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It's been 2 months since I joined VTS, but it feels as if I have been here for long. I still remember the day I entered this office for interview. As always it was buzzing with activity. Located bang on T Nagar it was a pleasant surprise. I never thought IT organizations existed in T Nagar, which is known for clothing and jewellery. Vinformax houses itself in the Oval building, home to many other organizations as well. It's next to TTD Tirupati Temple on Venkatanaryana road. Just like the location the organization itself is a mix of traditionalism and modernism, I will explain why.

When I entered the office, what stunned me was the huge lobby and a statue of a person piercing through the wall with open hands. The visual that I had in mind about an IT organization, was shattered the minute I entered Vinformax. Questions were running through my mind as to what it symbolises. I never knew that forthcoming days at Vinformax will answer that question, without even someone answering that to me. I was asked to wait at the lobby. That day I will always remember because certain pleasant moments will stay with you throughout. What made it so pleasant? It was the smell of coffee. I love coffee and the smell of it. Their cafeteria was right next to the lobby and I could see employees walking with their coffee mugs. Moving past that nostalgic moment, I noticed that the organization was pretty young. Most of them were Millennials and they were casual and comfortable, and were having a lighter moment amongst themselves. Few came in to the lobby, sat with a cup of coffee and were chatting. The atmosphere reminded me of my college days. I was able to see seniors dressed in formals whom I could easily make out as managers. Questions ran through my mind as to how they could coexist within the same organization, cool casual youngsters and traditional managers. I could notice that the mezzanine floor was full of people working but there were no lights. Shocking? Yeah I felt the same. I pitied them thinking why would someone work without lights. Was there a temporary outage? I was sitting there loaded with questions in my mind.

I was called inside for the interview. They were two gentlemen waiting inside. They made sure I felt comfortable and then started asking their questions. It was more of a discussion than an interview. They let me do most of the talking. Being an Organizational Behaviour specialist, they wanted me to come up with any observations that I had made during my wait at the lobby. Shared the mind boggling questions that I had inside me. Patiently, one gentleman in the panel cleared each one of the doubts that I had. Only later did I come to know that both these gentlemen were the founding members of the organization. They were so down to earth and had made me feel at ease. I was told that the people who were sitting in dark were not sitting so, because there was an outage! It was because they belong to animation department and they can work best only when their surrounding is dark, so that they can see the result of the animation better that way. I felt silly ! Since people from Animation do a lot of creative work, they are allowed to express their individuality through their attire, hence the cool look of the employees. Ground floor is the place where the project development team was housed and mezzanine floor was for animation. Again a mix of vastly different fields in one location. That day I didn't know that in the forthcoming years that the thin line separating them is going to become blur. Mix of managers and the millennials is an issue that every organization is facing, so does Vinformax, I was told. I didn't know in the forthcoming days that I would be actually be one of the agents trying to bring them together. Yes, I was selected and now I am an employee of Vinformax.

Now as my journey as an employee at Vinformax began, I realised that it was not just another company, when I was handed over my 30 day target, a day before I joined the organization :). I was shocked and surprised at the same time but then in the forthcoming days realised that it was the way of life at Vinformax. There is no settling time and you are up and running from day one. Suited my personality. I am not a person who can sit idle and while away time. So if you are an adventurous person, hungry for work, fun excitement and madness, Vinformax is definitely the place.

I was given a seat in the HR bay. Initial few days were dull and monotonous, though I had a lot of work. Until you have a group for yourself, you feel you don't belong there. But after the soft skill training started taking place, realised that I connected more with the team. They were young, vibrant and so full of life. What I liked about the sessions was their enthusiasm to get better with each session. As I started knowing them better, realised that there are so many areas that we could work together to make their lives at Vinformax better. It was good to know that the management was open to feedback and ideas from a person who had joined only a few days back. That gave me confidence that I can make a difference in this workplace.

There is never a dull moment at this place. You can see people dismantling the Digital Boards every now and then. Used to wonder why! Is this some sort of a time pass?! Only later I was told that we offer Digital Signage as a service and they actually test using these boards. Sometimes these boards are actually kept on the desk, where these people work, to see the output of the UI in those screens for clarity. Sometimes a movie with full volume plays in the middle of the office and you are like what's happening! Then they tell you that they are actually testing the quality of the sound and how long it works without getting heated up!! It's such a vibrant working environment and I love the madness of it!

Often I see a guy from animation carrying a camera around in a tripod in the office. Was wondering what he was trying to do. I was told that he was actually making a short film with the development team members and his own team members as actors! Wow, this is not something that you come across every day. I even acted in one scene where they were all taking a selfie. Wonder when he would release this movie. Painting walls in the lobby, sticking our logos on the wall, every little thing is done by all of us. Every day here is an exciting day, if you want it to be that way! Each of these fun moments actually make this place, a place where you want to be.

All work and no play makes the workplace dull! We at Vinformax strictly follow that. After the working hours you can see a bunch of youngsters religiously playing carom. You can see a network guy teaming up with a guy in Animation, a whole lot of people from development team supporting them. It's a beautiful sight to watch and the air is filled with so much laughter and fun. Though we are all tied up with work, their sound of laughter would want us to be there playing with them.

I know I am painting a rosy picture but I do accept we do have a lot of challenges and we are yet to be where we want to be. But I can state with utmost honesty that each one here can actually make a difference if he / she wants to. Where else can you find a place with such a varied mix of people in terms of background, age, experience and exposure, with so varied products and services?

Miles to go before we sleep. There is so much opportunity for experience and exposure if you are game for it. All we look for is the right attitude and everything else will fall in place once you are here. We are expecting so much growth happening in the forthcoming months with so many varied products and services. It's an exciting journey that you can't afford to miss.

In the starting I had mentioned that it's an organization with a mix of traditionalism and modernism, just as its location. Yes it is. Run by people across the globe, UK, US and Sweden it's an international organization with a global outlook, yet tries to retain its Indian values.

And yes the statue in the lobby piercing through the wall is in my opinion is the state of mind, where you want to express yourself breaking away from the mental barriers that our society and our background has put upon us! That is what we are trying to do every day! Vinformax, It's possible!

What does the title mean? This blog will unravel the reasons behind the title as you read it.

It's been almost 6 months now since I joined Vinformax, and it's not the same as it was six months back. There have been so many exciting changes that has happened over this period. We are spreading our wings far and wide.

Around the time I joined, we had acquired a company called MDT, specialising in education animation. It has become a part of us now by the name VDT. It's into advanced technologies like virtual reality and holography. Right now, we are using these technologies for creating content in 3D animation for Education domain. But the possibilities are unlimited. We are sitting on a gold mine exploring how these technologies can be used in various domains and industries.

It's not the only exciting thing that has happened. We have opened a new Bangalore office for VDT at Nagarbhavi and fifty new people have come on board. All this in the last 4 weeks. That rate at which Vinformax, a two year old company is growing is surprising. We are now moving from the start-up phase to the stabilisation phase carefully consolidating ourselves though I can sense the temptation to expand further.

There are so many new faces in the office now. We went for campus recruitment as there was huge demand for web developers. After careful selection in terms of their fit intellectually and culturally we have chosen around ten of them, who are currently undergoing training at our Chennai Development centre. They remind me of my first few days in my first organization. The transition is exciting. It's a state of mixed feelings. You are proud that you are independent, that you are on your own, but at the same time, a certain part of you longs to go back to the comfort of the home. I can see that they are slowly settling down.

We have come up with a formalized training program for them which spans for 12 weeks, covering technical and soft skill training. It is the first for Vinformax. It's not an easy task for a two year old organization to go for campus placements. You need to have established the credibility; you need to have the brand value; you need to show potential for growth and a secure and safe working environment for the newbies, for the colleges or the Universities to give you a slot. Also, it's a humungous task to convince the young minds of the potential for learning, exposure, growth and development. But we were able to do the same because of the integrity and focus that was consciously developed by our core team members, from the very beginning. We are now working hard to live up to the expectations and to maintain our credibility in the industry, as it's just the beginning. We would be going for many more such placements in the future as well, as our growth is very promising.

Our digital boards are a mirror of the new areas that we are venturing into. One day a new show reel would be running that features all our capabilities in the animation front; one day it displays a new learning avenue known as evidence based learning; one day it showcases something about interactive transparent LEDs; one day it displays OT (Operation Theatre) live streaming using high resolution cameras in the class rooms; one day it talks about our service offering, English Language Lab; One day it talks about virtual classrooms; I am sure you get the idea. Each of these offerings, mind you, are going to be game changers in the industry. We are at present one of the leading providers in each one of the areas, and we are working hard to capitalize the benefit of being early in the market.

Recently we created a digital museum for a healthcare client. I remember my days of visit to the museum during the early years. It's a perplexing journey, as we go through organs floating in preservation solution in glass containers. Nobody cared to read beyond the first few specimens. Digital museum that was set up by us was done with the intention of making the entire experience interactive and unforgettable. Each of the organ is placed inside transparent boxes, with the touch sensitive transparent LED display on top. Once the start button is touched, the content will be displayed in the interactive screen. What makes the learning interesting is that, one can choose what to read based on their interest. What we have done for our healthcare client can be done in any other field or industry as well. Application is limitless. We are trying our hands at Augmented Reality too. It's the next big thing and we are already in it.

Dynamic changes can be felt in the office too. As new people are joining us we are reorganizing our office space to accommodate them. Its lovely sight to watch the developers moving around with their systems, settling down in their new places, doubling up as network engineers temporarily. What they might not know is that, at the pace we are growing in, this seating position is also bound to change.

In addition to the timesheet that we fill every day, I am usually asked to present the work accomplished in the past month. All said and done, it is a task that I find boring. But when I start consolidating, I slowly realise that I find the task to be interesting. The reason being, you might not realise the incremental value that you are adding on a daily basis, but when you start compiling the same on a monthly basis, you find it so fulfilling. You have completed so many tasks without even realising that you have done it all. Might seem like bragging, but it's the same for all of us. Start-ups offer you the opportunity to work on so many things. It's the way you look at it. You might complain saying that there's too much to be done or you can see the opportunity for learning and exposure that you might not get in a matured organization. Those who look at it from the positive angle have benefitted a lot out of it. A six year experienced interviewee was not able to answer the questions asked by our two year experienced developer. Such is the learning and exposure here. Nobody can deny that.

It's not just our varied products, services, domains and industries that we cater to, make us unique. One factor that sets us apart other organizations is our people. We have people from diverse backgrounds, technical abilities, experience, exposure and talent. It's a collaborative environment if you are on the lookout for learning from these people. Each one has something or the other to offer. A conversation over a cup of coffee, or over lunch can unearth so many facets of their personality, learning and experience. Recently I started training the animation team on soft skills. I have never worked with creative people before. These six months have been a huge learning for me personally too. I say this because, we generally categorize people. The categories would depend on each person's background, education, family upbringing etc. For me or for many of us, creativity is an area that we are scared to venture into. We have our regular professional courses which are considered 'safe'. What are interests are, maybe we are better in those areas, we have never tried, nor were we encouraged to try. But these people have stood by what they had wanted. Many of these creative people have completed their professional courses due to compulsion, but when it was time for them to get into work, they put their foot down and said 'No, this is not my cup of tea' and moved into animation. I realise when I interact with these people, that when you do something that you like, you tend to be more at peace with yourself, rather than fighting your own self-doubts. You tend to give out the best in the area that you are passionate about. The short film 'Azhithum Aram' which has been completely shot by the Vinformax animators and developers inside our office space, or the prestigious projects won by our entertainment animation team due to their flawless quality and delivery are an evidence to my point. As I said earlier, it's been a huge learning and understanding for me as well. Now when my son doodles, the fear is replaced by awe and acceptance.

Our development team has set new standards for itself by successfully completing end to end implementation of a Central government healthcare project. They developed a web and a mobile application that live tracks the fleet of medical teams. The aim was to ensure if the team of doctors were visiting the districts, and tracking the health of children in those areas. In addition the mobile application was enabled to capture the attendance of the teams through biometric devices connected to the mobile. Alerts that indicated the fuel pilferage, over speeding, deviating the marked areas were also the value additions provided by us, to the client. We were able to track around 410 medical teams simultaneously and the project implementation was a huge success. This was another feather in our cap that demonstrated our web and mobile application development capabilities.

When I had joined the organization, I had prepared a formal induction presentation that would help the new joiners understand their organization better. This is especially important for an organization that is spread across the globe, and into varied products and services in varied domains. When I go through the induction presentation now, I realise that I need to revamp the same to accommodate all the new changes that has happened over this 6 months period. I am sure I would keep updating the same on regular basis, given our dynamic track record.

I would compare Vinformax's growth to that of a caterpillar metamorphosing into a beautiful butterfly. Vinformax as stated earlier has moved from the start-up to stabilisation phase pretty quick in a span of two years. It's a young butterfly now that is fluttering its wings, moving from flower to flower tasting the honey of each flower, and choosing the best. But with the vision of Vinformax becoming a Billion dollar company, I can never state that this butterfly is fully grown. It will keep reinventing itself like the phoenix bird!