antithought

Drake's formula: How many of them are out there?

2006-12-07T07:00:00.000-08:00

Having gone through years of Math, Physics and Engineering, I’ve had my share of formulas. Many of them represent the most towering and spectacular achievements of the human brain; Newton’s F=ma, Einstein’s e=mc2, Boltzman’s S=k log W and Pythagoras’ a2 + b2 = c2.

But my favorite is the Drake’s formula. In fact, strictly speaking, it may not qualify as a formula at all; it’s speculative in nature. But its implications are profound.

Drake tried to estimate the number of civilizations in the universe (N).

Drake combines the following factors in his equation/formula:

a)What’s the average rate of star formation in the galaxy? (R’)

b)What fraction of stars have planets? (fp)

c)How many planets per star are capable of supporting life? (ne)

d)What’s the likelihood of intelligent life developing on these? (fl)

e)What fraction of these would be willing to communicate with other civilizations? (fc)

f)How long will such civilizations last, on an average? (L)

N = R’ * fp * ne * fl *fc * L

As you will notice, except the first factor, which is more or less well known (R’ = 10), putting a value to all others is guesswork. Worse, we have only ourselves to go by, and that can create biases.

However, the amazing thing is that for N to be greater than 1, L has to take the burden. Put simply, if there is any chance of more than 1 intelligent civilization capable of communicating across inter-stellar distances, it’s vitally important that they last a long, long time. Else, at any given point in time, there will be only one civilization and it’ll self destruct. A new one will emerge somewhere else later.

An interesting point that comes out of this is that if another specie does contact us, it’ll be so far down the road in existence that it’d have found a way to co-exist with differences. It’ll have the technology to inflict violence, but it’ll also have the wisdom to be non-violent, unlike in the movies.

India vs China: The billionaires' numbers

2006-12-06T19:43:00.000-08:00

This is a table from Forbes.com. (The comments on it are mine)

The interesting numbers are in the average age of billionaires and the number of billionaires below 40. China scores on both front.

Does it mean that China is ahead of India in terms of young entrepreuners? Most likely.

How will China impact the global auto market?

2006-12-06T19:26:00.000-08:00

Take a mobile phone and make it bigger. Make it still bigger. Now you have got a screen size that makes it a viable competitor to the TV for your entertainment needs. Make it big enough to put enough processing power for your information needs. Make it voice activated. But it is too unwieldy to carry around with you. No problem; if you can’t carry your communication-entertainment-information unit, let it carry you. Make it even bigger and add some wheels to it. Soon, a GPS enabled car, with all its in-cabin communication/information/entertainment implications will be a regular feature on the roads of Japan and Korea. And what begins in any of these places will naturally find expression of scale in China.

Let's look at some numbers. The US consumes about 10 million cars annually. China consumes, currently, about 3 million annually. Given the low level of current penetration, the rapidly increasing infrastructure of global quality, the large population and the increasing wealth of the Chinese consumers, this number is going to increase constantly (the "emerging markets" flattener). How much will it increase to?

If we take a 50 year view, and assume a conservative CAGR of about 4% over that period for the Chinese auto market, it'll reach a level of 20 million cars annually in 2056. Cumulatively, between now and then, China will consume about 450 million cars. What about the US? Given the high level of penetration, the relatively static population, and lower economic growth rates, let us assume a static consumption of 10 million cars annually over the next 50 years. That's a cumulative consumption of 500 million cars; roughly speaking, the same as China. The US market is fragmented and mature; the Chinese market is the new frontier, with no clear long-term leaders established yet.

What does this mean for the global auto majors? How will it impact the balance of power?

The Japanese and the Koreans are strong in the latest generation communication technology. Will it give their automobiles an unbeatable edge?

Energy efficiency, either through hybrids or through alternative fuels, will be a key driver. Whichever energy source emerges as the winner, the end of the big-big car and the rise of the small/medium car looks likely. This trend will be further enhanced in China as millions of people who buy a car for the first time will go for a smaller car that's more affordable. Will this be Hyundai's window of opportunity? Does GM"s acquisition of Daewoo give it an entry here? Will the Japanese, the past masters of the small, fuel efficient car, further increase their dominance?

Will there be a Chinese company that will combine the potent force of local knowledge, made - in - China pride and fierce ambition to emerge as a dark horse?

And what would be the strategy of the US car majors? Can they fight on two fronts? Given that there is more money to be made per car in China, should they resign themselves to a gradual erosion of their market share in their domestic market, swallow their pride and focus on the China market?

If the center of gravity of the supply chain of all auto majors shifts to China completely, how will it impact the market in the US? And will the US players be able to crack the communication code in China, or will they struggle long enough for the Asian players to establish a lead?

We haven't even discussed the impact of the Indian market and the European auto industry, but it'll be interesting to watch the flat world phenomena play out on the roads in China.

My 3-point advice to Bush

2006-11-27T06:26:00.000-08:00

Even President Bush knows that he is, well, not to put too fine a point on it, screwed. He has got everyone blaming him and hating him for the Iraq war, but no one seems to have a solution for him.

The Republicans have absolutely no idea. They guess that more troops will do the trick, even if it leads to more deaths.

The Dems have a brilliantly clear officially stated position: “staying the course is not the solution”. But, of course, they don’t have a clue about what is the solution.

The rest of the world wants Bush to continue doing what he has been doing so that he can make a bigger fool of himself and they can all laugh at him and at America. Besides, no one really cares about Iraq.

It seems only Bush and I care about a democratic, secular, economically vibrant Iraq where men can get drunk if they want to and women can wear skirts if they want to. In fact, I suspect that I am thinking ahead of Bush on this because I want the same for Saudi Arabia and Pakistan as well, and I am not sure he will agree with me on the getting drunk part.

First, he should go on a Haj. That’s right, he should go on a Haj. This has four slam dunk implications for him. One, he will convince the Islamic world that he is not a Christian terrorist as many believe him to be. Two, he will give them a moral victory that he can afford to give, without withdrawing the troops. Three, he will electrify the American media with a new topic of discussion that will push the deaths from the front pages. And four, it will start rumors that he has converted to Islam which will completely confuse the jehadis.

Second, he should start building 500 malls in Iraq with immediate effect. At first glance, this may look nothing more than a classic divide-and-conquer strategy; the jehadis will have to divide themselves because they will have so many more targets and they will be easier to conquer. But my advice runs deeper than that. With 500 malls being built, there is a rational for the presence of American troops. They will be there to protect the construction. It’ll create jobs for the locals and it can be made to pay more than killing Americans, which is the only other job option in Iraq now. And finally, there is that benumbing and bewitching energy field that malls, once completed, have on human beings of all color, race and religion that somehow mysteriously diverts them from terrorism.

And now the third point of my three point advice. Rename Iraq. It doesn’t cost much but can have a galvanizing diversionary impact. In one stroke Bush can change the terms of the debate from “should we pull out or not” to “is naming Iraq as Babylon a good idea?”

He may think I am joking, but these are the only concrete solutions actually in front of him.

Free, Perfect and Now: part 2

2006-11-27T05:26:00.000-08:00

The story so far (scroll down for the blog entry part 1): There is a strong hypothesis that, in the near future, all functionality will become free, perfect and instantaneous (now). The question is: what will you charge for? How will you build a brand?

One possible solution lies in creating cool customer experiences. This requires constant innovation to stay one cool experience ahead of your competition.

The second thing that the customer may be willing to pay for is trust. This goes beyond the reliability of the product into the space of “do I trust this company?”

A strong trend that supports this is the rise of the “company brand”, as opposed to the “product brand”. The product brand was historically built around “what can you (the product) do for me (the consumer) and was driven by advertising. The company brand will be built around “what do you (the company) stand for and how do you behave” and will be driven by how the company walks its talk.

Let me give 3 examples.

Till 1995-6, Microsoft was seen as the underdog in the technology world. It was seen as a bunch of smart kids who had outwitted giants like IBM; iconoclasts who made tons of money but ate hamburgers; and the people most likely to chart out the future course of technology. However, after the browser war, the same Microsoft was seen as a bully. Still a bunch of smart people, but who were willing to cross the line and be ruthless to protect their turf. The change in perception had nothing to do with the quality of code coming out of Redmond; it had everything to do with their behavior. And it has been Microsoft’s “behavior”, (that of “not innovating”), that has been the subject of most articles/opinions written about it (next comes Gates’ charity; which is also a “behavior” trait).

If you look at GE, and analyze the articles written about it, very few have to do with the plastics they make or the quality of their aircraft engines or x-ray machines. However, the lack of transparency around Jack Welch’s retirement package makes news and impacts perception. Much is also written about GE’s management aggressive, performance driven management culture, which drives company behavior.

And then, there is Google. When it agreed to abide by the “requests” of the Chinese authority, it kicked up a storm, because Google wasn’t behaving as people expected it to under pressure. “Don’t be evil”, the famous Google vision line is all about guiding its behavior; not its products.

These three companies come from different eras, but are amongst the strongest brands in the world today. Each of them is a magnificent company in its own rights and has deserved the pedestal each is on. Yet, as the examples show, organizations will do well to focus on their behavior and build their company brand to earn the trust of their customers.

Democracy, Corporations and China

2006-11-19T21:07:00.000-08:00

Whenever the issue of China comes up, the West invariably brings up the twin issues of democracy and free speech. These are not only considered as important cultural values, but are also projected as being critical to long-term economic growth and innovation. One of the regular questions being floated around is: “Can innovation happen in China without free speech?” The
implication being that it will remain the factory to the world and nothing more.

This may be dangerously misleading. Consider this:

There is a large (and important) part of the West that doesn’t believe in, and doesn’t practice, either democracy or free speech. It’s called the Corporation.

A few wise men (the board/senior management) make the decisions; the rest have to execute it. Censorship? You bet! Monitoring your activities? Of course! Snooping your email. Sure! Hauling you up for criticizing your company in your blog? Thank your stars you are not fired!

There are too many similarities between the way China is run and the way a Western corporation is run. In fact, the fundamental reason for the similarity is the same: efficiency and productivity.

Yet, corporations have survived, innovated and thrived. I guess China will do so as well.

I do not condone military-backed authoritarian regimes. Give me my anarchic, chaotic, colorful democracy any day. But I think that we may be making a big mistake by questioning China’s economic future because we don’t like its socio-political beliefs.

Let me add a few more observations from China. One of the indicators of the “liberal index” of any country is the length of a woman’s skirt. They are deliciously short in China. Another is the attitude towards alcohol. Freely available. There is enough skin on TV. Porn is available on the streets. Sex is always a possibility. When these are coupled with low crime, great infrastructure and the hope of making more money tomorrow than you are making today, there is a high possibility that you may get a society that is not actually interested in expressing political views.

Demographics lesson aboard UA888

2006-11-19T21:06:00.000-08:00

When the stewardess in the business class reminds you of your grandmother’s social circle, you know you are flying United. In fact, you can teach an entire 5 credit course on global demographics by simply putting 2 pictures next to each other: an American air hostess and an Indian airhostess. No lectures, no text books, no homework. Just one slide to prove that America is definitely aging. Its planes are aging too. The video monitor on my seat didn’t work. My neighbor’s reading light didn’t work. Both our seats refused to recline beyond what they used to 10 years ago.

An aging workforce has obvious economical implications, like the condominiums in Florida. But there are other things to be considered. Older people tend to be grumpier. They resist change. They want to go home early. They complain about aches and pains in different parts of their body. They think they know everything. Can such a workforce compete with the young, driven, ambitious, 70-hr weekers from India and China? It’ll be interesting to see the battle of demographics.

Demographics cuts both ways, naturally. The only thing worse than having grumpy, old, conservative people on your pay roll is to have frustrated, jobless youngsters on the streets. If India fails to provide well paying, reliable jobs to the millions of youngsters, there will be blood on the streets; literally.

Free, perfect and now: Part 1

2006-11-19T21:04:00.000-08:00

What happens when “functionality” becomes free, perfect and now? It’s the inevitable and logical conclusion of cheaper, better and faster.

Take long distance communication as a functionality. With the combination of computer-to-computer phone, messenger, email, the functionality is free, it’s good enough to be called perfect and it’s instantaneous (“now”). Maybe it’s not available to everyone, but it’s a strong trend.

So what happens when “functionality” becomes free, perfect and now? What do you charge money for? How do you build your brand?

It can be argued that the world can be divided into the world of bits and the world of atoms. In the world of bits, this hypothesis looks plausible. But what about the world of atoms? Will a car become free (the functionality of moving from point a to a reasonably distant point B)? What about razors? What about tables and chairs? The world of atoms has to recover its marginal cost of production.

There are 2 forces at play in the world of atoms. One is the steady reduction in the marginal cost of production due to globalization. The second is the relentless pursuit of technology that will overturn our current concepts and make many things, those we take for granted today, obsolete tomorrow. An example is nano-technology. It creates self cleaning clothes. Goodbye detergents.

So if functionality is free, what will companies charge for? And what will consumers be willing to pay for?

I believe there are 3 things that companies of the future will have to focus on.

The first is to provide “cool experiences” to their customers. An example is the cellular ring tone. The cost of talk time is going steadily down, but ring tones are expensive. In India, people have customized ring tones for different people who call them. And these are expensive. Yet, people change their ring tones on a regular basis. You don’t really need it as a functionality, but it’s a cool experience.

The problem with a cool experience is that it gets stale. So, you have to continuously refresh them. Which means that companies have to innovate on a regular basis, otherwise the next cool experience will be provided by your competitor. It’s very much like the fashion industry and every industry must study the fashion industry to figure out how they make customers pay money for things they don’t really need. Apple definitely does so.

Will write about the other 2 areas of focus in another blog entry.

What if India were to really shine?

2006-11-19T21:02:00.000-08:00

This is an article I had written for the web version of the Outlook magazine. I am reproducing it here and hoping that Outlook will not sue me ffor breach of copyright. You can access it at www.outlookindia.com, but you will have to register. So, here goes.

What if India were to really shine? There will be more women studying and more women working. So, there will be more "love marriages". Many of them will be "inter-caste". This will drive national integration and remove the caste divide. No amount of legislation can achieve this as much as economic progress will.

As women will become financially independent, divorce rates will jump up. And those who are fond of saying "This generation is not willing to compromise", will do well to remember that everyone will be doing all the compromising at the work place; with their boss, with their colleagues, with their missed promotions and with their small increments.

And, as more and more children will be born, whose parents (or, ex-parents) speak different languages, English will become the dominant language of India. Valentine Day will become an Indian festival, coming exactly on the full moon after Makar Sankranti. South India will celebrate it one day before North India.

There will be many more vehicles on the roads. But the amount of road will remain the same. The growth rate will be enough to get you a vehicle, but not enough to create funds for infrastructure after greasing the mandatory pockets.

Flyovers-in-construction-forever will be the dominant visual of the country. They'll take up most of the driving space.

Driving will become such a pain that everyone will have a driver. Supply will not be a problem. In fact, it'll be the career of choice for most educated youngsters who can't get into a call center.

Eventually, half of India may be working in call centers and the other half may be their drivers. But it sounds too far fetched. All the marginal farmers couldn't have committed suicide.

Call centers will not be called call centers. They'll not even be called BPO. A new, more respectable term will be created. Something like "Global Business Enabling Hubs".

China will not replace India as the call center capital of the world. They'll learn English but it'll sound like Chinese because they don't have a culture of laughing at the other person's English accent, like we have. Analysts miss this important competitive advantage.

Even Patna will have an IIT. There will be over 500 of them in the entire country. American TV channels will make programs on how IITs produce the best call center employees in the world.

Maids will still be available. But, since most of the unemployed women will have a son or a brother who speaks English, and is a driver or a call center employee, it'll be beneath the dignity of the family to have them work as maids. So, they'll become expensive; like everything else except the drivers. And they'll be called Domestic Supervisors.

The houses will get smaller. They'll be full of gadgets which we will not use but will be forced to buy by the marketers. Most of the gadgets will be more intelligent than us.

Life will be busy with important things like being stuck in the traffic. Watching music videos on a 150-inch wall projection, alone, will be the preferred mode of relaxation. Because the house will be small and the screen so big, everyone will have a perennial headache.

This will bring down the population growth rate. It'll also drive up the drinking. More drinking will lead to more divorces which will lead to more drinking.

Prices of alcohol will stabilize, but that of water will shoot up.

We'll consume our annual domestic quota of power in the first 3 months with all the gadgets in the house. There'll be a thriving black market in the energy sector. Designer candles will be a boom industry.

There will be no "native place" for children to go to.

Paying for petrol will take up 20% of our combined (or divorced) salary. Everyone will have a minimum of 6 credit cards.At any given point, three of them will be over the limit.

Will we be happier? On one hand, many more of us will have a job, a house, a car, a driver and even 3-D mobile phones (whatever they will be). On the other, we'll be divorced, drunk, fat, cramped for space, lonely and in debt. I don't know.

But, it'll be a great time to be young and not be worried.

On Design

2006-11-19T21:01:00.000-08:00

A design is complete when there's nothing more left to take out; not when there is nothing more left to add. Think of a typical Hindi movie. The director keeps on adding things: song sequences, comedy situation etc. That's bad design. Think of cooking. You don't want to keep on adding all the spices possible; just the right ones in the right quantity.

Why is design important? Because it is the first point of contact between your product/idea and your consumer. It's the first thing a consumer reacts to. Given that product functionality is usually a commodity, design can be a powerful differentiator. Think Apple.

It's true for all design. Irrespective of whether you are creating or judging; and irrespective of whether it is a book cover design, an ad design or a product design, remember this: a design is complete when there is nothing more left to take out. Look hard at all the elements. Think of what you can take out. The temptation to keep them will be very strong. There will always be a logic for the presence of each piece. Just like there's a logic to having that extra song. Be tough.

Once all the extra stuff has been taken out, you'll find the harmony that's the sign of a great design.

Emoticons from Hallmark?

2006-11-19T21:00:00.000-08:00

I was sitting next to a Hallmark person during lunch. The discussion was around the trends in traditional greeting cards vs e-greeting cards. E-greetings are winning steadily, although the situation is not as serious as analog vs digital cameras. Yet.

I gave a simple idea to him. Hallmark should create a branded range of emoticons and have it bundled with MSN messenger etc.

Hallmark is in the business of helping you express yourself. More and more youngsters are expressing themselves through sms, messenger etc (I can take an educated guess that amongst teens, 10% of the conversation is what would have required a "card" earlier). Hallmark should be in that market.

It's true that one can download emoticons from the web. But, here (a) Hallmark can leverage its brand to package, consolidate and dominate this market, and (b) It can create out of world emoticons because it knows more about feelings and expressions than anyone else.Hallmark has no choice but to dominate the e-greeting space; otherwise it'll vanish one day. This should be a small step in keeping itself relevant for the webby boomers.

Smart Indians, dumb Americans; Smart America, Dumb India

2006-11-19T20:58:00.000-08:00

There is a widespread belief in India, cutting across language, class and caste, that man – to – man India is better than the US.

Everybody knows a “mediocre” person who would have been jobless and gone hungry had he stayed in India, but is now living in a 4-bedroom, 3-garage suburban house in the US and is driving a Toyota. Everybody, even those who have never visited the US, knows about the Americans at the check-out counters who can’t subtract 5 dollars from 20 dollars without the help of a calculator. We, of course, do differential calculus mentally.

Our conceit and arrogance misses a very important point. The American system has been designed in such a way that every single person is a part of the economic engine. It is well known that the power of a network increases� in proportion to the square of the nodes in the network. No wonder then that the American economy is so much more powerful.

The Indian economy, on the other hand, is driven by a few chosen people who have come through an endless process of filtering. There is no place for the academically challenged. The network has lesser number of nodes. It also has an unintended consequence. We don’t know how to collaborate.

Each successful Indian professional has been trained to come “first”. We award ranks from early stages of school. We compete bitterly in school and then compete ferociously to get into college and continue to compete savagely in college. Inevitably, we compete at work instead of collaborating. We believe that we could have done any job better. And the power of the economic network suffers.

Indians may be smart; America is smarter.

Economic progress and divorces

2006-11-19T20:55:00.000-08:00

For years, India held this moral aura around itself when it came to divorces. America had divorces and India had Culture.

I look around and see that a statistically significant percentage of my friends are divorced. It is the inevitable price of economic progress. There are many reasons for each individual divorce, but one factor cuts across all of them: financial independence of women. The reason India didn’t have divorces earlier was that women were not financially independent. God knows that they have had enough reasons to walk out on their husbands.

But, globally, there seems to be one more interesting force at work. This is the Jha hypothesis.

Marriage as an institution is thousands of years old. When the concept of marriage was created “for life”, life expectancy was hardly 22 years. Men got married at 15 and “for life” meant 7 years. Today, “for life” can mean anything from 40-70 years of married life. That can be a long time. And that wasn’t the original deal.

49.5% Reservations: suicidal for the economy and for the Congress

2006-04-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

Very often in politics, a party loses an election because of the mistakes it made; the cumulative negative impact on the mindset of the country over rides that of any good things they may have done. BJP’s loss began with the release of terrorists in the Kandhar hijacking.

The Congress/UPA government has been around for less than two years. But it has been itching to make a major mistake. With the announcement of the 27% reservation in all central education institutes, including the IITs and the IIMs, and potentially in the schools as well, they have finally done it.

The debate on the effectiveness of blind and perpetual reservations as an affirmative action is well settled. They don’t work. We have the post independent history to prove it. The reservation market has been cornered by a few hundred thousand families. In a country of over a billion and after 58 years, that’s too small a number to prove that our reservation policy has worked.

The move may also be, in the eyes of certain judges, a stretch on the constitution. There is an arguable contradiction between caste based reservations and the constitutionally mandated abolishment of the caste system. This is irrespective of any amendment to the constitution that may be put forth. It’ll be interesting to see how President Kalam grapples with his conscience while giving the inevitable consent to this bill. He may consult the PM; after all, Manmohan Singh seems to have made peace with this decision.

This is rather strange, because he, of all people, must realize that the class rooms are going to be the life blood of the new knowledge economy. I hold him guilty of choking the oxygen supply to the growth of our country. It will shave off a few percentage points, with all its attendant implications. On the other hand, it’ll not pay the rich political dividends that the Congress government would be hoping for. They have too many organizational problems in UP and Bihar, the key states they should be aiming for. In the polarization this decision will create, the Congress will have to fight others for a share of the OBC vote; the consolidation on the other side will be almost exclusively around the BJP/NDA.

Wars progressed from being physical to being economic. They will now be fought in the class rooms. The US is already concerned and debating about the best steps it can take. The industry is taking the lead. Andy Grove and John Chambers are speaking about it. Leading magazines are writing about it. China is going about it in its own regimental, but highly efficient, way. Korea may be small, but it may be the best prepared, hampered by language alone. At a time when a significant minority of the country is gaining the confidence to take on the world and succeed, we insist on, and are, busy playing politics and taking retrograde and divisive steps.

We should be thinking of ensuring real primary education available to all. We should be preparing a crack team and enforcing a zero tolerance policy towards corruption, apathy and indiscipline in primary education. We should be thinking about reclaiming the thousands of government schools across the country from the swamp of hopeless ineffectiveness. We should be trying to scale quality primary education opportunities to make the starting line equal for everyone; without any bias based on caste, colour, class or gender. Instead, we insist on playing politics and do our bit in the aiding and abetting the rot in the education system.

We should be thinking of building a higher education system that can scale up to meet the huge demand of quality talent. Make no mistake, the current growth in our economy will soon reach saturation, and then decline, if we can’t produce enough people who can do a job. There are just about enough good institutions to meet the current demand. The government should have a limited, and focused, financial role in higher education and absolutely no role that allows it any form of control. Private investment should be encouraged to create a few hundred competing centers of excellence and thousands of centers of competence. Instead, we insist on playing politics and turn our colleges into a breeding ground of cynicism, hopelessness, despair, anger, frustration, politics, violence, factionalism and aimlessness.

We should be thinking of introducing technological aids in the classrooms to assist the teachers and making comprehension more interesting and effective. The trick in the class room is to catch the student’s imagination. We are dealing with bright, young, restless minds. Technology exists to do so. What it needs is the imagination to leverage technology to change the presentation and make learning more interactive, more interesting, more tolerant of mistakes, more cognizant of an individual’s speed and more effective. Instead, we insist on playing politics and make sure that the worst specimen of teachers get to have the jobs.

We should be thinking of ways to make the teaching profession more attractive. Closer interaction with the industry, the usual driver, is difficult to achieve if we continue to attract second, third and fourth class talent into academics. Industry needs an academia that it can respect. We need to open the UGC’s grip on salaries allowed. Instead, we insist on playing politics and persist with salary scales that look like 111, 237/354 – 497/124, 356.

However flawed it may be, we have had a few things going for us in our education system. The rigor is an important asset to be preserved, not something to be thrown away because of liberal whims. The premier position of education as a passport to a better life is a state of mind that many countries, rich and poor, would be envious of. There is a large enough physical infrastructure which exists as a spring board. There are islands of vision. Our growth requires fixing and empowering our education system. Instead, we insist on playing politics and continue to attack the one system that’s our hope.

These things are well known to people who care about education in India and realize its importance. Based on the evidence of his political career, Arjun Singh obviously doesn’t belong to that group. Even the cricket team doesn’t look safe from reservations any more.

But maybe I am judging Singh and the Congress party a bit too harshly. It will take a Mayawati to do that. But, given the race to the bottom being indulged in by the Congress and the BJP, even that scenario doesn’t look so improbable after all.

The Conversion

2005-02-09T01:04:00.000-08:00

Religion is almost sacred to most people in India. So, when Paro’s son Somu converted to Christianity, it was only natural that she felt betrayed. Paro handled rising prices, a perennially drunk husband and the sheer physical labor of doing the cleaning and washing in four houses stoically; but this was unfamiliar territory. She turned, as most people did, to my mother for solace and counsel.

I was in seventh grade then. It was the Puja holidays. I was sitting at the dining table idling through a comic book, when Paro’s words caught my attention.

Memsaab, Somu has become a Christian, she announced. Somu was a rickshaw driver and my favorite one at that. He was always pleasant and smiling and would give me short rides whenever he could. He’d also drop my kid sister to school and pick her up in the afternoons.

I jerked my head around to where Mummy and Paro were sitting. Mummy was on the sofa with her legs folded, cradling the paan box in her lap. Paro was sitting on the ground, facing Mummy. Her elbow rested on the table and the fingers held her head in the universal pose of a person grappling with bad news.

Aa re re..chi chi! Ram! Ram! Mummy had almost jumped off the sofa.

The concept of conversion wasn’t new in the Chotanagpur region, where we lived. Christian missionaries ran some of the best schools there. I studied in one of them. But this was the first time Mummy had heard of someone she knew getting converted. Five thousand years of Hindu blood rushed through her veins in protest.

When did it happen, Mummy asked.

Yesterday, replied Paro.

Has he changed his name?

He hasn’t told me. I haven’t asked.

How has his behavior been? Has he shouted at you?

I shouted at him; he just kept quiet. He simply said that he has become a Christian and that’s that.

Paro, as long as he continues to be a good son, you should be thankful. What else do we want? Better a good Christian son than a bad Hindu son! Look at Prema.

That made Paro feel good, I could make out. Prema competed with Paro for domestic work, but her life was miserable. Hardly four months ago, her son had thrown her out of the house. Prema had complained to everyone in the locality; even I was aware of the developments.

God is one finally, said Mummy. Secure in the knowledge that her children were still Hindus, she could afford to be broadminded.

But he will eat beef now, protested Paro. And go to the church. Girls coming to church wear skirts.

It’s your house. You set the rules. Make it clear that no beef will be allowed. Also…..Mummy’s voice trailed off.

Also what? asked Paro.

Mummy was obviously contemplating some weighty advice. She kept quiet and set about making a paan for herself.

I suggest, said Mummy slowly, that you get his wife to also convert. She’ll go to church with him then and keep an eye on him. And in any case, if you can have one Christian in the house, you can have two.

What are you saying memsaab?

Think about it, said Mummy. I think it is a good idea. By the way, did you get the five hundred rupees, asked Mummy.

Conversion to Christianity was accompanied with a gift of five hundred rupees; or so we all believed. After all, changing one’s religion is an act of great courage and it was baffling to think that one would do so without some form of immediate tangible, large monetary benefit. It was a theory so well accepted that everyone assumed it to be the truth.

It also gave a somewhat plausible explanation for the rapid spread of Christianity in the region. Once a poor person gets five hundred rupees, he leapfrogs right to the top on the affluence scale in his community. Those whom he leapfrogs over, wonder why they can’t get the five hundred rupees as well. So, they go begging to be converted and Christianity marches on. This had once been explained to me by a friend who religiously put his sacred thread around his ear while pissing in a Catholic school.

No money, said Paro. At least, none that I can see.

There was silence as Mummy pondered over this piece of information, chewing her paan in a long, measured rhythm.

What about the bicycle, she asked at last.

According to the generally accepted belief, cash was usually accompanied by a bicycle as well. Being a liquid asset, it was usually sold off within the first day.

Must have sold it off, said Paro. If he got one, she added.

I wanted to ask Paro if a watch had been given. I had heard that in some cases it was so. Either a watch or a transistor radio. But given the fact that Paro had seen neither the cash nor the bicycle, it was hardly likely that the watch would have been sighted. In any case, the watch too, would have been sold.

It must be his wife, Mummy pronounced finally. She must have told him not to give you anything.

It was obvious that Mummy was not prepared to abandon the cold logic of monetary inducements on the singular data point of Paro’s ignorance.

Paro’s daughter-in-law was a docile creature who rarely featured in Paro’s conversation. Paro mulled over this new line of thinking. On one hand, it went against Paro’s view of her daughter-in-law’s capacity for cunning. On the other, Mummy had a point. If the money did come into the house and did not reach Paro, it must have made a stop in the daughter-in-law’s cupboard. There was no other explanation.

You should never underestimate your daughter-in-law, Mummy said. It was neither a piece of advice nor a note of caution; it had the calm articulation of a truism.

You should never trust anyone, said Paro. My son has become a Christian. My daughter-in-law has started stealing money.

As long as the kitchens are not separate, money should not be separate, Mummy observed. It was obvious that the juicy part of the conversation was over and I ran away to play.

Next day was Tuesday. Mummy and I were returning from the vegetable market. The holidays were also being used to induct me into the responsibility of doing the vegetable shopping. As luck would have it, we were in Somu’s rickshaw. Mummy was busy quizzing me about my exam preparation.

Suddenly the rickshaw stopped and Somu got down. He took out a packet from the boot of the rickshaw at the back, mumbled ek minute, memsaab and rushed towards the tiny Hanuman temple in front.

We watched, too shocked to speak.

By the time Somu emerged from the temple, grinning and beaming, Mummy had recovered.

As he offered us a small laddu, Mummy demanded, Ai Somu, you have become a Christian, no? So what’s this thing with Hanumanji?

With a bewildered expression and a hurt tone, Somu said, Christian ban gaya to kya memsaab? Apna dharam chor doon?

Knowledge trading, not knowledge management, is the key

2005-01-21T01:48:00.000-08:00

Billions of dollars have been invested in knowledge management but the results aren’t making headlines. The money has been spent on everything (technology, integration, travel, salaries of “core teams”) except the creation of knowledge; there is no value attached to knowledge. Knowledge is neither an expense/investment head nor a revenue/profit head for a business unit; therefore, it’s not central to its goals and objectives. Creation and/or implementation of knowledge will remain a tertiary activity as long as it’s not linked to business results.

I propose a “Knowledge Trading” process within the organization, which will attach a real, tangible, monetary value to knowledge (and to the raw material required for creating knowledge). Individuals/teams can sell and buy knowledge/raw material for knowledge through a knowledge exchange. Business Units will have budgets for buying knowledge and creating knowledge. Market dynamics will control the processing, flow and use of knowledge within an organization; facilitated by technology.

Knowledge Trading answers the key question “What is knowledge?” Is it MIS reports? Is it customer feedback? Is it best practices? In this system, it’s what fetches a price. And the higher the price it fetches, the more valuable the knowledge is.

The first requirement for effective knowledge management is the mobility of “raw material”. Knowledge Trading will make the raw material for knowledge (memories of customer conversation, observations, reports, numbers in excel sheets, training sessions attended, problems solved in the field etc) mobile within an organization because individuals can get real money for this. Currently, there is no value attached to this raw material and therefore they are static inside every individual and his desktop. Efforts on the part of the organization to make employees share it are met with a natural indifference, because they are not paid for it; and whatever you are not paid for is not a part of the job. Value of the knowledge/ knowledge raw material created by an individual is neither a part of the compensation structure nor of the appraisal system.

The second step in effective knowledge management is having the right people process the raw material into knowledge packs.

Entrepreneurs will spring up within an organization who will buy raw material, process it, add value and create finished knowledge products, which will be up for sale within an organization; primarily for the business units/management. This suits the organization fine, because it’s really not concerned about how the knowledge is created, but rather with (a) the accuracy (b) the value (c) the timeliness (d) ready availability of the knowledge. In their enthusiasm, organizations expect everyone to create knowledge; this is impossible. Few have the talent to process the raw material to create knowledge.

The well-known dynamics of the market will influence the knowledge production and trading within an organization. In the beginning, there may be many individuals/groups trying to create a saleable knowledge pack. But with time, ability to access relevant raw material, quality of analysis and value-add and understanding of customers’ knowledge requirements will separate the winners and kill others. The “cost” of raw material, too, will undergo shifts over a period of time.

As a result, knowledge factories will be created within an organization, which will be geographically decentralized, have sources of raw material, minds that process it and a market in the top management of the organization; and not because the management wants to spread “knowledge management”.

Knowledge Trading aligns the compensation structure of employees with the earnings and profitability structure of the company. People within an organization, who make substantial intellectual property/knowledge contribution, will leverage it to make more money and rightly so; after all, the organization that leverages knowledge makes more money. In fact, there may be a seismic shift in the salary structure, where a substantial component will come from your knowledge trading. (This is in tune with the past; when company efficiency and productivity drove market success, compensation structure evolved to reward employees for increasing them).

The third step in effective knowledge management is for the different units of a company to accept the knowledge created elsewhere willingly and without any hostility.

Knowledge Trading will overcome the “not manufactured here” syndrome. When organizations try to dissipate any knowledge across geographies, there is a tendency to resist it with the classic “things are different here”. History has shown that trading best breaches such a protectionist wall. When you sell to others, you don’t hesitate to buy from others. Knowledge Trading will, therefore, increase the acceptance and implementation of “others’” knowledge for “my” good.

Knowledge Trading becomes a bottom-up process in an organization, because everyone is a producer of raw material for knowledge and therefore, everyone benefits. Technology adoption, implementation and innovations will come from within, bottom-up, instead of being thrust top down.

And the final step in effective knowledge management is for a business unit to leverage the knowledge for increasing its profitability.

Business Units will have budgets for buying knowledge and creating knowledge. Once trading is established, (incremental) return on knowledge investment/creation can be a key metric to evaluate (and compare across the company) the business performance of individual business units. This will, in turn, align the value of knowledge creation and management within an organization to the objective of business profitability and leadership.

By putting a value to knowledge generated, a continuous production line of new, improved, relevant knowledge is established.

India Demanding

2004-12-28T01:58:00.000-08:00

Success, or failure, does not depend on what you do right; it depends on the mistakes you make. A hundred things done just right can be countermanded by one fatal mistake. This is something our political class is yet to learn.

Take the BJP. Theoretically, and I may be in a minority here, it ran the correct campaign through the combination of India Shining and bijli, paani aur sadak. It was a positive campaign based on economic growth, performance and things that are critical to India’s future success.

It forgot that people will not forget their mistakes.

Remember Kandhar? Remember India Capitulating? A handful of relatives of the hijacked victims protested and the BJP caved in. So, these were the tough guys? These were the ones who would protect India’s image? These were the ones who would take off from where the lau purush had left?

It could have chosen to stand up and display its spine. But it chose the path that led to national humiliation. Bad mistake.

Remember Tehalka? Remember India Vindictive? A group of plucky journalists do what journalists always dream of doing: pull off a sensational and relevant scoop. And the BJP decides to protect the corrupt and shoot the messenger. This was the party with a difference? This was the party that would protect, nurture and build India’s institutions? This was the party that accused Mrs. Gandhi (Sr.) of using the brute force of the State to silence her critics?

It could have chosen to give in and clean the rot. But it chose the path that led to national revulsion. Very bad mistake.

Remember Gujarat? Remember India Burning? Enough has been said about it. The government could have done so much to redeem itself. Not only it did nothing; it tried to justify it. Terrible mistake.

Remember Murli Manohar Joshi? Remember India Regressing? Remember Ram Naik? To refresh your memory, he lost to Govinda in what he considered his fiefdom. To refresh your memory further, he’s the one who was leading the lunatics against Aroon Shourie’s attempts to bring some sanity back into India’s public sector model. Remember India Goofing?

These mistakes were not trivial. And these were just some of the biggies. These are not even entering into the territory of the whoppers that their coalition partners committed. These are not even asking questions like “What did Arun Jaitly, for all his so called brilliance, do for judicial reforms in India?” Or, “How many ministers can you name in the BJP government who made a positive difference to the country?”

The point is that mistakes cost them the election. And, despite all their chintan baithaks, they don’t even seem to know it.

Just like the Congress doesn’t seem to know.

Hardly six months into the government, and they are busy lining up their own list of mistakes to match the BJP step for step. And, worse, they seem to depend on Manmohan Singh’s image to carry them through. If Vajpayee’s image wasn’t strong enough to weather the BJP’s mistakes, Manmohan’s isn’t going to be strong enough to bail out the Congress.

The corrupt and the criminal as ministers and partners? India Squirming. “Compromising” with the Left? India Slowing. Reservations in private sector? India Choking. Laloo Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan and Deve Gowda as partners of convenience? India Puking. The list goes on and on already.

And we haven’t yet completed one year. How long before we see India Goofing, India Vindictive, India Regressing all over again? And various other shades of India Disappointing?

The truth is this: it’s the age of India Demanding. And the one thing you can’t afford to make is mistakes.

If my words are reaching anyone in the government, then let them hear this: we don’t ask any more how you build up such assets without any known source of income; all we ask is why can’t you stop being so damn moronic?