshop Express and Acrobat.com

Web design programs:

Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Contribute, Adobe Muse, Adobe Flash Builder, Adobe Flash Catalyst, Adobe Flash, and Adobe Edge

Video editing and visual effects:

Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Prelude, and Adobe SpeedGrade

MARKET CAPITALIZATION

MARKET SHARES

Adobe Systems entered NASDAQ in 1986. Adobe's 2006 revenues were US$2.575 billion.

As of February 2007, Adobe's market capitalization was roughly US$23 billion; as of August 2007, its shares were trading on the NASDAQ for around $40, with a P/E ratio of about 49 and EPS of about $0.82

As of March 2008, Adobe's market capitalization was roughly $18 billion; its shares were trading on the NASDAQ for around $33, with a P/E ratio of about 27 and EPS of about $1.21

As of April 2011, Adobe's market capitalization was roughly $17 billion; its shares were trading on the NASDAQ for around $33, with a P/E ratio of about 19.73 and EPS of about $1.70

CURRENT SHARE VALUE: 31.24

Past 4 year Revenue:

HOW ADOBE WORKS??

MY OBSERVATIONS & SUGGESTIONS

 Adobe has a widespread name recognition. Largely because of the product Acrobat, and specifically the Adobe reader that is installed on most PCs throughout the United States and the world.

 This is a piece of software that reads PDF files, which Adobe has made free for the public. This was a very smart idea on the part of Adobe.

 Another positive point for Adobe is that they were one of the first companies to specialize in graphic design software.

 Another advantage for Adobe is that the industry they chose to make software for is continuing to grow day-by-day. and continues to give the company the opportunity to make more software products to fit the industries growing needs.

 The problem with Adobe is a lack of marketing. Adobe has products for audio recording and editing, video recording and editing, photograph editing, illustrating, and publication layout. They also have products to enhance other software out on the market including a product called Ovation which is designed to work with Microsoft PowerPoint to improve presentations. With both the design industry and the social media market growing as fast as they are, it was surprising that there’s not more information out there about these products that they have available.

 Another disadvantage is that they don’t seem to be staying ahead of the market. While they do have products for the newer industry, the name Adobe is not nearly as well established within those industries.

SUGGESTIONS

 The major opportunity out there for Adobe right now is that its software serves some of the fastest growing industries.

 With the growing trend in social networking media like MySpace, Facebook, and others, photo editing and video editing are growing hobbies among the amateur market

 Graphic design is also a very fast growing industry. If Adobe can capitalize on the software that it offers for these tasks, they can really put themselves ahead of the competition, not only in its graphic design software, but in the other types of software as well

 As the markets continue to change, the software has to consistently change as well. With industries that are growing this fast, it can be tough for technology companies to stay ahead of the change

 Microsoft is continuing to grow and expand the types of software that it offers. Microsoft already has a photo editing software, a drawing software, and a desktop publishing software

 Adobe has to come up with new way to compete as growing amateur market with lower tech, lower priced software options stand to pull some of the market from Adobe

References:

—http://www.adobe.com

—http://www.adobeindia.com

—http://en.wikipedia.org

—http://www.managementparadise.com

—http://www.theofficialboard.com

—http://investing.businessweek.com

THREE MONKS

Three Monks is a Chinese animated feature film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. After the Cultural Revolution and the fall of the political Gang of Four in 1976, the film was one of the first animations created as part of the rebirth period. It is also referred to as The

Three Buddhist Priests.

The film is based on the ancient Chinese proverb "One monk will shoulder two buckets of water; two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water."The film does not contain any dialogues, allowing it to be watched by any culture, and a different music instrument was used to signify each monk. The film tells the story from the aspect of the Buddhist monks.

•  A young monk lives a simple life in a temple on top of a hill. He has one daily task of hauling two buckets of water up the hill. 
• When the second monk came they tries to share the job with each other, but the carry pole is only long enough for one bucket.

Problems Faced by two monks: 

1. Different opinion leads to conflict.
2. The bucket position was not defined.
3. Attitude of first monk was not appropriate towards work.
4. Height difference between them.
5. Measuring technique of midpoint was not accurate as both the monks have different hand measurement.
6. Their work methods lead to conflict

Solutions proposed by students:

1.            One monk can get two buckets of water each alternate day.

2.            Two persons can carry two or even more buckets at a time with a longer stick.

3.            One monk can stand half way to collect buckets from other monk who will fetch water from pond.

4.            Improve the attitude of the first monk.

5.            The Position of monks should be in such a way that first monk always on uphill side so as to match heights.

Actual Solution:

First monk takes out a scale and measures the midpoint and then they properly carry the water bucket by sharing the load nicely.

• The arrival of a third monk prompts everyone to expect that someone else will take on the chore. Consequently, no one fetches water though everybody is thirsty. At night, a rat comes to scrounge and then knocks the candle holder, leading to a devastating fire in the temple. The three monks finally unite together and make a concerted effort to put out the fire. Since then they understand the old saying "unity is strength" and begin to live a harmonious life. The temple never lacks water again.

Now where is the Management???

This video teaches many important lessons of Management:

Synergy:

To put out the fire each monk panicked and tried his best to run down to the river and bring the bucket full of water. But this process was long and tiring, and also had too many glitches on the road. So it proved to be ineffective. But later coordinated effort dosed of fire very easily and without being tired.

Complex Problems, Simple Solutions:

 The motto of decision making for any manager in an organization is to give simple solutions. When the first two monks were trying to push the weight of the bucket towards each other, were many solutions given by the class.class has given many solutions but the actual solution was very simple just to measure the midpoint of the stick.

Teamwork:

Earlier the ego of the three monks was interfering with the performance of daily tasks, each believing that the other two should be the ones to go downhill to fetch water. When a fire breaks out, however, they understand the importance of teamwork and thus work together to save the temple. So, from this we learn that in an organization and in a team, it’s important to take personal vanity out and to perform the duty at hand so that there is no regret later.

Conflict Resolution:

To achieve goals, it’s important to take personal vanity out and to perform the duty at hand. Like the three monks did after the fire breaks out.

Scientific Management:

First monk uses proper measuring device for measuring the midpoint of the stick and in the end monks uses pulley to carry water were the examples of scientific management.

CONCLUSION

From the above video analysis, we have come to the following conclusion:

•           One monk carrying water everyday will become boring after a while but two monks carrying water will not be boring and productivity will not be hampered.

The productivity increases with the increase in the number of persons

•           There is more than 100% increase in the production with 100% increase in resources with good co-ordination

•           Disputes and conflicts are bound to arise but they need to be minimized so as to make the most out of the available resources.

•           Team work and coordination are the main keys of success.

Sr. No.	Parameters	Method 1 :One person bringing two buckets	Method 2 :Two persons bringing one bucket	Method 3:Pulley is incorporated
1	Input - No. of People	1	2	3
2	Effort (In Joule)	100	80	Very Less   (Almost Negligible)
3	Output - No. of Buckets	2	1	Many
4	Productivity	100/1 = 100 J	80/2 = 40 J	Much More
5	Communication	Nil	Direct - Personal	Indirect – Instantaneous
6	Task role	Independent	Dependent	Highly Dependent
7	Work changes	Nil	Midpoint Identification	Innovative work practices
8	Work life balance	hard	Easier	Fun
9	Philosophy of work life	Work for death. Protestant work ethic	Work to live	Work-Fun-Moksha
10	Human Nature	Theory X	Theory Y	Theory Z

LE03: Principles of Organizational Management

Valley Crossing

Goal: Goal is the purpose that an organization strives to achieve. Here the goal is to cross valley safely from one side to other side.

Team strength: 3 members

Task: The task is to make all the 3 members to cross the valley safely. The distance between the cliffs is more than 1 step and less than 2 steps. Hence this will ensure that every person is in the air( in danger) once. The team has to make sure that they reach the other end safely

This Task is structured in such a way that:

Ø  Every one shares equal risk during the task.

Ø  Interdependence among 3 members is crucial

Ø  Trust between team is necessary

Ø  Communication and feedback across 3 members are instantaneous

Ø  Distance between two persons are more than 1 step but lesser than 2

Lessons Learnt:

1.    Instantaneous communication:

                    Communication between executives and feedback across them should be spontaneous in order to succeed goal. Communication in the above task was important so as to convey your position and feelings.

2.    Trust-
            

                  


             Trust also plays an important role. Whenever a manager assign a task to his employee the employee should have faith in him and others team members and should also be trusted by others for gaining maximum possible output from the task. This was shown very well in the above task. The person hanging has to have complete faith in his teammates about their ability only then the goal can be achieved.

3.    Team work:

              Of course Individual can’t complete the task by his own. And if employee doesn’t work as a team the result comes out more likely to be as happens in figure. Teamwork is absolutely necessary while carrying out this task. If anyone fails, the whole purpose would be failed.

Principle of Organizational Management LE02

Khan Academy – Educating World

The Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization, created in 2006 by Bangladeshi American educator Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School. The website supplies a free online collection of more than 3,200 micro lectures via video tutorials stored on YouTube teaching mathematics,history, healthcare and medicine, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics, cosmology, organic chemistry, American civics, art history, macroeconomics and microeconomics, and computer science.

Mission: Providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere.

Who is Khan?

Khan speaking at the TED conference in 2011

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana in an Indo-Bangladeshi family khan was raised by his mother in New Orleans. Salman Khan holds three degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: a BS in mathematics, in electrical engineering and computer science as well MS in electrical engineering and computer science. He also holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. So he is quite an interesting personality to be write about. But what he did earlier is nothing in comparison to what he did by founding Khan Academy.

The Birth of Khan Academy

In late 2004, Khan began tutoring his cousin Nadia in mathematics using Yahoo!'s Doodle notepad. When other relatives and friends sought similar help, he decided it would be more practical to distribute the tutorials on YouTube.  Then something interesting has happened. The feedback he got from his cousins and friends is that they preferred him on YouTube than in person which actually makes sense because a video can be paused and repeated many times. This gives flexibility to beginners who are perplexed with class room teaching. May be they could not catch the teacher's pace or they could caught up with some other stuff in class rooms. This encouraged him to take this social cause forward. Now this project is funded by donations. It receives fund from Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and Google. Google has listed it as top 10 ideas having potential to change the world. Lot of people have donated big amount to the organization.

Learning management from Khan Academy

Theory X and Theory Y Learning

Khan Academy is fine exampe of theory Y concept. According to manager of Theory Y Employees are willing to work. Same as that Khan Academy thinks that no matter how slow the student might be but he is always willing to learn. What he requires is a proper guidance and pace.

Appropriate Use of Skills:

1.         Technical Skills:-

• Khan uses his technical skills of website designing, knowledge of high schools subject and his analysis experience for making Khan Academy possible.

2.         Human Skills:-

• Khan knew that learning ability of every students are different and thus develop a course to satisfy global needs.

3.         Conceptual Skills:-

• Khan has sound knowledge of high school subjects and basic concepts.

  

LE01

It’s not what you learn it’s how you implement, that will be your thinking if you meet Dr.T.Prasad popularly known as Dr.Mandi. It was our first lecture on “Principles of Organization and Management and it were focused mainly on becoming innovative, practical thinker and using your learning in real life scenarios.

Don’t be “Another Brick in the Wall”

“Socho Becho, Becho Seekho, Seekho Socho” was the mantra to start our lecture. The best way to learn is to try. There’s a very famous saying “Girte hain shahsawar hi maidaan-e-jung mei Woh tufl kya girenge jo ghutno ke bal chale” that was the motto of the mantra. Only learning the concepts is of no use unless you practice them in real world scenarios and then learn from them. Later “Another Brick in The Wall” by Pink Floyd to show us that how an education system concentrating more on bookish knowledge and marks can suppress the creativity, conceptual and innovative thinking of the student and thus put another brick in the wall. 

Think  Conceptually

Broadly managerial skills are divided in three categories

1. Conceptual Skills

2. Human Relations Skills

3. Technical Skills.

In our first two lectures so far, Dr. Mandi was more focused on Conceptual skills. In the first lecture we were shown educational toys made out of simple things and asked to figure out the science behind their working. The points behind those exercises were:

a.   For an entrepreneur a single innovative idea effectively implemented make dreams come true.

b.   For a sales person if you know the science behind your product you can sell it properly.

The Second lecture was Activity based to clarify the concept of management. The activity was more of a game where the team of three people has to Build a Tower using identical cubes. But it was not as simple as it sounds there were some rules to play the game. The rules were:

1.    First person (Employee) would be blindfolded and only he can access the cubes and build the tower and that also using his left hand only.

2.    The second person (Middle Management) was for instructing the first person or Employee on how to do things and was responsible to guide the employee to finish the job.

3.    The third person was Top level Management who could only interrupt in some occasions and observes the work being done.

My learning from this exercise was that Vision was to build the largest tower and mission was break the previous record of 17 cubes tower.

In terms of Goals. The goal was SMART:

Specific: We have to create the largest tower.

Measurable: The tower to be built was of 18 cubes.

Achievable:  The target was of 18, as previous year it was 17 so it was achievable.

Realistic: It was realistic not unpractical.

Time Bound: It has to be completed within two hours.