Srikanth's Blog

I think the only way to get what you want in life, is to go all-in and then go all-out. Half measures don't work. You have to commit yourself to what you want and go all-in with faith, strategy, action, and persistence. Going all-in is committing your time, energy, and available resources towards your goal. Once you make a decision, don't dilly dally when it comes to taking action. Embrace fear as you have already made the decision to go all-in. If it's not scary, it's probably not even worthy of your time and effort.  Going all-in is about depth, and going all-out is about breadth. Spreading yourself too thin is gambling with your time and life. Focus on what matters and increase your odds of success.  Now that you're committed, you have to explore and pursue all possible ideas, strategies, and opportunities in your focus area. This is not the time to think about your decisions, it's the time to make things happen and get what you want in life. You do your bit,...

Here are three important lists. A not-to-do list, a to-do list, and a done list. Start with the first one as it enables you to focus on the things that matter the most. By eliminating distractions, useless meetings or conversations, meaningless projects, and irrelevant tasks, you can easily build a highly focused to-do list. Your not-do-list is a strategic level list, your to-do list is your tactical list. Eventually you’ll arrive at the done list. The done list is your output, not the outcome. To the extent possible, decouple output from outcome. Focus on what you can control, work with what you have, and arrive at the done list. Relook into your lists on a regular basis and you'll probably see sharper focus, higher productivity and greater satisfaction from your work. I tried this for some time and it seems to work. Here’s how I do it. I visit the first list at the beginning of every week, as a daily visit can be exhausting and even redundant. Well, the idea is to say no to thing...

The iPhone is the independent filmmaker's greatest ally. We're living in times of great creative potential, where the iPhone's capability is building a parallel cinematic ecosystem. You can radically lower production costs, amplify your creativity, and challenge the status quo with confidence. Big things come in small packages. The iPhone has revolutionized cinema by lowering production barriers, unlocking incredible creative possibilities, democratizing technology access, and fostering a whole new creative ecosystem for independent filmmakers. Even major studios are integrating the iPhone into their workflows as secondary cameras. Around the world, many filmmakers have made award winning films at a fraction of traditional costs and some have even won the Academy Awards. I think the iPhone is the independent filmmaker's best friend. When you're making a film, the choice of camera needs to be objective-driven and based on the envisioned cinematic expression. The iPho...

The popular opinion is that a film is made thrice. First on the writing table, second during principal photography, and third on the edit table. However, I think a film is made four times: screenplay, storyboard, shoot, and edit. The storyboard is the next powerful thing after the script and it can make or break your film. A storyboard is the ultimate show-and-tell tool for a filmmaker to craft and share their creative vision with the crew, cast, and other stakeholders. There are numerous benefits to storyboarding your film. First things first, it helps you translate the screenplay and your vision into a visual format — one which can be understood by one and all, razing down cultural and language barriers. It helps your crew to plan accordingly for every shot, well in advance during the pre-production phase and not put them in an awkward and confused position on the day of the shoot. This saves time, money, and energy as your principal photography gains from a clear visual blueprint. S...

The fundamental challenge with online selling is matching up with the conventional and naturally immersive brick and mortar store shopping experiences. Since the beginning days of eCommerce, all efforts have been in the direction of recreating that matchless physical shopping experience online. Even though we have great technology at our disposal, why do we still face those tricky and spotty shopping experiences with some great brands? Not every online portal gives you an Amazon or a Zappos experience today. I think this stark difference in user experience is due to various factors like platform constraints, resource limitations or a simple lack of vision in building and leveraging the power of product design and experience systems at scale. An empowered seller experience enables a great shopper experience. Most brands use some sort of commerce management platforms or invest in custom design and development of their eCommerce portals to craft a unique experience for their online shoppe...

Jugaad  in Hindi means a resourceful productivity hack. There are stories of people using washing machines to make lassi. (yogurt with water, sugar, and various seasonings or fruits). Converting two wheelers into mini farm tractors and 6 seat riders, building home made air conditioners, and the countless interesting Jugaad stories with physical products and services. This got me thinking on the Jugaad for digital products and spoke to a few people around this topic. Looks like there is no barrier for our brilliant minds to mould a product to our advantage and create unique experiences. In mid 2020, LinkedIn launched a voice recording feature to record the pronunciation of a user’s name on their profile. Presuming the whole idea was to pull down linguistic and cultural barriers and bring people closer through correct name pronunciations and great first impressions. This behaviour is only natural when you meet someone for the first time, outside your culture. However, users use this ...

The words count, not the word count.

As product designers, our interaction and visual language is based on brand and product design systems. However, have you ever thought about creating and extending these systems for your users? A design language is not only for designer consumption, it should extend to your users. Then only it makes sense to call it a design system per se. Only deep thinking brands understand the power of designing systems for their users. Designing easy-to-understand and consistent product identification and labelling systems is imperative for brands/products to facilitate ease of purchase across borders, build brand loyalty and garner market share. Digital product designers should observe and take cues from the global denim brand Levi's. I think as a brand they are very clear in terms of their user/customer experience strategy by building a global identification systems for their products. As a consumer and designer, I could experience this with two brands. Levi's & Apple. Just by knowing...