Anirudh Agrawal

Email on 14th March , 2007 "funny anectodes by ani"

2012-02-04T09:20:00.001-08:00

Email I wrote on 14th March , 2007 when i was in INSA lyon "funny anectodes by ani"

On 14-Mar-2007, at 4:10 AM, Anirudh Agrawal wrote:

Hi
It's a long boring sluggish mail full of stories of my failures in france…but I feel it can make someone laugh a bit…

When one feels shit about himself, everything one does and every thing around one becomes shit.. one feel like one is living in shitland and he is shitest shit among the shit.
That happened to me ones when I was feeling shit and I wrote something with I felt is good, was actually shit(from the relative perspective of shit was good)   and proudly mailed it ...and the reviews I got were eyeopeners, incidently what I learned from this story was that, if u think u are shit, people around U will know it sooner than U yrself..

I was having verbal dude with a girl  on yahoo chat and she was encouraging more than usual so I continued getting more into her, but unknowingly OOPs she hacked my password, U don't expect girls to use brains and above all guess what she changed that password.. also interestingly before she changed it one of my dearest friend also had that password of mine so she peeped into my previous chats…
Now it was like sandwitched from two sides, one having changed the password clandestinely just like DAMES of BOND movies and other shocked of the moral evasion of a guy whom she thought was perfect gentlemen..it was hell, I felt like I am in iraq , an american chased by american forces… it was a learning experience nevertheless , never go to geocities, GIRLS CAN HACK, never give password, always have diff password, and above all be a gentlemen on chat(now that's impossible).

Also funny incident in the geneva auto show was that in all the auto show, the place where I found pride was the stall of tatas….the only Indian stall in the expo.
I was full of pride, because in the world of cutting throaght technology, exuberance, money, luxieis, there was our TATA- pride of India in Kurtas and Saadies spreading technology based on sustainable innovation..
On the reception tata stall was a pretty MBA indian babe with lots of attitude(no bhoav to me) but with BINDI and shalwaar suite…I felt different and great.and also she was the only car model who was beautiful than the car  in the show...THAT WAS THEIR CONCEPT MARKETING.
Incidently my French friend a walking uncle sam on automobiles joked and said(je pence que le tata faut utilise V-10 BMW pour sont voitures), the tatas should use BMW V10(5 litre, 650HP) engine on their car to capture market here…
Things that I learnt there was that no matter what vehicle U own, in places like these U ll always be wondered by the product of yr own countries, and take pride in it..I mean I saw everything that the world has from phantoms to fuel cell driven cars and lots of new ideas, but   I liked TATAs stall there because that was Indian.

Last week I went to a birthday party of a french friend, its funny I was tired since I had just arrived from GENEVA AUTO SHOW, and straight-0
Went to his party..
Now the funniest thing that happened to me was that after lots and lots of efforts I found a girl to hang around ..We danced did everything beyond the limits that there are ,  we drank together and drank and I was fantasising every possible thing that could take place that night, had done my permutations and combinations and butressed all the walls against the loopholes. so we drank and drank and Untill!!!!! oops I got drunk and felt flat womitting and she went to do the same with other guys. I had never tried so many different drinks at the same time before..
The lesson that  I learnt from this was that european girls can never get drunk, so be careful when U try on them..

Also friends, please all those who are into outsourcing whether software or manufacturing, please work on services, improve it , innovate it(innovation upon existing norms is the only criteria of long term survival), please try to improve the services because east Europeans countries are fast recovering from the demise of USSSR and are upcoming markets for outsourcing especially after the EU thing. Is will be a cause of worry.

So friends I am coming to India on 1^st of april(odd date) and I hope to meet you all  so please please meet me and share yr experiences with me on..
I wish to go veshno devi  and golden temple (its been eight months since I have been to any gurudwara or temple) on 3 or 4 of April, if anybody is interested to go with me, please mail me   in advance with his or her phone numbers  It will be great pleasure to me and an experience to interact and learn from each other..
BBYE

Centralization vs decentralization

2012-02-04T00:30:00.000-08:00

I hate centralization not only because it makes me feel like my freedom is getting enslave to the rationality of some individual in the multiestoryed pyramid but also because any business that is a consequense of scalling (Mc donalds, Burger King, Brands like Levis Strass or Education - same type of courses for different population and economies) can lead to the loss of local economy, local craftmanship and local needs.

Centralization not just means that power lies at the hands of few, but it also means that the data base of customer information, data base of employee information, the image of the company, the communications of the company, the design and process of the company all originate from a single point. Now in case of a multi-national enterprise, if the distance between that central point and point of interaction between the consumer is large, there is a possibility that the consumer will be lost (Pull marketing), there is also the possibility that the consumer might adopt to the product/service of the centralised company (push marketing)...in both the cases there is loss of long term value. In the former case, its the loss of costomer for the company and in the later case its the loss of local knowledge, local craftmanship and local culture.

In a centralised economy, all the decision about the economy of a far off county will depend on the rationality of the few at the center. In times of crises such as flood, draught, earthquake, the county will always be subject to the whims and fancies of the people at the center. This will definately make the county frustrated and in-efficient. Now in a decentralised economy, the country will be like an entrepreneurial entity making decision to maximise the returns of its county. In case of drought, flood or any such proble, the county can raise money through debt on its own without waiting for the center.

Think how the culture of a place be in an highly centralised environment, example compare Goa with Haridwar. Goa is essentially european in culture, fashion and music, but Haridwar is a religious place. Now, in a centralised form of governance, most likely the minister would form similar rules both for Haridwar and Gao, just jeopardising the quintessential culture of both the places. In such scenario, the decision must be decentralised and policy have to be area and place specific.

I hate centralization and I strongly believe that decentralised markets are more product under some universal framework of fundamental rights.

Rationality of Bureaucrats

2012-02-04T00:16:00.000-08:00

We always question the bureaucrats and their way of making decisions. We always criticise bureacrats for being slow, corrupt, in-efficient and without any feeling. We demonise bureacrats and consider them as money eating worms.
But we hardly ever ask the question : why they are the way they are?

Consider a scenario :
Bureacrats are machines whose job is to implement the government policy. They are not rational or profit maximising entities, but, simply machines whose job is to implement government policy. Remember that people who deal with bureacrats are profit maximizing and rational entities. The government policies are based on the fundamental structure of the country which is in most cases defined by the constitution of that country. Any bureacratic governance system is based on the assumption that the rule of law is equal, fundamental rights are of equal importance to every body in the country and that decision are free from bias, means a normal person and entrepreneurial person in front of the bureacrat holds the similar status.

Similar scenarios can be observed in Militaristic government, islamic government.

In this scenario, the bureaucrat has to deal with utmost caution to make sure that the right party gets the handle of the policy with keeping in mind the rules and dictums with in which the bureaucrats function. As an individual seeking to maximize return will always criticize the working of bureaucrats because their way of functioning are fundamentally different.
Hence, if we want to change the way a bureaucratic system operates, we need not implicate the bureaucrat who is simply a machine implementing government policy but the underlying fundamentals that make bureaucratic functioning the way it is!

Example: In case of allocating government projects to private players, the government have to be completely impartial thus putting someone with high expertise and someone with no expertise in the similar basket. Which is in-efficient decision making process as well as puts the project in jeopardy if the low skill individual gets the project. So, in that case the government can improvise by considering high collatoral, references, balance sheet, various standard practises like ISO 9000, ISO 14000 and ISO 28000. These practises reinforces the legitimacy of the players and makes the government a rational /profit making body.
Bureaurcratic decision process is very slow, the best practice in order to eliminate this mess is to create mechanical / parallel process that do not conflict with each other and speeds up the deciion making process. The rules of work must be such that the layers of decision making authorities can be reduced, the conflicting rules and regulation can be removed..the rules and laws much be simpler and easy to understand and impliment. Accountability without proper rules can increase dissatisfaction among the bureacrats..Process should be such that maximus work and efficiency can be derived from bureaucrats without confiltig with the basic tenets of equality and non profit.

Leadership of mass movement: Critical thinking on Anna Movement

2012-01-28T11:05:00.000-08:00

Anna movement is the greatest illustration in the present world where the truth, non-violence and simplicity can bring about change in the society, shake the governments and bring about structural and social changes. Similarly, Black were swayed in joy and strength after hearing the words of Martin Luther king. These people were not some terrorist who were developing their leadership credentials through terrorism but these people are people who believed in the cause, there cause were the issues that were baffling the society and issues that were fundamental default in the existing social structure These people identified those defaults and stood to fight to bring about changes in these default. Taking a stand and rallying people to create a better structure needs a lot of personnel character and commitment, needs a lots of social understanding and needs a lots of strength to withstand consequences. Once method was voice, there method of non-violent protests through raising concerns, through raising voices about the default, through organizing protests and demonstrations of non-violent nature and most of all, showing people the strategic vision of what lies ahead once the system is overhauled.

In the independence movement of India, many millions participated because they were shown the way that a better and dignified society lies beyond the government by the British. The demonstrated through argumentation, discourse about the true meaning of Independence and what are the benefits. They rallied millions behind the cause through a means that were legitimate, extremely pure and just to the extend the government would never/ could never argue their way out of the demonstration. Things like non-corporation movement where the indians would not service british or simon go back where indians demonstrated their anger over the supremacy of some English officer as their rule-maker.

Anna movement led by Anna Hazare is an extremly pure movement to rally masses on a social in-justice of corruption. His means of protest is non-violent demonstration and protest against the government. His simplicity is his selfless past and his self-less present and his belief in better India rid of corruption, his non-violent form of protest. His ability to show people that through peaceful demonstration and clear goal in mind, results can be achieved and social order and structure can be altered. Anna movement started with a simple demonstration that grew out of proportion because of its simplicity, purity its place (new delhi) and its commitment to the cause that mattered to the people who were getting affected by it.

I assert that a movement that is defined properly, that is pure in its form of demonstration, the people involved are pure, ethical and committed to the cause they are fighting and the cause is a socail cause that affected the people daily...than i believe a committed leadership can bring about many changes in the society...

Freedom of expression

2012-01-28T05:29:00.000-08:00

"Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such thing as Wisdom; and no such thing as public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech" ..BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, The New England Courant, Jul. 9, 1722

I am writing this to express my disappointment at the decision of the government to discredit the presentation of Salman Rushdie and at the same time discuss the importance of freedom of speech and expression .

Freedom of Speech and expression is important in a democratic society to function efficiently. Democratic form of government is where an individual has an equal say in the functioning of the government. When we say that all individuals are equal, than the first thing that matters are the views and critiscism about the surroundings..One must have complete freedom and opportunity to express oneself in a democratic society with equal power and prestige as the goverment itself...That create an environment of equality and leads to healthy discourse that makes the process of democracy dyanamic and pro-active. This process of discourses through freedom of speech is also the one that distinguishes a society from an authoritarian society where the words and dictums of the ruling government as the final answer. Freedom of speech also ensures that the society is dynamic, critical and willing to learn and improve. When individuals see that wrong is being done in the society, than they can come forward and raise voice against the wrong and lead the society to a better direction. Similarly when people see that a particular belief or process is in-efficient, derogatory or wrong vis a vis the modern times, a free society can debate about it to bring about the change.
According to Newton that the freedom of speech and expression is the biggest way where societies, art, science, technology can move forward and take the people and time in the forward direction. Galileo was chided by church for his theory on universe and the position of earth with respect to universe, but Newton later proved him write. This story of newton and galileo is important because that marks the beginnig for industrial revolution and end of dark ages in the western civilization. Had the Newton too was suppressed by the than church of england, it would probably never have been possible to see the sun rise of renaissance.
Similarly, the works of Raja Ram Mohan roy in eradicating the untouchability, Sati Pratha from Indian society is examplary. Only that he stood up to challenge the existing norms of the society, change the consequenses of the society, he brought the changes to the society.

No two individuals can have the same view of the society, they will differ, they will have different background and ways of looking at the phenomenon and different ways of interpretating it...in a free society, both these individuals have the equal right to put forth their analysis, and it will the job of the institution to be critical of each one of them before accepting the one that is the most appropriate, without the freedom of speech one one argument will be available that will without any critical discourse be accepted and implemented over the whole society...thats like living in a jail following the orders of some greater being.

I make money vs I share money

2012-01-28T00:44:00.000-08:00

I am not the best guy to discuss or debate profit maximization vs profit distribution. I love the assumptions and the consequences of free markets, but many of my friends discuss the profit distribution with me and I tend to think about it from different perspectives. I still do not know as why firms have to indulge in foundations, why people have to form NGOs and why sometimes individuals have to donate their hard earned money to causes, activities that have no long or short term returns. I still dont understand the reason why Mo. Yunnus would create a bank like Grameen bank and decide not to invest the savings into a profitable business, I do not understand why some people would come togather and would fight for the cause of the whole society..Like Gandhi JI or Martin Luther King

Answers to above questions can come from different perspective (Post war modernism, romantism, intellectualism, north - south poo poo, profit maximization, CSR, ethics and ethical governance, role of self in the society). I try to think of the above question from the perspective of a free marketeer, free market economist!. Unfortunately, when I think hard from the standpoint of an economist who believe in profit maximization, I get stuck in thick wall with seemingly no answers to the question, because the assumption of free market economics are contrary to the business model of NGOs. while discussing NGOs business model and their business intent, If we point to the arguments of Milton Friedman, Hayek, Keyes and to some extend Peter Drucker, we will indeed hit the wall that divides "I make money vs I share money". But lets try bringing in the neo-classical viewpoint and the institutional viewpoint and mixing it with post modernistic pot pourrie.

So, institutional viewpoint is very strong that profit maximization is best sustainable when social well being is taken into account. Social well being as seen in the ford model of wages is best example of value distribution and value generation. Neo classical view point reinforces the role of government in ensuring smooth markets, property rights and distribution of wealth and thrawfting of exploitation. Post modernistic view of business is business set up (social enterprise) is something that generates values for all the shareholders without brute discrimination and exploitation. Examples include fair trade firms, microfinance. For post modernistic business that deals in social sector, it must be socially embedd in the post modernistic stakeholders and thinking (because epoch justifies means even if they are contrary to the economic logic) with a strong institutional structure of 1930s and neo classical inspiration of value generation.

Can Radio and Newspaper survive?

2012-01-28T00:02:00.000-08:00

Newspapers and radios are the one of the first sources of Information long before Television, Internet and mobile. But now, Newspapers and Radios are getting lost to the new and emerging sources of Information like Facebook, Twitter. So what must these ageing mediums do to prolong their survival in this market which is increasing shifting its center of focus to new and emerging trends of information sharing.

One of my friend Yukti is fond of local ethinic New Jersy radio station. Whenever she is driving to and from New Jersy, she resorts to that radio station. The good part about this radio station is that it is engaging, it disburses news to the people and engages some sort of two way communication, this radio station also helps in developing a feeling of community bondness in New Jersy and most of all , its music and information that does not need any reading...Its just for the ears while hands and eyes are on the driving wheel..

Similarly, newspapers look seems so old, stupid when all the information is freely available at my I-Phone. I prefer using Iphone as browsing information on it much easrier, faster and needs fas less space to get it. But even here, the newspaper adds value by only and i only focussing on issues that are most relevant to the individual. Even now, untill the newspapers of a given country highligh something/issue into a point of debate, it remains nothing but a point of discussion. Newspapers still make news and kill news and hence I believe the strong legitimacy and institutional character associated with Newspapers can act to its power and sustainability over a long period of time. I still remember that one of the best way to distinguish oneself in new york subway was not to look at Iphone but either to read a FT or WSJ. So, yes self branding through newspapers is still possible which is not through democratised technologies.

From the above examples, I point to most marketeers that sustainability of dying mediums is not much of an cost cutting or technological issue, rather an institutional issue, legitimimacy and status issue and social issue. Means, that dying technologies can go back its communities and ask for their loyalty and in turn give them real-legitimacy-brand oriented service.

Free Market Economics, governance and activism but with caution

2012-01-27T12:05:00.000-08:00

I love the simplicity of invisible hand. Imagine the argument of Adam Smith and Milton Friedman, the markets govern themselves, governments and governance makes them inefficient.
The essential argument in the free market activism is that the people are intelligent rational individuals who try to maximise their value through individual or collaborative efforts. Than the argument goes on to say that market is the best way to govern people as due to the previous assumption, rational people will make rational decisions to make markets efficient in order to maximise their profits.

Now the role of the government in Free Market is to ensure that market rules and transactions are fair and efficient. Government also has the role to ensure that in case people by virtue of their hard work, by virture of their position, by virture of their power/money do not disrupt the ability to make transactions in the market of a lesser capable individual. The role of the government in the free market is to ensure that market are not skewed towards one individual or one firm such that it reaches a position of monopoly. The role of the governmet is also to ensure that the information about the market is not skewd in favour of particular entitity in the market.

Recently Mr Bajaj said about the Kingfisher Airlines "Those who die must die"..which essentially means that it is not the responsibility of the government to intervene if the firm is not doing well. A firm might not be doing well because it is essentially a bad firm or it is operating is a market that is not favourable to its products or services making its transactions in the market inefficient. And by government intervential, it increase the longevity of inefficient transactions.

Many of my friends who believe in socialism, or the role of government to ensure a great quality of life, reduce the thrist for profit maximisation, creating an atmoshphere humans can feel like human, I contribute to that argument that if we can bring in all those atributes of life into the market form/structure of governance, we can create a society that is not only efficient and value generating but also kind to humans..much like the present day western european societies...But
How do we do that? How can we create a market form of economy with strong quality of life for human beings without government interventions?

Its possible through creating a market where value maximization are integral to the quality of life of an individual, the government ensure that a basic quality of life is provided in the economic entitity in the market. However, this creates a huge barrier in the market where small firms, startups can find hard to enter and survive or leap the market barrier...

Gate keeper of Information in the age of Internet

2012-01-27T11:20:00.000-08:00

A gate keeper of information is the one who has the power to decide what information needs to pass through a particular channel to the particular audience. Like, newspaper is a channel whose gatekeepers are editors who decide what to publish and what not to publish for its audience, ie us the readers.

Earlier, governments were successful in creating public opinion of its society by allowing only a particular kind of information to pass through. For example, the germans were prevented from hearing anything about the consequences and the activities of the war by the nazies through complete gatekeeping of the news, that helped the Nazies retain german support and power to continue the war. The power of gatekeeping information has many advantages while governing a state or running for elections or following transactions in the market.Governments know that power of gatekeeping the information, by letting just about right information access to its citizens, can help generate public opinion, change public opinion.

However in the age of Internet, the gatekeeping of internet is very complicated and the ways of gatekeeping are still being debated. The Arab Spring was an example where information on liberal forms of governance and its benefits were flatly available , that motivated people to ask questions from its incumbant governments' mandate to rule somebody in the way they were ruling. This quest for liberty in the Arab world fueled many protests only in the repressive regimes which had the vested interest in controlling the flow of information. The protests resulted in revolutionising changes in the governance structures and government of many countries.

So there are many ethical and unethical questions that one needs to ask while in the position to gate-keep information.

1. Are the governments intelligent, mature enough to take the decision on the behalf of the society that she is right in her decision to filter access of information.
2. Do government and way of governance must change as government promote freedom of information rather than remain what they are and censor the information.
3. Can there be global policy to monitor information through internet just like free trade policy of the WTO.
4. Must the goverments and the people it govern realise that there is another world called intenet and that it is there to stay, it has many challenges and benefits and that the society as a whole needs to embrace it.

I bring to notice the work of Max Weber on governance through bureaucratic structure. Weber argued that the best form of governance is through bureaucracy where the power, salary and access to information are divided based on hierarchy. Imagine that in the bureacratic structure, everyone has access to the same information, that the individual below will always question the legitimacy of the decision by the person above him and that might lead to compete chaos. So, in that case, either the flow of information is divided into the structure or the structure is desided to eliminate the consequences of flatness of information and maintains the equation of power and decision making.

I ll discuss questions slowly in later writings.

regards

Dynamic Markets

2011-09-06T03:08:00.000-07:00

Whats the different between a market failure and dynamic markets?
Market failure means that a given source of production has no buyers, a specific market designed to buy or sell certain group of commodites looses its value to conduct efficient transaction.
Dynamic markets are those that keep sending signals to the producers and consumers about the changing prospect of trade and ensures efficient transitions to newer practices of trade. This is important as it ensures that jobs lost due to obselence of some transaction can be restored due to the creation of newer form of transaction.

How people form bonding in MBAs, Military Trainings, Expatriates, Drug-addicts, Smokers?

2011-07-10T14:48:00.000-07:00

- Stress busters
- Empathy
- Institutional effect
- Commonalities
- Forced to be with
- Choice
- Mutal choice
- Team work
- Mutual regards and respect

How firms emerge winners after bankrupcies?

2011-07-09T15:11:00.000-07:00

- What happens to firms that they become winners after failers?
- What happens to the learning curve of firms after failures?
- What process changes happens in firms during and after failure?
- What are the major determinants for firms to rise after failures?

How organizations and Firms can regain thier value after fallings, flunking, bankruptzy?

2011-06-19T08:06:00.000-07:00

How firms and Individuals loose out in the market?
1. Their skills deteriorate.
2. Thier offerings in the market no longer interests the markets
3. They loose legitimacy in the market..(rare)
4. They cannot innovate as fast as their competitors (Nokia vs Apple)...Nokia is snaile compared to Apple
5. They cannot muster enough financial resources in order either to sustain or capture newer market
(French firm entering Indian market with only two restaurants: - obviously India wide marketing is not possible as the costs of creating a brand cannot be met by the revenues of two restaurants alone)
(coke vs local indian soft drinks brand, could not beat coke on marketing despite being almost same)
6. they do not change with time, cannot see or feel the change in the market

How can firms overcome their failings and regain their brand value?
I guess one way for the firms is to restructure their operations, identity, financial resources and debt, functional division. Firms must re- analyse the market, the market feeling and market evolution.
Regarding regaining the lost brand value: quality needs to improve, service oferrings to the customer must increase at a lower prices, delivering more than what costomers expects, maintain the role of excluvisity associated with the brand, mainting the ego of the brand.

Future Competitions ,Future Capabilities and Future Markets

2011-06-17T17:18:00.000-07:00

Future Competitive barriers: Culture, Luxery brands, Legitimacy, Freedom of expression, Financial freedom, monetory policy, debt, media and media coverage

Future Capabilities : Project Management, Capability development and Deployment, Product management and development, Service management and development, legitimacy, patents, Research and development, transportation, military and military swiftness, decision making,

Future Markets : Asia, Africa, Latin America

Futuristic Innovation- User Centric Innovation and User Driven Innovation, Energy innovation, Life style change, Information access, Education access, food access, old age, housing, cities, water access, energy access, housing access, health case system for all

Future Cities: Integration of nature into the city, sustainable cities, spiritual cities, healthy and safe cities, growing and accomodating cities, cultural cities

From 7 Billion in 2011 to 10 billion in 2050 : Future of the firm

2011-06-17T17:03:00.000-07:00

Food Crunch
Energy Crunch
Climate Change
Emerging Countries
New Institutional Logics
New Terms of Negotiation
Competitiveness Plateau
Nuclear Energy
Arms Trading
New Global FlashPoints
Role of Women in Society
Employment and Standard of Living
New Technologies
New Methods of Education
New methods of retaining and developing competitive capabilities
West vs East
Developed vs developing
Financial centre of the world

Business is a predictable mathematical equation: I change IV, i get my DV

2011-06-17T16:56:00.000-07:00

I know that Y is dependent on X and Z, if I manipulate X, I change my Y.
Similarly, firms think that if their performance is taking a beating, their profits are declining, than the first thing they do is find the reasons why their performance is declining. Sometimes there are many reasons why the performance of the firm declines such as bad market condition(market not favorable to the position of the firm or firms' position is not in accordance to the market in the short term), increase expenditure, lack of innovation, increase management costs, lack of IT infrastructure, bad allocation of funds, wrong investments to name a few, bad training, too many people, too many investments, too many markets, too many business units sucking the blood of the head office.
So, all these have impacts on the profits of the firms, but its very hard for the firm to single out any one cause when all are going against the profits of the firm.
In such cases, firms can make a strong policy error by choosing one cause that is having a negative impact on its performance and might actually lead complete disaster.
For example Hiring people temprarily, firms might save money on HR but might explose company secrets to employees who are not loyal to the firm. This can lead firm to complete disaster, as when the employees change to another firm, they might reveal the secrets of the firm both tacitly and knowlingly leading firm to loose its USP.

Another example for firm is to cut back market expansion plans of the firm, which is exactly opposite to the job of the entrepreneur, which is to take risk in the market by investing and waiting for the returns.

Inferior skills, New markets : in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king

2011-06-13T18:59:00.000-07:00

Andhon mein kana Raja : In the land of the blind, the one eyed man in the king:
Yes, Its based on my personel experience here at HEC. I never played cricket for the PEC team as I was not that good and PEC team never won any tournament as they were not that good, however, recently HEC Paris won interuniversity cricket tournament and I was playing for them. The point that I learnt was that somebody with inferiour skills can win a huge market share or win in a market, but he has to be in the right market at the right time, where his skills are valued and are not in any competitive position to the skills of his peers or other firms.

So, I guess firms with certain skill set must eye for markets where their skills and capabilitise are valued or they innovate their skills such that they become competitive in the market where they are currently operating. Anyways, the argument here is that if a firm has inferior skills yet it wants to make money, it needs to be in a market where its skills can be values.

A classic example is Germany bakery chain in India. This bakery chain, quite famous, markets to indias' anglo-saxon-european tastes buds + to people with some money. However, this was started by a Hippy (a nomadic tourists hip hopping different countries). That person had the sense to realise that there is no good german/european type of bread to serve the europeans visiting India- specifically Goa, and so he started German Bakery. Over a period of time, that bakery gained market, supplier confidence, reputation and brand and over a period of time, learnt the skills and perfected it to out -compete the competitors.
Lessons learnt, if people with inferior skills get into a market where there skills are valued, that the knockon effects are: market capitalisation, dynamic capabilities, capability appropriation.
Another famous example is California Wine Yards.

Efficient markets, efficient governance : dellimma of being a marxists!

2011-06-11T18:01:00.000-07:00

Its a confusing piece, i dont know whom to support: government or the markets, which one is more efficient and which one is easier to implement, structure and take shape in the form of agglomeration of society based on self and collective satisfaction. I am getting influenced by the theories of efficient markets, market oriented economy, invisible hand over visible hand and advocate the idea of elimination of governance, and letting the whole system become market oriented where efficiency, utility maximization is the sole motive that guides the formation of civilization and structure. Am I being a nerd??? I guess but its fun to think that way!!!

Lets talk about efficient markets:

Markets are organizations based on the rational principle of profit maximization. Rules in the market are bend, written and influenced with the sole objective of utility maximization. How, utility maximization is based on the information available to the individuals and firms and their objective over the period of time, it is assumed that based on the information, individuals will try to maximise their utility/profit.

Here the debate is: can an efficient market function on its own or do it needs governance, if their is governance, can markets function efficiently? Efficient markets are based on the logic that actions of the firms and individuals are tranformed into signals of information that is instantly available in the market to everyone to react, to the extend that the individuals are solely motivated to maximise utility. Individuals are rational, rationality is formed on the epistemology of efficiency, utility maximinsation.

Even in perfect markets, how can market prevent formation of cartels and monopolies. There are many debates when one starts to think about perfect/ efflicient markets:

Assumption that individuals are rational is debatable as the grounds of rationality has a basic, some grouding that is open to debate. Rationality is section and individual specific, utility maximisation is again a linear term that cannot capture many aspects of human nature leaving the concept of invisible hand very much in the books of philosophy and economic elitist debates than the real practice and application. However, as an economist in romance with economy, he will always look for ways to make the whole society, organization, governance so efficient and so automatic that "it justs works".

Efficient government : Efficient governance is something that evenly distributes resources, brings development, make life easier for its citizens. Rules are evenly applied on citizens, justice is delivered to all the citizens without any discrimination based on color, caste, creed or race, citizens have equal access to recourses, discrimination of any sort is discouraged, deprivation/sufferings are soothed by the government, people of efficient governments have strong identities with the governments, efficient governments are open to criticisms. The efficient government is a like a structure that follows rules to the strictest sense based on rationality of the law and rules over which life the very ground of the government. The rules of the government are written in the constitution.

However, what is really missed is that government cannot be efficient, efficient both in mathematics and economics is based on the logic that resource are devoted to people with more abilities, rules are optimized towards people with more abilities, firms with better abilities tend to have a better pie of governance than lets say a pauper. Flipping the coin, the individuals with higher abilities, higher information and higher resource will look for ways to manipulate the government in order to maximise thier resources, in order to gain further that equalises their motivation to sell their abilities in the open markets.

well their is lot to write, we ll discuss this later.

Entrepreneur and A Firm: why firms are not equal to Risk?

2011-06-10T16:36:00.000-07:00

All the great authors from Shumpetre to Peter Drucker have equated Entrepreneur to risk taking but they equate firm to box that ensures efficient transactions, efficient contract and defines the boundaries of the actions that people take within the firm. By its representation and understanding, the firm is confined, I am pushing the debate to the level where I can equate a firm to risk. A firm can be more efficient and more innovative if it fosters its position as more risky.
For example: technology based venture capital firm is more risky, thus it has a steep learning curve, its more agile, it makes more money and it can loose money really fast.
The above example is an example to putforth the logic that if firms are structured to be more risk taking in the market, not on the basis of its capabilities but on the basis of its pure structure, its attitute and its defination, than I believe that firms' capabilities, learning curve, agility and profit potention would also be affected depending on its risk taking.
I am arguing that the firms' existence in the market should not be to provide a boudary of efficient transactions, but its existence in the market should be make riskier bets in the market, riskier dicisions in the market, make riskier investments in the market. I believe that riskier the firm, more efficient and growth oriented the market with strong incentives of innovation both within the firm and within the market. Peter drucker argues that in the market, entrepreneur through his risk taking abilities, influences the market, innovates the market and take the market to the next level. Here is does not include the role of firms in the process of risk taking, he does not include firms are risk taking agents..
Example: If microsoft changes its business model from writing software to writing software+ selling manufacturing pcs, wont that change the market dynamics, or re-writes the new software by taking money from the market..taking a more riskier approach to business by constantly risking into market niches, or redefining its market position, wouldnt that make market a more innovative place with more money and more investment and much more to bet on!!

Conscience of Right or Wrong: Following the cluster and the logic of the cluster

2011-06-10T15:56:00.000-07:00

We many times face ourselve the question of whether we are right or wrong. I realise over a period of time that the dillemma of right or wrong comes when we want to move out of the cluster, because we live in the cluster and the logic of cluster guides us and our actions and justifies the morality of our actions. Deviating from the cluster leaves us into uncertainty, we become less sure of our actions and we are frightened about their outcomes.
Now filliping the coin, if we are not sure about our actions, we are not sure if we are moving in the right direction, we are not confident of ourselves, than ,may be its better to find the cluster that matches us and our personality, because than , me can be sure, that we are not alone, and that our actions are not wrong and that they have direction, they have end, they have results and that we can be positive about ourselfs.

Business Model

2011-06-10T15:38:00.000-07:00

Business model is one fine term to describe the business idea, business process, business plan, business strategy. Infact, it is so powerful, that the uniquness of a business lies in its business model to the extend the sharing its business to third person might actually render business useless and out of market. Business model is the best way an investor can capture the essense of the business process and method. Whether the business is novice,market dominant, money making can all be assessed through the conceptual framework of business model.

Essential eliments of the business model can be: which market, location of the market, market demand, market niche, business idea- core busniess idea, how the idea gets inself to the costomers, how the idea transforms itself into the product, how the idea manages to stay sustainable and become profitable, and also return on investment and break even point....these are all essential elements of a business model.

The Tunnel effect of Success, Achievement and Creativity : organizations perspective

2011-05-18T01:06:00.000-07:00

If one gets inside a tunnel, he has to get out of the tunnel,well from either of the ends, else their is no way out. The starting point of the tunnel can be our idea, our ambition, our goal, our dreams, a challenge, point of survival and the way out of tunnel is our defination of our satisfaction, our achievement, our fullfillment. All is well with the tunnel, many great people have achieved their dreams from the tunnel effect, the problem with the tunnel is the it has only two ways to get out ie: Initial point or the end point. We call the end point a result of our endeavor and the initial point a failure. But But!! I am arguing here that their is a whole world between the two points in this tunnel, but unfortunately we cant see because we are in a tunnel.

Here, I am nesseccarily arguing the validity of tunnel effect on our lives,choices and satisfaction and failure to see through the world that is present between what we dreamt to what we achieved.
I agree that tunnel focusses our energy and effort into one direction such that we achive without loosing too much of energy or time, but we miss onto many things because we cant see them, their is not scope for creativity or thinking out of the box because simply, the tunnel does not give us the choice.

Similarly, organizations tend not to innovate because they our bounded by the tunnel effect. Organizations are bounded by the market, market forms around organizations and organizations are formed around market such that they all have a defined starting point and defined end point, to the extend that many organizations forget to innovation into a direction which is in between their vision to thier end point (market success).

Flexible organizations

2011-05-14T02:15:00.000-07:00

Flexible organization can be: listens to its costomers, that changes as the market changes, that changes its business models as the competition changes, that changes its product offerings as the market changes, that innovates constantly, that is ready to loose when the situation arises, that is ready to make alliance with different partners when the need arises, that is ready to play co-opetetive strategies.

Example of flexible organization :
First adopted internet banking (Bank of america , Citi bank)
Google - Launching new internet based products such as cloud computing
Firms like GE that took market lead by adopting IT in her operations and management
Toyota by launching Hybrid vehicle
Mercedes by quickly reselling its Crysler division when the allaince dint work well
Google forming an allaince with HTC for the smart phone and taking the market away from Apple Iphone and Nokia and Nokia making an resourse based alliance with Microsoft in new mobile computing market

On the contrary, examples of firms that are inflexible are : State bank of India- still not fully functional on internet, GM- Still not with any product matching to Toyota Hybrid, Nokia- very late realizing its core competency and market ecosystem and than forming its allaince with microsoft, Microsoft- not product matching Iphone when it has all the capabilities.

However, is flexibility important for organization, do organizations have to be flexible in order to survice. Classic example of inflexible organizations:
1. Food industry, clearly, many traditional restaurants were threatened by ready to eat american brands but they quickly found their niche and survived and became profitable.
2. Luxery brands, its hard to imagine that two different prices for same functionality (Swatch and Tagheur)
3. Music industry (Classic vs Rock music)
4. Architechture (there is market for both european style 19th century and to more function modern architecture) however, the market was disrupted for a while when modern architechture came into existence
5. Traditional brewing firms vs mass produced brewing firms (traditional survived because of their culture and charm)

So its hard to advocate that the firm must be flexible, firm must change its core values as the market changes, its hard to actually predict and for CEOs, its again hard.

than what should be the right strategy, what kind of industry must follow the flexible organization strategy?

How firms transfer knowledge, capabilities, secure dominant logic in time dimension?

2011-05-13T12:52:00.000-07:00

Firms survives cycles of recession, bad leadership, bad servics and bad products and competitions.

But how does firms survive that, how does firms learn from them, what structures firms put in place that their knowledge, strategic logic is transfered and retained by its people and employees.
How does it happen that when people enter in an organization, they become part of it, they retain its culture and reflect its culture, they learn the actions of the organization and they are able to replicate the organization in the mind of the second individual??..Isnt it interesting to realise, that firms are able to transfer their genes to individual by just highring them!!

How is it that some firms retain their identity over long periods of time, fight the effect of market fluctuations, institutional punishments and yet survive and transfer their knowledge. What kind of moldable structures are in place,or a system, a oven of change and form and shape, where organizational identity, knowledge, strategic resource are stored, molded and transfered to people and society over a period of time.

Some of the ways that firms transfer knowledge are:

1. Firms' boundaries are defined by their transactions or by their contracts in the market. Firms gain acceptance in the market on the basis of the relaibility of the transactions that they do in the market, the relaibility factor increases as the no. of transactions in the market increases.

2. By creating corpus of knowledge that is quantifiable, transferable, readable, auditable (patents, publications, audits, company presentations)

3. Apprenticeships, people join firms are apprentice and remain with the firm forever acquiring, generating and transfering knowledge to the environment of the firm.

4. Market, as the market changes, the competition increases, the firms have to respond to these changes, the response leads firms to learn and unlearn.

5. Organisations and firms are known and defined by their boundaries, the boundaries of the organization are like shapless ameoba that keeps on interacting with its environemnt for food and fight with enemies and change its structure accordingly. The ameoba has a continiour interaction between its external self and internal brain and all its actions gets recorded in the genes, similarly, the successful organizations book its interactions inside its brain and keep changing its structure according to the signals form the outside and brain.

more ideas are invited!!

Worlds' Oldest Companies/Firms : what can we learn from them

2011-05-10T09:38:00.000-07:00

One thousand year back, products people probably most needed were : - cloths, warm cloths, food(primary food and processed food), beer, music, mobility at lower costs, market information before the products are moved to specific location, personnel hygeinne products (perfume, soap, shaving, hair cutting, tooth brush-tooth paste), hotels and restaurants for traders at specific trade related locations (silk route), kitchen wares- China wares, water, Wine, Champaign,

Some of the oldest firms in the world are into following businesses :- Chocolates, Beer, Hotel Services, China Ware, Wine, Champagne, Mechanical-Watch and Dials. Most of the old businesses are family owned and sustained. All these businesses show the passion of the family and their commitment to the business.
Oldest Busniess can be categorised as following:
Services: Hotel, restaurants, University, Hospitals, Mobility- Transportation
Products: Chinaware, Beer, Wine, Champagne, Cloths, Perfume, soap, Chocolates
Process: Beer, Wine, Champagne, Chocolates

Firstly, they are all family owned and not share holder owned, they are sustainble because their were family interests, family passion and family employement associated with them. I am not justifying or advocating family owned businesses as the best way of creating a competitive sustainable advantage and longetivity of business, but those are the observations that i see in some of the oldest surviving businesses in the world.
Secondly they all had basic products, products that human being need forever, yet these business managed to survive, managed to hangon to market competitions, managed to built a brand.
Thirdly, they are all local, small in production capacity, easy to manage and large enough to have a name for themselves.

Many questions:
How learning, uniqueness, stickiness survices among family organizations?
How does size matters in survivability of organizations?

Spiritual Organization - How can an organization become spiritual?

2011-05-10T09:18:00.000-07:00

Businesses strive for market access and marginal revenues, else they will die, increase revenues per unit of efforts can push businesses to indulge in activities that might not be moral, spiritual, because its a question of survivability!

In What way a give and take relationship be established between market and Spiritual Organization?
Can capitalistic organization be profitable, successful and still become a vegan (Spiritual)?
Does being Spiritual good, does being spiritual sustainable, does being spiritual brings money
to the organization, does being spiritual satisfies shareholders of the company, does being spiritual needs structural and systematic change, does being spiritual needs organizational change?
Again: Spiritual Organization needs to understand its ecosystem, breed social responsibility quotient inside its ecosystem and within its structure and organization. What an organization needs and what she looses and what she gains in her decision to be an spiritual organization?
Spiritual organization is not being closer to god or following some religion, here I mean that firms which are conscious of her actions, conscious of her impacts, conscious of her decision, conscious of her ecosystem and conscious of her inner self.

One defination of Spiritual organization is the very motivation to bring legitimate goods and services to its customers. Many people consider profit maximization as a signal moral degration, in search may lead producers in making products that are compromise and put prices that do not signify the value of the products. However, an spiritual organization will look deeper within its environment, motivates its products and people to foster a reliability, trust based relationship, will abide by the rules of the game, will indulge in market competition with a sense of creating positive value, creating unique market niche, creating long term value consious costomers, create brands based on spirituality as a source of competitive long term gain.
So the question is whats the difference between a niche market,spiritual organization as a strategy and spiritual organization as a change- a real change in doing business?

So, the difference is, niche market= creating a brand that gives unique satisfaction to the cunsumer based on the brand and product value, that doesnt really mean an organizations internal functioning, organizations interaction being transfered to the market brand to the product satisfaction, so in a way, market niches is really a dimentionally different than spiritual organization.
Spiritual organization as Strategy: I doubt that market logic can force organizations to label themselves into spiritual organziations, just to get more market. Spiritual organizations really mean creating a business that is morally right, structurally accomodative and implicitely encoraging to its environment.

Spiritual Organizations

2011-05-01T08:01:00.000-07:00

Now lets put spirituality as developed earlier in the blog into organizational context. What are spiritual organizations.
Organization by definition is a machine where people are organized such that they have a well defined function. People are free agents and have inherent profit maximizing attitude and willing to exercise their character over other interacting systems, organization is a system where people are suppose to do some specific roles and responsibilities. IF people and machine both have spiritual inclination,than, may be we can have a spiritual system. An organization that understand their role in the society, does not take decision solely as profit maximizing entitities, but they respect the people within the organization and the people who are affected by the organization, organizations which look for long term, generations of respect and growth and embebbedness in the society, organization that do not play with nature, organization that carry the same values (human values) across all its business units, organizations that have respect for shareholders but not complete dominance, organization that act on moral conscience can be termed viewed as spiritual organziations. Obviously, its hard to find spiritual organizations in the real life. Few examples that immediately come to my mind are:-

1. Sewa Cafe, Ahemdabad India : Sewa means to serve. Sewa cafe is based on the principles of Gandhi ji, here the people can eat food, drink cafe and enjoy the city view from a height. The sewa cafe is served, managed and operated by street kids, orphans of the city. Whats most striking about sewa cafe is that it does not charge money from its customers. The customers are suppose to pay what they feel like they must pay. Its a unique business model and by gods wish its also sustainable as for month after month, the sewa cafe has had positive cash flow. I would call it a divine organization, a great organziation philosophy. However, there can be many arguments to support the sustainability of the business model, yet the spirit, innovativeness makes me feel that its really a spiritual organization.

2. Tata Group, India : Tata is one of the oldest and respected business groups in India. Tata is one of the few private companies in India that has a good corporate social responsibility report, long before CSR came into fashion with the western world. Taj Hotel in mumbai is the best representation of Tata and the connection tata has with mumbai and its people. This connection is a kind of spiritual connection. The tata's determining role in launching Air India in 1930s' when if was never even imagined to be profitable in a poor country like India to launching a new thought process by introducing Tata Nano and affordable housing solutions.

3. Sports Teams: is a a system, organization, faces others sports teams, compete for resources, advertising money, sponsors, best coaches, best players, best equipment, people who watch them(their stakeholders) . They are what they are because people around them want them to be what they are, they have a huge spiritual bond with the people. Example: consider the rivalry between Roma and Milan or Real Madrid and Barcelona, they cannot have that rivalry had the players in the team would not have been spiritually associated with the team, had the supporters of the team would not have had that spiritual bonding, the rivalry would not have been so popular had the teams themselves were not equally and spiritually connected with the people who support them.

4. Government Organization and Government Services: They are spiritual because they are their to serve their people. They are non profit making bodies, they are equivalent to ideal system (theoritically) where their duty is to protect its people, help its people, serve its people, organize its people, prevent exploitation and other activities that we expect from a government.

Spirituality vs Science

2011-04-29T16:01:00.000-07:00

One of my very good friend and colleague Aleccia had her tryst with spirituality in a temple in Mauritius. She is italian, rational and hence was surprised to have that experience and took an important decision of her life.

I am not a critique of spirituality or of science and neither am I wise enough to understand any of them to their atomistic self. But, listening to her and I don't have words or logic to make a picture and surprised myself at the very dichotomy of science and spirituality.

What is spirituality? It is undefined understanding of our special role in this System of life and death and about being human. It is about being contend with ourselves in life and our life. It is about comprehending the limit of this competitive world, it is about family - life- work balance, it is about being understanding the true self, it is about being happier to oneself. It is living the life of within one's individuality and being satisfied with it. Spirituality is like a sustainable life, sustainable self, sustainable society and sustainable humanity. Its not religion or god or being nearer to god, its being questioning the role of humanity in this competitive world, from this wealth differentiation, from this whole world profit maximization.

God or nature never created the world to be competitive among its self, to be economic, to have fight for survival to be kill or to impose rules, its how we interpreted the world and its how our rules of engagement were defined by ourselves that we started to view the world in a competitive, killer way and hence designed all the systems and process around our vision of the world as rational, economic, utility maximising players. On the other hand spirituality teaches us to question the very assumption of this adam smithsoiam world or darwinian world and gives us time to put all the pieces togather that we might have lost in our interpretation of this world.

What is science: Science is essentially this adam smith's world, darwins' world, newtons world. Science is a way of quickly analysing the phenomenon around us, science is way to putting anything and everything in a blackbox of knowledge that has Y and X both knowledgeable to us.

Wrapping an organization around its center of gravity

2011-04-27T17:48:00.000-07:00

Again: centre of mass of an organization is its CEO, principle investors, star product, unique business mode, unique supply chain network, unique HRM, Unique service or a combination of any.

I argue that firms are like sheet of paper wrapped around center of mass. The firms like microsoft still exist around its product Software or its ceo Bill gates. By wrapping an organization around its center of mass, i mean - expanding an organization, scaling an organzaition, hiring within an orgazation, capturing bigger markets, getting sustainable finance, creating trust and fear in the markets and ....

One of the best examples of wrapping an organization around center of mass in recent times is facebook. Its awesome to see how a maverick teenager created a social user group that went on to become a facebook -a new social networking phenomenon with a market cap of 20 billion dollars and still growing. Its interesting to see how a college startup grows into a complete and formal organization. How it offers products and services in the organization and how organization attains its characteristics.

How do entrepreneurs, bignners, business conceptualists wrap an organization arounds its center of mass? For any organization to scale up,it needs to understand its "center of gravity" and than attempt to wrap the whole organization around it. Methods include: marketing the core product of the firm (MS Dos for Microsoft), Virgin group- Richard branson, GE: Turbines, GM: Chevrolet, cadillac..

- Creating legitimacy about its centre of gravity and then attracting newer relationships by marketing the legitimacy
- Selling centre of gravity (Unique selling product, service or price)
- Great Idea to great company
- Excellant personality associated
...

How to be profitable in saturated market situations?

2011-04-27T14:24:00.000-07:00

In the end..organization just want to know : how the heck can I increase my profits, how can increase further in difficult market situations.

Few obvious ways:

- Reduction in expenditure : It means eliminating expenditures that would not add value to organization, eliminate expenditures that are luxury, eliminate expenditures which are not the core business of the organization. It looks easy but I bet you , its hard to realize so as many factors are strongly dependent on the stakeholders of the organization and its positioning in the market. Its takes effort to realize and act.

- Reduction in transactions costs- Simple example is opening a metro in delhi changes the market dynamics of delhi completely. Cities like Noida and Gurgaon came closer and the size and reach of delhi market changed completely. Introduction of ERP in firms decreases their transactions greatly. example: GE and IT implementation in GE.

- New product introduction: Apple made more money than any company in the times of great american financial crisis, there product - IPhone, Ipad, IPod, Mac.

- Product service system : Integrating services to products. Many times consumers are not satisfied with their products, so they want something more apart from their product. Integrating service can change the market position of the firms and cunsumer trust in the firm. example: Rolls Royce selling engine service to Airbus.

- Redefining the market: get into the new market, redefine the organization for a different market niches, example: toyota launchhing a new luxery brand of car decoupled from the toyota brand.

- Marketing the brand and products of the firm:

- Alliances: Forming right strategic alliances, right networks that expands the pie for the organizations in the network.

- Mergers and Acquisition's : Another way of expanding the market. Buying a company that fills the resource gap, market gap or capability gap of the incumbent firm.

- Ecosystem: brand promotion, designers and NPD, suppliers, software, service - product system.

Open Innovation

2011-04-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

Open innovation is a concept put forth by Henry Chesbourg where he argues that democratization/openness of the process of innovation will increase the innovativeness of the firm which in turn would increase its competitiveness. Traditionally, the innovation or new product development or new service development or new capability development in the firms was limited to the R and D facilities of the firms. These innovation would never leave the boundaries of the firms' research and development departments. Logic for defining the boundary of R and D department within a firm was that that the security and secrecy of firms capabilities will maintain firms' competitive position. Hence, opening those capabilities to outsiders like customers, universities, suppliers would essentially dilute the firms' competitive position.

However, Internet, globalization, BRICS countries has changed the center of global innovation block to different nations, so firms have to innovate in their innovation process in order to be globally competitive. One way for firms to rapidly innovate is to collaborate with different partners such that firms retain their competitiveness, market entry is quick and over value is delivered in the innovation process to all the stakeholders.

Few Example of open innovation are: -
Collaborative innovation : Open source: In open source, the development capabilities are open and distributed globally. Geeks essentially work to develop challenging(challenging the proprietary software firms) softwares and show off their skills to established softy firms.
-Linux -challenging MS and other open source softwares

University - Industry innovation model : Industries and universities now collaborate in developing new products and services or capabilities. This collaboration spans the boundaries of the organziations' R and D department to new resources that universities posses. In Bio tech industry, firms need special capabilities in terms of HRM, in terms of equipment, and testing which are complemented firm Univeristies, its like a marriage. but but, the wall of competitiveness of industry depends on how he shares the intellectual property developed with collaboration with the univiersity. Who posses the capabilties as univeristies are public and firms are private. Its sill a intellectual debate around the world.
- Patents, products, people production

Customer collaborative innovation
- Ipad, iphone, house hold appliances
Supplier manufacturer collaborative innovation
- toyota business model, MicroChip/software/tablet PC innovation
Student Teacher curriculum development
- development of new pedagogy with student collaboration

Center of Gravity of an organization

2011-04-26T13:06:00.000-07:00

Surely centre of gravity is a concept in physics where we assume that the mass/weight of the whole body is said to be concentrated. Here, the centre of gravity of an organization implies the dominant logic of the organization, the head quarters of the organization, the principle investor of the organization, the super star CEO of the organization, the core values of the organiation, the culture of the organiation, the social capital of the organiation, the principle transacting component in the market ...are all the centre of gravity of the organization.

Centre of gravity is the first concept that essentially helps create an image in the mind of the people thinking about that organization. Ex: Mc donalds: it is the cheap food that comes to the mind, it is the quick food that comes to the mind, is the food availables at the best places of the world at lowest rates, is it corporate culture or asset value that comes to our mind first when we think of mc-donalds. I guess all of those things can be centre of gravity around which we can wrap an organziation. Another example: Microsoft: is it bill gates, it is MS Office, Is it its entreprize solutions, it is its window OS..or may be all these gives us an image of Microsoft. And if we take any of those images of microsoft, can we can wrap an whole organization around it, you bet, even around bill gates.

complexity of faith, rules, efficiency,and postmodern logic

2011-04-26T03:02:00.000-07:00

I essentially see Rules, faith, efficiency and postmodernist logic in the discourse of organization a walk on the space time continuum of organization history.
We in India , when start new agriculture season, new manufacturing plant or job always prey to god for his wish and good luck. And thats a position of faith that we have.
However, there are rules of right and wrong, yes or no, procedures and routines that firms and individuals follow that at times become faith of the organization. For example: Univesity festivals..
Than there is debate of efficienty in the work place, efficiency in the organization and rules and repramants accociated with efficiency. Efficiency here is a proxy for rationality of decision making, rationality in communication, and rationality in hiring and rationality in following scientific principles of management.
Last but not least, an organization that lives in a postmodernist society tends to look at systems and actors of the system from the point of view of rational entities, profit maximizing entities, atomistic entities, CSR perspectives. Remember organizations not long ago, before WW2, were profit maximising, non social, brutal in case of colonial organizations -- that veiw of organization has changed greatly and there are laws and restrictions on the behavior of the organization.
The crisis in the continuum of rules, faith, efficiency and postmodern logic is when we collapse time and space, we see firms essentially represent this continuum of logics and practices on an atomistic point concentrated to themselves.
For example: Microsoft when hires a university graduate in US, the young graduate would be thankful to everybody including god and party hard with his friends. The same fellow when he joins the organization would fall into a different world of rules and regulations than he practised in university and the same fellow would encounter the crisis his efficiency and the efficiency of work place..The same person would argue for his rights, liberties and freedom when he seens that they are not protected and the same person would strive to create something new, wachy and rockkiller software that will radically change the world. That individual is an entity where we see many facets of space time continuum collapsing.

Business Ethics

2011-04-22T15:39:00.000-07:00

Business in many parts of the world is considered pariah, business word carries negative connotation and many societies look at it from with an extreme critical perspective. My father considered business as a synnonym for profit maximization, a method of looting innocent consumers. He had a point a valid point, as I study business and try to understand business, ethics play an important part. Its hard to measure ethics, its hard to impose ethics on individuals practicing skills in the market. Ethics cannot be ignored but must be embraced practiced and consequence of any actions must be weighed by organizations.

I discuss few ethical crisis that business and society fall into:

Bhopal Gas Tragedy : Union carbide owned a fertilizer manufacturing facility in Bhopal that needed many toxic additives for final product. One of them was Cyanide gas. Due to the negligence of safety procedures, operating produces, quality procedures of the firm, one of tanks containing the cyanide gas leaked killing thousands instantly. The ethics here is that the firm cared for doing its business without realizing the its carelessness can kill thousands instantly. The firm probably knew the dangers of the ingredients of its business in Bhopal, yet it never informed the government or the people living around.

Google Search Engine and Facebook: Whats the different between Big brother of 1984 and Google or Facebook? We do all our search , well almost all our search through google. Its very easy for google to device a exe file and monitor our movements, our search variations over the period of time. Similarly for facebook. They have all the information that they need to understand me, judge me and make products specially suited for me. They can even implicate me for any unethical activity I end up doing on internet. So they hold enormous power against me and its by time they might single me out. In a way, I shall always be its slave, wheather I accept it or not. So the ethical question is when their exist such huge gap between my authority and power over google and facebook to theirs, Its hard not to fall into the delliemma of business ethics where I would always question how far my identity, my secrets are not shared by facebook and google.

Advertisement: firms influence individuals behavior through product marketing or service marketing. They treat consumer like a prey, try to bring him into a trap. The marketing is so strong that the consumer cannot judge the product, he only judged the product in the strenght of the signals send by the advertiser. The consumer is helpless and a mute lame duck at the hands of the firm. The firm have moral responsibility to be ethical and give the consumer the right value for money.

The objective of the firm is generating high shareholder value and since shareholder value is the sole responsibility of a corporation, the firms tends to forget the impact of its actions on a larger scale. Firms have jobs and roles and functions to do, they have impacts. How we draw boundaries around the firm to restrict its authority over individual is a difficult task.

Knowledge is a function of your grades

2011-04-22T05:25:00.000-07:00

Now this exactly is what I am most critical off "why grades and knowledge must have high correlation". Talking to one of the PhD colleagues, who is a professor as well, I got lost between I and my image. The young doctoral colleague of mine was exploring the ways of grading students- essestially putting them in basket of poor, average, good and excellent.

Long back I read the famous book "the zen and the art of motorcycle maintaince" a critique on knowledge acquisition. The author on this book goes on a ride with his son and during the conversation that takes place while travelling, he tries to teach him knowledge, grades, quality, hard work through anecdotes and experiences in his career. Admitting the author distinguishes grades and knowledge very clearly and distinctively however, he agrees that his own colleagues were very critical of his way of delivering knowledge and defining quality of learning and delivering quality in the sense of the form.

Getting back to the problem matter, Is grades really a utility function that students must maximize in order to become competitive in life later on, knowledge generator in life and knowledge distributor in life? I don't know!

thinks for instance : the picture above: if my grades in social knowledge is good, it implies that i have good social skills, if my grades in language skills are good, it implies that i have great language skills. Well, if that was really the case, people with high grades - must have all become authors, leaders, social activities-- but we don't see that happening.

Think of one of India's great entrepreneurs-

Dhiru Bhai Ambani, he hardly ever went to school, work as daily wage laborer in Turkey, Bahrain and later started his own company became rich, intelligent. Had he seen Grades as his only measurement of self, I am not sure about his abilities to achieve what he achieved in the end.
Or, Richard Branson, CEO and Creator of the virgin group, was never a achiever so to say in his academic life how ever his business self is an example for the world.
Examples like M F Hussain, a roadside painter without any formal grade based education became one of India's celebrity painter over the course of his life.

Similarly, digging further and venting out my frustration even further, I don't understand why institutions institutionalise the routine of putting students in the baskets of good, bad and ugly. I don't know what is the reason, logic of judging students and their ability to learn - all the time of the year, all the years of their life poor students are put into the baskets and judged accordingly. What is that grades give to students and than just learning could'nt? Why we consider students are irrational beings who can only maximize their output through carrot and stick policy?

On the second thought favoring the institutionalists of grades :Think of the cricket world cup or football world cup or any prize for example, the team that reach the world cup final, i mean, the selection -rejection procedure for any team to make it to the worldcup final is so stringent that only the best teams reach the world cup final. Here, the best from the rest is defined by winning or not winning the world cup and certainly thats what the institution is and I accept it, but than i ask to myself, how and why this institution of selection and rejection different from academic grades in schools?.. I don't know. I am confused now.

Institutional logic and logic of insitutions

2011-04-21T04:30:00.000-07:00

Institutional logic can be defined as the way we do business without the pressure of explicit rules and regulations. Institutional logic can be understood as a well recieved, imbibed rules and regulations under which transactions are done. It is the rules of the games that implicitly binds the decision makes method of doing business with its social partners.

By logic of institutions I mean the method of doing business directed by explicit rules and conditions. Is it the rules of the game directed by the institution upon individuals. It is like pillars, roads, traffic signals that help regulate the traffic of business and business decision making. They are visible and explicit and at times can be cumbersome, intractable, rigid, archaic and infliction on business thinking and process.

Digging deeper, I am exploring and comparing the entrepreneurial characteristics of gujraatis and lebanese people to the learning of entrepreneurial skills we do in a business school. The former is the institutional logic and later is the logic of the institution.

So whats the big deal between the two. Institutional logic can be rules defined in the day to day interactions, rituals, practices, culture, order of the things when two entities interact with however logic of the institution is the making sense of the circumstances while taking the appropriate steps. The two are necessarily different approaches to business and making sense in the business world. When one logic is successful to other is something that I cannot comment now, but essentially logic is the best way on betting against odds.

Again, I take the logic of above logics to understand the mind set of institutional investors who operate in the market, to the mind set of democratic government (driven by the logic of vote power). When I talk about the mind set, I am exactly talking about the logic that governs their investment decisions. Such as why investors would invest in for profit sector, is profit the only logic over which they make their decision or their sense of making decision is constraint in the environment they have developed themselves? Similarly, why would we be angry at the governments when they end up taking decisions that have no implications on the greater good of society, are they exactly corrupt or their decision making in kept inapt by the embedded logic of their institutions.
I am not sure, where I am going from this discussion, but I am trying to question that at times long term profitability, sustainance needs planning, information analysis, ability to take higher risks in order to maker better investment decisions.

Innovations of 2050 and beyond

2011-04-20T20:09:00.000-07:00

“For tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today” .....African Proverb

Technology

Water might be 100 percent recycled : new nanotechnologies may come into play
Nano technologies, nano - technology innovations will rule the world
If the last century was dedicated to plastics and innovation in plastics, then the next century will wholly be dedicated to nano technologies, nano technological innovations materials, machines, systems, processes, products
Robots robots everywhere
Artificial bodies, artificial organs
Some even argue that we might create artificial life and artificial slaves just like machines doing our routine jobs thus eliminating the need for outsourcing

Information and Computing Power

The amount of information that the whole world had in first decade of 20 the century is the amount of information that one gets on one I-phone of today, so if we try to foretell the same trend, we might see more information with the people, with more information, the heterogeneousness of skills, abilities and competitiveness might be challenged or take whole new form
We might see computers as efficient, as fast and with as much power as our brain
Our next challenge would be on how to channelise the flow of information, how to monitor the flow of information and how to rule over the humanity despite the information symmetry
We will have new devices based on information, computing power: some say that we might have microchips implanted in our brain that will eliminate the need of schools and universities
Schools and Universities as the sources of learning might take whole new form

Energy

Source of Energy might change, can be fusion based reactor or Thorium based nuclear reactors
Renewable energy might take fore- we can see more efficient solar PVs
Artificial stomata to convert CO2 to Oxygen and carbohydrates

Cities

Cities and the concept of cities might change
Transaction costs to market might further reduce leading to wide spread distributed agents rather than concentrated in one city
Cities would become more mechanised, organized, monitored, wired yet they will still look much more chaotic than ever before
Transportation within cities and transportation outside cities might change
Public transport powered by renewable energy might take precedence

Organization

concept of office might change, the concept of workplace might change
Information distribution
Access of Information- where, what kind of
Concept of Master and Slave
Virtual reality and reality , the distance and difference between these two might reduce and may take whole new form
Advertisement, the concept,the shape and the signals might change
Definition of corporation might change, its dimensions, functions and its role in the society might take whole new form
Organization might become distributed rather than concentrated
Concept of team, group based work might change
Primary(mining and Agriculture) ---> Secondary(industry- manufacturing, processing) ---> Tertiary (advertising, services, education, health) ---->???

Vision of Leadership in Business suits : Garage Entrepreneurs to Gandhi

2011-04-20T11:58:00.000-07:00

Many of my colleagues from the MBA program are critical of a VOL series here at HEC. There criticism is interesting because they are almost universally critical of theVOl, now, I don't know much about what this VOL series is about, I am critical about this series from an outsider who fails to understand that why Business schools ask their student to wear business suits. I mean, what message does a learning institute create or symbolise by relating suit and business attire to leadership and to me it seems illogical. I do not intend to ponder to leadership here, however, encaptulating the essense of leadership by institutionalising a dress code leaves me riduculing the epistemelogical foundation of business leadership. Take for instance, if a entrepreneur has to convice banks to rally their investment behind his project, what must he communicate the most and what must he follow as the basic requirement. Means- business suit might be a basic requirement, but content, vision and leadership is an explicit requirement. Making Business suit an strict requirement in a university or school, leaves me highly critical!!

Above is the picture of Steve Jobs, he is a leader in high tech industry, but does he leads wearing a business tuxedo or does he lead his firm and industry through his knowledge, simplicity and vision and ofcourse trademark black t-shirt and blue jeans. For, that matter, I am engaging myself in a discussion of the effect of business suit in business meetings, creativity, leadership and entrepreneurship. Where does a business suits lends legitimacy in the world that looks for leadership, creativity and entrepreneurial charisma.

Above is the picture of Gandhi Ji, always wearing Khadi cloths woven by the self, austerity, simplicity put him in class apart from other leaders, through his austerity, he led one of the most complex nations in the world. He never wore Business suit to be seen as a leader, or be symbolized as a leader. Than, again, i am being critical of the fact that since gandhi symbolised the language and semantics of the people he was leading, and in a way since he symbolised what freedom meant, what economic symbolism among leaders meant, what symbolism of the self and the image of the lead over the-self meant, he distinguished himself. Should others must follow the same is highly arguable and i am not sure.

Firms and business in 2050

2011-04-20T11:52:00.000-07:00

How will the firms and businesses be in 2050? What will be there character? What will be the hierarchy? What will be role of the human entity in that system? What will be the behavior of firms in that environment? How and in what way information sharing will be functioned? How and in what way a process of project management will be functioned and governed? What will be the mechanism of managerial control in firms of the future? What will be the newer markets? What will be heterogeneity, homogeneity, racial, social composition of the firm and businesses? What will be the business philosophy of the firm in that time? What will be the reporting protocol, the contract design within the firm of 2050?

When I ask these questions, I suddenly realize that it will be really nice to divide the business pillars into two categories
1. that changes with time, that is adaptable, that listens to the market
2. second that is unchangeable, that has always been the same when we look at any business- the fundamental of the business
I really don't know how to start pondering over on this topic, I still remember books like the famous trilogy of Alvin Tofler (third wave and others), H G Wells, Thomas Friedman

Also, I kind a like the way of looking at businesses from theoritical view points, currently I know four theories - Transaction costs economics, Institutional theory, Resource based view, Resource dependency and dynamic capabilities. All, these theories are a way of looking at the dynamism of the industry and business and can help up understand the changes that the firm in undergoing and can also help us predict the changes that the firm might undertake in the future.
Hence, 2050 might have different institutional mechanism and regulatory mechanism of governing firms and business. In 2050, we might see firms fighting for monopoly in global settings, such microsoft facing anti-trust in France, might face the same in other countries. Africa, with in dynamic GDP rate, might actually emerge as a global market with strong regulative insitutions, growing consumerism and healthy population ready to make contribution. We might see new strategies from Western Europe and North America in keeping its productivity high by guarding sources of information, like datasets, books and research. We might have new soruce of energy to drive the innovation in the world, we might find new technologies, new methodologies for example - artificial stomata, fusion research.

After discussing with some of my PhD colleagues, things that comes to my mind are
1. Information asymmetry might reduce over time. Hence, firms that thrive on information asymmetry might design new ways to survive or may just evaporate.
2. How firms will handle information?
3. Concept of Boss in 2050 might change its institutional status.
4. What skills would firms of 2050 would require to gain success in the market.

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Truth and Non-violence : Symbols of legitimacy

2011-04-01T16:45:00.000-07:00

I Am intrigued by what symbols and messages must a leader transmit in order for him to generate authority of his identity among the people he wants to lead. Here, I remember a brief spark that Prof. Romain Laufer transmitted me while he was discussing concept of legitimacy, institution and the uniqueness of Gandhi in Indian Independence movement. I wish to compare the leadership styles Che Guara (cuban revolutionary) and Bhagat singh (indian revolutionary) to that of Gandhi. Che and Bhagat Singh gained enormous respect for what they did and they believed in, they probably showed lot off character and charisma as a leader, however none of that charisma is can be seen in Gandhi, he never showed any spontaniety of creativity in his show of leadership and examplification, yet with his mantra of truth and non-violence, Gandhi in his way changed the world.

A sketch of gandhi's personality, how enormous closeness he showed to his friends and followers can be measured through the letters he wrote. He through his letters portrey an enormous benovelonce, love affection and empathy, which I and you might confuse with sentimental personality. But, I am thinking that that empathy in his letters is also his mark of being truth and non violent in the essence that he shows even in his letter that path of truth and non-violence reduces distance between all classes and segments.

Another thing that I wish to understand about Gandhiji and truth and non-violence is the adoption by the masses. I mean, here is a society vastly divided on ethnicities, communities, families, castes, religions, regions, how and in what way, did this society could accept one person as her leader. What qualities must that leader possses for him to have legitimate acceptance in such heterogeneous society. Again, a society such as Indian loves asceticism. The virtues of asceticism are ingrain in Indian pschyc deeply , examples such as suffism in Islam, Sikhism in India, Buddhism, Jainism, Asceticism as institutionalised in Hinduism. The fundamental pillar to attaining asceticism is truth, no material love, non-violence, simple life. All those were adored by Gandhi Ji, to say at least, in my understanding, was one of the most important ways of gaining legitimacy in Indian socierty.

However, does these symbols of legitimacy- truth and non-violence, are they really that strong to influence the might of British Empire. Lets ignore the effects of world war on british empire, lets just focus on the strenght of "truth and non violence". How might of any empire would shrink, in what way will its symbols of power, its communication of power, its influence on people and its control shrink, what factors can lead that to happen? I believe that thinks like state is profit maximising body, sucking money from the people of india, (highlithed in the non-coorperation movement of Gandhi) , kills its own people (Jalliam wala bagh, peaceful rally turned graveyard ), Not caring for its people (Great bengal famine) , doesnt listen to its people - (people protesting with truth and non-violence killed by the rulers)..I guess, in such situation, truth and non-violence can indeed win.

The idea of masses protesting silently, without any destruction or making noise has now become a powerful tool of demonstration globally. Green Peace is a fine example where through social movements it is creating a effective policy change among governments.

It takes lots of courage to face a tank without a tank, face a gun without a gun.

Bureaucratization of innovation

2011-03-31T07:24:00.000-07:00

Generally we image innovation with flexible management. Lets question ourselves, if we bureaucratize innovation within an organization, that what wil be its structure, how will we interpret innovation, how will we manage and incentivese innovation.

What structure would foster diffusion of innovation related priciples. I guess, university is the best example of bureacratization of innovation. Highing of proffessor, rewarding mechanism of professors, journal review process, patents and commercialisation of patents, all of these things have been bureacratised. The role of PhD student in this bureacratic set-up is very much defined, what he can achive is also limited by the set-up.
The practicalities of having a bureaucratic setup is that it is easy to manage, easy to reward, easy to check however, however on the downside, it is what it is, a highly inflexible system, where out of the box thinking is taboo, an idea is as good as one can get a patent or a A grade publication.

Another example of bureacratization of innovation is large economic entreprizes. Large entreprizes allocates funds and resource for R and D that strategically keeps the incumbant firm's dominant logic in a competitive position for times to come. In such a set-up, where the dominant logic of the firm is both a direction and constraint for the R and D set up, the innovation is fostered largely through performance checks, funds are allocated on the basis of patents and prototypes produced, successful launches to the market within the confines of the dominant logic of the firm. However, is this innovation? Is this sustainable innovation? Can firms keep themselves to sustainable position by bureaucratic innovation? I don't know?

Rewards: The idea of having reward or awards for excellent work or idea is in a way bureacratising innovation. I mean thinks like X-price, Y - prices, innovation awards, XYZ business challenge, are all in a way a process of elimination and management, which have become so systematic that I would call them bureacratic. And yeah, they in my definition of bureaucratization of innovation.

Bringing in ideas within R and D set up: I heard a presentation from Motorala research labs where the manager made a idea board and people were encouraged to write ideas on the board and the best one were rewarded. Similaly, google have a day off for its employees where they are encouraged to think off out of the box and about the new ideas so that any of the attractive once can be awarded.

So, I am conflagurated myself with a view that organizations have to innovate in order to sustain themselves in a vastly competitive way, I don;t know how? How to diffuse innovation culture within the boundaries of firm? How to create innovation structure in a firm?

Philosophy of business

2011-03-28T15:46:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_business

I am intrigued to understand the philosophy of a business, firm and entreprise. Is it there for making money, is it there because needs it be there, it there, because its presence makes the market more efficient. When we talk of business philosophy, we argue to the extention of the term business, its configuration inside the mind of the business men.
What questions migth a philosopher ask, while questioning to himself the philosphy of business!
1. What is business?
2. Why do we do business?
3. What are the boundaries of business?
4. What is the role of human entity in the business?
5. What seperates the daily life of a living entity from that of business entitiy?
6. How much does the boundaries of human entitity to that of business entity overlap, what are its consequenses, where does and in what space to they do not overlap, where in space is business and human entity indipendent of each others existence?

Lets consider an isolated town which has only one industry, that industry employs all the people of the town, consequently that employement proviides the only source of lively hood in that town. Necessary, that Industry is a system of production which must have some market, hence townsmen are effected by the whims of the industry and the industry is affected by the whims of the market.
In this model, lets look at the precarious situation of the townsmen who are completely dependent on the industry. The people in the industry are subject to promotions, firings, high jobs, low jobs and which create a sort of division in the town. Hence, industry can act as a source of social differentiation within the same environmental setting.
In the similar setting, the source of entertainment in the town likes clubs, theatres, restaurants, bars are all dependent either on the fund of the industry or on the revenue of the townsmen who visit such places. Here, we see the role of industry on the day to day life of the townsmen.

In the similar setting, lets consider that the industry is there in order to make profit, that town is the least expensive town, and the investments that the industry make in the town are only for the industry to make money, and money. In this scenario, whats the difference between a nicely maintained expensive machine and a human entity. How does human entity differentiates its position in the structure of the industry as non-profit entity?

What i am trying to ask myself is that the understanding of the individual entity and its decoupling from the industry or business is so very impossible, that i am asking myself, what exactly in a virgin human entity.
In the similar setting, lets consider a child,recently borned out of parents whose parents work in the same industry. This child is send to another town where people are not dependent on any industry, they live in an ideal free world, without any competition of resources. So, when the child comes back to this town, what will he notice, what difference would he find among the dwellers of the town and himself, how his discussions with his family would circumnavigate to the institutionalized discussions of his parents. In what way, will he be able to measure the difference of his individual entity to that of his parents and town dwellers.

Lets ponder further the philosophy of business, lets assume that it is indeed profit maximization. Its existence is to make money or else it shall not exist. However, profit maximization can be achieved through activities that are cyclically efficient, mass market capitilization, satisfaction of the needs business and actors associated with the business. In this whole system of profit maximization ,where all interacting entity is there in the first place to maximise the profit, I ask to myself, social structure of a business entity would be nothing but bounded by the goal of profit maximization and the actors associated within that envelope would think of pleasure in terms profit maximization or "utility maximization"

Democratization of Brand

2011-03-27T18:16:00.000-07:00

What will happen to Prada if it starts selling its products online through amazon? What will happen to ferrari if democratizes its brand to the extend that we see Ferrari Jeans, Ferrari Coffee, Ferrari Deo,Ferrari restaurant.

What defines competittives of a firm: Why democratization is dangerous, why largescale accessibility is dangerous for firms?
Lets take for example the MBA program at HBS, why it is the best in the world? What makes its unique, worth 200,000 dollars? Why cant a HBS experience be raplicated around the world, what keeps it going at numero uno, and what will it take to replicate it globally.

Traditional knowledge would argue that yes, democratisation of a luxury brand reduces its brand value, however, democratisation of commoditised brand leads to its market capture. But yeah, for any brand to become either Commodity or luxury, needs to define its market conception and its product conception and its communication conception, than it takes time, for any brand to realise its conception of its self.

We know that consumers want to differentiate themselves by vying for products that gives them the pleasure of a class they live in and the class they vie for, hence, the products that give consumers that kind of satisfaction can maintain thier market position and competitiveness. However, if the position of products that give consumers the pleasure of social status shift, becomes product that have the reach wider than exclusivity demands, the consumer might loose its interest.

My friend once quipped about Tata buying Jaguar and land rover brand, a company that manufactures Tata nano- worlds cheapest car, buying worlds most luxious brand of car...won't that reduce the brand value of Jaguar? Wont people will fail to identify that brand with luxery, exclusive british heritage..and i guess he was right. But than the strategy Tata employed was that it completely decoupled itself from its jaguar brand. Jaguar preserved into unique identity by being jaguar and decoupled from the whole of Tata empire.
But again, this field of luxury strategy is not transportable, consumer behavior can be product and brand specific, we don't know the consequences of transporting successful strategy in industry to another.

Sabzi Mandi - Fish Market

2011-03-24T16:47:00.000-07:00

Its a unorganized market where entrepreneurs get together and sell vegetables. These entrepreneurs can be people who produced the vegetables in their backyard or they can be entrepreneurs who buy either from the farmer or from the whole-seller and sell their goods in the market. I love this market, though I don't know anything about this market.

I have few questions that I ask to myself when studying these markets:-

1. Price
2. Relationship between entrepreneurs, retailers
3. How prices are influence on a daily basis in the such market
4. How niche is defined in the such markets
5. How entrepreneurs influence potential costumers, how retailers intuitively understand the behavior of consumers
6. How credit in such market works, how money flow works in these markets, how entrepreneurs and retailers finance their business
7. How rules of the game are implemented both implicitly and explicitly.
8. Are these markets efficient, how do they interact with the external world.
9. What is the system of contracts in these markets, how does contracts are implemented in these markets?
10. Are these markets sustainable?
11. Do we need to regulate these markets?
12. The money that circulates in these markets, is it legitimate money?
13. Are these markets efficient or in-efficient?
14. What is their response time?
15. On what parameters does the response sensitivity of these markets depend?
16. How many job such markets create?
17. How do we or how can we regulate these markets?

I don;t have answers to those questionse, but i am open to the answers and discussion on them. I believe that many parallels can be drawn from these markets to world markets, many realities can be understood from these markets. Fundamentals of business can be understood, analyse and exported for the greater good of our MNCs that function in more organized markets.

What is theory?

2011-03-24T04:49:00.000-07:00

Theory is a way of looking at the world around us. Theory is a legitimate way to differentiate the different observations around us and make sense out of it. Theory is one of the fundamental dimensions of making judgement, our sense of right or wrong depends on our theoretical understanding of the phenomenon. Theory is the ground over which our interpretation of the world functions, its like knowing the knowledge of "yes" and "no".

And yes, if our theoretical underpinnings are not sound or grounded, we might conjecture wrong conclusion, get into wrong conversation, end up taking wrong decisions. In fact, we can even create a whole new world within our interpretation of the world from our theoretical groundings which can be right based on the perspective of interpretation.

Is religion theory? I guess, because it gives us some directions about right and wrong, morality, unstated methods of doing business can finds its theoretical ground in religious discourses of interaction. Infact, many of the day to day activities have quiete explicit mention in religious text which on one hand forms the way of making judgement.

Are rules or laws theory? Rule are a way , its a logical way of making a decision. Rules can have thier grounding in theory, but i doubt if rules are really theory.

The reason why rules and religion is not really theory is because they are still specific to particular community, region and sect, they are hard to generalize and implement elsewhere, they are quite specific. However, if the setting in religion or rules become emcompassing, generalization and are able to explain different pheonomenon that are independent of specificities which implicify rules, I guess we can conjure them as theory.

However, theory is phenomenon driven, cluster driven, experience driven. Its hard to have a unified theory explaining anything and everything. We study physics using theories derived in the domain of physics, chemistry using theories from chemistry and similarly business and economics.

Example: Newtons theory of gravity, einsteins' theory of relativity, institutional theory, transaction costs economics etc

However, I ask myself, without the apriori knowledge of theory, where does an individual entity takes its form or what its form will be. Like, I don't know why x leads to y but i know that x leads to y. Why knowledge of the phenomenon and my knowledege of the reasons of the phenomenon, both are different sets of knowledge, I argue here to myself, where these sets of knowledge can lead to creation of new theory, better performance of a process, innovation etc..i don;t know at the moment.

Now the question is :- how can we acquire theoretical understanding of the phenomenons around us? How do we built theory, how do we discover theory? What makes theory atain immortality and what lets theory fade away?...we ll discuss that later.

organizational identity- reflections

2011-03-22T14:41:00.000-07:00

An organizational identity can be its brand, its relation with its people, its heirarichical structure, its relation with the market, its relation with the government, its communications to the people it serves, its annual report to the market. Organization identity can be its products, its human capital, can be the investments an organization makes on its people, on its environment, its CSR. Organization identity can be the leadership an organization shows in times of crises, organization identity can be the legitimate picture in general people interacting with her carries about her.

I love thinking about organizational identity because it tells us a lot about her history, her strategy and her current state of affairs. But ofcourse, he can have a wrong impression of identity, yet, lets suppose that organization identity information that we embedd about an organization is right. So, yes, it is important, that firms and organizations carry or communicate the right organization image and identity. But in order for firms to communicate right image and identity, they need to take right steps. By right steps I mean, all the antecedents that built a right organizational identity.

Why is it important to have organization identity: mainly because, it gives organization a chance to communicate what it really is and that its shareholders dont mix two different organizations objective into one. Organization identity might have or might not have any relation with the performance of the firm, i don't much about it. However, building a distinct organizational identity forever remains a challenge, its like having a competitive advantage, a monopoly in a niche.

How can be build an organizational identity: Offcourse, having an identity needs a resume of the company. Its entire philosophy, its reason for existence in the market, its primary market. Once these are identified, the firm needs to understand its value proposition to the market, what is its value and how it intends to preserve its value from getting mimicked. What discourse a firm must follow in order for her to create for itself an organizational identity.

Some examples: Luis Voutton :- retail outlets on major points of the city that have historical significance, high cost, long lines, high price, sofisticated service once inside the store. What identity do we reflect about Luis Voutton?

Royal Dutch Shell : Logo of shell, operations under high volatile and politically sensitive places, in oil business: message from its employees- great company, takes care of its employees, message from its share holders: dig baby dig, message from the people outside its immediate environment: major pollutor..

Hummmer: needlessly big, fuel guzzeler on one hand, luxery -power on the other, great engineering

Symbols of authority: Indian case

2011-03-22T14:33:00.000-07:00

I got this idea of Symbols of authority from the BBC coverage on Libya, how opposition were destroying the "symbols of authority".

As I understand, the state imposes its authority throught implicity and explicit semantics. It we understand those semantics, we can create a better picture of government and its role. I try to list some of the symbols of authority for us to understand the picture of indian state and its excersice of authority through those symbols.

1. Redlight ambasdors cars in India

2. Police stations in India

3. Dress code of government officials

4. Collor of party flag, dress code of party men

5. Red light on government vehicles

6. Reminants of british raj

7. Symbols of aristocracy

8. High ground of Panchayat system

9. Collor of turban, size of turbon

10. .22 caliber guns

11. white cap of politicians

12. gold in fingers and arms

13. Servants in the house, lots of servants in the house

14. healthy, big dog

15. Using branded cloths, Luxery items, fast and expansive cars

16. Food, brand of food, type of food

17. Social life, kind of people, type of people, social structure, frequency of parties and get -togathers etc

All the above and much more define the social hierarchy and symbolises both explicitly and implicitly the authority in the society.

However, I am intrigued by the sementics of authority showered by Gandhi. How is his most austere self, ignited brilliant minds towards a sole cause and lead them with his authoritative simplicity, motivated them to lay there life and helped liberate India. I want to explore those symbols of authority in him which I argue were not the same as mentioned above. I guess, his practice of truth and non-violence was his greatest mark as a leader. Truth and Non-violence are the greatest symbols of legitimacy. Gandhi epitomised these values in himself and spread them to others. In India we often talk about Raj Dharma, and Ram is a great example of Raj Dharma, he practiced what he wanted his society to like, in order to gain legitimacy over its praja, similarly Gandhi practiced his mantra. He practiced it, he showed the result of it, he lead the people into it, without ever and any crises situation to any and every crisis situation.

Designing the right team

2011-03-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

I believe in the team as the best way to ocercome any competitive paradigm. Be it firm competitiveness, sports competitiveness and even academic competitiveness, a great team work can overcome any hurdle this world can pose.

So the big question is how do we design the best teams in the world. What characteristics must be look for while designing the best team.

Lets brainstorm:-

What are the chracteristics of a successful team:-

1. Right training and rights skills sets

2. Right attitute towards project management

3. Understanding the difference between an individual and team attitude

4. Cognition of team boundaries such as its abilities, its skills, its speed, its dynamics, its friction, its culture

5. Team vision

It could be right attitude (I dont know how to measure or describe an attitude) , right skills, right understanding for each other, right complementary skills (like when someone lacks some aspect of a problem than the team member can chip in with his expertise), killer instinct, pressure-no pressure attitude, learning- unlearning skill, individual-team dynamics skills, team leadership skill, project planning and team integration skill, problem solving skills, team vision.

So how can a resource crunch leader design his superstar team?

- He needs to define his vision clearly with proper and achievable project management setup

- He needs to define the team boundaries to his team members but with a degree of flexibility

- He must differentiate between individual characteristics and team chracteristics

- Must inculcate division of skills, dynamic capabilities within the team, resource sharing within the team and learning towards specialisation in the team

- define the team culture to team members

Perpetual motion machine: an ideal technology or Fukushima

2011-03-19T06:29:00.000-07:00

Perpetual motion machine is a machine, a technology that is self sustainable and can do work. Ofcourse, theoretically, it is impossible, but a dream of inventing this technology has spinned off many innovation and inventions. Some even conjectured that the invention of steam engine was a quest towards making a pmm and ended up making a high powered machine called steam engine. Again, one can compare perpetual motion machine as any technology that helps to improve human productivity without leaving any trace of its own deeds. The quest of making PMM possible has had fundamental questions like What is life, what is matter, what is life and matter, what is god and in this case why cant I make a pmm.

Coming back to the article case that I want to highlight, I put perpetual motion machine to the nuclear reactor and question the consequence of our quest for idealism and supremacy in science and technology to the fallouts of nuclear disaster as we see happening in Japan. I mean, I love science, technology but what I see in Japan, puts me in questionable position, for example what will happen to humanity is if we manage to invent a pmm, who will control it, who will question it, who will monitor, who will decide its policies. An essential interpretation of perpetual motion machine is self-sustainable and ability to do work, hence a machine that is self sustainable and can do its work, is like a human being who knows how to get food in order to live and also know how to work in order to bring changes in his life and those interacting with him. My critique of perpetual motion machine also comes form the fact that the events in Japan, where the nuclear fuel is inside the reactor and the monitor components of the reactor are disabled, has left the reactor in an independent position as we don’t know how to control the reactor. In case, we fail to control the reactor, the necessary response of the reactor is to blast its way out and spread the radiation around Japan. That can have devastating consequences of world economy and Japanese people in particular, but in hindsight, because nuclear plant went out of control, before that, its was a model technology, the cheapest form of energy and many argued that also the green energy.

So sudden change in events, leave us wondering about our legitimate stand on technology, which one to choose and which one to ignore. I am engulfed in the philosophical debate for that ideal technology that can serve us without our intervention, leave me to think that actually, that very technology may leave us with no option than a simple anhilation. Fukushima does leave us to think our dependence on technology, dependence of technology on humans and which one has an upper hand, i mean, to what extend are we the slave of technology that our existence is indepent of the tantrums of technology.

I am in love with technology, but I hate something subjugating me to an extend that I fear getting bogged down by it, enslaved by it, i fear so much.

making sense out of data

2011-03-15T15:22:00.000-07:00

What is data? Its the information that we can see, measure, learn and transfer to people. Its the information that can have some sense if it undergoes some transformation through mathematical and logical categorization. Its some abstract pieces that can be clusters into some sensible or categorical similarities for us to infer some knowledge out of it.

What information does a data store? Data can be anything from what kind of people eat what kind of food, to what kind of people search what kind of websites to what are the most searchable keywords, to what kind of age groups use what kind of passwords to what kind of companies adop what kind of strategies to stay ahead in the market, to how people organize revolutions, what kind of discourses are more effective in wat kind of conditions. Data can be so much, data can be any information for that matter. Data is a condensed representation of reality.

So what data is , how do we interprtet data? So we have reality, reality is very subjective, continous and infinite set of information. Reality is a like a infinite dimentional vector space, whose knowledge can be subjective depending on what dimension we choose to walk on, its like eating the peel of an orange and interpretating the taste of orange based on its peel.

But data is a segmented/truncated representation of reality. Data is a very limited version of reality, and we as human being understand reality from the data that we have. Again, our creation and comprehension of reality is still based on our intrepretation of data which is in itself a segmented version of reality, which means that our interpretation of reality is highly subjective and very objective within the domain of available data that we have.

So, we are bounded by ethics, ethics of interpretation, ethics of removing any predisposed bias from our data, ethics of representing reality within the domain of our research question or just our just the question and within the domain of our data minus our bias towards an implicit liking of our interpretation.

So again, making sense out of data, is challenging given the limitation that we have and constraints that we have. Yet, both as an adult and as an child, we are surrounded by limited information and through that limited information we subject ourselfs to construct a sense of this world.

The moral is everything is questionable and yet everything can be equally implicit. So take it easy.

Knowledge of God and Knowledge through falsification

2011-03-13T13:10:00.001-07:00

How do i know that god exists in this world? I don;t know it ofcourse? But than, how did i get the knowledge of the existence of god. Who told me that there is god and that i must bow to its power, where did that knowledge took its precedence over reality and over knowledge by experience or falsification. I am perplexed, was it my parents who asked to belive in god (in that case, i might believe anybody be god had i been born in a totalitarian regime) or was it the symbols of my surroundings where I grew up were so strongs that the notion of god and its image and authority implicity god embedded in me. I don't know? But frantly, I beleive in god and I dont question my myself about the existence of god, though i do question the experience of acquiring the idea of god. Is that knowledge a verified and falsifiable knowledge, does any knowledge need to be verifiable and falsifiable? I don't know!

So lets talk about the acquisition of knowledge either through falsification or through experience. How do we get knowledge through falsification, its like knowing that if we tough a hot plate, we burn our hands, but we still touch the hot plates, till we realize that it actually burns the hands. So, its a learning through falsification as we know that it does happen that touching a hotplates burn our hands, but we still touch it to prove that our believe is right.

It can also be inductive as well..but nessacerraly the idea is that knolwedge is knowledge only when it is approved by the head of some authority (now a days it is a bearucratic - prestigious) university, and only than can we say that our knowledge is the knowledge...

hope it all makes sense. But inherently, i am trying to resolve the conflict between my belief in god whose source if don;t know to my profession of producing science and knowledge without any bias.

Empirical proofs of age old adage: A case of teachings of Bhagwat geeta and its application in scientific management

2011-03-13T09:26:00.000-07:00

Is science is not science without emperical proof? or is witchcraft a science with emperical proof? Why does science has to be confined itself to the boundaries of proof? Why falsification is the new religion and the age old religion a anarciac practice of underdeveloped civilisation?

Place of emperical proofs in science and scientific rhetoric is important, it is a great tool to silence critics by saying, look, the result is significant, my hypothesis is falsified and hence i am right and the theory has a place in this planet. And again, but new champ scientists comes, challenges the former theory with a new emperical proof and establishes his own theory purely on the basis of falsification. The idea of stable scientific world with aristoteliam theory of universe has completely evaporated.

By the above tensions, i am trying to argue that many adages, moral values that we took for granted from our culture, family, parents, schools, friends were actually deeply embedded laws of interaction upon which fundamentals of business are based. However, they are so embedded that finding them within our daily interaction and questioning thier validity either amounts to blasphemy in some cultures, great works of science in others. But again, questioning thoses adages, values, norms, putting them into scientific test-tube, so that it can be measured and theorised upon, is both challenging, perplexing and interesting.

Market vs government control on poverty : A case of Public distribution system

2011-03-12T11:49:00.000-08:00

I hate to see how the global food prices are rising. They say that the rise of price is due to increase in purchasing power of indian and chinese nationals. I am not sure, i feel that futures trading in eatable commodities are playing a major role in fluctuating the prices globally, that its hard to swallow the argument of indian and chinese consumers are responsible for global commodity price rise.

Never the less, governments must have buffers deregulated from the global supply and demand trading to meet with the contingencies. Also, as I understand, in order to regulate the prices in the market, one way is that government buys the product from the farmers early on during the produce sells it directly to costomers at lower prices there by decreasing the prices in the market. This increase lots of risks on speculators and derivative traders keeping the prices at a certain level.

Unfortunately, what is happening in India currently is that large multinational corporations are collaborating with the government, media, and middle traders and rendering the PDS useless and adultrating the quality of PDS there by letter the market decide the prices and letting the market predict future.

Given the income disparity in India, even if 50 percent people dont get food to eat, rest will enjoy there lives with full royalty.

Blinded by Media

2011-03-12T11:46:00.000-08:00

Reality does not carry any message with itself, its the people who are in the business of delivering reality have the power of creating reality to its costomers. Yes, i am talking about media. How, medias creates reality and delivers reality to its costomers, in this case the customers are the viewers.

Just think of what happens around us is reality to the extend it is represented and transfered to us by the media we see around. If that media plays with the contend of the reality, cantaminates the reality by its vicious or third party stealthy agenda, we will get to see a distorted reality. Our sense of being which is also the function of our understanding of the reality will get distorted by the message that the media will send us. I am angry at the whole idea of I being hungry pet of media, I just dont have a way out other than I challenge the media and check the reality by myself. But, again, I will get biased my self, the reality as reality as the existence limited my mind the the way my mind interpretates that reality.

...well, here my discussed is the role of media in blinding people to reality, If I buy media, bring in a capitalistic discourse in the picture, bring that rich is better, owning a nice car is better, I am inherently undermining the interestes of poor people. I am telling that being poor is bad, i am telling that being poor is low in power and that being rich is good in power, It is right or wrong - I dont know.

The fury of Nature

2011-03-12T01:01:00.000-08:00

The Japans' quake and Tsunami and its images leave all of us with awe on the power of nature. We can dream of travelling to intergallactic space, built dams, make canals, change the course of natural selection through genetic engineering,yet those pictures of Japan's Tsunami leave up pondering on the position of Man in the space and his influence on nature. I bow to nature, bow to its power, its fury, its anger. We can develop whatever we can, yet we are slaves to nature, to its power and intensity.

Categorization of Political thoughts into Left, Right and Centr

2011-03-10T08:44:00.000-08:00

I am curious to understand how does the categorization of political thoughts into left, right and centre takes place. I mean, there is not no institutional framework that lays the foundation of categorization or adulteration of the thoughts, but it just happens? I dont know how?

If I look at the case of India, there is classic division between Congress, BJP and Left parties. Congress being the centre, Left parties being the left and BJP represents the right wing politics. I am curious how did that division came into being in Indian politics, I am happy that this division in a way brings about the healthy balance in Indian politics (which is still murky), but never the less, that clustration of thoughts and those thoughts into parties in quiet interesting.

One aspect as I understand to myself is that voters are like costomers who want good (ideas and thoughts and policies) in the case of politics. These ideas depending on the social fabric of the country (india being a delicate social fabric divided on many grounds), politicians can take a stand which might favour one social grounp over other. That favouration, over a period of time become a category and image.

Entrepreneurs = Risk

2011-03-09T15:42:00.000-08:00

Well the course of entrepreneurship theory clearly equates entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship to people who take risk and ability of taking risk respectively. I wonder why americans are thought to be more entrepreneurial than the rest of the world, may be because inherently, being in america itself signifies the persons' ability to take risk and attack problems, being in america plays a selection effect where only enpreneurs or people with that kind of ability find a place to vent their energy or may be the whole structure of accepting failures as a part of learning process helps people to let them take risk with thier careers and pursue the dream of having thier own company.

So, yes, can we install this ability of risk taking among people, if so how?

Real Estate Crash: India could be the next Ireland

2011-03-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

I am really skeptical at the rise of real state prices in India, it reminds me of Spain and Ireland, where property worth pennies was inflated to millions overnight. I wonder that the same might happen in India as the property India, some of them worth pennies are now worth millions. In case of a market crash, I dont know what will happen to the lost value accumulated from the over-valued properties, it will show somewhere in the national income.

Pirates attack and oil speculation: who makes money- Pirates, insurance firms, speculators)

2011-03-06T23:42:00.000-08:00

Winning takes time, effort, resources, sincerity, desperation, dedication

2011-03-06T14:27:00.001-08:00

I knew I can do it, but i was just short of it, i mean just short of it. Why did that happen?

Bollywood marriage: a case of Windows 7 and Nokia alliance

2011-03-06T11:42:00.001-08:00

Nokia is a fantastic example of how any firm can be knocked out of market, if they fail to acknowledge the changing behavior of the consumer, the changing technologies and if the firm starts to get arrogant about its product.

Nokia 3 years back was a market leader in mobile phone untill it was clean bold by Iphone and other smart phones. Nokia had a great product, and a fantastic R and D section to make better products but it failed to get into the smart phone market. Why nokia failed will be studied for the next 10 years by business graduates!! One reason that I see from the readings in popular articles is that the firm was arrogant and snobish to accept change. They thought that thier technology and product is immutable and that market will not change over the period of time. They have a great product development team that can design handsets anytime and in any notice, but even the best product development teams needs to understand its customers. Product development does not happen magically, the team is constraint by its knowledge, surroundings and firm oriented rhetoric. With nokia, its market research, consumer research department and product development department were not as represented within each others domains to bring about the change in the logic necessary to develop a truly breakthrough product. Its rather curious to how things changed with nokia from being a no.1 position to getting pushed out, it was definately not the china effect, but the product effect - a highly function, intutive and innovative product (price does not matter) that really challenged the decision making for the firm. I also argue that firms that belive in making high end products tends to feel challenged in making lower value lower market pyramid products and similarly firms that specialise in making lower market products tends to feel challenged and stall in making products necessary for top of the pyramid market segments. (toyota struggling to challenge BMW hegemony).

Similarly, I am curious about the windows entry into smart phone market. How and why windows could not dent the smartphone market? I mean how could windows allow android and IO operating system rule over them despite they clearly had some indications as to consumer would like to have thier information. Being critical of windows OS is easy, they really are constraint by the institutionalization of windows OS, that deviating from that and coming up with a new design would be like walking on a trembling waters with changes of drwning, but that agains, the windows OS for mobiles really what user wanted, aint the user bored of the windows design and name and seeing the same on mobile would make the consumer more crasy and stupid. Lastly, the windows definately had a great software, but were they happy with thier hardware, was it not the case where they made a all in one software and sold to hardware firms without making out the nessaccary optimization to increase the performance.

So, yes a firm good in hardware and a firm good in software make a good alliance partners. The true test of waters is to see how far they go and succeed,

1. will they win the battle?

2. will they produce a sexy product?

3. will they challenge the frontiers of product design?

lets wait and watch..

Where do I belong: Catch 22 of being a professional

2011-03-06T10:01:00.000-08:00

Many things that we see around are leave us in catch 22 position.

For instance, when I join a government company, I have to sign a contract stating that I dont own my allegiance to any party, religious extremism or political ideology: that leaves me under to much of constraint as I dont know where do I belong. I have a social identity that is different from the social identity of a company and hence disowning myself from any social setting leaves me under tremoundous mental agitation. Besides, whom should I follow when I see that that government is not doing the right thing by implementing a faulty policy, I as a government employ can never criticize the government.

Being a professional leaves us with so many agitations. I still remember how I used to look with arrogance at those who havent travelled at all, who don't know how or what the world is about. Now, that I am travelling so much, I really dont know to which place i belong. Places, where I have lived barely, I still see my roots hanging there, places where I studies most, i see myself dying there, but again, place where I am working most, I just see no relation to myself to that place...So is money the criteria that statifies my allegiance to a place even though I know that my soul does not feel part of that place, even though I know that I can never have any impact or leave any footprints...i dont know all that really, but that is some sort of an agitation that i suffer from.

Utility maximization of poor people drinking substandard water for centuries

2011-03-02T15:46:00.000-08:00

Was trying to understand why rich have to solve the drinking water problem of poor people when that problem is a study state from their point of reference.

My friend told me that its because we feel bad when we see poor people and morally obliged that we need to find the solution to their problem. How do me model our solution? Lets suppose that we need to provide services to poor people which are not for free services. How do we put those services in a economic model?

Since I am taking few courses on utility functions, we can say that poor people to buy some new stuff or change thier lifestyle, they will play with thier marginal utility and try to maximise returns on investment....

Firms are like Bollywood movies

2011-03-02T03:08:00.000-08:00

Firms are like movies. They are either a good movie or bad movie. Firms are like Bollywood movie. They have struggles, agitations, successes, downfalls, ego problems, plot, protagonist and antagonist, they have songs, fights, directors, producers and actors, cameraman. When we see some successful firm, we cry with joy and similarly when we see some bad firm, we feel filth and disgust.

Lets watch the movie :- Microsoft. Its a movie about a group of teenagers who struck gold. Some bunch of college drops made it big in technology.

Now watch the movie of enron: Bunch of arrogant Investment bankers, commodity traders inflating the price of the company without knowing the groud realities of the business. The result an snobish firm going down to drains.

http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/vikram-pandit-on-citigroup-turnaround/192488

Above is the video of Indian origin CEO narrating the story of change in Citigroup. Its a story of a firm going up and down. A nice movie.

Similarly we hear the story of Satyam Computers, how the scam hit firm reemerged to new levels.

As I belive that firms are like bollywood movies and the ones that are supper hit can have a terbulant past, shaky direction, on the sets story(no direction) even, bankrupsy, and despite all that firms can emerge as winners.

Designing a new State : An ideal indian state with high HDI, low per capita energy consuption

2011-03-01T11:55:00.000-08:00

So, I am thinking how to design a new state. I consider Indian state as an exampl. How to embed, technology, high per capita income, high gini index, social welbeing, sustainability, low crime into this new state model. Can I have a system rather than a magic invention to achieve that.

How can we in India increase GINI index and yet keep the energy consumption low. How can we do that without a magic invention? How can we provide food to millions, water to all eduction and job to all and yet keep the energy consumption per capita at the same level?

..Can we redesign a system such that the resource and energy level remains the same but the happyness level is high? That means we need to find within the system the wastefullness, over consumtion, channels of wealth appopriation, resource appoprieation and re-distribute them to the masses. But what percentation of that wealth usurpness would be, will that wealth redistribution bring solace and happyness to the needy and wealthy of the world.

Lets ponder again, we need to create a new system, a technocratic society where people with access to the best technology and best skills are the once who rule us, the people with the best skills also define the hierarchy in the system..What will be contigency in such a society, how will such a society behave..how can a society based on the logic of technology structure would function? What kind of democratic principles, governance principle etc would that society follow. I am curious and shall write more later..

Anu

Argumentative Indian with Fabienne, Patrick and Sammi

2011-03-01T07:46:00.000-08:00

I see myself as a student who empathises with the poor and suffering and hate selfish behaviour of the firms but I love making money. I am enjoying discussion with Patrick, Fab and Sam. They are kind off people who bring descructively different viewpoints to me. They talk about socialism, philanthropy, system design - like meritrocracy, logic of making more money at the expense of poor people, politics, design of new state, design of new system, democracy with different mind set.. Non of them talks about meritrocratic or aristocratic society.

Than again when I talk to my friends who purely technocratics- VLSI desing, CFD, I-Banking kind of people, then i just heard ecoing words of makking money, fantabulour innovations, green makets etc.

I like the idea of the idea of creating or desinging a new state system..a system that has technology, information, human welbeing embedded in it..I dont know if thats possible, yet i dont mind spending my time thinking about it.

I dont know what to say at the moment but Its nice to see those different view points.

Clash of cultures on the net

2010-08-07T03:32:00.000-07:00

The following video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hYLWodzRWw&feature=related is a classic example of difference in cultures. The mom or aunt in this video is teasing the child, asking the child either to choose between marrying the girl next door or moving to India. The child is ofcourse angry and pschyced up by these choices which are like choosing between eating poison or jumping of the cliff. The child does not want any of them, however the aunt/mom keeps of pushing the child untill he starts to cry. This is a classique childhood upbringing of an Indian child, there is nothing wrong with this video, nothing abnormal in this video. An Indian child wheather girl or boy child would be teased by these questions and some might cry as well. Its something that is there in the culture, something that has been followed though unknowingly for ages. Whenever Indian family attends wedding with thier kids,thier kids would immedieately become the centre of attraction, where different families will talk about the future of thier kids, possible brides or the kind of brides they would like to have for thier kids. The video in Indian context is quite normal.

However, if you read the posts on the youtube, you will find that the video has been taken as a normal signal by the indians (gauged by reading the posts on you tube), however the same video has been abhored by the westerners. They consider this video as sacriligeous on the freedom of the child. A grivieous torture inflicted on the child through repeating demand of marriage.
I am kind of intrigued by the diachotomy of responses in the youtube on the above video between two cultures, eastern and western.

BP...lessons to learn

2010-06-17T11:55:00.000-07:00

1. Role of CEO in times of crisis
2. Knowledge of CEO in times of crisis
3. Role and power of communications in times of crisis
4. Empathy and fast action in times of crisis
5. Many parallels can be drawn with Bhopal gas tragedy, Challenger disaster, Columbia disaster, BP.. in terms ladder of decision making process, the fear at the bottom with the top...

I wish I knew my aging Genes

2010-05-23T01:34:00.000-07:00

Reading about the artificial life article published in Various newspapers across the globle, I sunk again, thinking about so many many questions that used to burn inside me such as :-
1. Can we decode the age gene inside the cells
these age genese are like time bombs, that kill the cell automateically after a given time, and thus reducing the life. If we can reprogram these aging genes, I am sure, we can increase the life of human being and prolongate the functioning of vital organs.
2. Again from the DNA itself,
If we can create the artificial DNA(which the article claims) and replicated its functionality such as the sense of death, sense of life, sense of energy, sense of control, sense of external environmental, sense of STP, I am sure, we can come close of artificial life. I love this research question of artificial life and the way scientists acrossthe world are approaching it.
3. Organization Theory,
have you ever seen ants, how they behave, how they solve the problems of the world, how they remain in the group, how they live so nicely and cleanly in the world, Can we learn from their organization style and replicate the same here in cities of tommorrow and make them more sustainable.

How much you trust google, facebook and twitter? Is your password secured? Is your deleted emails remain deleted?

2010-05-20T08:23:00.000-07:00

Pheonix? Institutionalization after deinstitutionalisation

2010-05-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

I love the story of Pheonix, wheather its Accenture from Arthur Anderson or England in the T20 world cup or France in the Second world war or IceLand in the current economic senario.

What facinates me is the track of events that leads to the insitutionalisation after rapid de-institutionalization.

If I can undertand the above, I am sure we can apply some of these concepts in Politics in the governance of Iraq and Afganistan, or humanitarian crisis where the 'state' under stress faces the sudden collapse of its legitimacy, in crisis situations where the organization in all the time under stress from various quarters and all the time evolving itself due to pressures from various quarters.

We can also apply the above concepts in small businessses, SMEs, high risk ventures and try to look for patterns of institutionalisation and deinstitutionalisation.

I leave room for the comments

Construction of reality through words, videos, pictures, interviews, observations,equations and diagrams

2010-05-12T01:28:00.000-07:00

I am often wonder how we get the sence of reality. How we predict the future from our knowledge of the past. In the sence, it is just fantastic to learn about everything through simple words, equations, diagrams, interviews and observations.
How real can be reality construstion through all the above means. Since, each has its own limitation, each tries to simplify the extraneus factors and each tries to model by reducing the influencing variables. Fr example, it is so easy to understand a linear one variable equation and so hard to comprend the multivariable non linear equation. Obviously, it is the aim of every researcher to construct the reality as simply as possible where we can have one variable and a linear line. But, we never achieve that, and we keep struggling with our fantasy of creating a linear equation of one variable.
Many would agree that, philosophers, argue their way to understand the world through words. There best tools of augumentative reasoning, premise, facts, evidence, logical modelling through words, fallacy prooving is the best way of understanding the reality. One doesnt have to struggle with equations, variables etc, just walk the talk. However, validating your talk, you need to stand on the mountains of literature that talk the same logic and see yourself through thier line of reasoning and present your way through.

Ants world and inspiration for human society

2010-05-07T03:16:00.000-07:00

Pakistan supporting indian cause of anti terror

2010-05-04T17:18:00.001-07:00

In order to get Pakistan's support for terrorism against India, India needs to make valuable investment in Pakistan. India needs to create towards making more jobs, invest in Industries that can be helpful to india, or which india imports from far of places at higher prices. We need to look pakistan from two perspectives- 1. from the perspective of trading partner and other from the usual adversary on kashmir issue.
But linking Pakistan just with terrorism and forgeting the amount of benefits if can bring to India, is a shallow vision of economic development and a step towards greater insecurity.

Lalit Modi: a classic example of institutional entrepreneur

2010-04-27T04:43:00.001-07:00

Migration as the means of eliminating poverty?

2010-04-27T03:13:00.001-07:00

We all know the plight of the people from the states of Bihar, UttarPradesh, Bengal, Orissa. There are many opportunities to find job and earn a livelyhood. Hence, people are forced to migrate to places where the economy is good, investment is ripe. This indeed brings down the level of poverty. India, Haitti, Pakistan and many countries heavily depend on remittances as a way of income. Remittances have huge impact on economy, some places even have 25percent of thier GDP through remittances.

My question in this article is that if we orchestrate migration, can we create situation where we can bring down poverty and improve the overall economy of the place. I dont know, bt many households around india are benefitted with people migrating in search of work and livelyhood.

Once talking to my good friend Vitaly Dolgov on India's poverty and population, he jokingly mentioned, send all of them to Siberia, they will dig oil and minerals and make money....I dont know it i think thats right or not, bt most good engineers from India end up doing that for companies like Shell, Shlumberger and Riotinto.

Trade vs Terrorism Delimma of Indian Foreign Policy

2010-04-26T21:15:00.000-07:00

Economic theories of International trade suggests us that the value on international trade is inversely proportional to distance and directly proportional to the sum of the economies. Well, if this is true than in the indian context, we are at the disadvantage position as we see Pakistan, Bangladesh and China as our adversaries than our allies in trade.
Pakistan with is high growth rate infused by huge American investments is looking for markets , and has its market rich with capital and thirsty for new and efficient products. However, our trading relations with Pakistan and for similar reason with Bangladesh are marred by our insistence on no talks without elimination of terrorism. However, if we do out cost benefit analysis of terrorism vs trade with two of these border countries, what do you think would be the result? Like how many jobs is india loosing by not doing trade with these countries. It is also said that increase in trade increases the trust and openess with other cultures, which in turn would reduce the expenditure on terrorism. Pakistan and Bangladesh are biggest economies of southasia and are culturally similar to india with huge young population yearning to try and buy new things. India with its product services catalog can easily cater to both Pakistan and Bangladesh.
My question here is that , can we dicotomise our foreign policy where trade and terrorism are view seperately and are not mixed. Can we consider Pakistan and Bangladesh has potential markets and trading partners rather than just adversaries? I know these are strong policy decision with deep rooted Hindu-Muslim divide, bt as I said, trade can dillute fissures and bring religions, cultures and countries closer. After, talking just about terrorism, its indian which is loosing, loosing on
1. Low cost services
2. Valuable Markets
3. Low cost products
4. Reduction in percieved threat

Tracking the rise and fall of an Individuals..persepective from an indian context

2010-04-19T02:55:00.000-07:00

What is an individual, what comprises the individuality of an entitiy. Its a complex question for me as I am mostly a engineer.

1. If some student in class 10th gets very high marks, he status in the society and among his peers automatically rises.

2. If some student makes it to IIT, his status in the society and among his peers automatically rises

3. If someone form the same college, with the same background as compared to other student student lands up a highpaying job, his status and visibility in the society and among his peers rises.

4. If someone takes a big dicision and the decision sums up to success, the status and visibitity gets a positive feedback.

5. If someone gets an award, his status, longevity and visibility gets estabilished.

6. As a young researcher, if someone gets into the top publication, his status, visibility and reputation gets visibility and authenticity.

7. Getting univiersity degrees reinforces the individuality an a respectable entity on the individual as he graduates. All these degrees bring to him more laurates and courage.

Contrastingly,

1. IT raids on IPL, has sullied the brand image of IPL. It will be interesting to see how the brand of IPL gets its reckoning back.

2. If someone fails to achieve any of the things above, he has no reputation, visibility and reckoning in the society.

3. Making a decision that backfires ruins many individuals to ashes.

4. Getting jailed, illegimate relationships, working against the moral values of the society(ex: Swami Ji from karnataka)

and lastly , how can the fallen souls re-surrect themselves.

1. Again the argument goes that, it needs even more hard work than before for individuals to re-surrect themselves once they have fallen from the their legitimate, time-bound positions.

(I dont know the reasons)

2. Again, I suggest, that the fallen souls needs to create a Karisma where they beat the unexpected expectation from thy self. Like Sachin Tendulkar scoring double centuary when infact his carreer was almost written off.

3. Or Leapfrogging carrer, for example, instead of not getting into the top schools of India, the individual ends up getting into more prestigious places such as IAS or Havard.

4. Ofcourse, understanding the mediums of visibility and repution creation , and working on those mediums.

IPL an institutional perspective

2010-04-17T01:20:00.000-07:00

So what is in IPL that made a group of young men playing crickets into a brand of one billion dollars in less then three years.
Lets talk about it!!

Can Controversies lead to credibility?

2010-04-17T00:40:00.000-07:00

I am wondering whether staying in controversies lead to credibility? Well this thought really originated from the movie "Lucky by change". Also, currently, as stars get into controversy, we see that they prise go up, they are more in the news for all the wrong reasons and yet see their films making more profit. I mean we may call it cheap publicity- bt again the argument, why cheap publicity or controversy works. And exploring further, exploring further as I question to myself, Does controversies bring Legitimacy and credibility to organization? I don't know, bt certainly it does to some extant works in bollywood. Like soft controversies between stars, soft picadillos works like apetisers for the industry bring their costomers to the theater. However, not ruling out the major controversies bring complete downfall of the chracter of the institution. An Example of that is the controvery of Shiney Ahuja.
So the question remains active::: does controversies bring legitimacy to the organization? If yes to what extend? What kind of controversies being legitimany and credibility to the organisation? Can we generalise our understanding of controversy to credibility to higher percent of people?
I look forward to your comments and shall keep adding mine as I research these questions of mine.

Process of Institutionalisation

2010-04-16T07:25:00.000-07:00

This artcle that I am writing is very much of the works that I wish to do as I go along with my studies. I am wondering that when institutions loose there credibility, or standing, image or just get so weak due to some event, how do they stand on their feet.
Fr example: consider the Satyam fiasco, almost everybody in the matter of one week lost all hope about Satyam. Satyam is a lost company, it is full of cheats. It cannot survive any longer than it has untill now.. Even now almost after one year of aweful revelation about Satyam, the Satyam turn around, I still am sceptical about Satyam. I still at times pity who are working for satyam and often wonder about their future.
So even though the firm has turn around, I am still not sure about the credibility of the institution called Satyam... And hence the topic of this discussion why and how institutions loose there presitige, why how do they regain their prestige, their credibility.
I am also hunted down by questions such as how and why Afganistan has lost its sheen. Surely it was not long ago was the pride of the west seprating India from the west and mightier for its freedom that if bought to its citizens. And, now, Afganistan is like a patch on the map that is failing to regain its lost glory. Can we view this from the perspective of Institutions loosing thier credibility..If yes..can they be turnaround?
Ur thoughts are invited and the discussion on the same shall continue..

Reservation of Women Bill- Dyanamics of Indian Democracy

2010-03-09T06:40:00.000-08:00

I am wrting this article miles away from India. Reading and listening to what ever I could and sence, I am just amased by the dyanimicity of Indian system. I dont know whether is it right to have women researvation bill, but I do believe that is a disruptive change. I am not aware of the India before 1991 but todays india is fast becoming alien to me. The structural changes that it is incorporating are just amasing and its impact on individual like us are yet to be seen. Just think about 200 years ago when women were set on fire if her hunband dies before her, or female infanticide were naturally accepted social customs in Indian society.
But, now we are fighting for the women to have 33 percent reservation in the society, which means that one third decision makers will be women. I am not feminist and yes I have super male ego with me that I always carry around, but the change is just amazing. It is to your notice that companies that make structural and institutional changes ahead of time, mostly live longer than the rest. A young country like making structural changes like women's bill will go a long way to establish itself as a model nation for many to learn and emulate.
Ani

Academic world and contemporary World

2009-12-08T16:48:00.001-08:00

Contrary to what I believed, 'academic community' is too formal and too structured. It has all the demons of a society - caste = university/thesis advisor , religion = domain/department, race = european/american, social strata = no. of publications.

Soft Loan and International Business

2009-10-06T23:51:00.000-07:00

Ex. US Aid, ADB, World Bank , IFC, IMF, AFD all these give soft loans to countries so that their companies can win contracts to develop business and project in developing counties. It sounds like Cristian and Arabic missionaries coming with good food and cloth and later come there trouble makers and then comes sebsevieance.

Hindu Muslim Unity - French guy's perspective

2009-09-04T00:57:00.000-07:00

I feel sad that i am writing the blog after one month. I should write more and develop more.
This blog is personel and has nothing to do with my professional blogs however i m too lasy to create a another blogpost.

One of my colleagues whom I met after one year in Ahemdabd discussed a lot about Indian culture, history and what it is loosing to what it is gaining. He really made me realised how backward in my thinking i am too him. He was talking about the Kabir, Raheem, Mirza Galib, whom i just heard but never tried to explore them in depth or tried to understand them. However what was more striking was his understanding of Indian muslims to which being an Indian i am a complete stupid. Once a visit to the Indian walled cities no matter where Delhi, Ahemdabad, Lucknow, Bhopal, one gets the view that muslims in India live in a segregated society, gettoed like jews to places where nobody wants to visit. Is this true? I had an argument for him, i said that those walled cities onces used to be the places of richness, economy and affluence and hindus never had access to those places. They were known as the hightown and where hindus lived used to be known as the low town. But whatever, if thats the case, as we must live in present and look at the future with a sense that India needs to be strong both from Inside and outside and for that everybody needs to move forward.
1. I was in Paris as Institute the monde Arab, i mean it is suppose to be a place, a knowledge centre for arabic learning, but its really nothing. We in India hve such wonderful things about persian culture, art, society, music, architecture that we must promote it. We must preserve this arabic/persian cultre and promote it. Its notonly a source of revenue but also a sourse of our pride. Ex - TajMahal.
In spain are crasy about Granada, some arabic mounument there called Alambara, but in India we have 100 s of such Alambaras that are dyring due to negligence.

2. Books, Poetry, Music, Art : Where in the world can find such wonderful form of music, art, poetry, philosophy, books. We must promote that kind of thinking, philosophy and idea. Its hard to understand that lucknow, hydrabad, once the centres of learning are dying due to negligence. The psudo hinduism whre we are getting which is a mix of western consumersim+ american was of terrorism is making the whole idea of muslim culture is evaporating.

3. Festivals : In Ahemdabad, people talk in low voices when one talks about moving to walled city/old city. I am going to the walled city tonight to eat the tasty hot Muglai food and celebrate Ramzan with people around. Why cant everybody does that? Why people are afraid to celebrate different religion all around the world.

Views are invited.

thanking you.

BR
Anirudh AGrawal

3.

Economics of a Beggar ???

2009-07-21T02:38:00.000-07:00

During the course of the article I would raise few questions and through shall try to find the answers.

1. Why is begging bad, filthy and disrespectful in the society?
- I really dont know the answer to this question. I mean if I am really loathing, cant do anything, can make other person sick at the very sight on me, i think i am doing a good job of making money. I think that is trading where i am trading my helplessness against someone's feeling of guilt. But i cannot answer the agastness associated with begging.
- However If I work for a company that monopolises itself into a market which can ultimately lead to the fall of market and that will ultimately create beggers. In this case begging is a result of burgeoige activities ( i just cannot believe i am writing as a socialist), in that case the society will be a begger's society- will we loathe it, ofcourse as a burgeogies we will loath it and provide aid . Ex - African aid via US AID, SIDA , AFD, World Bank.
-??

How and why begging is such an attractive profession after being so vehemently critisied by the society.
- free money, money without selling soul, money without moving, money that is not taxed(dont know for certain)
- Better then dying hungry
- Beggery is A big question mark on the society ( quoting Amartya Sen)
- Increases the earnign capacity of the family(ex - Delhi we will often find kids begging)
- ??

How or why is it dangerous for the society?
- A begger is dangerous human being as it is hard to determine, if an individual fail to provide money, what the begger would do.
- Begging is considered poison to the society because it the burgeoise feels guilty when they try to sleep in the night
-??

What happens to the money tht the begger gets?
-It goes to the state officials and other mafia people as the beggers dont have place to live and hence they work as bonded labour. (now i understand the right to own property)
-Part of that begged money goes to fill the hungry belly.
- Part (i dont know if there is any saving or not) ??

How can a begger decide the best site of begging?
- I have heard begger bidding for best begging sites.
-Complete market analysis
- biggest temples, best tourist spots, best shopping places, hightest traffic jams, lowest police interference, hightest number of specific type of people Paying capacity of the people, no. of people...etc

i am not writing this article to lampoon begging, its just a way of looking at begging.

climate change mitigation - email written to a climate change community

2009-07-20T02:17:00.001-07:00

Dear All,

How about solving climate change problems using high end technology.

1. Producing artificial clouds that refled sunlight back to space. (read articles on space solar power)
2. Carbon farming
3. R&D leading to the development of artificial photosysthesis and subsequent fuel production
4. Carbon sequestration
5. Development of new and cheap nuclear fission fuels
6. and offcourse harnessing renewable sources of energy

I think technological innovation can be the best way Human being can survive climate change attack.

BR
Anirudh Agrawal

Innovation at the bottom of technology pyramid

2009-07-17T12:52:00.000-07:00

Firstly - Bottom of technology pyramid (new term coined by me) according to me is fundamental sciences.
Technology is built on a base, it is developed around certain frameworks that are Policy frameworks(beyond the scope of this article) and fundamental sciences framework.

Fr example - electronics communication as twp frameworks 1. communication protocal- frameworked by the government, companies competiting with each other and consumers(vaguely) and other is 2. Mathematics, material sciences(moore law of technology development), physics, biology. We can leapfrog rules and regulations setup by the goverment, company and consumers but never those defined by the mathematics and phycis.

Hence the idea of this article to bring new business, new ventures, new world by innovating at the bottom of the technology pyramid.
Think of it-
1. Artificial Photosysthesis,
2. a battery more efficient than human or animal fat(fundamental breakthroughs in nanotechnology),
3. bridging the gap between rich and poor by bringing the breakthrough technologies at the same time to both the worlds,
4.Fundamental studies in human emotions such that breakthrough innovations can be made in urbane and rural design.
5. Waste Management - cost efficient carbon recovery, discovery of artificial enzymes , bacterias for the breaking of waste and subsequent carbon recovery..

and what not....all through innovations at the bottom of technology pyramid.

Connections between Technology hubs and Markets

2009-07-17T01:48:00.000-07:00

How can we connect technology hubs and markets?

What is the link between technology and market for that technology?

Can we create hedge funds to invest in futuristic technology that will generate huge value years later in the world market? if so how can we do that?

What are the different investment channels while making investment on technology firms- is it technology hubs, technology markets, markets, technology R&D, or business model ?

I am open to asnwers to all these questions.

BR
Ani

Democracy and Innovation

2009-07-02T12:02:00.000-07:00

Democracy and Innovation.

Defining innovation can be subjective.

For example- lets consider that innovation at the country level is no. of patents filed.

Well in that case we ll see enormous discripancies.
For example: Its nation of innovation can be many.

hard to find any relation between Democracy and Innovation considering the contrasts in the number of patents filed by countries like Japan, US, China, USSR(before 1990) and our sweet little India.
Anyways definately looking at Indian and American cases - both biggest democracies of the world yet amocking contrasts in the no. of patends cited by each coutries.
Looking at USSR and America, amasingly different countries yet competing no of patents filed by these countries.

i will define innovation in a different way. Innovation is the freedom to do what you think and a freeedom to break away from existing traditions and learn quickly the new ways to survive and thrive.
What do we see from this defination. We see that India despite all its problems is a great centre of music and arts and is comparable to united states in sector of arts and ability to express arts.
But than i really wonder why innovations were never noticed at the bottom of the pyramid(offcourse there are many yet not productivity spiralling)

Innovation also is factor tht comes from differnt competing phenomenons- like amount of economic value derived, amount of emotional value derived, hence these factors will compete with each other and push us human beings for innovation.

Innovation as a result of quality of education.
Definately Japan scores way above all the coutries in terms of the number of innovative project undertaken. A definate knowledge economy Japan uses its human potential the best of its means and resources. Holland has invested heavily on its education system whose result can be seen in the competitiveness of its industries, Shell, Unilever, Toyota, Sony are great examples of innovation and competitiveness.

Innovation at the bottom of the pyramid.
I mean it is really innovative to see how women in Indian villages manage thier household. With amont of resourses at thier disposal, it takes huge amount of innovation to sustain a household in the village, yet that innovation is at the micro-level.

Conclusion - i dont see any argument of interest where I can asert that Innovation and Democracy has any correlation.

Nanotechnology as the solution to global problems of water filteration, energy.

2009-06-27T14:13:00.000-07:00

I dont know much about nanotechnology yet i would try to put my views in a generalised way.

Water

1. Development of materials that can selectively bind with disolved salts rather than being screened out as in Reverse Osmosis. Materials that can selectively bing with dissolved salts might consume less energy(production to operation) and thus letting the process of water purification better energy efficient process.

2. Development of nano material that can attack arsenic, nitrate, flouride compounds and make the water pure and drinkable.

3. Normally RO - there is pressure at one side and purification, but think about a process where the nanomaterial show a naturally varying afinity for water just like the principle of SIPHON and automatically clean water leaving the impure material at the other side.

Energy
1. Nanomaterials ofcource can provide materials with of increased the heat treansfer efficiency of boilders and turbines
2. Nanomaterials especially polymers can provide with increased strenght, and resistance leading classical materials improper and thus ushering a new age of construction.
3. Nano materials can be put in such a way to mimich an artificial stomata and thus can one day become human design silicon+ polymer+ organo metallic plants producing large amounts of energy for this planet.
4. Aviation, design of specific material that can reinfornce particulas stresses in aircrafts and other flying objects could one day lead solar powered human fligth commercially.
5. Batteries- Offcourse, anything that needs unique and highly engineered materials are Batteries. I mean look at the volume per erergy content compared to Gasoline. (very littler, less than 20 times). However if we can design batters that just stone Highly condesed Electron cloud (imagination hahaha), i am sure we can increased the energy storage capacity of batteries manifolds leading indepence on carbon fuels.

Many more ideas shall keep coming.

BR
Ani

Indian Monsoon- Technological Solution??? Brainstorming

2009-06-24T16:06:00.000-07:00

Weak Monsoon is driving me nuts.
How can I bring change? What technology in this world can bring monsoon to India.
As an engineer working in Reverse Osmosis and Bio membranes, i am sure we can put energy and clean water to cleanest possible state, but that wont bring monsoon. What technology???

We have been hearing a lot about IPCC reports on climate change and global warming, that could be one of the reasons for indian monsoon scenario. Thier solution in bleak terms reduce carbon dioxide emissions or face desruptive change in the climate of the world, the worst affected places on the earth could be India and Maldives. With India loosing its traditional and historical significanc if the Gangotro and Yamunotri glaciers melt away like a flow of the river.

Reducing carbon emisions - is that a viable solution?? I dont know, bt IPCC after nobel prize seems really credible.

Other definately we have to mitigate the direct effect of climate change with positive and sustainable technologies. We have to plant more trees, increase the catchment area for water, develop dams to store water, make laws to reduce wastage of water, improve agricultural practises, water efficient agricultural practice just like that in spain and israel.

Really- not many technological solutions are coming to my mind, but I really wish to you all readers to add your thoughts on the same.

BR

Unsustainable growth of needs, demands under constraint resources

2009-06-15T10:17:00.001-07:00

I really dont understand, how can population increases, demand grows when the resources are so few and limited.
Why there is no feedback to control the consumption?

Can we ever made a feedback control which is fundamental in nature, deterministic in nature?

I am so curious to understand the nature of feedback which can actually control all our activities and constain us within our limitations? Its a like a closed loop circuit.

Think about it, i know that i have 100X amount of water and that I use 20X every year, i replenish my source of water by 10X, than the amount of water that i have will last only 10 years. But if we have a population grwth and develpment at the same time, than the resources shall finish earlier. So how can we learn and contain our consumption. Make it sustainable.

things that can be done are-

1. Education of the present and future, not of the past.
2. Accepting the facts without doubt and initiation of political debate for possible policy changes
3. Loving new and efficient technologies, willingness to change with changing demands and conditions
4. Innovate to get the best out of available resources.
5. Generate tradable value.
6. Cap and trade over movable resources or know how.

Ocean the vast resource for food, living, energy, farming.

2009-06-13T05:49:00.000-07:00

I am writing the article without pertinent knowledge, but with belief that it can be done.

70% of this world is formed of water and that too water which is not explored or exploited by human beings.We always think about land not available for farming or living.
Just think about buildings, all along or on the ocean surface. Framing on the ocean surface, i believe that we can feed the humanity for generations if we can tap this surface area that is currently ruled by water.
Rightly thier has been documentaries on discovery channel quoting building largest floting cities, floting lands.

There is so much literature on solar power being generate in sahara desert and transported to places in europe or elsewhere. But Sahara it self is just a fracture of what the water oceane surface is, and think about planking solar panel, or some other futuristic devices on the ocean surface and producing energy for the people all around the world. The recent wind turbine project along the coast of scotland and denmark marks the capture of offshore wind resource, making the project economically viable in the currently highly taxed electricity prices of denmark.

Sometimes i do wonder the % of energy taken by the ocean. Its amasing how ocean can keep its temprature constact by the constants condensation and evaporation process, just like human beings.
The food inside ocean is also the result of carbonification that ocean is capable to doing, infact ocean surface is from where the life originated.

Despite all these promissing characteristics, the value of ocean positivities is so marginal that its hard to get value out of it in industrial perspective.
But the question stil remains!!

How can we generate value from the ocean surface. Be it use for generating electricity as in Wind energy, tide energy or wave energy, exploit it for transport or for food or for oil and gas.

How can we exploite ocean surface or floor sustainably??????

Can Technology Change Life- Bring Happyness, provide stability???

2009-06-11T15:50:00.000-07:00

I am wondering if technology can change life, bring happiness and provide stability???
Well things to ponder - Look at Nuclear Energy- a technology that is unquestionabily green and if the Uranium eliment is abundant, than its for sure- economical , but on the flip side- look at Pakistan and India- Stable relations offcourse, but on the peak of unstable equilibrium, an ideal case of Prisoner's Dilemma. For sure had india and pakistan would have been de-weaponised, a conflict senario was a decent possibility and compare now, with increasing nuclear arsenal, the defence spending has gone up on both sides and threat perception for cataclysmic destruction and looped by leaps and bounds.

Consider - High productivity of hybrid seeds. Yeah in the short run they induce high productivity, but at what cost. They take away every damn nutrient from the soil, leaving soil barren for the generations to follow.

So what shall be the right way- what way shall we move that development is sustainable without abuse.
Offcouse - Nuclear energy and Nuclear weapons should be a depade on the international agenda just as climate change and Ozone pollution was, so that a clear distinction is made for the betterment of the humanity.

on the other hand that case of hybrid varieties of seeds, the long term effects must be research or senario analysis should be done and farmers must be taught the best ways of doing farming so that it becomes sustainable.

Assesing the ROI in investment in Basic Services like Education Infrastructure and recent technologies

2009-06-09T14:13:00.000-07:00

I am intruiged by the question of development. How can we develop nations, bring prosperity?
Well ofcourse prosperity comes when we trade value. Wheather its mud(POTTERY) OR Milk (sweets) or Electricity (automation and comfort), water ( mineral water, clean water, ganga jal, - Medicins, chemicals).

How can we generate value?

Assesing the ROI in Investment in Education, Infrastructure and recent technologies.

Investment is easy to quote but hard to implement. A country like india has not money to invest in things like education, infrastructure and recent technologies. But ofcourse it can borrow money from World Bank, IMF sell GOI bonds and generate capital to invest, compromise on its mammoth army.

For a state the best way to calculate ROI is difficult. Its not related directly to the cost paid in services but many things. (Please consult the work of Amartya Sen for the same)

1. Decrease in Crime

2. Increase in the value of Property, that means better lending by the banks and many other things

3. Decrease in the number of poor people, increase personnel satisfaction

4. Higher consumption , higher wages, - Higher tax payments

5. Offcourse government can generate money by taxing people.

6. Decrease in corruption(i am not sure) has value in return

7. and many other things that i would like to know and study

What interests me most is (another topic of PhD) is take into account all these factures and find its value interms of ROI. I don't how to achieve the same, but definately the subject interests me the most.

I take the example- Lets suppose that i the Noida, India is an economic centre. Now living in Nodia, might turn out to be very difficult due to the usual things associated with immigrant migration. But if we join noida with fast speed trains that will join places like chandigarh, Pantnagar to noida and transport people in One Hr and low costs.

The cost of such a project might be 10 billion dollars. Lets suppose the over head expense turns out to be 1 billion every year for a service that will run 40 times daily.

Now thier will a transport of 2 million people in total with such service that will allow people not to leave thier place of living and yet work (as in Lyon and Paris because of TGV).

The cost - 4$ per transaction, 8 million daily, 4 Billion dollars of revenue. Thats immediate impact, whats the long term impact. Satisfaction and quality of life. and many other things in terms of pride .

Creation of Market, Creation of Trade through the construction of Highway and Information Highway

2009-06-06T03:57:00.000-07:00

During my masters thesis i often wondered, how can i create markets for poor people, how can i make them sustainable, how can i just leave them like that, they become rich and prosperous.

I have a solution now that i greatly believe in but before discussing that, i shall discussion the basis that helped me arrive at that solution. During 1000 BC, we know that thier used to be trade between Indus valley civilisation and Mesopotamian Civilisation. Well offcourse the basis of any trade is to generate value. If I have gold but not rice and you have rice but not gold, than i ll trade them in order to maximise my satisfaction and maximise the value of articles that i have traded to get that satisfaction. Now why would somebody from Mesopotamia travel 2000 km on camels and horses to India through the silk route. Well because that hardwork generated values for the traders back home and vice versa. The same goes for English or Dutch merchants during the 17th centuary, when they traded garments for spices and gold. However again for trade it is essential to establish a USP that is tradable in the market where we wish to entre. For examble america cannot sell its cars in french market as the product does not create the value french costomers are looking for and vice versa ( the new policy will make french cars competitive in american market).
So we identify through the above discussion following laws- that i call three laws of trade
1. Trade route - Roads, highways, Sea Route, Information route - Amazon.com or ebay.com
2. USP- Basmati rice in India, Manufacting technology in Germany, Japenese Cars etc, Chinese lost cost products..
3. Offcourse security to reduce uncalculated risks and maximise profits.

How can we generate above three laws
1. Just connect villages through internet, transport etc.
2. Educate them, not mathematics, bt something different, like maximise the value to agriculture, use of hands to create handicraft like saaris, baskets.
3. Provide security that is local and acceptable, as in india case its panchayati raaj.

Leap Frogging misery through technology

2009-06-04T15:33:00.001-07:00

I love this topic to the core that i am ready to do a phd in the same.
Think of it - Artificial food or GM food
Pros - Cheap, easy to produce and store, ful of vitamins and protiens, eradicates hunger, elongates life
Cons - Intestinal dysfunction, genitic mutation, long term effect on human race as a whole..
You decide

Think of it - one dollar laptop, free internet to all, open source education

Pros - every child educated, every adult educated, an ideal world
Cons - I DONT KNOW

You decide

Think of it - Medicins with open source, stem cell research
Pros - health to masses, increase in age, increase in national productivity, less crime, happyness
Cons - R&D money getting to drains with OPEN IP ,

You Decide

think of it - Mobile Phone, Satellite phones.
Pros - Power of information
Cons - Dont know if thier is any

You decide

think of it - Microfinance at less than 10% of Annual rate of interest
Pros - Increased innnovation, development, entreprunership
Cons - I dont know but may lead to credit crisis, that i personnely doubt

You decide

think of it - Infrastructure, roads, big roads, small roads,

Pros - Connectivity between different markets ,development of trade and increased satisfaction
Cons - pollution may be..

You decide

Demographies of Employment- Personnel Road Story

2009-06-01T11:53:00.000-07:00

Why am I here, why not in Bulandshahar the town I was born. Because i dont have the same employment opportunities, i dont have friends their, i cant grow thier as a person thier and many other things to count on.
Why i never studied in a university of Bulandhshar, because it is not known, people cheat to get good marks, thier is no value addition to the education done in that university. The learning curve remains constant.
Why i never did any schooling in that town because- my dad had a transferable job and we kept moving from one city to another, because the schools thier are not really recognised, the learning done thier does not bring any value to the invidual.
So what should I do...

I look for jobs, where , where i get the best opportunities in terms of career growth, in terms of friends i make, in terms of return on investment. Definately the most important i go to a town where i get the work, i get the job.
The university, a place where i find satisfaction from my creativity, where the education i better, where i can find a better peer group and the same goes for the university.

Now i compare the consequeses- both the positive and the negative.
Positive Consequeses - Offcourse learning is great, the person is more skillful with this kind of ambulation. He learns the adapt to different situation, he can deal with many different situations at a time. He brings many different ideas and methods to deal with different situation that make him and the place he works more creative.

Negative Consequeses - Massive movement of place, faith, land, change of friends, leaving loved onces back home- in my case parents. Missing business opportunities possibily because the local knowledge can bring wonders. MIght face racial discrimination as in Mumbai for north indians or Sydney for indians. Forcing to adapt new costoms and cultures. At times loneliness and lack of trust.

However if we look at it from a global perspective and study the human migration as the function of both established and emerging economies, i wonder to the results of the study. The number of innovations, the number of patents and increase in the gdp as a function of skilled labour migration.

This note a just a thought process for possible further study in the future.

ANi

Indian Democracy vis a vis Western

2009-05-15T00:03:00.000-07:00

I have never voted so probably i am not the right person to write about India's democracy, I did not vote not because i was too lazy or had little to do with voting, but I happen to be in situations where either i was in different place, other than where i could have had my Voters I card or I was not in India. So i want to make it clear that i strongly believe in fundamental principles of democracy.

1.15 Billion People Voting in 5 phases with an average turn around of 60%. How many democracies put togather would produce that kind of voting population??? I guess the whole of the democratic world one side and India other, indian democracy would prove to be stronger. I love indian democrasy, my stay in west has reinforced my belief in Indian democracy and human values and rights in India.
When i look at American Democrasy, it makes me sick, like just two parties- Its looks so closed, if i dont agree with both democrats and republicans, what will i do, to whom would i go..but in India thier are around 1000 political parties to choose from with different inclinations, diversities and ideology. I can never be left behind, even begger in India has a voice, he can fight for himself if chooses the right political party. How many political parties in America have actually fought for blacks when we campare in India where political parties fight for the rights of Dalits, Muslims, and other minority groups..Thats just wonderful.

Its amasing that during the election campaign of Nicholas Sarkosy of France, he rode his election campaign of Anti-Immigrants sentiments, if I would have been a french, i would definately agree with him but can the same happen in India and come as a winner without any opposition. I mean look at BJP- BJP one side and the rest of the parties the other side. Its completely alieniated, but the same never happened in france. Nicholas Sarkosy party has a wide ranging support. The beauty of democracy is the my vote is my voice, and if it can be heard, thier is nothing like it..In indian democrasy, despite the caos- AAM AADAMI gets his voice, wheather its Media, the political parties...AAM AADAMI gets his voice.

I love mathematics, even though i hardly practise it anymore, but if we do the right statistical anylysis of the elections, the results over the last 60 years of independence, we ll see some interesting results relevant both to democrasy and to mathematics- as i believe that indian democrasy in real sence and Ideal democrasy.

I still remember that just 4 years back when i was in India, i was quite supportive of Che Guvera, Fridel Castro and had the romantic view that something like this must happen in India as well..BUT cuba is as big as Haryrana will just one language, one religion, one ethinicity. Compare that with India- That will lead to complete caos.

I would write more on this article later..