An interview with Blogger of the Day, Rajesh Setty of  Life Beyond Code.

iBt4iM: Tell my readers who you are.

Rajesh Setty : Thanks for this opportunity Randy. I describe myself as someone who EATs with Passion! I am an Entrepreneur, Author and a Teacher and I love to be involved in all the three activities. As an entrepreneur I am currently the chairman of CIGNEX Technologies, Inc, a company that I co-founded in late 2000. CIGNEX builds and implements enterprise class open source solutions. I am also involved in the advisory capacity of multiple technology companies and non-profit organizations. As an author, I wrote my first book (a novel) when I was nine and got it published when I was thirteen. I got six of my books published before I was sixteen. I didn’t write a book for the next nineteen years (oops dating myself there.) My recent book “Beyond Code: How to distinguish yourself in 9 simple steps!” (Foreword by Tom Peters) was published in October 2005. As a teacher, I have been involved in sharing through my speaking engagements, blog and writings. I am happily married for twelve years to my beautiful wife Kavitha and we have a seven year old son Sumukh.

iBt4iM: What's your blog? What's your blog about?

Rajesh Setty : My blog is called “Life Beyond Code”. I started the blog as a companion to my book “Beyond Code” back in February 2005. The blog has of course evolved into something bigger. I write about topics that are of interest to white collar professionals. Some of the key focus areas are:

• How to distinguish yourself
• Leadership 
• Innovation 
• De-commoditization
• Technology trends

iBt4iM: What secondary blogs do you have? Linkblogs? Moblogs?

Rajesh Setty : I don’t have any Linkblogs mainly because by simply linking to something, I am not contributing much. I have to add some value that provides a context to what I am linking to. I tend to provide my opinion in almost all the blog posts. In fact, I may be a bit of an extremist on this topic. So, even for the “Great Quotes” section where I post an insightful quote, I write about why I think the quote was insightful.

iBt4iM: Why do you blog?

Rajesh Setty : I love to write and I have always loved writing. Being an “eternal student”, I am very curious on several things. One of the main focus areas of my blog is the topic of de-commoditization or how (individual or business) one can “stand out” from the crowd. I love this topic and am always thinking about this and I have a lot of ideas to share. I would be lying if I don’t say that blog helps me to gain a lot of visibility and in turn helps my book “Beyond Code”

iBt4iM: What are your favorite blogs?

Rajesh Setty : I love blogs that provide a high ROII (return on investment for an interaction.) In other words, I have to get the highest rate of return for every minute of my investment (time) I spend on that blog. There are several that are out there but I will list a few of my favorite ones here:

1. Tom Peters
2. Seth Godin
3. Robert Scoble
4. Brad Feld
5. Worthwhile Magazine

iBt4iM: What do you do when you are not blogging?

Rajesh Setty : Fortunately for those of us in the technology business in Silicon Valley work has never been an issue. In fact, I am sure Silicon Valley has the largest concentration of workaholics in this world J

Here are some things that I will be involved with when I am not blogging

• Evangelizing open source for my company CIGNEX
• Reading – I read about one book a week or about 60-70 books a year
• Meeting people – learning and sharing 
• Writing – I am working on two other books – takes away a lot of my time 
• Advising startups and non-profit organizations 
• Spending time with family and friends 
• Movies – We watch movies in five languages. Sometimes we watch the same movie in multiple languages L
• Teaching – speaking engagements

iBt4iM: Thanks for taking the time to tell our readers about yourself. You are the Blogger of the Day.

Note: We are interviewing one average-Joe great-blogger every few days (we hope). If you want to be the Blogger of the Day, then email me. Previous Bloggers of the Day; Dave Taylor, fotoUR, Ozh of planetOzh, John of Freshblog, Aimee Evans, Allen Searls, Steve Michel, Jon Watson, Dave Walker, Oleg Dulin and Miel Van Opstal.