Abscense of layered thinking ...

.. happens to major brands too ! Look at this picture. A cool technology, advertised at one of the busiest airports ... do you see anything wrong ??? ;) ;)

Mind-share ..

I grew up in a locality which is a "Mao" area now. The nearby hills and forests, that used to be our picnic spots have become head quarters of Naxalites. The police station in the city has become ammunition center for them, that they rob every once in a while. Life still moves on ! People have accepted the gradual change and occasional firing in the heart of this mountainous town, is part of life now.

However, what surprised me is the mind-share the Naxalites have among people. A lot of sympathy. The legends go that when Naxalites come to rob ammunition to the police station, police makes sure they do not have any issue procuring them.. etc. Some believable and some not so !!

But this one drives it home - there was this district level essay and debate competitions among students that happen on State Day. Very prestigious awards and students treasure them. Last 2 years all the Top award winnings essays and debate speeches are "Pro-Mao" !

Talk about mind-share ..

Obscene Green !

Seen in a posh, high end designer shoppe, where "wasting resources" is the right - talking Green is the act !

With talking and looking Green being the latest round of fashion among the elites - looks at the toilet paper turning Green and slogans to recycle !!

The "Coach" does not have to be a great player !!!

My new lesson, that I learn hard way. I am going to treasure this rest of my life.
While struggling with one of the toughest problems of my professional sphere, I was  applying all technical skills to fix it. All hands on deck approach !!

Not going any where, I babbled the problem out in front of someone, who has nothing to do with this profession or field of work, but has been a general coach to me all through !

Viola ! His preaching did help :) I am going somewhere with this.

man vs machine ...

Ruthless business ... in the pursuit of protecting assets, sometimes completely forget the people who build it.

This story pertains to India's telecom poster child. Growth of which has been synonymous to "India Shining". It has an office routing billions of mobile calls, right next to the Arabian sea, on Marine Drive Mumbai.

And in a series of mysterious failures in the systems, the out come turned out to be what you see in this picture. The air quality. The amount of sulfur in the polluted sea shore of thickly populated and industrialized Mumbai is 6 times more than that of WHO recommended max level. So much so, that the copper wires running in the system boards turn in to copper sulfate over a few months.

Here comes the funny part. The execs of this company are screaming at all system vendors to replace the systems. But no one is talking about rescuing their employees from the same offices. Their own employees breathing the air that can destroy metal stored in air conditioned labs !!

Accessibility

A few things current govt of India is doing, that are pretty well thought through and very sensible.

Notice the new 2 rs coin. It has value written in Braille !!! Talk about accessibility.

Open Communication - Moderated ;)

When one of the biggest IT companies of India, decided to allow its 100,000+ employees to blog on intranet, it did it with a lot of confidence.

The company had a lot of arrogance and over confidence, that its employees would write constructive stuff in the intranet social networking site.

HR department was proud announcing the initiative and touted the "Open Communication" culture and ability to take open criticism.

It also said in that announcement, that the unhappy employees, now venting on Facebook / Orkut would do so on the intranet.

Within hours of it being out, so many name calling, so many unhappy employees screaming, made it an instant depressant for the HR community.

The same HR team, that announced the Open Platform for communication, went back and said, the site will now be "Moderated" by HR team for posts.

And... more importantly, they reinforced, moderating the posts is not against open communication and transparency is not reduced in any way.

After all when a cat closes its eyes and drink milk, it thinks no one can watch it !!