For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe.
- Anonymous
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
Talent is not Enough
Read an interesting article on the Net:
There was a fascinating experiment conducted by a team of journalists at the Washington Post. The team set off to find out “Can one of the nation’s great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour?” They took Joshua Bell – arguably the most famous living violinist in the world – and placed him in street clothes and a baseball cap within a DC Metro station during the morning commute . Bell was also given one of the most expensive violins in the world – one worth millions and normally kept in a museum. He was asked to play some of the finest classical pieces ever written.
And so, as thousands of DC residents passed through the hallowed halls of the L’enfant Plaza Station on their way to work, Joshua Bell played his heart out.
Of course, this story ends with a startling (but not surprising) realization: Over the 43 minutes that he played, only a few people stopped to listen – and most of those who were asked about the music after passing through the hall failed to even notice. Alas, creative talent of the most extraordinary kind will go unnoticed if not communicated properly. Had Joshua Bell been placed next to a sign proclaiming “World Famous Joshua Bell, After Playing for The President Last Night, Plays For You This Morning on a Multi-Million Dollar Violin,” maybe people would have stopped?
It is also your job to get noticed, so don’t spend your life in the metro station as people in search of great music pass you by.
There was a fascinating experiment conducted by a team of journalists at the Washington Post. The team set off to find out “Can one of the nation’s great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour?” They took Joshua Bell – arguably the most famous living violinist in the world – and placed him in street clothes and a baseball cap within a DC Metro station during the morning commute . Bell was also given one of the most expensive violins in the world – one worth millions and normally kept in a museum. He was asked to play some of the finest classical pieces ever written.
And so, as thousands of DC residents passed through the hallowed halls of the L’enfant Plaza Station on their way to work, Joshua Bell played his heart out.
Of course, this story ends with a startling (but not surprising) realization: Over the 43 minutes that he played, only a few people stopped to listen – and most of those who were asked about the music after passing through the hall failed to even notice. Alas, creative talent of the most extraordinary kind will go unnoticed if not communicated properly. Had Joshua Bell been placed next to a sign proclaiming “World Famous Joshua Bell, After Playing for The President Last Night, Plays For You This Morning on a Multi-Million Dollar Violin,” maybe people would have stopped?
It is also your job to get noticed, so don’t spend your life in the metro station as people in search of great music pass you by.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Execution is the New Strategy
E.L. Doctorow wrote, “Planning to write is not writing.” Here’s the funny thing: Writing is not writing. It’s editing. You’re really not sure where you’re going until well after you’ve begun; until you’ve put pen to paper (or type to page). And then, the work unfolds in unpredictable and mysterious ways. Sure, vision and planning are important. But with the accelerating pace of change in today’s world, the important insights are more likely to come through doing and editing, than through speculating and strategizing. “Change will lead to insight far
more often than insight will lead to change.”⎯ Milton H. Erickson
Read more at http://www.acleareye.com/thoughts/Article_Nine_Predictions_for_2009.pdf
more often than insight will lead to change.”⎯ Milton H. Erickson
Read more at http://www.acleareye.com/thoughts/Article_Nine_Predictions_for_2009.pdf
Friday, December 12, 2008
Things on its head
There are now too many back to origin theories floating around. Alan Greenspan is reportedly rethinking on the base of many theories he originally believed. Many media companies are supposedly floundering around in the digital age - Are they in the News business or in the Newspaper business. Do we need careers in the digital age or do we need money making ventures. we can always pass our time through our personal interests. does it mean big corporate type models are passe.
More on this later...
More on this later...
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Too much ado about Originality in Innovation or Blogging
I have been in Innovation for 2 years now. its a case of been there done that. I still follow much of Innovation happenings across the world. the value attached to originality is immense and seems to be the only one in focus. from my experiences and readings, majority of the folks are not interested in only original stuff. they are fine to go with others experiences and expertise. as long as it meets the needs and helps run the daily life (or business), we dont expect to invent the wheel on a daily basis.
most innovation programs can do a world of good even if they can assemble solutions already in practice across the world. to only insist on patents as a measure of innovation is against the nature of innovation itself. Patents are good for scientists or business guys who need to protect commercial interests. but a world of good can happen if we can put before others simple and handy solutions.
a related experience is blogging. I keep seeing multiple sites where they emphasize the blog should be original. If each of us wrote a mutually exclusive blog , each of us needs to read each others blogs - not possible in a lifetime nor worth the effort. human behavior tends to align to areas of interest and through trial and error we will land up in our areas of interest. the hurdle is more in terms of Reach and how the knowledge can flow through multiple minds. replicating info is the best way to achieve this. my searches have been effective not by Google Search but by tracking many others who are experts in their field. they in turn depend on others for info...it goes on. My thought is : does it really matter what train compartment you get a seat on , if all that you want is to reach your destination?
most innovation programs can do a world of good even if they can assemble solutions already in practice across the world. to only insist on patents as a measure of innovation is against the nature of innovation itself. Patents are good for scientists or business guys who need to protect commercial interests. but a world of good can happen if we can put before others simple and handy solutions.
a related experience is blogging. I keep seeing multiple sites where they emphasize the blog should be original. If each of us wrote a mutually exclusive blog , each of us needs to read each others blogs - not possible in a lifetime nor worth the effort. human behavior tends to align to areas of interest and through trial and error we will land up in our areas of interest. the hurdle is more in terms of Reach and how the knowledge can flow through multiple minds. replicating info is the best way to achieve this. my searches have been effective not by Google Search but by tracking many others who are experts in their field. they in turn depend on others for info...it goes on. My thought is : does it really matter what train compartment you get a seat on , if all that you want is to reach your destination?
Monday, December 8, 2008
Schools move ahead on IT Curve
Recently i was browsing through my friends mails and someone pinged about my school website.http://www.kvtrichyone.org/index.html . I was so surprised to see an updated website and that too a regular one. compared to many corporate websites, this one is so well maintained across all categories. further more it linked into an Oracle site for Schools http://www.thinkquest.org/en/ .
I was further surprised at the level of sophisticated projects created by students. mind you this is the K-12 category. the final straw was when I saw a winning entry on How to Create your own blog: http://library.thinkquest.org/07aug/01589/index.html.
It shattered my long held view that schools , especially in India take a long time in catching up on the digital age. They have reversed the notion and put us experienced folks on the back of the IT curve. It also seemingly points to the coming of age of the Digital age. Future of IT remains as challenging as ever, this time from school children.
Guys, the real challenge is not recession in the economy, its recession in our mindsets.
I was further surprised at the level of sophisticated projects created by students. mind you this is the K-12 category. the final straw was when I saw a winning entry on How to Create your own blog: http://library.thinkquest.org/07aug/01589/index.html.
It shattered my long held view that schools , especially in India take a long time in catching up on the digital age. They have reversed the notion and put us experienced folks on the back of the IT curve. It also seemingly points to the coming of age of the Digital age. Future of IT remains as challenging as ever, this time from school children.
Guys, the real challenge is not recession in the economy, its recession in our mindsets.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Discover who is the most influential in your company
David Sacks, the founder of genealogy site Geni, just launched a new company called Yammer on stage at TechCrunch50. Yammer is an enterprise version of Twitter. If Twitter asks: “What Are You Doing?”, Yammer asks: “What Are You Working On?” Engineers at Geni created Yammer internally for the company’s own purposes, but Sacks liked it so much he decided to spin it off as its own company. He explains: The purpose is to allow co-workers to share status updates. You post updates on what you are working on. You can post news, links, ask questions, and get answers for people in your company. You can see most the most prolific people and the most followed people. It is a good way to discover who is the most influential in your company.
Yammer is a microblogging service launched in September 2008.Like Twitter, it allows users to post updates of their activities, to follow others updates, and to tag content and create memes. Unlike Twitter, Yammer is focused on businesses, and only individuals with the same corporate email address can join a given network.
Yammer is a microblogging service launched in September 2008.Like Twitter, it allows users to post updates of their activities, to follow others updates, and to tag content and create memes. Unlike Twitter, Yammer is focused on businesses, and only individuals with the same corporate email address can join a given network.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Growth is all about Innovation: Fishy!
Just read somewhere on the Net:
Fishing is the largest sporting activity in the U.S. with 40 million participants, far more than golf or tennis combined, the next two on the list. Recreational fishing generates more than $125 billion in economic output and more than one million American jobs. If sport fishing were a corporation, it would rank above Bank of America or IBM on the Fortune 100 list of largest American companies. The pathway to growth for any large, mature industry is: innovation!
Fishing is the largest sporting activity in the U.S. with 40 million participants, far more than golf or tennis combined, the next two on the list. Recreational fishing generates more than $125 billion in economic output and more than one million American jobs. If sport fishing were a corporation, it would rank above Bank of America or IBM on the Fortune 100 list of largest American companies. The pathway to growth for any large, mature industry is: innovation!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Money and its disappearance
For the past year I have been toying with a hypotheses on the disappearance of money as we know it. Credit cards, Travellers Checks, Demand Drafts are past story. Wire transfer is also becoming part of culture in many countries. Online transactions have also improved in the past 8 years.
Money which became standard currency to facilitate trade replaced direct commodity transfer or barter. With digitization, the form of money has lost value.
Salary is credited directly, loans and EMIs are paid directly based on Standard Instructions, Shares and MFs are bought and sold directly without any cash transfer. the list goes on.
Whats striking is that all this is happening without people noticing it. They are embracing technology as it happens than any evaluation per se. These are significant changes and would affect economics worldwide without anybody noticing it happening.
Having been head of Innovation in my company earlier on, I kept track of the Innovations on the money front. the financial crisis is now provoking many experts to mull over the idea of whether Cash is still king or something else could be done to prevent such crises. More on that later.
Last I heard, one of the worlds fastest selling product cannot be bought with cash. You definitely need a Credit card to buy in their stores.
You get it now.
Money which became standard currency to facilitate trade replaced direct commodity transfer or barter. With digitization, the form of money has lost value.
Salary is credited directly, loans and EMIs are paid directly based on Standard Instructions, Shares and MFs are bought and sold directly without any cash transfer. the list goes on.
Whats striking is that all this is happening without people noticing it. They are embracing technology as it happens than any evaluation per se. These are significant changes and would affect economics worldwide without anybody noticing it happening.
Having been head of Innovation in my company earlier on, I kept track of the Innovations on the money front. the financial crisis is now provoking many experts to mull over the idea of whether Cash is still king or something else could be done to prevent such crises. More on that later.
Last I heard, one of the worlds fastest selling product cannot be bought with cash. You definitely need a Credit card to buy in their stores.
You get it now.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
MegaRegions
Part of my research focuses on changes in the Global business scene and its impact on strategy creation.
New research has emerged which could alter companies traditional approach to New Geography entry. Rather than nations, researchers suggest Megaregions or clusters of cities would drive how business is conducted worldwide.
To quote:
Megaregions — rather than nations — have become the natural units of the global economy. How is a megaregion defined? Tim Gulden at the University of Maryland's Center for International and Security Studies has used nighttime satellite images of the earth to identify "contiguous lighted areas" that include at least one major metropolitan area. Examples? The Boston-New York-Washington corridor and the Shanghai-Nanjing-Hangzhou triangle. Megaregions are the lit-up regions that produce more than $100 billion in goods and services. 1.2 billion people — 18% of the global population — live in the world's 40 megaregions. Combined, they produce 66% of the world's economic activity and 86% of new patents.
Something I am happy about "…… Greater Singapore is a classic city-state, whose population of 6 million (nearly 2 million of whom are actually across the border in Malaysia) generates a GDP of more than $100 billion. It has “willingly and explicitly given up the trappings of nation states,” Kenichi Ohmae writes about the country, “in return for the relatively unfettered ability to tap into…the global economy.” (Ohmae, 1993). The Bangkok mega-region is home to 19 million people, producing $100 billion in economic output."
you can read more at:
www.rotman.utoronto.ca/userfiles/prosperity/File/Rise.of.%20the.Mega-Regions.w.cover.pdf
New research has emerged which could alter companies traditional approach to New Geography entry. Rather than nations, researchers suggest Megaregions or clusters of cities would drive how business is conducted worldwide.
To quote:
Megaregions — rather than nations — have become the natural units of the global economy. How is a megaregion defined? Tim Gulden at the University of Maryland's Center for International and Security Studies has used nighttime satellite images of the earth to identify "contiguous lighted areas" that include at least one major metropolitan area. Examples? The Boston-New York-Washington corridor and the Shanghai-Nanjing-Hangzhou triangle. Megaregions are the lit-up regions that produce more than $100 billion in goods and services. 1.2 billion people — 18% of the global population — live in the world's 40 megaregions. Combined, they produce 66% of the world's economic activity and 86% of new patents.
Something I am happy about "…… Greater Singapore is a classic city-state, whose population of 6 million (nearly 2 million of whom are actually across the border in Malaysia) generates a GDP of more than $100 billion. It has “willingly and explicitly given up the trappings of nation states,” Kenichi Ohmae writes about the country, “in return for the relatively unfettered ability to tap into…the global economy.” (Ohmae, 1993). The Bangkok mega-region is home to 19 million people, producing $100 billion in economic output."
you can read more at:
www.rotman.utoronto.ca/userfiles/prosperity/File/Rise.of.%20the.Mega-Regions.w.cover.pdf
Friday, November 28, 2008
First Post
Have been blogging within the corporate for a few years. First step to blog in the Big Real world.
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