I don't usually do this, but with my recent trip to India, it might be a good idea to do a SEO blogroll post. I have found a number of interesting articles lately, and thought that I would share them with my team, particularly the developers in India. So, without further ado, here is an SEO blogroll from the last 3 months:9 Ways of Optimizing your Site for Image SearchHow To Integrate SEO Into Your BusinessA Developer's Adventure Into the World of SEO17 Ways Search Engines Judge the Value o... Read Full Story

There are a lot of takeaways that I have brought back to the US with me after such a great trip to see Accenture in Bangalore, India:Accenture is a people-oriented culture. They have an enormous program to identify, train and retain the best talent in India.The team members are young, energetic, and ambitious. The average age of the folks on the team is 25. Our job is to harness that energy and focus it. A great idea might be to implement a grass-roots continuous improvement program. Thi... Read Full Story

So it seems that I forgot to post a link to the photos I took of the first part of my week in Bangalore, India. You can follow that link and see India, or you can go to my flickr account and see all of my photo tags from the last two years. Leave some feedback and let me know what you think. Read Full Story

Rahgu came out to the hotel for Sunday bunch with Laurent and me. He brought his beautiful wife and cute kids. We talked about work, and vacations, and next steps. It was a nice send-off to a very productive and action-packed week. The flights home went smoothly. I sorted through my photos, and worked on a lessons learned and next steps PowerPoint deck. I also watched a whole bunch of movies to help pass the time. I decided to try to stay up the whole flight like I did on the way to Ind... Read Full Story

The drive to Mysore was a bit longer than expected. We were told that it would take anywhere from two to four hours, the most common answer being two and a half hours. It took us about three and a half. One thing I did notice is that the space between cities is more urbanized than I expected. We did encounter some more rural areas, such as rice fields, but much less than I expected. India is growing very quickly.Our first destination in Mysore was the Sri Chamundeshwari Temple. We parked... Read Full Story

Friday was a very short day. We started off with a brief review of the week. I cannot believe how much we packed in. A bit too much, in fact. There were no real breaks, no time to recover. I also didn't get a lot of time to spend with the team. If I were to do it again, I would think 2 weeks would be better. Everything we saw was important, and we are going home with great information. I would not have taken away any of the sessions. Laurent and I put together a quick set of slides re... Read Full Story

Traffic in Bangalore is interesting. Everyone at home warned me that I did not want to rent a car, and that I should let someone from the office coordinate transportation. To be honest, the driving style is not all that different from driving in New York City. Everyone drives like a New York cab driver, jockeying for position and ignoring any semblance of lanes. What makes driving in Bangalore different is the number of small vehicles, the "speed breakers", pedestrian crossings, and the co... Read Full Story

Today was another packed day. In the morning, we met with the HR Lead for Life Sciences. It is interesting to see how such a large company focuses on identifying, training, and retaining such a large number of people. This month alone they have hired over 1000 new employees in India alone.Next was a meeting to review the UI Capability. This was one of the meetings that I had been waiting for the most. It also seems that my ideas were very much aligned with their recommendations. The best... Read Full Story

This morning was an early morning. Wewere out of the hotel at 8am to travel to the Bang2 office. This is all the way on the other side of Bangalore, about 20 miles or so. It took us an hour and a half to get there. We spent the morning learning about the Life Sciences R&D Center of Excellence (CoE). I learned a lot about how our R&D division works, and how IT can really drive performance in that area of the business. The idea of a CoE makes a lot of sense for Accenture - they ca... Read Full Story

Today I was presented with a great gift - a CD with photos of our welcome ceremony to the Bangalore office. With permission from Vasuki, I have posted them up on my flickr account. Please take a look at the photos of our welcome to Bangalore. It was very impressive. Our trip has been fantastic, and these pictures show the way we were treated. As they say in India, "Athiti devo bhava". I just hope I have the opportunity to return the favor. Read Full Story