Thoughts on Christmas - III

I’m sure you are all flooded with great Holiday advice. However, Barbara’s list takes the cake as far as I’m concerned!

Mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion, and replace it with trust. Write a love letter. Share some treasure. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word and deed. Keep a promise. Find the time. Forego a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Listen. Apologize if you were wrong. Try to understand. Flout envy. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Appreciate. Be kind. Be gentle. Laugh a little. Laugh a little more. Deserve confidence. Take up arms against malice. Decry complacency. Express your gratitude. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Thoughts on Christmas - II

If you’re planning to party this Christmas, may I suggest reading Alf’s Safety advice for when you are out this Christmas beforehand! I really loved the section on Personal Property:

- Keep valuables such as mobile phones and laptops safely hidden whilst out. We suggest you carry a safe with you at all times. - If you're going out for the night, take enough cash with you for the evening. And also for a plane ticket out of the European city you'll end up in once someone's drugged you and removed one of your kidneys.

Thoughts on Christmas - I

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.

- Dr. Seuss (How the Grinch Stole Christmas)

Job Satisfaction: Subroto Bagchi

In his latest “Times of Mind” article, Subroto Bagchi takes a (by-now-expected) unusual take on the entire concept of Job Satisfaction. He asks whether jobs are living things that can ever ‘satisfy’ us. As he says,

“Jobs are not meant to satisfy us. Jobs are not animate things that have knowledge of who we are, what we are seeking and what our special needs could be”

And…

“Few of us ever ask the boss to be rewarded with a tough and dirty job. We only look for the ‘plum’ ones. Yet, there are people, who given a tough and dirty job, make it strategic: they transform the job in unbelievable ways. In a typical career span, there must be at least four such solid stints in one’s life to make the person a solid professional. All the great people I know have been in the trenches for much of their lives, and their inventory of bruises outnumber(s) the commendations they have received. The occasional commendations stay on the wall. It is the bruises that these people carry with pride.”

When I started my career, and for years afterwards, I was in continual, never-ending search for job satisfaction. Over time, as I matured (?), it was replaced with the realization that every “first day at work” was exciting, every “first year” satisfying, but then it sort of tapered off every single time. If it happens once, fate! Twice, coincidence! But more than that and it must be something internal, something to do with me, rather than with the job/company! I also realized that the times when I felt “fulfilled” weren’t necessarily the times that were the happiest, or the times when my bosses, colleagues, family or the company were catering to my every need. They were usually the times I was contributing the most, the times I was in “flow”, the times I was “satisfying the job”. You can read the full article here.

Wishes

Saw this...and loving it... Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures. And without regard to the race, creed , color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee. By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Christmas Story

Little Bobby came into the kitchen where his mother was making dinner. His birthday was coming up and he thought this was a good time to tell his mother what he wanted. "Mom, I want a bike for my birthday." Little Bobby was a bit of a troublemaker. He had gotten into trouble at school and at home. Bobby's mother asked him if he thought he deserved to get a bike for his birthday. Little Bobby, of course, thought he did. Bobby's mother wanted Bobby to reflect on his behavior over the last year. She said, "Go to your room, Bobby, and think about how you have behaved this year. Then write a letter to God and tell him why you deserve a bike for your birthday." Little Bobby stomped up the steps to his room and sat down to write God a letter. Letter 1 Dear God, I have been a very good boy this year and I would like a bike for my birthday. I want a red one. Your friend, Bobby Bobby knew that this wasn't true. He had not been a very good boy this year, so he tore up the letter and started over. Letter 2 Dear God, This is your friend Bobby. I have been a good boy this year and I would like a red bike for my birthday. Thank you. Your friend Bobby Bobby knew that this wasn't true either. So, he tore up the letter and started again. Letter 3 Dear God, I have been an "OK "boy this year. I still would really like a bike for my birthday. Bobby Bobby knew he could not send this letter to God either. So, Bobby wrote a fourth letter. Letter 4 God, I know I haven't been a good boy this year. I am very sorry. I will be a good boy if you just send me a bike for my birthday. Please! Thank you, Bobby Bobby knew, even if it was true, this letter was not going to get him a bike. Now, Bobby was very upset. He went downstairs and told his mom that he wanted to go to church. Bobby's mother thought her plan had worked, as Bobby looked very sad. "Just be home in time for dinner," she told him. Bobby walked down the street to the church on the corner. Little Bobby went into the church and up to the altar. He looked around to see if anyone was there. Bobby bent down and picked up a statue of the Mary. He slipped the statue under his shirt and ran out of the church, down the street, into the house, and up to his room. He shut the door to his room and sat down with a piece of paper and a pen. Bobby began to write his letter to God. Letter 5 God, I'VE KIDNAPPED YOUR MAMA. IF YOU WANT TO SEE HER AGAIN, SEND THE BIKE!!!

Intellectual Property, DRM & Customers

I know this controversy is now about a zillion years old. But it illustrates some of my thoughts about companies’ values & principles only too well! I was going to write a long article about this, but then I came across Carla Schroder's article The RIAA - Hollywood - DRM - Linux Suicide Pact on LXer, where she writes:

“I had already come to the conclusion that the fine folks behind the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Digital Rights Management, and the Business Software Alliance are either nuts, corrupt, or both. These are all things that Real People (like you and me) don't need and don't want. The DMCA is on shaky ground Constitutionally, but until we get a Constitutional amendment that requires new laws to pass Constitutional muster before they can be enforced, we will spend our lives enduring barrages of similar madnesses… …I find myself wondering what sort of mindset would prefer to perpetuate an inferior product line and ignore what customers are willing to pay for, and instead devote considerable energies and money to fighting with their customers, and treating them like criminals, and purchasing punitive unenforceable laws, and sue tens of thousands of people, and plant destructive software into peer-to-peer networks and on customer's computers, for which they should go to jail, but nooo, that won't happen, instead of devoting those resources to improving their products, and delivering what customers want to pay for? …Like Richard Stallman, I detest the sloppy, inaccurate, propagandistic term "intellectual property." It deliberately implies that ideas and concepts can be owned. Well, they can't. What we are talking about are copyrights, trademarks, and patents, or very specific implementations of ideas and concepts. In this discussion, we're talking about copyrights and fair use. As an author, I have a fair bit of self-interest in copyrights. I don't care to see my works copied and sold by someone else. By dang, if there is money to be made from my labors, I want it. …I admit I am nervous about the concept of delivering a book entirely in digital format. I need to earn at least $40,000 from a book to make it worthwhile for me financially. Will digital delivery cut into my income? Or will it expand my readership by making the book available at a lower cost? I believe the latter. Sure, there are always freeloaders who are ingenious at getting things for free. But most folks are honest, and all they want is fair value. If I write sucky books that no one wants, like the way that the music industry releases crappy CDs, and Hollywood makes dopey movies that no one wants, I won't sell more books by criminalizing customers and instituting lame copy-protection schemes. …So here we have an entire industry exerting considerable effort to exclude a whole class of customers, because we use a computing platform that they cannot control. Sure, Microsoft will be happy to screw over its end users by including all manner of DRM nastiness. But in the end it won't matter anyway- customers who choose to view their legally-purchased DVDs on Linux will easily, if illegally, find a way. What sort of madness is this? Despite the attempts of the software and entertainment industries to convince us that we only license their products, not own them, most folks view items that they purchase as owned, and theirs to do with as they jolly well feel like. That's the reality, and fighting that is futile. Their attempts to "protect" their "property" are laughable in any case. Professional pirates, the ones who copy and print off thousands of discs, aren't even slowed down by their silly lawsuits and copy-protection schemes. The only ones who get hurt are their own customers- the very ones who pay actual money for their products. The way to attract customers is to offer attractive products at a fair price, and be nice to them. Not strongarm them. You know that, I know that. Why don't these bigshot corporations know that?”

For more on the Sony DRM Controversy, visit the following: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/11/sonys_drm_rootk.html http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_11.php#004192 http://businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2005/tc20051122_343542.htm http://www.boycottsony.us/ http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html Get your free pdf copy of Freedom of Expression®: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity here

The Rantings Of A Technology Lover

I love technology. I love my iPod. I love my digital camera and the pictures it creates on my computer. I love the Powerbook G4 I’m using to write this post. I even once loved my Treo 600 though that infatuation is fading as its email program capabilities have unexpectedly deteriorated. But I still love the idea of being able to get my email whenever and wherever I want. I love the antibiotic that cured my wife’s pneumonia last winter. I love blogging. I love the special features on the DVD. I love that Dr. Jonas can save this boy’s life (rr). I love the idea of Skype. If I could find a decent USB headset and mic that worked as it should on a Mac I'd love Skype itself. I love podcasting. If I watched TV, I'd love Tivo.

Same here...heh!

Poem by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To know that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice

Don't ask me why I'm reading this stuff!

Change Management

Here I go again…butting in things that are none of my business, instead of concentrating on things I’m supposed to be doing. Problem is I think too much, especially about things I care about. Mushy disclaimer done, let’s move on to the reason for this post. Organisational change needs 3 things to succeed:

1. Intent
2. Precision and
3. Speed

However, most Change management exercises fail precisely because the Change Agents fail to get one of the above right. Either the effort is a half-hearted one (Lack of Intent), or it is done with too narrow or too wide a focus (Lack of Precision), or it seems to go on forever (Lack of Speed), leading to demotivation & loss of energy. Lack of Intent: Usually occurs because the Change Agents do not have a clear vision (sorry to use that term) of where they want to go. This might be partly due to the ever-changing nature of the environment around them, or lack of direction from Senior Management, but usually it is because the reasons for undertaking the Change program are not clearly articulated. Quite often the programs are undertaken because of ego-clashes, fad-hunting or because the Change Agent is just plain bored or frustrated with the status quo. Articulating the reasons for the change program, and the benefits that are sought to be achieved, is the first step towards getting it right. Spending more time & thought at the pre-planning stage would make the execution usually better. Lack of Precision: Usually occurs because in their haste to change, Agents attack the problem piecemeal, rather than taking a holistic view. Or they may desire to change everything of the past (remember the Re-engineering fad?). While tools like OD, Scenario Planning et al might help, probably the best approach would be to run a pilot program in a smaller part of the organization as an experiment to learn from, gain political currency, and leverage. Do keep in mind though, that at times, this might not be possible, or indeed desirable. This would be particularly true in cases of downsizing, strategic purchase/sale of business, or while entering a new market/geography/product line or repositioning an existing product line. In such cases, probably the best approach is to move with large steps at a rapid pace. Which brings us to… Lack of Speed: This is where (my uneducated & totally biased guess) 90% of change management programs fail. Most programs proceed at too slow a pace, meandering & floundering on the way, not because of lack of intent or precision, but because the time taken to implement the program is so long as to render the original premise & plan meaningless. This is usually because even when people are convinced of the “intellectual need” for a change program, they have not bought into it “emotionally”. This is because such programs frequently challenge our pre-conceived notions of how things ought to be done, or force us to step out of our comfort zones. Surprisingly, it is as true of the Change Agents themselves, as of the other people effected by or involved with the program. Acknowledging the emotional impact of the Change Programs goes a long way towards ensuring speed. Have you seen any Change Programs suffer? If so, do you agree with the above, or can you think of other reasons why Change Programs flounder?

Carers Wish List

I wish:

I could watch a television programme all the way through I could go to bed when I want to and sleep through the night I could get up when I want to I could do something on the spur of the moment I didn’t have to watch the clock for tablets and toileting I didn’t have to worry all the time about the person I care for I wish things could be as they were.

Thanks to Chris Young, caring for her husband (& to Trevor for sharing this). Trevor Gay defines a carer as “family members (or friends) who provide care to someone suffering from an illness or disability. They are unpaid. Carers do this from a sense of duty and obligation but more importantly from a sense of love for the person they look after.” India has always had a rich tradition of carering (is there such a word?) It is not only common for people to take care of their parents/in-laws, it is almost an expected part of one’s duty to them. Almost all of us grew up watching our parents care for one or more of their parents, and we are the richer for the experience. Sadly enough this tradition seems to be waning with the advent of nuclear families & apartment-living of today. However, it is interesting to note that a western country like UK still seems to have a thriving culture of carering! As Carers UK point out “the care they provide is worth £57 billion per year - the equivalent of running a second NHS. People from all walks of life and backgrounds can become carers - over 3 in 5 people in the UK will become carers at some time in their lives.” (emphasis mine) So, this holiday season, I request you to please visit the Carers UK Web Site and spend a little time reading some of the information.

Quality of Leadership

Adrian Savage has this to say on judging the quality of leadership of an organization:

Always remember this. How your staff behave is telling the rest of the world — very clearly and loudly — how good you are as a leader. When I see poor staff, I know the leadership is crap. And don't give me all that rubbish about blaming the quality of the people available. There are thousands of talented folk out there looking for work. If you employ poor people, you're either getting what you deserve (the good ones wouldn't be seen dead working in your organization); you're too mean to pay a decent wage; or you can't tell the difference between good people and those who should be politely sent on their way — or, worst of all, you don't care. However you slice it, you're to blame. There are no excuses.

Hmmm, something for all of us to ponder upon…

Two Stories of Management Styles

Recently, came across a really old article by Joel Spolsky regarding contrasting management styles. What caught my eye was this phrase:

(At Juno)… it was the idea that no matter how hard you work, no matter how smart you are, no matter whether you are 'in charge' of something or not, you have no authority whatsoever for even the tiniest thing. None. Take your damn ideas, training, brains, and intelligence, all the things we're paying you for, and shove it. And at Juno, there were plenty of managers, something like 1/4 of all the employees, and so they had plenty of times to stick their fingers into every single decision and make sure that they were in control. The contrast with Microsoft, where VP's descended from Building 9 to make it clear that you have the authority to get things done, was stark.

Read the two stories contrasting the management styles at http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/TwoStories.html, and then think about which story would be true for your company!

Wildly Important Goals

In the audiobook, “The Four Disciplines of Execution”, Stephen Covey and Jennifer Colosimo say that the first discipline is to focus on wildly important goals. To do this, they state that people can only accomplish two or three goals at once with excellence and insist that we must narrow our focus in order to achieve such WIGs. An excerpt:

One of the most fundamental principles of organizational activity is that human beings are genetically hard-wired to do one thing at a time with excellence. And there's no better place to illustrate how this principle is honored than at the airport. Because right now there could be more than 100 airplanes either approaching, landing, taking off or moving around. And all of them are very, very important - especially if you happen to be in one of them. For an air traffic control specialist only one aircraft is wildly important right now. That's Flight 457. The controller is aware of all of the other planes on her radar. She is keeping track of them, but all her talent and expertise is solely focused on Flight 457. If she doesn't get Flight 457 on the ground safely, if she doesn't do that with total excellence, nothing else she might achieve is really going to matter much. Wildly important goals are like that. They always share one unique characteristic. They are the goals we must achieve with total excellence. Any other goal we might achieve really won't matter much. This is what we suggest you must do in your work. You must make the hard choices and separate what is wildly important to you and your organization from all of the other merely important goals that may be on your radar. Then you must approach that wildly important goal with focus and diligence until it is delivered as promised with excellence.

The other three disciplines as per Covey & Colosimo are:

1. Create a Compelling Scoreboard
2. Translate Lofty Goals into Specific Actions
3. Hold Each Other Accountable -- All of the Time

Gaiman on Parenting

Was reading an article by Dina Rabinovitch on Neil Gaiman, when I came across this…

As with all tales of children in peril, the parents in Gaiman's books are deeply detached. "I suspect the parents in Coraline, and all the books, are much more me, parodying me - my nose in a book, my head somewhere else. It's more me taking all the worst bits of me, than it is my parents," he says.

I’m sure this sounds extremely familiar to my wife…describes someone she knows well! ;-)) For those of you who have no clue about who Neil Gaiman is, or what he does, I’d suggest typing “Neil” in google, and following the first link you come to.

Does this happen to you?

If you own an iPod (or for that matter, any other techno-gadget), and have had a harrowing experience lately, check out an experience Brad Feld had... http://www.feld.com/blog/archives/2005/11/it_ought_to_be.html You may also like to read Jeremy Zawodny’s “Steve Jobs Ruined My Thanksgiving”

Can't Believe I Took These Tests

Your Blogging Type is Pensive and Philosophical

You blog like no one else is reading... You tend to use your blog to explore ideas - often in long winded prose. Easy going and flexible, you tend to befriend other bloggers easily. But if they disagree with once too much, you'll pull them from your blogroll!

What's Your Blogging Personality?

Your Outrageous Name is:

Hugh Mungous

Outrageous Name Generator

Your Hidden Talent

You have the power to persuade and influence others. You're the type of person who can turn a whole room around. The potential for great leadership is there, as long as you don't abuse it. Always remember, you have a lot more power over people than you might think!

What's Your Hidden Talent?

Your Personality Profile

You are dependable, popular, and observant. Deep and thoughtful, you are prone to moodiness. In fact, your emotions tend to influence everything you do. You are unique, creative, and expressive. You don't mind waving your freak flag every once and a while. And lucky for you, most people find your weird ways charming!

The World's Shortest Personality Test

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

Doing Business in India – Part 2

In the previous post, I had summarized a recent McKinsey Quarterly Report on the future of India's Outsourcing, which had emphasized the urgency of educational & infrastructural reform in India. Time after time, report after report in one journal after another seems to focus on our poor infrastructure, not just physical but social & educational as well. And yet it seems, as though the policy makers are just not bothered. While previously we seemed content to deplore the decadent West, while touting our own so-called cultural superiority, today we seem to be taken in by our own hype of having conquered the West just because of our IT & BPO prowess. One software center opens in Bangalore, hiring 5000 people, and the media make it appear as though we’re now the software capital of the world. Add to it the numerous articles in the Indian media about the number of Indians in high positions in various American firms. We seem to forget (blinded & deafened by our own hype) that our software exports are barely 1.5% of the total software industry. If we add the BPO stuff, we’ve probably captured 2-2.5% of the market. For each company coming to India (or choosing to work with Indian firms), we probably have three choosing not to. The reasons given by these companies range from poor roads to Indian accents to cultural issues. While we can decry this as racist or un-informed, the fact of the matter is that a company choosing to set up base in India does it with a lot of trepidation, and it devolves upon us to make it easy for them to do business with us. However, we seem to go out of our way to increase the post-decision dissonance. Our labour laws & unions make hiring & firing way too cumbersome. Our government bureaucracy ensures that instead of spending their time producing & marketing, the companies spend it in queues in government office. (Please do not talk to me about having dismantled license raj; I’ve dealt personally with the customs & excise departments, as well as with RBI & Department of Company Affairs, and I could tell you a story or two that would make your jaded selves shiver) Our roads are not worth discussing, while the electricity supply is good enough for all the software campuses to have large generators. The telecom infrastructure is painful, and if you use the internet at home (rather than the company DSL) then you would know what “pathetically slow” means. Meanwhile we go about, smug in the belief that “the logic for offshoring is inescapable”, that “to survive in tomorrow’s world, every company will have to do business with India/China”. I’m sorry, but that’s bullcrap! Companies will do business if the value they get out of it is more than the cost of doing business. With our creaking infrastructure, poor administration of laws, convoluted bureaucratic procedures & abysmal educational standards, we really are in no position to Rule the World.

Doing Business in India – Part 1

A recent McKinsey Quarterly report on Offshoring says that India's lead in offshoring stems from its pool of well-trained, low-cost engineers for IT services, but this pool is smaller than it appears, and there's a risk that it may run dry in the most popular offshoring locations. It says that the leading issues (opportunities?) facing Indian offshoring industry (IT & BPO) are:

1. Variability of educational standards across institutions
2. Poor English
3. High rates of emigration among graduates of the top schools
4. Low number of engineering graduates, especially when compared to the foreseen demand
5. Scarcity of middle managers and…(get this…)
6. Poor quality infrastructure

The solutions suggested are:

1. Raise the quality of university education – defining curriculums that reflect current and future demand in employment; developing better certification procedures and promoting higher standards of quality for colleges; support the expansion of top-quality private schools; Offering grants to study the coveted disciplines (like engineering); standardization; focus on English; opening IITs in each state
2. Move beyond offshoring hot spots – into Tier 2 & tier 3 cities; provide incentives & marketing support to companies willing to do so
3. Improve the infrastructure – airports, communications networks, utilities (roads, housing, sanitation, electricity & water)
4. Move beyond IT and software – into industrial R&D and medical research and back-office functions

The report goes on to say:

“Thanks to the dynamism of India's IT services, the country is the world's preeminent offshoring destination. But other low-wage nations are now broadcasting their potential as offshore locations, and demand will quickly exceed India's supply of talent suitable for international companies. To stay on top, India must not only produce more top-quality engineers but also improve the suitability of other graduates. Finally, it has to show companies the depth and quality of its talent in areas other than IT—especially R&D and back-office work in industries such as finance and accounting.”

Read the full report online (free subscription required) at http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/article_abstract.aspx?ar=1660&L2=1&L3=106&srid=17&gp=0

Wish List - Books

Remember wish lists? As kids we filled our lists with stuff we hoped to receive and stuff no one would ever buy us. Well, I've started my own Wish List on the Amazon.co.uk website. Check it out then create one for yourself if you haven't already! http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/registry/3U24CEWIVBBLQ

Quotes - by Milton Friedman

1. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
2. I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible.
3. A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
4. The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.
5. We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.
6. We don't have a desperate need to grow. We have a desperate desire to grow.
7. With respect to teachers' salaries - Poor teachers are grossly overpaid and good teachers grossly underpaid. Salary schedules tend to be uniform and determined far more by seniority.
8. If an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it. Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can only gain at the expense of another.
9. History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.
10. Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.
11. Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.
12. There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income. – Fox News interview 2004

Who will play your music?

John Stanko re-tells this story of how Michael Jones went from being a consultant to a famous pianist.

“One day someone heard Mr. Jones playing the piano in a Toronto hotel lobby, something he did as a hobby while he traveled. The man approached him and asked Mr. Jones an important question: The man asked, "Do you work at the hotel?" I said, "Oh, no, no, no. I'm a consultant. I'm busy trying to change the world." To my disappointment, he didn't seem at all impressed by that. Then he asked, "How many other people do this kind of consulting work that you do?" I said, "Well, probably 20 or 30, I would guess, in the Toronto area." And then he looked at me, and at that moment what I most recall about the meeting was how clear and sober his eyes appeared, from how he seemed a few minutes before. He said, "Who's going to play that music if you don't play it yourself?" I felt that question drop in a way that I had not heard a question drop inside of me before. I realized it was a question for which I had no answer. . . Then he stood up, a little uneasy, and steadied himself by putting his hand on my shoulder, and said, "This is your gift -- don't waste it." Meanwhile I sat on the piano bench, stunned by the question and the sense that it had just changed my life. Who will play my music? I asked myself.”

Stanko asks: "Who will play your "music" if you don't? Who will write the book, build the business empire, take the missions trip, compose the play or fulfill your destiny if you don't? Are there others who can do what you are doing now, while something only you can do remains undone?" Postscript: Michael Jones concluded that no one would play his music if he didn't. He overcame his fear of going broke, being ignored or failing and went on to sell two million copies of his piano recordings.

What's wrong with our reform process?

Ravikiran Rao explains that not only does it not go far enough, but that it's not likely to go much further, in his post Why we reformed what we did." An excerpt:

The gradual, step-by-step opening was supposed to be a good thing from the point of view of eminent caution. It was supposed to be a continual experiment, the results of which would help us to take further steps. If this experiment succeeded, the argument went, we would feel more confident, and it would be politically more acceptable to take those steps. As an experiment it has succeeded spectacularly. Where we reformed, we did well. We reformed the stock market, and the stock market is doing well. We allowed foreign investment and foreign investment flowed in. We liberalized the telecoms sector and now the poor have mobile phones. Where we did not reform, we are doing badly. We did not liberalize the labour market and so organized sector unemployment is still high. We did not dereserve the small-scale sector and we are still lagging in manufacturing. We haven’t touched agriculture and farmers are still committing suicides. This is as perfect a controlled experiment as you can ever get in the social sciences. If you want to test out the efficacy of a drug, you split a population into two, give one of them the drug and the other a placebo. If the group that receives the drug improves and the control group that received the placebo does not improve, we know that the drug makes a difference. You cannot take the drug’s lack of effect on the control group to claim that it isn’t effective, can you? But that is exactly what I’ve been hearing for the past ten years that I’ve been following this debate. It is bad enough that we are conducting this cruel experiment - where the rich and the middle-class are administered the medication while the poor are given the placebo.

Imagination, Business Trends & Doing What it Takes

A few interesting top ten lists from Dave Pollard's How to Save the World. Ten rules for being more imaginative: 1. Pay attention 2. Spend time with children 3. Remember your dreams 4. Change your point of view 5. Collaborate 6. Transport yourself 7. Improvise 8. Break the rules 9. Believe, and make believe 10. Get away from the media The ten most important trends in business: 1. Open-Source Business 2. Disruptive Innovation 3. Complexity 4. Corporate Reform 5. Innovation Incubation 6. Social Networking and Personal Productivity Improvement 7. Wisdom of Crowds 8. Channel Customization 9. Customer Relationship Management 10. Execution The nine reasons we don't do what we should: 1. Fear 2. Lack of Self-Confidence 3. Lack of Knowledge 4. Trying to Do Too Much Alone 5. Trying to Do Too Much 6. Loss of Self 7. Lack of Energy 8. Lack of Reward 9. It Can't Be Done

For NRI’s …from another

An NRI blogs about going back… http://parthp.blogspot.com/2005/11/kya-ab-laut-chalen.html TTG’s answers to some of the above issues… http://25worldcountry.blogspot.com/2005/11/laut-sakte-ho-somewhat.html And… Jabberwock in an unusually political post talks about the hypocritical NRI’s

Perils of a Tech-driven Life?!

Instead of expecting to finish that long tech to-do list, maybe we should find the Zen in the art of computer maintenance, or so says Brad Stone in "Our So-Called Digital Life".

“Finally. I am about to stop building and start living my digital life. In just a few more days, the computers, accessories and software tools that I use at home and work will be fully upgraded, optimized and fine-tuned for maximum efficiency.”

The column focuses, only half in jest, on the perils of today’s tech-driven world. You must patch the OS, update security settings, defrag hard drive and download a new anti-spyware tool; you need to subscribe to Skype, Del.icio.us, Flickr and satellite radio, PayPal, Paltalk, Grokster and Friendster… archive old e-mail and preserve the addresses of the good contacts, pick through the spam filter and separate family messages from the e-mails of all those desperate Nigerians… You need to backup the hard drive, connect TiVo to the home network and widescreen TV to stereo system, sync the digital camera to the PC, and thereafter transfer the photos to the Web, ordered, tagged, captioned, etc. etc. You need to create a new playlists in iTunes, start a blog, begin a daily podcast, and perhaps a video blog as well. You also need to research new cell phones, change the settings on the current one…ad infinitum… …And to add to all of it, you need to read this stupid blog, making fun of all the people like me & you, and the lives we lead… Having read the column, one is more sympathetic of Brad when he says (emphasis mine!),

“Then, after I have checked off all the items on my technology to-do list, the tools that I need to live a fulfilled digital life will finally be fully assembled. Unless true fulfillment is forever elusive. Maybe the intensive, time-consuming effort needed to manage my digital life is itself my digital life.”

Here’s to digital enlightenment!

Nine Business Insights from Time CEO Ann Moore

…From an interview in Knowledge at Wharton One: Never turn down the chance to vote. Two: The only difficult assignment in business is finding good people and putting them in the right job. Three: You will never have more control over your professional life than you do when you start out. Enjoy control and time while you still have it. Four: Forget the clock. Get a compass instead. Where you are headed is more important than how fast you are going. Five: Power accrues to those who produce results. Profits matter. Six: Power isn't everything. Power means incredible sacrifice and constant trade-offs between work, spouse and family. Seven: Recognize that there are fundamental differences between men and women. Eight: All behavior emanates from the top and reverberates down the organization to the lowest level. Nine: Making money is easy. Making a difference is hard.

Who killed Manjunath?

Ila Patnaik in a very perceptive essay writes:

“Parts of the oil economy are criminalised because fuel prices are not market-determined. The profits make murder an acceptable risk for entreprenurial thugs…”

Read the full story here.

For Friends Only - Poem by WH Auden

Ours yet not ours, being set apart As a shrine to friendship, Empty and silent most of the year, This room awaits from you What you alone, as visitor, can bring, A weekend of personal life. In a house backed by orderly woods, Facing a tractored sugar-beet country, Your working hosts engaged to their stint, You are unlike to encounter Dragons or romance: were drama a craving, You would not have come. Books we do have for almost any Literate mood, and notepaper, envelopes, For a writing one (to "borrow" stamps Is the mark of ill-breeding): Between lunch and tea, perhaps a drive; After dinner, music or gossip. Should you have troubles (pets will die Lovers are always behaving badly) And confession helps, we will hear it, Examine and give our counsel: If to mention them hurts too much, We shall not be nosey. Easy at first, the language of friendship Is, as we soon discover, Very difficult to speak well, a tongue With no cognates, no resemblance To the galimatias of nursery and bedroom, Court rhyme or shepherd's prose, And, unless spoken often, soon goes rusty. Distance and duties divide us, But absence will not seem an evil If it make our re-meeting A real occasion. Come when you can: Your room will be ready. In Tum-Tum's reign a tin of biscuits On the bedside table provided For nocturnal munching. Now weapons have changed, And the fashion of appetites: There, for sunbathers who count their calories, A bottle of mineral water. Felicissima notte! May you fall at once Into a cordial dream, assured That whoever slept in this bed before Was also someone we like, That within the circle of our affection Also you have no double.

A Giant Mosaic

This mosaic image, one of the largest ever taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope of the Crab Nebula, is a six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion. Japanese and Chinese astronomers witnessed this violent event nearly 1,000 years ago in 1054, as did, almost certainly, Native Americans. The orange filaments are the tattered remains of the star and consist mostly of hydrogen. The rapidly spinning neutron star embedded in the center of the nebula is the dynamo powering the nebula's eerie interior bluish glow. The blue light comes from electrons whirling at nearly the speed of light around magnetic field lines from the neutron star. The neutron star, the crushed ultra-dense core of the exploded star, like a lighthouse, ejects twin beams of radiation that appear to pulse 30 times a second due to the neutron star's rotation. The colors in the image indicate the different elements that were expelled during the explosion. Blue in the filaments in the outer part of the nebula represents neutral oxygen, green is singly-ionized sulfur, and red indicates doubly-ionized oxygen. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Hester (Arizona State University)