Comoditizing High-tech !

In the brief history of IT revolution, one thing that stands out is how the expense of doing business with help from IT is reducing exponentially.

IT being pretty much a knowledge centric industry, the key proponents are software and hardware engineers.

And they used to demand high premium, riding on the wave of the revolution. It still goes on to certain extend, although looks like loosing steam.

So, what happened ? The demand by business is still high. Any new world business and most old work business can not live without it now.

The answer to it - however obvious it was - jumped on my face today.

Today while helping my 8 yrs old with school work, I noticed their computer book. Pretty impressive for a 4th standard lil guy ! All control flows, logic, and basic programming in standard 4.

No wonder, over last 10 years, because of the lure of being in key industry and making wealth, has pushed the education related to IT way deep in the education system.

And over the same decade, a lot more knowledge workers are being created. Supply increases. Many fold and is catching up with demand.

And when that equilibrium happens, Hi-Tech becomes commodity.

Wondering if the same cycle did happen for textile revolution of 50s ? Don't know if schools really did teach stitching in a mass scale !

Integration Defect or End-to-End feature ?

Look closely at the picture. The top white box is a automatic, zero-touch, hand cleaner / sanitiser.
These equipments flooded the office buildings recently when Swine Flu got its media space.

This is supposed to keep the hands of the employees clean. All one got to do is place the hand below it.
It has optical sensor to fingure out that something is below it. And it will dispense around 2 ml of this dis-infectant liquid on
to one's palms.

Cool functionality - when one looks at it stand alone.

Now, look at the black rectangle below it. It is a batdge reader. Again another brilliant safety feature for corporations. Anyone who has a valid badge
will have to show this on the rectangle box. The box validates the identity and opens the door.

Again ! Cool standalone device.

The black badge reader is incumbent member of this real estate, while the pig-fear got the while sanitizer to the space later.

Now, together these two wonderful devices have a problem. Every one coming through the door raises the badge to the bar reader. Right below the
dispenser. The dispenser notes movement below it and drops the dis-infectant.

100s of people come through the door everyday. Needless to say all the dis-infectant leaks just because people have to swipe the badges.

Two wonderful devices, integrated makes a money wasting combo !

Or is it a feature ? It mandates the spills on every entrant ???

Building teams that last !

The BJP family is breaking up. Not able to take the shattering loss in the elections, the so called leaders, pointing fingers at each other for failure.

And the family is breaking up !

BJP is / was the only viable alternate front to the dynastic Congress rule, that India has seen since independence. And the team has shown characters of amoeba,

multiplying from mere 2 seats in parliament in 84 to a near-majority govt. under the Thespian leader Atal Bihari Bajpayee !

And set a chain reaction of state wins post that.

So, now that it is breaking up to pieces, betaal looks at what went wrong, organizationally speaking !

- The team was built on one man leadership - Bajapayee ! He was well supported by Advani-jee, Jaswant, Yeshwant, Murli Joshi and all other leaders

- The individual leadership quotients of all these people are still intact. Just Bajapayee, the voice of reason, a resolve of steal and glue between these leaders have retired

- A well thought out Mission/Vision was not in place to appeal and address progressive shining India, that in the first place was set in with the vision and mission of the

same leadership team. It was clearly showing up in BJPs last election manifesto. The manifesto swung between Congress style socialism, to true Right wing ego !

- A well thought out leadership architecture was not put in place for post Bajapayee era

- Overconfidence from a few state wins

So, Mr. Bajapayee - while hats off to you that you built the ONLY viable alternative to the dynasty - you failed to built it to outgrow you ! You led from the front and climbed Everest. But the people who followed you up there, could not repeat that mantle.

Betaal hopes the strong alternative does shape up - first with a purpose that fits the changing India, and then with a leadership that executes further changes !

Perception - "When to ask for help?"

Betaal sees many cases around him, people asking how do they influence the perception that gets created about them.

So, few entries in the blog are going to focus on this. How negative perceptions get created and how we can prevent them from getting created.

First in point - "When to ask for help ?"

This is for the bucket of earthlings who have a perception of a punter. Someone who transfers his . her problems to others, higher ups in the organizations, and reaches out extensively for help even on issues, which he/she is being paid to resolve.

Most of these people, justify their behavior in following terms.

- Giving a heads up to rest of the ecosystem on a brewing issue is a good thing afterall
- Collaboration, spreading the scale of the issues thin and tackling them
- Transparency and proactive communication
- Avoid 11th hour fire-fighting

All valid points !!! Now, whats most critical here is what kind of issues given this treatment.

If it is something within the persons scope or lil beyond it, the person need to stretch to resolve.
Yes - heads up need to be sent out. Yes - collaboration need to happen. Yes - transparency need to be there and Yes - salute to your proactive communication !

However, what if the same person when raising the visibility of the issue proactively also presented 2 or 3 solutions with exact expectations from others he / she is reaching out with the issue ?

Most people help. They help when they know that the entire responsibility of some one is not transferring to them and when they know what they are helping with.

Yet, another trend in some of these people is that - they will raise the flags on each issue and them go back do it themselves anyway ! As a pattern. Issue after issue. Without anyone's help.
That creates a "visibility seeking perception" and in a long run reduces the criticality of the help request in others mind.

Betaal advises - know what to ask help on, when ! And have few proposals to fix it with help needed from others articulated well.

Perception ..

Sometimes unfortunate perception about something or someone gets created. Moves mouth-to-mouth. Amplifies ! And never goes away !

And most of the times, the victim thinks its none of his / her fault. But nevertheless, gets penalized for it.

One of my direct reports, as I take on this new job, has this issue. Anyone I ask, they say, they don't want to work with him. But when I ask, "Have you worked with him at all earlier ?".

The answer comes back NO.

So, how did the perception got built ?

The same person, has a very remote counterpart in Israel he works closely with. And that counterpart thinks he is God. No bad perception there.

People close to him, geographically do not want to work with him.

Strange case indeed ! And his growth is completely stalled in the current org.

So, I asked him, to send me last 500 mails from him "Sent" folder sans the personal ones !

Browsed through just 40-50 of them. And there was a pattern. All his mails to local engineers ended with 4 letters "A.S.A.P".

And all his mails to Israel counterpart were not having those letters. In fact, it was more reporting and summary of all the A.S.A.P items he collected, copied line by line.

There, the puzzle was solved. He distinctly gives a signal of urgency for everything to local team and do not create visibility for them by being the middle person of reporting.

No wonder the perception is created such a way !

What a mentor can do !

Saw this in an adv !

Diving catch syndrome ..

In Cricketing terms, when a match is in crisis state, a high flying, extreme diving, difficult catch changes it all. And it makes heroes.

While what a good bowler should do, is to set up the field such a way that catches should land in the fielders hand. Almost like it was programmed that way !

Matches can be won either way ! A few diving catches or a pre-planned relentless, all inclusive attack plan. But, not many heroes born by the later mechanism.

Because the entertainment value, the unpredictability and the adrenaline factor go missing in that approach.

That's OK for a game.

In corporations, I ve been seeing a relentless pursuit for "Diving catches". Reactive work force, and yet ready to jump in when a crisis hits, and nevertheless successful in abating the crisis, in a war like fashion. Most of the times, if proper post mortem is done, the cause of the crisis are the same set of people.

The same people who go back in to cocoon when the crisis recedes.

Because it makes heroes. Brings in visibility and kudos ! The employee in the corner doing everything in his / her daily routine to avoid that crisis, most probably gets a step-child like cold shoulder.

The need for both is immense. Org should plan out a proactive attack plan that avoids crisis. However, if things do turn out bad, there should be Diving Catchers to save the day !

The way it seems today, it is reversed !

How "Green" is your green initiative ? - Part II

On the eve of environment, this is my second article.

Like a good green citizen, I ve signed up for all e-statements. If you look at it, banks spam you the most on paper mail. And those going to to e-mail in-box is a good thing. A good chunk of paper waste avoided. Not going in to the details of energy consumed for storage of e-docs and transmission, it is definitely a good thing.

Then enters govt. I needed to change my address in pass port. They needed address proof for continuous 11 months. Anything that proves continuous is defined as monthly utility bills, bank statements etc. Now, everything being electronic, can you print those out and provide ? Passport authority says NO.

So, you go request physical paper copies from bank ! While it is probably the same amount of paper wasted, whether you print or you get from bank, it comes with additional hassle.

With the new govt. high on national ID and e-governance, I hope all these will come together in next 5 years. After all there is a majority govt :)

How "Green" is your green initiative ?

Bangalore is not any longer a green city that it used to be. Understood that the economic growth and rapid urbanization has taken its toll !

Now, on the so called "Environment Day" (why is not everyday Environment Day ??? ), one of the key initiatives Bangalore had was to do free emission test on major city roads for the commuters.

Bangalore is a choked. Packed with vehicles. And then when the traffic is interrupted with free emission tests, thousands more wait in the line with Engine and AC ON !

The tonnage of CO2 and CO emission that landed in BLR air today, is definitely a justification why everyday should not be an Environment Day.

We are better off with Once a Year and the phony organizations seemingly great initiatives !!!

Does information help decision making ?

To a lay-person it may not even look like a valid question. Of course, information, the right ones, in the right time do help in decision making.

I am going to narrate two recent situations from my daily life, and these events do repeat in one of the following pattern for rest of the days.

- In a customer escalation situation, which needed a fix, usual life.
We were talking about a fix directly with customer, that the intermediate teams like service delivery, account team etc. like. They want us to pass on all the information to them, and they do the relaying. I know what you are thinking - "In-efficient" ? I am with you !

Now, in this first event, I provided all information that indicates that there is no chance of any collateral of this fix to the intermediate teams. But they still could not confidently tell the customer that there is no risk to this fix. When that question was asked, they looked for me on the call where I said "No Risk what so ever" ! Until then it was beating around the bush !

- The second event was more interesting. Similar situation. I did not have 100% information myself. Neither did the intermediate teams and the customer. And no wonder anyone was taking a decision on how to close this issue. But the time dragged on. And one of them took a decision to close.

So, information amount is not always aiding decision making. Decision making is coming from peoples risk taking ability and gut-feel.