Life around "soft techies"

Bangalore, the IT hub, accommodates a large portion of the people working in the software industries. Last few years there has been a lot of noise about it around the world. Usually social studies on this kind of places must be interesting and that is precisely what anthropologist Carol Upadhaya is doing in NIAS. Today CCS, IISc screened couple of documentary films at physics lecture theatre. They were directed by Gautam Sonti with collaboration with Carol. The first movie they screened name “Fun @ Sun” and second one was “July boys”. There is no doubt that the director had hard time in getting into the training session of Suns Microsystems or the conference room of July systems but they could bring out the message they wanted to. In Sun they focused on the training the newcomers undergo as well as the socializing, like the Friday bash! As Carol mentioned at the beginning that communication skills in this MNC world means adapting oneself to a different culture. Socializing or approaching a problem in these global companies are very different than it is taught to the young engineers, hence a moulding is essential. That’s what came out from the film fun @ sun. There was an interview with the VP, Vijay Anand, and that too brought out the fact that a change in the culture of doing things is something they concentrate upon. July boys is quite different, it had mainly aimed at the corporate life of a company which is Indian but very global in nature. Surely the company sustained in the market because of their adaptability to the culture. This start up venture July systems in Bangalore, makes games, and other mobile ph. based software for Europe and USA. Its very important for them to find the right pulse and that needs a better communication rather better understanding of the culture. Couple of things were very similar in these to companies, the free space in quite huge in them, your attire or your way of communicating doesn’t become obstacle also the freedom to ask any one almost anything is very important and I felt these are probably very few nice points touched upon. Overall I would say it was a new experience presented by Gautam and Carol to us, hope Carols research will bring us few more such unknown realities about IT industries.