iSpeak India.

Saw this photo montage, while listening to Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother album. Almost heart wrenching.
"I found young Indians aged 16 - 30 years, gave them a piece of paper and simply told them they could write whatever they wanted to, I then photographed them holding the paper. The results are fascinating. These images allow us an unprecedented look at what young India is really thinking. The Economist magazine has India verses China on its front cover. Through iSpeak we can make our own conclusions about these two emerging giants."

http://adrianfisk.photoshelter.com/gallery/iSpeak-India/G0000GJahAeGd1bU/

Poets and Quants

Logic says one should specialize, can I specialize in variety?

• Heights of a specialized, specific job, finance algorithmic trading does exactly the above: trying to understand, quantify relationships between seemingly unrelated information to invest and make money



• Designer does the same: trying to juxtapose related/unrelated visual elements together to create that dress



• Poet does the same: trying to juxtapose similar/opposite words together as metaphors to create the beautiful poem

• Understanding patterns between related things


• Understanding relationships between unrelated things


• Communicating these relationships


• Drawing insights from these relationships
  
  

All 'thinking' jobs are human quests to identify pattern, seek meaning, and replicate the pattern and relationships. Only 'of what' changes.

Brands and Products

Will 'perception' of experience will become more important than the actual product experience itself in the future?

• You will 'like' a video on FB, not because you enjoyed it, but because your friend that you look up to 'liked' it

What role will peer trust and peer reputation play in this?

Brand reputation will define not just what products you purchase, but also how felt about a product post-consumption.
But is this not how luxury works?
Will we see similar behavior once products are sold through social networks?

Emotional Machine Design

Will personalization of machines be the new way of selling in the future?

I see it already:

• Laptops being sold not on configuration, but on design
• Samsung Corby sold because it offer personalization of color
• Apple is sold more on design rather than functionality

As technology and performance becomes more commoditized, will design personalization be the way to differentiate?

Work and Procrastination

From Seth Godin's blog:

Just imagine how much you'd get done

...if you stopped actively sabotaging your own work.

We must be talented, powerful and resilient creatures indeed given how much we manage to produce despite the constant undercutting, ridicule and needless censorship we aim at ourselves.

Central Bank Reserves

Why are gold and currency are the only two assets held as reserves by central bank, when the values are so volatile; Can we hedge against gold and currency movements as a central bank?

Can we have some central bank reserve in international corporate bonds, equities, and real estate? Or may be even timberland, or other commodities?

Is liquidity and fungibility of gold the core reason behind keeping it as a reserve asset?

Some international corporate bonds (Merck, Amgen etc.) are much more stable than US T-bills given their financial positions.

What we should teach in school?

Read somewhere this:

• How to focus intently on a problem until it's solved.
• The benefit of postponing short-term satisfaction in exchange for long-term success.
• How to read critically.
• The power of being able to lead groups of peers without receiving clear delegated authority.
• An understanding of the extraordinary power of the scientific method, in just about any situation or endeavour.
• How to persuasively present ideas in multiple forms, especially in writing and before a group.
• Project management. Self-management and the management of ideas, projects and people.
• Personal finance. Understanding the truth about money and debt and leverage.
• An insatiable desire (and the ability) to learn more. Forever.
• Most of all, the self-reliance that comes from understanding that relentless hard work can be applied to solve problems worth solving.

Pushing the Innovation Frontier

Will the rate of innovations slow down as our knowledge expands ?

Innovations are events that expand the boundaries of existing knowledge. Knowledge is ever expanding; to add to the body of knowledge a scientist will have to cover/master the existing body and only then can add to the frontier.

Think about knowledge as a circle; we all start from the center and then expand on the boundaries. With the radius of this circle ever expanding, it means the researcher will have to cover a lot of ground before he can add to the frontier.

One way to fast track innovation, is to be specific so that you work on a narrow wedge of the pie. That is, he needs to specialize in a narrow field very early on in the career.

Does our education system/society provide enough information to the researcher to make that choice at that stage?

Government Services as Products

Roads in Hiranandani are never pot-holed. Roads even 100 meters away from Hiranandani are always pot-holed. Rainfall is the same.

Why?

Hiranandani is privately maintained; 100 meters away is government maintained.

Pot-holed roads in front of business districts cause massive jams. Jams waste 6-8 hr employee time every week. 50% employees face jam.

Companies lose one and half months per employee per year for half their workforce. Employee time is money for company.

Companies in MIDC or any other business district, pay same tax as company in Hiranandani.

• Yet, they don't demand a better road from the government.
• Yet, they don't get together and maintain the road themselves at fraction of cost

Better roads are possible, Hiranandani shows it. Yet they don't happen. If you pay for a product, why do you settle for shoddy quality?

What other services do you pay for, and you don't demand from the government?

Leadership and initiative is difficult.

On Coffee

• Companies have free coffee for employees.


• Employees want to stay healthy.


• Companies want employees to stay healthy.


• Coffee is unhealthy


• Coffee becomes habit

• Can free coffee be replaced by free fruit?


• Fruit is healthy


• Free fruit can be kept on desks


• Fruit can become habit


• Employees are healthier, appreciate company for being thoughtful


• Employee effort increases

Can companies adapt/tweak their processes a little to encourage desired employee behavior, rather than explicitly ordering them to do it?


Healthy choices, by small inconspicuous nudges.