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Designing Intelligent Experiences - Innovator Column, Asian Educator, Jan 2012

2012-01-17T16:54:00.000+05:30

In my Jan column, I wrote about how intellient experiences can be designed by using Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences framework. In what must count as a most pleasant and rare coincidence, the same issue carries an interview with Howard Gardner himself in the section Expert Talk, where he talks about Multiple Intelligences and how New media will revolutionize education.

Excerpt from my article:

“Filter coffee for you and Indian Masala Tea for you, Sir?” Manoj and I nodded. Ashok was waiting for Sherlock Holmes to guess his choice. “American Style Black Coffee, Sir?” “No, a large Cappucino please.” “Sure, Sir”.

“Interesting twist to a monotonous coffee drinking experience, what say” Subroto quipped. I nodded in agreement. “This whole “Regular, Grande” stuff just drives me nuts. This is good, pick the cup and get it filled”, Manoj was visibly impressed. “Just another gimmick. What if someone wants to have a regular coffee in a large mug?” Ashok intercepted.

As per the theory of multiple intelligences proposed by Howard Gardner in the 1980s, human intelligence has many more facets as compared to traditional IQ measure focusing on logical, analytical and mathematical abilities. Gardner identified seven core intelligences – linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal and intrapersonal. According to him, an individual can learn faster and better if the learning approach is aligned with his intelligence type.

Open publication - Free publishing - More management

Future of Education: Surfing a New Wave - Innovator Column, Asian Educator, Dec 2011

2011-12-22T12:53:00.000+05:30

This is an article (published in my Innovator column in Asian Educator Dec 2011 Issue) loosely based on a paper presentation I had made at the Innovation Educators Summit at ISB, Hyderabad, earlier this year.

Some article excerpts:

For a long time, tried and tested “best” practices of education have remained relevant and unchallenged. Why is the system changing? Alvin Toffler has provided clues in broad strokes in his seminal book, Third Wave. He asserts that there have been waves of evolution and change that have impacted human civilization as a whole.

In today’s age of Wiki, Facebook and Twitter, it is not very difficult to imagine a future of global, decentralized and distributed education where students get all their information from the web rather than from textbooks or lecture notes, where students learn in multi-cultural and multi-disciplined peer groups, where student-teacher touch-time is only needed for mentorship, where courses can be customized and kaleidoscopic. Student entrepreneurs are already on the rise – soon enough, a more effective and scalable growth model for industry might be to acquire entrepreneurial assets rather than employees.

Open publication - Free publishing - More arts

Article published in Asian Educator Nov 2011 Issue - Wake Up Indian R&D!

2011-11-18T14:01:00.001+05:30

This is an article (published in my Innovator column in Asian Educator Nov 2011 Issue) based on three blog posts I had written earlier this year:

Why should we in India spend time on R&D and invention; why not just focus on market-facing innovation instead which seems to be at the outset, much more value for invested money (Wake Up Indian R&D Part I)?

The first imperative is rather immediate and apparent - meeting our country's basic needs (Wake Up R&D Part II - Basic Self Sufficiency).

The second imperative is more subtle and easily pushed under the carpet. What about the country's immune system. Are we destined to be relegated to "Low Cost Innovation Nation" status? (Wake Up Indian R&D Part III - Strengthening the Immune System).

Some article excerpts:

Not too long ago, India’s brand was built primarily around elephants,snake charmers, poverty, spirituality, yoga and Bollywood. Then Y2K ushered inthe IT revolution and the world got “Bangalored”. More recently, with shining successessuch as Tata Nano, Arvind Eye Clinic and the $10 laptop, India has started toacquire a reputation as a low cost innovation hub – a place where products canbe ingeniously tweaked and redesigned for extremely price conscious (andsometimes poor) Indian consumers.

India lags far behind countries like USA, Japan, Germany, China andKorea in patent filing activity. Even more surprisingly, our patents are moreexpensive as well - for the same R&D expenditure, we file significantlylower number of patents.

Minimum R&D capability is a must, at least to ensure that our basicneeds are not compromised. However, Rome was not built in a day. OurR&D capability ten years from now will depend on what our students arereading and thinking today!

Weare struggling to conceptualize new solutions at intersections of multipledisciplines, because there wasn't enough "industry" demand for thoseother disciplines (such as material science, mechanical engineering, bio-technology,physics, chemistry, biology, sociology etc.) two decades back.

Indian industry is demanding those who can re-engineer, not engineer solutions.

Open publication - Free publishing - More arts

Building Highly Effective Idea Management Systems with Living System Principles - Part III

2011-10-19T15:21:00.000+05:30

Article published in the Innovator column of Asian Educator, Oct 2011 Issue.

Part I discussed how the "Waste=Food" principle of Living Systems can be designed into Idea Management Systems.

Part II discussed Diversity, Multi-functionality, Far from equilibrium, Flux, Oscillatory Characteristics of Living Systems.

The final part of this series (Part III )discusses Interdependence and Emergence.

Open publication - Free publishing - More innovation

Traits of a Leader

2011-09-26T15:28:00.000+05:30

Notes from one of the discussions on "Traits of a Leader" at the Innovation Educators' Conference at ISB, Hyderabad earlier this year:

The Future of Teamwork:Orchestra or Jazz?

2011-09-14T17:58:00.000+05:30

Article published in the Innovator column of Asian Educator, September 2011 Issue. (It is based on one of my previous blog posts from 2009 - Teamwork and all that jazz. )

Open publication - Free publishing - More issues

Innovation in Indian Manufacturing Sector - The Vendor's Curse & Why Bell the Cat

2011-09-11T13:23:00.003+05:30

I had an interesting discussion (on innovation) with the COO of an eminent Indian hydraulics, aerospace and automotive component manufacturing firm last week. He mentioned two important points:

(The Vendor's Curse) Being primarily a manufacturing firm, they have been making products (to order) for leading global companies. Most of their global customers, with decades of manufacturing expertise, have also worked out elaborate processes for manufacturing, which they expect their vendors to follow to the tee. While this was great from the perspective of best practices and to eliminate significant wheel re-invention, it also made it extraordinarily difficult for engineers here to experiment on process innovations. Even though there were many process improvement ideas, it was just too much of an effort to explain "good deviations" to the customer, let alone attempt to suggest an improvement to the parent process. Innovation, in this context, was typically a one-way street (specified by customer to vendor).

(Why Bell the Cat?) In one of the areas where they themselves owned a product portfolio, the freedom and incentive to innovate was much higher - both to create new products and better processes. There were many problems that had eluded satisfactory solutions - conducive for innovation efforts. But solving these kinds of problems needs time, effort and resources - and a fair amount of uncertainty is involved. Engineers caught up in the daily grind would much rather de-prioritize such problems and focus on the here and now.

These are not isolated reflections. Almost all Indian manufacturing firms that we have interacted with seem to be facing the above two issues.

Why Bell the Cat? is probably easier to remedy - what is needed is a structured, scientific, robust innovation framework (like TRIZ) to simplify the problem and cut down on problem-solving time, minimize wasteful trial-and-error approaches and improve the quality of ideas and inventions. If engineers and scientists are confident of solving complex problems in lesser time, they wouldn't be averse to take up these challenges. Confidence, in our experience, can only be built through "learning-by-doing".

The Vendor's Curse is more difficult to get a handle around - since it goes beyond traditional organizational boundaries. It is reasonable to expect that a large global company (like General Electric, for instance) with heaps of product development and manufacturing know-how would assume that it knows much more than one of its smaller vendors, and therefore specify in great detail (and micro-manage) the manufacturing process. It may not be looking for advice or feedback from its vendors. Toyota, with its Lean supply chain approach, does it differently. Rather than just focusing on "learning and innovation within the organization", The Toyota Way looks to build a Learning System, including customers, suppliers, partners and even competitors! In a Lean system, there is no Vendor's Curse - even a supplier would be expected to continuously improve and innovate, and feed the improvement back into the overall system. This is a principle that Indian firms would greatly benefit from - they must go out of their way to explain this to their customers as well!

While we (Crafitti Consulting) have had the opportunity to work with a few firms to alleviate the above problems to some extent, we are just scratching the surface - there is a lot of work to be done if Indian manufacturing industry has to genuinely start "innovating"!

Technology Foresighting with TRIZ - Self-repairing concrete

2011-08-16T18:14:00.002+05:30

Just read an article on University of Michigan's latest invention of bendy self-repairing concrete using microfibers. An excerpt -

When cracked, the concrete absorbs moisture from surrounding air, then becomes soft and “grows,” filling in the crack. Meanwhile, calcium ions in the cement also absorb moisture and carbon dioxide, forming calcium carbonate -- the material found in seashells. The regrowth and re-hardening makes the broken concrete strong again.

These kinds of advancements can be "foreseen" using TRIZ - Theory of Inventive Problem Solving!

In 2007, I had the opportunity to work with a product team to improve (solve problems and generate new concepts) a machine tool used in the construction industry to tie reinforcement bars (used to reinforce concrete). Using contradictions, inventive principles, and function models we were able to generate quite a few ideas.

Later, in 2009, I explored the same context further using Laws of System Evolution and S-curves. While the earlier work in 2007 was focused at the system level (re-bar tying tool), the new work spilled over into the super-system as well (reinforcement bars, concrete). The overall attempt was to try to foresee the future of re-bar tying - how will the technology evolve?

7 solution directions (clusters of related ideas) emerged as the most promising.

One of the final 7 solution directions (identified as the one most capable of enabling technology to move to the next S-curve in the radar plot above) was as follows:

Air-entrained concrete with micro-strengthening agents

Concrete admixtures consist of micro and nano strengthening agents. These agents enable multiple aspects of concrete strengthening. Some agents coat the air entrainment bubbles. Others work as fillers. Some agents absorb or trap moisture or create pathways for escape of water.

The case study goes on to describe the evaluation of 7 solution directions from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders - users, manufacturers and sponsors, culminating in a consolidated view of the likely evolution of the technology in the short and long term.

This case study was published at TRIZCON 2010 - you can download it at Choosing the most promising solution directions using TRIZ - Rebar Tying case study

Strengthening the patent system with objective ways to measure non-obviousness

2011-08-13T14:15:00.000+05:30

Every once in a while we get an article describing the negative impact of current patent systems on innovation - how patents are stifling innovation rather than encouraging it, as they were meant to do in principle.

Business method patents and some classes of software patents (web and mobile applications), are favorite punching bags. Many of these inventions, in retrospect, look "obvious" to software engineers and sometimes, even to end-users! An Apple or Samsung patent today on say, "using a movement sensor on a hand-held device to identify a specific rhythmic beat provided by a user and automatically select songs matching the beat" would seem obvious to end users. On the other hand, "using a movement sensor in an automotive system to measure bumpiness of a road and dynamically change air pressure in tyres", may not seem as obvious.

From an engineering perspective, the motion based music playlist creation system may actually be more complex to implement right now as compared to the motion based tyre pressure adjustment system. However, 5 years down the line with many motion based mobile applications in the market, mobile apps developers may find the music playlist creation functionality to be obvious. "I could have easily done this myself", they would feel. "I don't know why I am supposed to pay royalty to use this invention". "This stupid patent is really preventing me from developing further applications and offering them at a suitable price point in the market". "What's the point of patents, it is slowing innovation rather than speeding it up!" Single click shopping carts using software cookies may have seemed inventive in 1995, but 15 years down the line, even 7-8 year olds find this functionality to be absurdly simple and obvious. Software cookie technology aged very quickly, it had become ubiquitous by 2000,

On the other hand, the comparatively slow evolving automotive industry may feel perfectly happy with the tyre pressure adjustment patent. "It was really inventive at that time", they would say. "It is still relevant; we have to work hard to find a better way to achieve something similar". "The invention is worth the royalty". If you were to look under the hood, you would most likely find that the inventive tyre pressure adjustment system is, for the most part, an embedded software system. We don't find too many software engineers complaining about the unfairness of BMW's embedded software systems to regulate shock absorption in its cars, and how it is stifling innovation in automobiles. Maybe its because very few of us drive BMW cars.

Both the above are really examples of software inventions but how we perceive them depends on the domain, or more specifically on:

The frequency of inventions happening in the domain and
The scale of usage of these inventions.

A critical problem is that the current patent system doesn't distinguish between inventions from different domains. Both pharma and web software patents can enjoy 20 year validity terms, even though the actual validity of the invention in the technology and marketplace may be completely different! The reason for this seemingly obvious lacuna is that subject matter experts don't have an objective method to assess if an invention is inventive or not - non-obviousness becomes a subjective criteria discussed by lawyers in courts. In the absence of an objective method, the lowest common denominator is to have a fixed term for all patents.

There are two major issues:

How to prevent obvious inventions from entering the patent life cycle?
Once a patent is granted, how long should the patent be considered to be valid?

How to prevent obvious inventions from entering the patent life cycle?

This is critical to restore confidence in the patenting system. The current tests for obviousness are subjective. Let me propose a more objective method here that doesn't need to much of a change to the existing patent system.

What we are seeing now is that in some fields of technology (web-based software, mobile software, clean energy etc.) the rate of invention activity is very high. This can be measured very simplistically by the number of patent applications filed in the field (I am leaving out more involved metrics here, they need a more technical forum compared to a blog).

Amount of Duplication

If the inventions are obvious, there is likely to be duplication (inadvertent or otherwise). What this means is that in a technology field that is evolving very rapidly, the same invention may be originating in the minds of multiple inventors across the globe without any of them knowing about each other. This phenomenon is nothing new - there have been several cases of major inventions happening simultaneously in different parts of the world. In effect, more the duplication, more the obviousness. Given our current capabilities for data mining, searching and classification, it should not be too difficult to measure the amount of duplication. Non-obviousness need not be a subjective assessment.

Window of Duplication Assessment

The second part is to set a window of duplication. Currently, a patent application remains private for a maximum of 18 months, after which it is published (can be viewed by public). Therefore, during these 18 months, if the same or similar inventions are filed by other inventors (or if the same is published in any form, be it technical journals or in the form of open source software), it can be (again simplistically) assumed that they have also invented on their own.

More the duplication, more the obviousness. Using the amount of duplication within a duplication assessment window, a duplication threshold value can be used to deem an invention obvious under patent law.

This should address most pet peeves of those who are against software and business method patents. If it is really obvious, the invention cannot be patented and will be available for free use. If no one could think of something similar in 18 months, the whole obviousness argument is just a heap of thin air.

How long should the patent be considered to be valid?

Ideally, there should be no need to prefix the term of a patent. The patent should be valid for as long as others are using the invention to build further incremental inventions. Using patent citation information, one can measure the rate at which incremental inventions are being built around a base patent.

At some point in time, new technology would render old technology obsolete. In technology terms, a new S-curve would have begun. In pharma, this may be a 20 year cycle. In automotive software, this could be a 6 year cycle. In web or mobile software this could be a 3 year cycle.

Can we actually objectively identify when an S-curve begins and when it ends? Yes, TRIZ, Theory of Inventive Problem Solving provides multiple ways to plot an invention or inventions on the technology S-curve. Using the combination of number of inventions, levels of inventions and increase in performance, one can fairly objectively identify where a technology is placed on its overall S-curve.

By using patent citation information and TRIZ-based analysis, patent offices can, at any point in time, determine if a patent term should be extended. It can also determine the rate at which such an analysis should be conducted - I believe this would be inversely proportional to the rate of invention activity. For example, pharma patents can be analyzed once in 3 years. Software patents can be analyzed every 6 months. Simplistically, such analysis can be included in the patent maintenance process (when the inventor pays maintenance fees every year, the patent office should evaluate if the patent deserves to get an term extension). I don't preclude the possibility of a predictive mechanism to determine the term of a patent, but that's a little bit out into the future.

In effect, there are ways in which the existing patent system can be strengthened, made more objective and more relevant, so that it continues to drive rather than inhibit innovation. This is a much more useful alternative as compared to eliminating the patent system completely.

Building Highly Effective Idea Management Systems with Living System Principles - Part II

2011-08-11T21:27:00.001+05:30

Article published in the Innovator column of Asian Educator, Aug 2011 Issue.

Part I discussed how the "Waste=Food" principle of Living Systems can be designed into Idea Management Systems.

Part II discusses Diversity, Multi-functionality, Far from equilibrium, Flux, Oscillatory Characteristics of Living Systems.

Open publication - Free publishing - More km etc.

Arjuna, Eklavya and Drona

2011-08-09T13:09:00.001+05:30

Arjuna, legendary archer and warrior par excellence, had his path to glory chalked out right from the time of his birth. Born into a family of rulers, he had the lineage and the genes to mark him out as a special warrior. The royal connection also meant that he had easy access to the Ivy League - The Dronacharya School, where students learnt and mastered the skills of war and politics. It was generally agreed that Drona's students were the cream of society, privileged to occupy higher rank and position. It was a school that churned out leaders, men who expected to win and backed themselves.

But all this was true for all his brothers as well, including the Kauravas. Why did Arjuna tower above the rest? He stood out as the one most committed to his art, ever eager to learn and improve and always ready to put in the hard hours to hone his skills, his knowledge and his thoughts. He also had a streak of ruthlessness, self-confidence bordering on arrogance, an aura. He won more often than not, because he didn't go into any battle expecting to lose.

Eklavya, on the other hand belonged to a tribal community, with a natural flair and interest in archery. He actually approached Drona for entry into his school but was refused (because he did not have the right "caste" credentials). He was easily convinced (perhaps it was very obvious at that time with very strongly ingrained caste hierarchies) that it wasn't Drona's mistake to have denied him entry - it was the system's fault, not the individual's . . .

Eklavya went on to practice and learn archery on his own, with Drona, the great archer and teacher, as his inspiration. He had to make do with the most primitive of equipment. He did not have a support system to bolster his confidence, no friends to compete and practice with in earnest, no exposure to the larger dynamics of warfare. He persevered purely on interest and passion to achieve mastery in the art.

As the story goes, Drona comes across Eklavya many years later and happens to see the brilliance of Eklavya's archery skills - he was better than Arjuna even! Eklavaya was elated to see his inspiration Drona - and he thanked him for being his inspiration, and therefore his mentor and teacher.

In the old system of teacher-student, teachers did not take fees from their students- learning and knowledge were not to be priced. At the end of their education, students would offer to their teachers Guru-Dakshina - the closest meaning in English - "Donation to teacher" does not capture the essence of this offering. Guru Dakshina is a student's way of saying thanks and showing respect - it is not a payment for the services offered by the teacher. Sometimes, the Dakshina would be in the form of resources provided to the school so that the school can continue its good work, sometimes in the form of a work or a job done for the teacher etc.

Arjuna was the product of a systemic training system, with his individual brilliance helping him shine above the rest. Eklavya was the product of individual passion and skill, against very large system odds. Drona realized that Eklavya's skills, developed outside the system, had the potential to irrevocably damage the reputation of his system, the key brick on which the kingdom's invincibility rested. If the students at his school were not convinced about the goodness of the system, would they believe in themselves as the best warriors? Would they go into war, confident of winning? Indeed, a major part of being the best is about belief - skills come later.

Drona nipped this potential problem in the bud. He asked for Eklavya's literal and proverbial thumb as Guru Dakshina. By asking for the thumb, Drona accepted Eklavya's superiority over Arjuna. This truth would be known to teacher and student and that's all that mattered. By offering his thumb, Eklavya upheld Dharma - in this case, he chose not to break the existing order. The system, even with its flaws, was more robust and was essential for the kingdom. However, the model of lineage or caste-based entry was proven wrong. By accepting Guru Dakshina, Drona acknowledged that Eklavya, a "lower caste" boy, was his student. It set the precedent for future generations of students at the Drona School.

Are their parallels to be drawn between then and now? Do we need more Arjunas or Eklavyas?

Read More about the Arjuna and Eklavya story from the Mahabharata at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekalavya

Enterprise Idea Management - do your ideas compete or collaborate?

2011-07-19T10:45:00.001+05:30

Enterprise Idea Management is an arena where multiple ideas strut their stuff to a "discerning" audience, fight with each other for precious resources, including attention - the strongest idea emerges victorious having defeated many other ideas on the way to the top.

Often, it’s not just the ideas competing with each other, but the people behind the ideas as well - inventors, patrons, stakeholders. Competition can bring out the best and worst in people.

Our enterprise idea management systems today are just stadiums for these idea fights – a portal where inventors can submit their ideas, a place where sponsors set their criteria, a place where observers can observe and bid for their favourite ideas and a series of competition levels. Strange!

In nature though, collaboration is seen as a sustainable strategy. For instance, ant swarms perform complex tasks like building bridges over water. Bees are able to learn shortest paths between flowers using collective intelligence superior to that of individual bee brains.

In fact, even atoms and molecules (non-living) naturally collaborate. They detect affinities for energy exchange and form bonds. Similar elements combine to form strong molecules (Carbon-60). Different elements combine to form new molecules and substances, with completely new properties. Crystal structures emerge spontaneously.

Are our enterprise idea management systems able to bring to the surface hidden affinities between ideas? Are they able to help creating Idea-60 molecules or Combination Idea Molecules with completely new properties and possibilities? Are they able to create an ecosystem where even simple ideas can come together to achieve objectives much beyond the capabilities of individual ideas?

The answer is a very clear NO. A fundamental redesign is required.

Related articles:
Building Highly Effective Idea Management Systems with Living System Principles - Part I

Building Highly Effective Idea Management Systems with Living System Principles - Part I

2011-07-13T17:49:00.000+05:30

Article published in the Innovator column of Asian Educator, July 2011 Issue. Part I discusses how the "Waste=Food" principle of Living Systems can be designed into Idea Management Systems.

Problem Solving, Local-Global Optima and TRIZ

2011-07-12T14:36:00.000+05:30

Image via Wikipedia
Assuming that the objective of any problem solving activity is to reach the "best" solution as quickly as possible, one can actually objectively compare various problem solving approaches; there are various "search" approaches which help you reach local and/or global optima faster. (references at the end)

Usually, local optima search algorithms depend on specialized knowledge - the knowledge helps to narrow the search directions quickly. However, these may miss out on global optima becuase of the dependence on what is "known". Global optima search algorithms (like the genetic algorithm) tend to be effective when there are more unknowns than knowns, but are tyically slow in converging to the optimum.

Arranging in order of increasing ability to reach global optima (and perhaps decreasing speed of reaching local optima), we have:

Specialized domain expertise can reach a "best" local solution fastest.
Usually, there are better global solutions available, if knowledge from other domains can be included. TRIZ helps reaching such a global optima very quickly.
However, even TRIZ does not cover all knowledge. Certainly, there would be even better global optima available, but these lie in the realm of the unknown. Evolutionary approaches (say genetic algorithm based) can reach such optima by interspersing structured combination of domains with random mutations.
Of course, at the far end of the spectrum, we have a completely random foray into the unknown - every once in a long while, such a random approach may provide a completely unique solution!

Interestingly, TRIZ as a methodology (and theory) has one foot in the local optima boat and another in the global optima boat. It is local because it is based on (and limited by) emperical analysis of inventions that have already happened (known). It is also global in the sense that its knowledge base is very vast - includes many technology domains and because it has been able to connect these diverse domains with a layer of domain-independent abstraction.

Invariably, TRIZ can help reach a great solution for most technical problems very quickly. Thats because it provides clear paths that lead out of domain specific local optima to domain-common global optima.

However, the moment one moves the problem outside traditional TRIZ knowledge boundaries - technology problems outside of traditional domains, business problems etc. its effectiveness reduces. More holistic approaches are required - e.g. at Crafitti (www.crafitti.com), we use an approach Lean Inventive Systems Thinking (LIST) that integrates Inventive Thinking (including TRIZ), Systems Thinking (including evolutionary approaches, scenario writing, network analysis) and Lean Thinking (including Value Engineering) to solve all kinds of complex problems.

Related Links:

The friendly neighbourhood book vendor

2011-06-21T01:26:00.000+05:30

I vividly remember my weekend walks to Matunga (with my father). I had just moved into 5th standard when I moved to Wadala from Andheri (one Mumbai suburb to another). Matunga was a 20 minute walk from Wadala, a pleasant walk through "Five Gardens", with roads lined on both sides by large, old trees and forming a canopy on top, just dense enough to filter out the harsh Mumbai sun and let some pleasant light through.. One of the old banyan trees was a favorite abode for parrots (hundreds of them). Another old tree was home to hundreds of large bats. We would walk to Matunga every weekend - to buy vegetables (it was great fun and learning to watch my Dad hand-pick the best vegetables), and coffee (a smell that cannot be replaced) and Tamil magazines, and most importantly, second hand story books for me!

I used to wait all week for the little expedition and words cannot describe the kind of excitement that I would feel as the book shops would approach nearer and nearer. There were 2-3 roadside stalls, nothing much to speak off, just small sheds with some wooden shelves and a blanket spread out on the pavement, with books neatly arranged in rows and columns by author names and book series. One of the vendors was a bit "khadoos", so we would go to him only if the other vendor was out of :new stock". The books wold cost 3 to 5 rupees based on size of the book (required bargaining), and that's when I guess I got used to small font sizes in books (they were much more value for money!). I still cannot bear the sight of large font sizes in books.

I also got used to books without pictures in them, one picture is literally worth a thousand words, and such a waste of space in a book - the pictures, I mean! By the same rule, comic books were out - you were through with them in a matter of minutes, and what's the use of a book which cannot be your companion for a few hours at least?

Anyway, after finishing our regular shopping we would, on our way back, stop by these stalls at leisure and go through the stacks of books. It was important to stop at the book stalls on the way back (not in the beginning). Going through all the books was a major part of the overall experience. A maximum of 3 books could be purchased in a single trip and it was always difficult to figure out which 3 books to buy. Usually, it would be one Enid Blyton, one Hardy Boys/ Nancy Drew (preferably Hardy Boys) and one classic (abridged version) - Dickens, Stevenson, Poe, Verne etc. Selection needed time and patience, and some quick reading. Some morons would scribble all over their books (very irritating)! It was critical to check for torn or missing pages - nothing can be worse than reaching page number 135 in a 150 page book and find pages 136-146 missing! At the same time, there is something about a second hand book that makes it special, more special than a brand new book. It has been read before and therefore worth reading again. It caries small markers of its previous readers and owners, a ketchup stain here, a dried petal there, a thoughtful underline, a rare comment (only rare comments are valuable), pages whose importance has been marked by folded corners etc.

I have to thank my father for his infinite patience - it must have been extremely boring for him to wait while I went through this lengthy ritual. It never showed, though. Once the selection was complete, I would hand the books over to him and he would then negotiate the price with the vendor. The bargaining process was ritualistic - the vendor knew us well and would eventually hand us the books at the price we would demand, but perhaps there was something incomplete in selling a book without a round of bargaining.

The walk back was anticipation and torture. You have the books, but you cant read them while walking. If I could have, I would have! These would be the longest 20 minutes of my typical week. Yet, strangely, it was a walk that I wouldn't exchange for anything in the world! It is a walk I have always enjoyed, even long after these weekend trips with my father tapered off as I entered my teens. The reasons kept changing and the frequency kept reducing. Even now, whenever I go to Mumbai, I cannot help retracing these steps at least once and reliving those wonderful experiences, although it has been a while since I went to see if those roadside book stalls still exist - probably not.

Once home, I would jump into the book world, eat with them, sleep with them and live with them over the weekend, to emerge out only after completing the first reading, and I would read them again over the course of the week.

Bangalore in 1999 was still quaint, M.G.Road was still beautiful; there were many roadside book stalls selling second hand books. I rediscovered my reading habit. Over the next few years, these stalls also started selling low quality copies of brand new books (not second hand), along with pirated CDs and DVDs. Somewhere, in the subconscious mind, these books were equated with second hand books, hence there was no hesitation in buying these books at cheaper prices. The subconscious mind can play tricks!

Some years back, I learnt about the link between piracy and terror - proceeds from these pirated copies (books, CDs, DVDs etc.) were directly funding global terrorist activities. These were not cheap books - they were very expensive books indeed! I have stopped buying from these roadside book vendors since then.

To be sure, there is nothing wrong in purchasing second hand books. It is always better to purchase from a proper bookstore like The Bookworm, off Brigade Road, or even smaller book shops sprinkled right across the city. I do wish though that the old roadside vendor would make a legitimate comeback as well, and make books accessible to younger generations near their homes and in their neighbourhoods. Happy reading!

TRIZ - Protectionism vs. Evolution

2011-06-16T16:03:00.000+05:30

In the beginning TRIZ really was a theory
The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) was envisaged and evolved on the basis of analysis of thousands of inventions (patents) across industry domains during 1950 - 1990. The inventors (whose inventions were studied) themselves had no knowledge that such a theory existed. This lent the necessary objectivity and neutrality to the theory. It also allowed the theory to evolve - because minds were open to discover. Postulates of the theory were questioned, examined, added, deleted, changed, evolved - as is mandatory for any scientific theory (if not, it cannot be called scientific).

Increasing use of TRIZ
Slowly, TRIZ has started becoming popular and more widely known. Many inventors are now using TRIZ to invent. There is now at least a small percentage of inventions that have originated through the structured application of TRIZ, and not through pure serendipitous creativity and/ or deep subject matter expertise. Indeed, as TRIZ spreads further, this percentage can only increase. However, as TRIZ spreads, it comes into contact with other innovation frameworks and approaches. It also reaches the non-engineering domains. It reaches those who view it as a scientific tool and those who view it as a business opportunity. These forces can be constructive as well as destructive.

Increasing Protectionism
As is common, the first reaction of the "Keepers" of TRIZ has been to cordon off the theory - in effect, for many, TRIZ is no longer a scientific theory, it is a religion. For these people, like classical religion, the theory of inventive problem solving cannot be questioned. Everything that had to be discovered has already been discovered. Any deviation, addition is blasphemous. Rules and regulations start getting created on who can learn, apply and propagate TRIZ. Underlying is a deep-rooted fear - is the theory robust enough?

Protectionism - overwhelming tendency to justify the theory
The tendency to force-fit classical TRIZ to new inventions and domains (without any serious thought) sometimes results in mappings that are ridiculously abstract, far-fetched or devoid of meaning. Indeed, so abstract, that the original intent of the theory itself is defeated, because tremendous creative license is required to apply the theory and each individual can interpret in his/ her own way!

For example, lets take the case of Line of Increasing Voidness being applied to a software problem. For most people, the relevance may not be immediately apparent. What does voidness mean for software, which is not physical in nature? Voids are a way of increasing surface area without increasing weight etc. and therefore there is a very strong physical basis to this line of evolution. However, software is not physical in the true sense, it is functional. The logic of voids doesn't make sense. Is the line invalid for software? Indeed, if you are approaching scientifically, in this context, the line breaks down, because it is not really specific and clear, it cannot be verified, tested, proven right or wrong.

For a religious TRIZ enthusiast though, the line can be mapped to software quite easily, with a little bit of maneuvering. Software programs will become more and more sparse, with the provision for specialized programs or code (active elements) to be plugged in to the module, these elements being controlled by specialized messages (information fields). That's precisely how library based architectures work. There you have it - the line can be applied!

But seriously, should this example be classified under Increasing Voidness of software? If you were to independently map the functionality of dynamic linked libraries (DLLs) you would, without hesitation, classify it as an example of the Law of increasing Functional Flexibility. Increasing voidness of software would seem a rather absurd classification, in this context. Maybe, the line is invalid after all for software. How to prove this? Ideally, a "scientific" theory should provide mechanisms to disprove it.

Clearly, when TRIZ is approached religiously, even absurd mappings can be made to look logical. By closing the theory, and thus transforming it to dogma, practitioners are encouraged to come up with creative new meanings of a fixed set of principles to explain new inventions. It is like saying - think deeply enough and you will be able to relate this to that; if you still aren't able to relate, well, you just haven't understood the theory well enough!

Evolution - the only way to strengthen TRIZ
As it turns out, for a theory (any theory) to remain live and relevant, it has to be amenable to evolution, especially in a field as rich and variant as innovation. Opening up the theory, exposing its internal workings, its postulates, its theorems and logic makes it available for discussion and debate, for scientific research and development. TRIZ can play a key role in providing a scientific framework to analyze not just inventions, but other innovation frameworks as well.

Let us trigger the next wave of evolution of TRIZ!

The Strong IP Imperative for Entrepreneurs: Article published in Innovator Column, Asian Educator, June 2011 Issue

2011-06-13T15:44:00.003+05:30

Flip to Page 63 of the magazine for the article . . .

An Excerpt:

However, only a very small percentage of patents (generously not more than 5%) are actually commercially viable. While some of this non-viability may be attributed to the innate complexity in commercializing technology, mostly the non-viability stems from the fact that they are not strong enough i.e. they are easy to work around/ circumvent or it is difficult to detect infringement. It is especially important for entrepreneurs to note that just getting a patent is not sufficient, since they do not have the financial muscle or the luxury of a portfolio of patents to start with. One has to get a strong patent. Strengthening the idea/invention up front is the best guarantee for a strong patent.

Open publication - Free publishing

Wake Up Indian R&D Part III - Strengthening the immune system

2011-06-09T01:12:00.001+05:30

Why should we in India spend time on R&D and invention; why not just focus on market-facing innovation instead which seems to be at the outset, much more value for invested money (Wake Up Indian R&D Part I)?

The first imperative is rather immediate and apparent - meeting our country's basic needs (Wake Up R&D Part II - Basic Self Sufficiency).

The second imperative is much more subtle. It can easily get pushed under the carpet. Forgotten. However, there are long term implications. Somewhat similar to the role of a healthy immune system in keeping our body healthy. A healthy immune system prevents diseases, so that less resources have to be pumped into curing them later. A healthy immune system enables us to be less fearful about what we should eat and should not, whether we can get wet in the rain or not - it enables us to lead fuller, more joyous lives. However, building and maintaining a healthy immune system is hard work. It is easy to get sucked into a consumption driven life style - and then later, pop the pills to cure the resultant ills that set in.

What about the country's immune system?

A nation of IT factory workers

Not too long back, with the IT and BPO boom, and the salary scales on offer, a whole generation of young Indians was sucked into the IT vortex. Our mechanical and civil engineers were lining up to learn Java and work in IT factories. Many of our under graduates were no longer interested in pursuing graduation - a BPO job promised many immediate riches. Many of our students, who would have otherwise gone on to pursue higher studies were taking the easier, more lucrative path.

As a direct result, two decades hence, we don't have sufficient numbers of good faculty to teach pure sciences, non-software engineering disciplines. The IITs can get good faculty, of course, but Indian innovation is not a function of what is taught and learnt in the IITs - its what happens at the thousands of other institutes that really counts. We are struggling to conceptualize new products, new technologies at intersections of multiple disciplines, because there wasn't enough "industry" demand for those other disciplines two decades back.

Science and engineering capabilities are just part of the story. We need musicians, artists, writers, painters as well. A society without a variety of skills and capabilities soon loses vitality. And this loss of vitality takes a couple of decades to show up . . .

The IT boom has now been replaced by the mobile apps boom. Even school students are in the fray, happy and busy developing applications for mobiles - a killer app can make a killing! Ideally, these students should be busy and happy learning fundamentals of physics, chemistry, maths, biology etc. but hell, the Venture Capitalists are saying that Social Gaming is what the market needs today, so . . .

Low cost nation

In India, low cost is the monkey on the back. For good or bad, we seem to be intent on burning it into the psyche of our youth today. "Oh, you guys can take our stuff and figure ingenious ways of doing it cheaper, right?"

Our reputation as the low cost innovation capital of the world rests on our ability to borrow ideas, inventions, concepts and innovate on aspects of cost and scale. Certainly, this was, is and will continue to be needed. It is debatable, however, if we should innovate ONLY on cost or only those abilities should be inculcated or encouraged.

Already a negative impact is being seen in terms of what our scientists, inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs are aiming for. Too often, ideas are nipped in the bud with "this is too expensive for India", "why don't you focus on the bottom of the pyramid" and so on. The "low cost" perception about India is so strong, our regular innovations seem over priced, and the valuation of entire Indian industry is lowered as a result. For example, Micromax may have the capability to build a better phone as compared to Nokia, but it wouldn't actually build one because a higher priced phone is not "expected" from an Indian company.

Majority of our industries (SME sector) work predominantly on the copy, modify, sell model. We seem to be getting better at modifying and selling, and getting increasingly worse at creating. Also, since most of our cost lowering is based on process innovation (more efficient processes, cheaper labor etc.), our industry seems to be demanding managers, not inventors. All of this adds up to reduced R&D confidence, confidence to be world leaders on both quality and cost, not cost alone.

R&D capabilities serve a bigger purpose than meeting immediate industry needs. These are an important part of a set of capabilities that are required to build a strong immune system - a system that will enable a healthy innovation ecosystem in the future. Variety of R&D capabilities multi-domain, cost/quality objectives) need to be built. Indian industry needs to make R&D an integral part of its agenda - this demand will in turn, over a period of time, build up the strength of the supply system to cater to unpredictable future demand.

A Strange Dream

2011-05-21T12:07:00.000+05:30

I stay in an apartment complex which has 3 blocks connected in a U-shaped formation. There is a connected roof on top of the 9th floor. The place where I used to stay in my childhood days (in Mumbai) had 7 storied apartment blocks with a water tank structure perched on the top of each roof and a ladder to go to the top, an excellent place to stand and watch Mumbai city unfold in all directions.

Anyway, coming to the dream, I was lying down on top of a water tank on top of a U shaped apartment complex, watching the clear blue sky. Evidently, it was relaxation time and a soft cool breeze was making for a spectacular moment. Must have been about 5.00 or so in the evening.

Suddenly there is a humming sound in the distance – and as I scout the sky, a helicopter comes along on what looks like a reconnaissance mission – it is going around in circles, searching for something. For a brief second, there was this funny feeling that it was searching for me, who else was out there, gazing peculiarly upwards at the sky at this time in the evening? But, it wasn’t moving about as a hawk would, so I reassured myself that the object of its search wasn’t on the ground, and that I could continue to observe.

Suddenly, it broke out of its seemingly random trajectory and dashed off towards a spot almost perpendicularly above me in the sky and that’s when I saw it. It was a small grey object, obscured by a light grey cloud in the background. It was floating in mid-air.

The helicopter got close – it was funny, it looked like it was sniffing the object. I cant be sure. If the helicopter had had eyebrows, I am sure one of those eyebrows would have been raised at that moment. It then turned around and flew away.

I was perplexed. I was still, as still as I was, and there was nothing to suggest that I should remove my left arm from under my head, where it was comfortably placed. I just squinted, to get a better glimpse of this grey object, but it was too high up. Could have been anything.

And then the second helicopter came along. This one was larger and its hum was deeper, more like a rumbling cloud. It was a clear sky, so the rumbling couldn’t have been a cloud. It flew right close to the object. It then extended one of its legs from underneath and held the object in its claws. If I didn’t know it was a helicopter, if all this would have happened a little higher up in the sky, I would have thought it was a bird, they way it did what it did. But I could see that it was a helicopter, and looked like our air force guys had built a smart one.

And then without warning, it just shrugged in disgust and flung this object downwards. I know, this is impossible to confirm. I cannot be sure that it actually “shrugged” in disgust. It happened very quickly. It did look like it had come a long way - to find something absolutely trivial. It might have cursed under its breath too, but I was too far away to hear.

I was literally frozen, now. This object was hurtling towards me, but I had no will to move. It came into better focus as it came hurtling down. Very very strange. It looked like a DVD player. Please dont ask me how a DVD player was floating in the air, why was it there in the first place? I dont know. This was in a dream.
It must have looked really funny from the helicopter. Maybe, it had seen me as well and didnt feel too good about my relaxed existence while it had been sent all the way to dispose off an old DVD player. Maybe it thought – let me kill two birds here with one stone.

The DVD player smashed into the adjacent roof. The momentum of the impact must have been immense. There was a mild explosion and the water tank had cracked – water was spurting out in small fountains. There were shouts from below. And I woke up.

Rediscovering Carbon Neutral

2011-05-12T19:25:00.000+05:30

As we sit in our homes and our offices and type away on our computers and handhelds, checking status messages on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn every 15 minutes, it is easy to forget that each of these messages is being powered by electricity flowing into a data centre somewhere, and the electricity is indeed being powered by some coal being dug up or petrol getting pumped up and refined and burnt somewhere. Just because we cant hear the generator chugging away doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

50 years back, it was predicted that nuclear energy would solve the world’s problems by 2000 – clean energy, zero pollution. Only a small hitch (there always is) – the small matter of figuring out what to do with the radioactive waste. We haven’t worked out a solution yet. And the Japanese disaster has etched the reality a little deeper – there is a price to pay for our energy greed.

OK, so nuclear didn’t work. And there is some radiation mess that we have already created, that we may have to live with. What’s the alternative? We just need to find another energy source.

All the while we thought that we can find another energy source – to meet our growing energy needs. We continue to think the same way – wait for the miracle of solar energy and wind energy and tidal power and biomass and geothermal energy and nano-energy to save us. It will happen, it has to happen.

Maybe it will. Given enough time, it will. Are we really doing anything to buy time?

We all consume some amount of energy everyday. Let us say, hypothetically, we had to create that energy, before consuming it (so that we come close to carbon neutral). Perhaps an example will help.

We watch 3 hours of TV daily and browse the internet for 6 hours, our refrigerator is on the whole day, a geyser heats up water for us to bathe, we have lights to prolong our day and fans to keep us cool, we use elevators to reach our homes and so on. All of this needs electricity (energy). Let’s say each one of us is allowed to use 4 times the energy we create (the government says, for every 1 part of energy your produce, I will sanction 3 more parts to you for use).

I am imagining all of us cycling away in a corner of the house, generating energy for our daily use. You want to browse the internet for half an hour? Just need to cycle for 15 minutes. Watch TV for an hour? 30 minutes of cycling should do it. And so on.

Ridiculous, isn’t it? Firstly, it is impossible to generate the amount of energy we consume in a day. Even if I do generate a little, it will be a very miniscule percentage of my total needs. It would be much easier to pay for my work’s equivalent? (Well that’s exactly the logic that companies use when they buy and sell carbon credits!)

Well, I think, it is important for each one of us to realize that we are consuming more than we can generate. Lets just say that the energy we generate is a token amount towards this realization.

Since we are just imagining, lets go ahead with the ridiculous a little bit more. If it turns out that there is no other option, it is just possible that we may prioritize and cut down on our energy consumption. Do I really want to tweet every 2 minutes? I am sure, if every tweet needed a good 5 minutes of cycling, we would not tweet as much. Or search as much. We may just rework our food habits so that we don’t need to store or stock up stuff in our refrigerator so much. (I am not playing the fitness card here at all.)

The fact us, a lot of our energy usage is ridiculously wasteful. Finding a viable, unending, renewable source of energy might solve our problems in the future. Energy in so much abundance, we can waste all we want. But we don’t know yet. Our wastefulness today may be so foolish that our children may need to pay a hefty price.

Till then, it may just be a good idea to rediscover a greener way of life, as close to carbon neutral as possible. Who knows, this could be a healthier, more meaningful life – without sacrificing the real benefits that today’s technology has to offer. Perhaps, it is also important, while we search for our next energy source, to also innovate on how we generate and consume energy and how we can sustain the good parts of our current lifestyle with less energy.

This is much easier for us in India today, than for the western world – culturally we have always been closer to carbon neutral than most others, and its only recently that material comforts have started to question our sustainable lifestyles of old. It is time for us to return back to the path of sustainability, and create a lasting legacy of innovation.

Six Innovation Learning Conflicts in Enterprises

2011-05-04T19:02:00.001+05:30

This is an excerpt from my talk on Embedding Innovation Learning in Enterprises at Innovation Educators Summit, ISB, Hyderabad.

Who should be trained on innovation - select few people (innovation heroes) or everybody in the enterprise (innovation soldiers)?

How to measure the quality of innovation training? Training model assumes a known “right way” whereas in innovation, the right way is not known up-front. What has worked before, may not work again. Certification Models break down. Case Studies are useful only if underlying principles are understood. Understanding underlying principles requires scientific frameworks, models.

The need for quick results through “innovation training”. Experimentation needs much more effort, starting with initial incentives to innovate despite only mediocre benefits in change created, followed up with sustained conviction and patience before the final frontier is reached where the benefits start significantly outweighing the efforts.

The temptation to choose the low risk – medium rewards option. Enterprises naturally gravitate towards alternatives that are easier to implement and lower perceived risk.

The “What’s in now?” trap. In the absence of deeper understanding, most enterprises blindly copy, follow and propagate the approaches that others around them are following, just to ensure that they are not “left behind”. A casual survey of innovation initiatives in enterprises reeks of sameness! Everybody has the same process, the same set of activities and even the same names for those activities! Well, following the herd makes sense only if there is safety in numbers – certainly not an innovation trait!

Framework fatigue. A tactical approach to innovation often leaves enterprises with a trailing litter of innovation frameworks that were tried, partially adopted, partially discarded, never completely understood or embedded in the enterprise. Every new problem brings a new framework which is fitted on top of the existing system. After a while, it just gets too complex to try anything new.

Wake Up Indian R&D Part II - Basic Self Sufficiency

2011-03-08T22:09:00.000+05:30

In Wake Up Indian R&D Part I we ended with the question - Why should we spend time on R&D and invention; why not just focus on market-facing innovation instead which seems to be at the outset, much more value for invested money?

There are at least two reasons why investing in R&D is important for a country like India, one which is staring us at the face (and the stare will continue to intensify over the next few decades) and the other, much more subtle and indirect, with long term repercussions.

Staring us at our face - Our Basic Needs

India is growing at a rapid rate; the rate of further growth will depend on how well the basic needs of its citizens are met - food, water, energy, medicine, education, infrastructure, communication, defence, environment. India's scale and complexity make it imperative for us to build and utilize technology intelligently and efficiently to enable our basic needs. It is just too risky to depend completely on imported technologies for this purpose, we cannot afford to wait and watch!

Energy: Right now we need solar energy technology, but its not available at an affordable price. How can we ensure that we are not in the same situation 5 years from now?
Health: Our medicines have been affordable so far (mainly because pharma product patents weren't granted in India before we became signatories to TRIPS), but post TRIPS, in a competitive, globalized world, pharma product patents cannot be denied and medicines cannot be artificially subsidized.
Food: Our food needs continue to grow. We need ways to generate more nutrition per acre of farmable land and convert arid land into farmable land. A hungry nation cannot grow very quickly.
Water: Our water reserves are depleting alarmingly rapidly. Given that our water needs are different from other nations, we cannot wait for developed countries or other developing nations to come up with solutions for water sufficiency.
Infrastructure: Our cities, towns and villages and the roads between them are developing and growing rapidly. However, much of this growth is haphazard and sub-optimal; invariably, this results in creaking joints, high maintenance costs, huge leakages and band aids all over the place hiding festering wounds within.
Defence: In a volatile environment, there are many ways in which the nation can be attacked. We cannot wait for someone else to develop technologies to solve our unique security problems.
Environment : India's diverse environment and ecology is threatened by global factors (global warming, globalization) as well as local factors (increasing population, strain on natural resources, growth rate). The impact can be sudden and dramatic.

Therefore, minimum R&D capability is a must, at least to ensure that our basic needs are not compromised. Unfortunately, this is often seen as the job of the government. Yes, the government needs to be alert to understand and convert these needs into industrial opportunities. Policy and requirement documents need to be in place. However, industry has to be eager and proactive too, including the private sector.

Wake up Indian R&D!

2011-02-17T01:08:00.000+05:30

Our Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh ushered in the "Decade of Innovation" while addressing the 98th Indian Science Congress on Jan 3, 2011 at Chennai. The address is eminently readable and strikes a chord http://www.academics-india.com/Opinion.htm. An excerpt from his address:

The time has come for Indian science to once again think big; think out of the box; and think ahead of the times. The time has come for India to produce the Ramans and Ramanujans of the 21st Century.

As a side story on India's R&D standing today, the following two charts based on patent filing data from WIPO website http://www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/statistics/patents are interesting:

Chart1: Average Number of patents (2003-2007) filed by some countries (I have picked a few) in specific technology areas.

Yes, you have to squint to figure out where the Indian line is. Clearly, India is lagging quite a way behind. Thee seems to be some interest in the Chemistry and Pharma domains (and even that is relatively a very mild interest). And yes, there is some activity in the computer technology space as well, and it probably would be much more if the Indian Patent Policy Makers were to get a little more serious about this domain called software . . .

Chart 2: Patent Intensity - Resident Patent filings per $million R&D expenditure

For those of us who believed that we have fewer patents because we spend less as compared to others, think again! Looks like we don't get too much bang for the buck either! For the same R&D expenditure, we get significantly lower number of patents.

Yes, patents are not entirely indicative of India's R&D prowess; they are just one of the places on the surface of the body where you can hear the heart-beat. However, they are excellent indicators of our ability to convert breakthrough abstract concepts into tangible industrial value, in essence our our ability to engineer next generation technology.

One has to ask the question, is R&D really important? Why is it important for us to engineer next generation technology? Why not just buy the technology and build market-facing/ user applications on it? Why should we spend precious time and money on the invention part of the cycle, where the risks are high and returns are low?

Will be continued . . .

The Wipro Story - Part II: Bound by inertia

2011-02-01T18:11:00.002+05:30

While revenue charts don't always tell the entire story, they do offer an interesting backdrop for discussion. There is something about curves that gets us going, I guess.

The chart above does tell a story - after being overtaken in the early 2000s, change in leadership had no significant impact on Wipro's performance curve, relative to competition. This was independent of whether there was one CEO at the helm or two, whether the CEO was brought from outside, or was the owner of the company or a leader who had grown through the ranks. This was despite the fact that every new CEO reshuffled his portfolio and cabinet.

Indeed, it is quite amazing to see that even though the objective of these leadership changes was to trigger a fundamental shift in trajectory, the results were exactly the opposite - seamless continuity. Two possible reasons, and both are interesting premises:

The new leaders were not really intent on shifting the trajectory fundamentally (it was too risky),
The organization was resisting change (despite the top management trying to bring about change)

I believe it was a bit of both.

At the outset one would have assumed that there were several opportunities for inorganic growth spurts because of various acquisitions that were made during the decade, famously tagged as "The String of Pearls" strategy: Spectramind (Business Process Outsourcing), Nervewire (consulting in Banking and Finance), R&D Labs from Ericsson Telecom R&D), Newlogic (semiconductor design in wireless and Bluetooth), Saraware (wireless R&D), Quantech (Engineering Design), Enabler (retail solutions), Infocrossing (Data Center) to name a few.

However, most of these acquisitions were head-count or skill acquisitions (people with domain, consulting expertise) and customer acquisitions (the acquired companies had paying customers).

An excerpt about Wipro's acquisition of Ericsson's Technology R&D labs in India from Annual Report 2002-2003:

In a classic example of a ‘win-win’ customer solution, Wipro acquired the Research & Development labs of Ericsson in India.While providing the customer with the benefit of continuity in its R & D operations out of India, this transaction consolidated Wipro’s strength in the Telecom space with the addition of over 250 domain specialists across three locations in Hyderabad, New Delhi and Bangalore.

The strength of Ericsson’s R &D center in India was its people. Wipro through this transaction acquired valuable skill sets in telecom R &D.

Isnt' it surprising that an R&D lab should be acquired purely for people and skill sets, with no mention of IPR anywhere?

The "String of Pearls" approach was an excellent approach towards acquisition. It is not confidence inspiring for an organization if it has to resort to instant revenue booster injections (or the reverse, botox operations to cut flab), as many organizations do. Wipro was on firm ground - acquisitions were meant to strengthen or build platforms for growth, and fill in portfolio gaps; inject a culture of beneficial bacteria if you may.

However, while the strategic intent was excellent, the acquisitions were not able to deliver on their promise. Was it because there was no strategic roadmap for these acquisitions? Did the larger organization quickly assimilate them into the regular QoQ grind, ending their individuality and potential in the process?

Acquisitions were not the only ones to get swallowed up. Internal innovation seeds and plants seemed to follow a similar pattern. The overall organizational culture had a big role to play.

Culture cannot be changed overnight
Over a period of time, employees tune their behavior according to how the organization rewards or punishes them. Culture is a combination of many such manifested behaviors, that are consistently encouraged. In a large organization, the momentum (and inertia) of culture is enormous.

Tuned to being rewarded for efficient management of resources (a successful project manager had a large number of billable employees and small bench strength, a large number of relatively inexpensive junior engineers and small number of more expensive experienced professionals and so on), the most successful people in the organization were those who had grown through the ranks as smart, efficient managers, supremely capable of running and maintaining a well-oiled execution engine for linear growth.

Non-linear growth was an entirely new game. Suddenly, the management was asking you to embrace a little bit of risk and build for the future, not for the present. Was there a safety net, for failure or a greater reward for success? How would you convince the best in your team to take the risk when the well-defined, comfortable career path promised an equally good, if not better future? Many opted out of the risky innovation path.

Those who took the risk were quickly confronted by mixed signals from all sides. They had limited time to build and prove a business. Entrepreneurship wasn't their strongest skill. They were being asked to quickly grow a plant into a tree, one bearing fruits. Eventually, the tree would be handed over to a peer in the main business line, to grow it further and reap the fruits. Hell, it was just too much effort and pressure, for very little returns.

When exploration and exploitation functions report into the same management hierarchy and are connected at the hip, the larger of the two (usually exploitation) will overwhelm the smaller, influence it and swallow it. A fundamental structural change is required, in this case, what is called as the Ambidextrous Organization. As we discuss in this paper Organization Forms and Social Network Types: A Framework for analysis, a hierarchical firm will find it easiest to transition to an ambidextrous form based on the underlying changes that need to made to its employee structures and networks.

In a large organization, this dichotomy can manifest even between different parts of the the exploit function, which are growing at different rates. For example, one business unit growing at a higher rate than another, because of favorable market conditions. This implies that the organization is not inherently monolithic. However, wrapped in an artificial monolithic structure, risks and rewards are shared by these units. Incentive for entrepreneurial attitude is reduced. Organizational culture can be a binding force in a positive as well as negative sense.

I thought the twin CEO model was a landmark decision in this context. I had assumed that this would be the first among a series of gradual structural changes that would enable transition to a truly distributed organization, with multiple CEOs, functioning entirely independently, creating a collaborative orchestra. This is a trend that I see large organizations embracing more and more in the future, by choice or forced by the market When complexities of scale overtake economies of scale.

Based on Wipro's performance curve under the twin CEOs, the decision to go back to single CEO model seems justified at the outset. However, the world has changed - it is more globalized, more networked, more agile and empowered. We have also seen that just changing the CEO doesn't seem to have made too much of an impact. There have to be fundamental structural changes to enable new strategies - the central point of discussion in my next post.

The Wipro Story - Part I: The first crossroad

2011-01-27T17:39:00.000+05:30

As an ex-Wiproite, and as someone who spent close to a decade with the organization during a period of high growth as well as turmoil and uncertainty, it is difficult to passively observe happenings at the company from outside. After all, some part of your first company always remains with you! While many claim that the latest leadership change will recreate the magic created by a similar step taken a decade ago (Kurien-has-Vivek-Pauls-firepower), I believe that it might not be such a good idea at all. Firstly, it is questionable if the step taken a decade ago was magical or not. Secondly, will the same tactics work in the current industry environment which is significantly different from a decade ago? More importantly, are there any new lessons for the IT services industry in India? I hope to explore these and other questions in a series of posts, this being the first one.

The first crossroad – R&D services or Enterprise Services?
I was with Wipro during 1999-2008. When I joined, Wipro was the undisputed leader in software based services for R&D. Infosys was jostling with Wipro for the overall top spot in IT services, and industry opinion was divided (with perhaps a slight bias towards Wipro). However, Ashok Soota, who in my opinion was the creative brain behind Wipro’s ascendancy, had left. Vivek Paul was just taking over.

In the next few years, as Vivek Paul unleashed his grand vision of 4x4 (4 Billion in 4 years), the company started to change character. It became a little less “techie” and more “management”, pushier, more bureaucratic as growth added layers of hierarchy, more disciplined and process oriented and certainly more focused on the “quarter on quarter”.

This change in character wasn’t immediate, but it was subtle but irreversible, buoyed and certified by initial successes. The telecom bust in 2001 cemented this change in character. R&D services weren’t “in” any more. The erstwhile star performer (R&D services) was now increasingly becoming a dead weight. There was surplus talent at the grassroots, with great potential to scale the organization into a niche R&D services consulting unit, but no takers for that kind of consulting just yet.

Meanwhile, the enterprise and financial software services space was starting to boom and other leading competitors had started to assert their leadership and move ahead. Y2K had given them a little bit of a head start. However, the gap wasn't insurmountable (at least so it must have seemed).

With 4 billion to achieve in 4 years, participating in this new race was essential, this was where the immediate money was. However, running with a injured star performer would have meant a further widening of the gap and would have looked bad in the QoQ charts. It must have been a simple decision. De-focus on R&D services. To catch up with immediate competition, margins would have to be reduced somewhat. Also, smart acquisitions needed to be made.

(It is always easier to sermonize in retrospect but when a huge decision is simple or obvious, it must always ring some alarm bells!)

These were probably good standard tactical decisions and would have worked well in a stable, predictable industry environment. After all, Wipro had the size and the stamina to outrun competition and it was near the top of the pile - it was just a question of tight execution. (Deja vu - contrast it with today)

"The prime task, the priority that we have at Wipro in front of us for the next two quarters is to perfect our execution act. You have got the right strategy, the right geography; you have got the right customers. You need to prioritise them better; we need to grow them better, mind them better. We need to give more value to them and we need to execute a lot of areas in the organisation where we are not executing. " - Azim Premji, in an interview on Jan 27, 2011, wipro-saw-the-slump-coming-but-not-growth-azim-premji/.

They were low risk, high percentage decisions, and very predictable. Except that the market changed. Funnily, this change wasnt a Black Swan, it was in the offing for a while.

Big Multi National Corporations like IBM and Accenture had spent a while trying to understand "Indian" IT Operations. They had utilized the services of companies like Wipro and Infosys to prove the model to them. Now, they were opening their own operations in India, creating a completely new dynamic. These top IT services and consulting MNCs were in a different league, margin-wise. They also brought different models (such as co-investment in customer projects). They brought higher salaries and a bouquet of new opportunities for talent. Suddenly, the cream of home grown Indian IT services companies were relegated to sweatshop status (perception wise). They were now in a bottom segment, with low margins, competing on the basis of dollar-rupee arbitrage and cost efficiencies. Attrition was high and the quality and capability of the workforce was reducing. Wipro responded by increasing its focus on the capabilities of its management cadre - a factory model, where a highly competent manager, aided by efficient processes would get work done, even with a work force of average skill. This transformation, I believe, had far reaching implications on the culture of the organization, making it even more hierarchical. Whenever in trouble or in a crisis, all you needed to do was to change the manager, get someone who can drive things better. (Are we really surprised by the change in CEO last week?)

As it turned out, by the time Vivek Paul left (2005) (The inside story: Why Vivek Paul quit), Wipro had done pretty well in absolute terms. However, in relative terms, the gap had widened (other competitors had done better). In the bargain, Wipro had given up its R&D services leadership position, higher margins and bragging rights in niche technology space. By focusing on near term revenue, Wipro had also lost out on the opportunity of developing a world class consulting unit, a unit that could have competed with the IBMs and Accentures of the world on an equal footing.

It is interesting to note that sometimes a company may not realize a strategic deficiency, being at number 2 for a long time can lull you into complacency. Wipro had not done badly, just a little worse than its immediate competition, but not so much as to warrant a strategic shift. Will continue to discuss this in my next post.

When complexities of scale overtake economies of scale

2011-01-09T22:12:00.001+05:30

In 1999, Wipro had about 10,000 employees in total. Today it has more than 10 times that number. Likewise Infosys. P&G and Unilever have close to 1,50,000. Fedex has more than 2,00,000. The Tata Group has close to 3,50,000. IBM has close to 4,00,000. Siemens has close to 5,00,000. Walmart has a whopping 21,00,000. (See a list of the world’s largest companies - http://bit.ly/fdmcvb)

Are companies really going to get bigger and bigger?

Well, size does have its benefits. Nobody messes around with an elephant in the jungle. But, the mammoth did get extinct, the extinction brought about by a destructive but creative, nimble species – man. http://www.karthikeyaniyer.in/2008/11/end-of-large-organization-for-time.html

Motorola has split into 2 companies bit.ly/gd1K5v. “The company has become increasingly diverse, and the breakup that began in 2008 is motivated by a desire to present two simple businesses to investors rather than one complicated one.”

L&T, a 38000 employee –strong Indian giant, has decided to split its business into nine independent entities. http://bit.ly/ePV32r. “Each of these, being called ‘independent companies’, will have a full-fledged CEO, CFO and HR head, and will manage its own profit and loss account. By March 2012, each of these independent companies should by 75% ready to get listed, should we want to list them,” – AM Naik, Chairman, L&T.

When do the cons of size start to outweigh the pros?

While we all would like a magic number (say, if you reach 51,204 people, just go ahead and split), I suspect it is much more complex than that.

One way I like to visualize this is to look at organizations as networks of entities (people or units or products etc.).

The network has some amount of energy or potential.
Some of this energy is expended in keeping the network together (alive).
Some energy is spent on growing the network.

Invariably, points 2 and 3 above are Yin and Yang forces, they work against each other and they work to balance each other.

In a small organization, it is easier to send out growth tentacles because the inertial force is weak. While this helps the small enterprise be flexible and nimble, it is also prone to the tentacle getting detached if it goes out too far.

As the organization gets larger, much more energy has to be spent in keeping the network together. This is the energy spent in management processes and organization structures and roles. While this provides stability, it also makes it difficult for tentacles to venture out too far – lot of energy has to be spent to overcome organizational inertia.

An inflection point in terms of size is probably reached when the energy spent on keeping the network together surpasses the energy spent on growing the network. There are tell tale signs of such an inflection point:

It takes forever to get a set of people together to respond to a customer’s request for proposal
Your organization gets restructured every couple of years
You have started taking shortcuts because the approval process takes too long and goes through too many people
You have too many redundant roles at the top

As Thomas Friedman mentions in Lexus and the Olive Tree, the defining characteristic of the modern world is speed (as opposed to size earlier). In a globalized, networked world, with many channels of communication and collaboration available to organizations across the world, the pros of a large organization are further diminished.

My four predictions for organizations in the coming future

The trend of existing large organizations splitting into smaller organizations (or independent units within the same organization) will accelerate.
Today’s start-ups will remain small or medium sized. They will not reach large organization status, at least not by today’s standards of large organizations.
Acquisitions for size will fail more often than not.
The age of consortiums is about to start – the pros of large organizations (minus the cons) will be achieved through the formation of collaborative consortiums on a case by case basis.

Motivation driven by progress, not by recognition - not so breakthrough idea

2010-11-17T02:59:00.000+05:30

One of the breakthrough ideas listed in HBR Breakthrough Ideas 2010 is the (evidently surprising) realization that the real motivating force driving workers (especially knowledge workers) is not recognition but progress - progress made in a day's work.

The surprise factor hinges on the managers overwhelmingly choosing recognition as the primary factor that they believe motivates workers and workers pulling a rabbit out of the hat by choosing progress instead.

Lets look at all the parameters used in the survey - recognition, incentives, interpersonal support, support for making progress and clear goals. (why not other parameters like role diversity, opportunity for experimentation, element of challenge etc.?)

The managers were asked to rank the importance of these parameters with respect to employee motivation. The employees however were asked to maintain a diary of their daily emotions and motivation levels. The managers ranked recognition the highest and progress the lowest. Analysis of the employees' daily diary entries revealed that their daily motivational levels was greatly impacted by the level of progress they made in the day, as compared to any other factor.

Well, absolutely, this makes sense. Daily motivation is much more heavily influenced by near term success factors. Progress drives motivation which in turn drives progress. Therefore support for making progress assumes a big role when viewed at on a day-to-day basis. I would think that interpersonal support would also play a major role, if the job requires significant team work and collaboration.

At the same time, long term motivation is probably driven by long term parameters - here, in this study, recognition, incentives, clear goals. Employees look at daily progress as a stepping stone to fame or fortune (or both or something else) depending on their personality type. When you are writing a daily diary, you are much more likely to comment on near term factors, they happen much more frequently. Recognition and incentives happen much more rarely (as a result of many days of sustained progress). But they are not independent factors! They are hierarchically linked.

Amazingly, the study, completely ignores this point. Clearly, the managers were providing a longer term view and the employees were providing a nearer term view. The survey was designed for managers to choose one side and workers another - to generate a 'surprising' result. However, thats comparing apples with oranges. The two sides were not answering the same question. Ideally, they should have asked the same question to the employees as well, up front - "Rank order the following 5 parameters with respect to impact on your motivation levels". Who knows, the employees might have ranked recognition highest as well!

A more objective analysis would reveal that both sides are probably right. In the long term - recognition pips incentives and goal clarity, in the near term, sense of progress (and success) overwhelms everything else. But that wouldn't be interesting enough, would it?

TRIZ India Summit 2010 – placing TRIZ firmly on the India map and India on the TRIZ map!

2010-07-31T14:25:00.001+05:30

While conceptualizing TRIZ India Summit, our objective was to make TRIZ visible to the industry and bring diverse perspectives on TRIZ to the table – experts, practitioners and those who are just starting off, participants from multiple industry domains, a world view, technical papers and discussions, core TRIZ, applications of TRIZ to technology, process and business as well as TRIZ intersections with other areas in the surrounding space-time (9 Windows of TRIZ if you may).

Over 90 delegates from 35 companies attended each day of the summit; the feedback was overwhelmingly positive and warm. TRIZ India Summit 2010 was a fantastic success! We would like to thank everybody who participated and contributed to the event!

We would specially like to thank Ellen, Isak and Ido for their enthusiasm and support and being there right through the event, helping us make it happen. Special thanks to Darrell as well who waited on the other side of a Skype connection to present his endnote, but the connectivity wasn’t good enough for us to make it happen live. Also, special thanks to AI (Richard), our strategic partner for TRIZ India Summit, for reviewing the papers at short notice and for valuable suggestions and support in designing the event. Authors would be excited to know that their papers will automatically become a part of TRIZCON proceedings, in a separate section!

Ellen’s live blog on TRIZ India Summit is at TRIZ India Summit Day 1 and TRIZ India Summit Day 2.

More updates on the summit to follow . . .

Don’t we all? A beautiful note by my friend Cyril.

2010-07-20T20:07:00.001+05:30

Cyril writes -

“

I was parked in front of the mall wiping off my car. I had just come from the car wash and was waiting for my wife to get out of work. Coming my way from across the parking lot was what society would consider a bum. From the looks of him, he had no car,no home,no clean clothes and no money. There are times when you feel generous but there are other times that you just don't want to be bothered. This was one of those "don't want to be bothered times." "I hope he doesn't ask me for any money," I thought. He didn't.

He came and sat on the curb in front of the bus stop but he didn't look like he could have enough money to even ride the bus.After a few minutes he spoke. "That's a very pretty car," he said. He was ragged but he had an air of dignity around him. His scraggly blond beard keep more than his face warm. I said, "thanks," and continued wiping off my car. He sat there quietly as I worked. The expected plea for money never came. As the silence between us widened something inside said, "ask him if he needs any help." I was sure that he would say "yes" but I held true to the inner voice.

"Do you need any help?" I asked.

He answered in three simple but profound words that I shall never forget. We often look for wisdom in great men and women. We expect it from those of higher learning and accomplishments.

I expected nothing but an outstretched grimy hand. He spoke the three words that shook me.

"Don't we all?" he said.

I was feeling high and mighty, successful and important, above a bum in the street, until those three words hit me like a twelve gouge shotgun. Don't we all? I needed help. Maybe not for bus fare or a place to sleep, but I needed help. I reached in my wallet and gave him not only enough for bus fare, but enough to get a warm meal and shelter for the day. Those three little words still ring true. No matter how much you have, no matter how much you have accomplished, you need help too.

No matter how little you have, no matter how loaded you are with problems, even without money or a place to sleep, you can give help. Even if it's just a compliment, you can give that. You never know when you may see someone that appears to have it all. They are waiting on you to give them what they don't have. A different perspective on life, a glimpse at something beautiful, a respite from daily chaos, that only you through a torn world can see.

Maybe the man was just a homeless stranger wandering the streets. Maybe he was more than that.
Maybe he was sent by a power that is great and wise, to minister to a soul too comfortable in themselves.
Maybe God looked down, called an Angel, dressed him like a bum, then said, "go minister to that man cleaning the car, that man needs help."

Don't we all?

In helping others, we shall help ourselves, for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us. “

Cyril, please start writing your own blog. We would like to read more . . . !

You can reach Cyril at cyril@greymatterindia.com

Altshuller, Science Fiction and TRIZ

2010-06-22T01:58:00.000+05:30

Altshuller not only classified inventions (based on study of patents), he also classified science fiction concepts, although in a slightly different manner! Not a surpise at all, after all inventions are science fiction till they become reality!

In order to study the mechanism of SF, it was necessary first of all to collect ideas scattered in thousands of works, to classify them, and then compile A Register of SF Ideas. This work has been in progress over several years with the result that now there are some 3000 ideas in the Register, catalogued according to classes, sub-classes, groups, and sub-groups. Up to this, no one had attempted to collect SF ideas systematically. But the Register served as a research instrument to help in the examination of the sophisticated and curious process of how SF ideas originate.

It turned out that in the evolution of any SF theme ("cosmic voyages," "contact with extra-terrestrial civilisations," etc.} there are four distinct categories of SF ideas:I) ideas based on a single object, with a certain fantastic result; II) ideas based on several objects, which add up to a rather different fantastic result; III) ideas leading to similar results, but obtained without an object; and IV) ideas based on a set of conditions that do not require these results - Altshuller.

Sounds familiar? Journey into Altshuller's mind at http://www.altshuller.ru/world/eng/science-fiction5.asp.

TrizIn 2010: First Annual TRIZ India Summit is here!

2010-06-21T20:13:00.001+05:30

TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) is a powerful innovation framework of Russian origin based on patent analysis, especially potent for technology and R&D innovation.

TRIZ of course, has over the last two decades, traveled to and has been applied by corporations across the world; it has become "the" global R&D innovation framework of preference. There are annual TRIZ Conferences organized in Europe and Japan in addition to the prestigious annual TRIZCON event organized by the Altshuller Institute in the USA.

An Indian TRIZ conference has been waiting to happen - we believe the TRIZ India Summit will spark an exciting journey for Indian innovation - hence the event theme "Innovation Revolution"! There is much that TRIZ can offer to India and simultaneously, a lot that India can offer to TRIZ itself!

In case you are already a TRIZ practitioner in some form, you can submit a paper to the summit. A call for papers is available for download at http://www.trizind.com.

TrizIn: First Annual TRIZ India Summit 2010 - Innovation Revolution: Brochure

A paradoxical 6th CII Innovation Summit

2010-06-21T12:38:00.001+05:30

The young stole the show and the old sputtered along.

On Day 1, it was a star-studded line-up that never quite rose to expectations (much like the big teams in the ongoing soccer world cup). After a splendid opening by Microsoft Chairman Ravi Venkatesan (all new tech, no gyaan), it was a rather unexciting series of talks (except the one by Merck) on what promised to be the most exciting session on paper – New Innovation Models – Power of Networks.

One interesting point to note in the session was that pharma seemed to be way ahead of the curve in the commercial open innovation paradigm. Merck’s traditional (likely to be outmoded soon) model of open innovation was exactly described as the new cutting edge model by P&G!

We had to wait for the post lunch session for some genuine fireworks. As H K Mittal wittily introduced himself, “I am between an 18 year old (Kaushik Srivatsan, Grand Prize Winner, Intel International Science and Engineering) and a 24 old(Suhas Gopinath, possibly India’s youngest IT entrepreneur), so you can guess my age”. This was the session of the event, without doubt.

The session on Innovation DNA again failed to produce more than the obvious bytes on innovation culture etc.

The students session, chaired by Prof. Sadagopan, IIIT Bangalore, was fantastic! It was good to see profound thoughts, terrific passion, a mixture of philosophy and pragmatism.

The highlights of Day 2 were a standing ovation to Dr. Suresh Deshpande (actually a Medical Doctor) for his low cost robotic guided surgery assistant and a very interesting war of words between Anil Menon, President, Cisco Systems and Pickhard Friedhelm, MD, Robert Bosch. It was a study in contrast in multiple ways. At one level was the organizational contrast – Cisco, the modern enterprise built on acquisitions and Robert Bosch, with more than a century of organic growth. Also in stark contrast, were the two personalities – Anil, extroverted, outspoken (almost brash) and dynamic – Pickhard, introverted, understated wit.

Most interesting for me was the contrast in management styles, quite the opposite of what I would have expected. Bosch, the externally conservative enterprise actually had the more open style of management, with Pickhard looking at each engineer as a technology innovator, and innovation as part of daily routine, innovation as a series of experiments and failing early, tolerance etc. In contrast, Cisco, externally the pioneer of networks and considered to be more dynamic and innovative was internally much more closed form of management, with Anil actually mentioning that “not everybody needs to be an innovator”, that 40-50% of the work force is expected to be average-above average to keep the daily wheels turning, clear boundaries and the impetus on winning.

Who knows, this might be a necessary balance for successful innovation . . .!

Innovation for High Performance – Post Seminar

2010-06-14T18:10:00.001+05:30

Happy to share that my presentation on The Innovative Organization: New Age Organizational Forms was extremely well received. Evidently, the participants rated it as one of top 2 presentations of the day, the other being my personal favourite of the day - the very humorous and entertaining discussion-skit on Excellence in Innovation Ecosystems by Prof L S Ganesh, Prof L Prakash Sai and N Kannan from IIT Madras.

Attaching the slides from my presentation here. Given the paucity of time, I stressed only on structural aspects – innovation behaviour and DNA had to be postponed for another day!

The Innovative Organization - New Age Organizational Forms

View more presentations from Karthikeyan Iyer.

All in all, kudos to MMA, TBI-UoM and Konrad Adenauer Foundation for a well organized event!

Random Rumblings on the Small World – Within and Without

2010-06-02T16:20:00.001+05:30

Stanley Milgram’s famous “Small World Experiment” confirmed the Six Degrees of Separation hypothesis that has now become part of the collective consciousness.

Did the experiment really confirm the hypothesis? Do you think all humans are “on an average” connected by a human chain of 5 people or less?

Watts and Strogatz went on to observe small world network effects in both natural and man-made networks. Natural networks include the nervous system of a roundworm so it is not entirely inconceivable that the human brain may be a small world network of neurons as well. Does the structure of the brain determine the types of structures it makes? Are man-made structures small world networks because the internal wiring of the brain is a small world? In other words are we seeing scale agnostic behaviour – a fractal?

A small world network is basically a lot of order and little bit of randomness.

The BRAIN

Was the brain a small world to start with or did it evolve into one? Is it the most comfortable behaviour for the brain – some sort of order and little bit of randomness thrown in.

If the brain is a small world, what is the impact on memory and imagination. Is our brain a small brain?

Is creativity a small world phenomenon? Do DeBono’s lateral thinking triggers activate weak ties in the brain?

My SOCIAL NETWORK

I make friends because I like structure. A little bit of randomness drives me to make a few new (different) friends once in a while.

In India, not long back, everything worked on Sifarish (recommendation). Sifarish is a reflection of an individual’s social influence (or access to those with power). The system was considered to be archaic, primitive, non meritorious, opportunistic, corrupt. Looks like Sifarish is making a come back in a big way in today’s world of online social networks. Or should I say, it was always there – but has suddenly become legitimate.

ORGANIZATION

In a hierarchical organization, random social networks may not be that useful. This is clear from how people interact with each other on internal classifieds.

INNOVATION

By its very nature, innovation needs to be rare – the little bit of variation inside lots of structure. If there is too much change, the structure may not be strong enough to derive value from the change – the change will not get transformed into innovation.

UTILITY

The utility of a network is a function of connectivity (between the nodes) and capability (of the nodes and the links). Even in a small group, once connectivity (with other individuals in the group) is setup, individuals settle down to some cliques depending on the speed at which they can actually do some valuable work – excess connectivity is sacrificed! Actual production of value takes time and effort. Large clusters are effort drainers.

OPTIMA

A lot of structure and a little bit of randomness – similar to the genetic algorithm, where the randomness is a mutation. Random mutations become mainstream innovations only if are global optima (similar to ideas becoming innovations). Clusters or cliques (strong ties) are necessary for sharper local resolution and value generation (local optima). Small worlds are a good balance of global and local optima. One has to wonder – is the genetic algorithm at work here?

Seminar: Innovation for High Performance on June 9, 2010 at Chennai

2010-05-25T18:44:00.001+05:30

Madras Management Association in partnership with Technology Business Incubator – University of Madras and Konrad Adenauer Foundation is organizing a one day seminar on Innovation for High performance at Hotel Deccan Plaza, Chennai on June 9, 2010.

I will be speaking at the seminar on The Innovative Organization: New Age Organizational Forms

Talk Brief: Over the past several centuries, the hierarchical form of organization has served us well. However, the world has changed rapidly in the past few decades; this change continues to accelerate. Linear organizations tend to struggle in a non-linear environment. New networked forms of organizations, much more well suited to today's complex and connected world and its needs, have emerged. Elements of social network analysis, systems thinking and chaos theory provide pointers to understanding these new forms and structures. Enterprise Social Networks hold the key to creating innovation tipping points in organizations.

The event brochure:

Innovation for High Performance: Seminar Brochure

IPR – Protection v Sharing – the perennial see saw

2010-04-29T23:27:00.001+05:30

Does IPR promote or hinder innovation? Well, there are two related questions.

1. Does protection promote or hinder innovation?

2. Does sharing promote or hinder innovation?

Current IPR laws try to balance the above two questions - in return for sharing you get some tangible protection (rights). Its unlikely that any one end of the spectrum (sharing is the only way to innovate OR protection is the only way to innovate) will hold all the answers. Creators have to decide their position on the protection - sharing spectrum depending on their context.

Looks like right now, a lot of people are choosing the sharing side of the spectrum. When sharing becomes predominant, identity will be lost. There will be a movement towards the protection side. Its a perennial see saw.

Use patents before and while inventing, not just after

2010-03-05T11:14:00.001+05:30

Considering that patents have always been one of the best (probably the best) sources of detailed information about cutting edge technology at any given point in time, its a pity that most inventors only think about or look at patents "after" they have invented, just to verify that no one else has done the same stuff.

That's a colossal under-use of patents!

As per the founding principles of the patent system, the real reason for its existence is to assist inventors to further the state of art. That is why inventors are expected to "describe" their invention in totality, in return for which they are granted certain rights. Ideally, inventors should be thinking about and using knowledge embedded in patents mostly before and while inventing, and then later, look at the legal aspects to protect and commercialize.

The "after-invention" use of patents, is the most common perception because that's what is primarily being taught. Who teaches inventors about the patent system? Typically, IP attorneys. I wouldn't blame them for stressing on the part of the patent system where their role begins – post invention. This is the reason why all the patent process presentations start with:

idea->invention->prior art search->patentability analysis.

If inventors were to teach about the patent system, they would probably be stressing more on how one can use patents to create the next level of technology i.e the inventing part. The process may then look like:

idea->knowledge from patents->more ideas->invention->prior art search->patentability analysis.

If entrepreneurs who have seen both sides of the coin were to teach, they may provide a more balanced approach - technology, law and business aspects.

Only a small portion of software work is patentable

2010-02-17T20:23:00.001+05:30

Typically, in any field, only a small portion of work classifies as inventive work (novel, non-obvious and useful). Assuming a similar breakup for software (let’s say a generous 10% of all new software that is created may be considered to be inventive and therefore, has the potential to be patented); the debate on software patents is really valid only for this small percentage. The other 90%, non-inventive software, right now, is protected only by copyright (or kept as a secret).

Further, even within the inventive 10%, not all of it is considered patentable subject matter. Software per se is not patentable, therefore generic algorithms are out (rightly so).

To give you an example, all of us have spoken over a VOIP (Voice over IP) connection and have experienced “packet jitter” due to variations in the rate at which voice packets arrive at the destination. To eliminate jitter completely, one may need a large buffer at the receiving end, but that increases processing and increases communication delay. Now, let’s say a software inventor comes up with a solution to this problem, a system that does more efficient buffering using a new sort-search algorithm. The sort-search algorithm, by itself has much larger implications. The inventor therefore, cannot patent this sort-search algorithm. However, the efficient buffering system to reduce jitter can be patented since its a particular inventive application of a more generic inventive algorithm.

All in all, only a small percentage of software work is actually patentable.

However, a lot of software that is “re-used” and doesn’t fall under the generic algorithm category, may actually be patented software. This is not strange – it makes perfect intuitive sense. Inventive software solves complex problems and is therefore prone to get re-used more often. Developers therefore need to be aware that when they re-use software, they are in effect voting for its utility, novelty and inventiveness (otherwise they would have done it themselves).

It may therefore be a good idea (should I say best practice) to check the patent databases at least during re-use scenarios to avoid costly troubles later.

Software Patents – Poison or Elixir?

2010-02-17T20:17:00.001+05:30

In recent conversations with people from the software domain, I have noticed that the topic of software patents is quite hot. Software developers, in general, are strongly against software patents. Software entrepreneurs, on the other hand, have tended to be strongly in favor of software patents. Both viewpoints have merits.

Poison

Here’s an excerpt from gnu.org that probably originates this opinion:

The explicit patent license in GPLv3 does not go as far as we might have liked. Ideally, we would make everyone who redistributes GPL-covered code give up all software patents, along with everyone who does not redistribute GPL-covered code, because there should be no software patents. Software patents are a vicious and absurd system that puts all software developers in danger of being sued by companies they have never heard of, as well as by all the megacorporations in the field. Large programs typically combine thousands of ideas, so it is no surprise if they implement ideas covered by hundreds of patents. Megacorporations collect thousands of patents, and use those patents to bully smaller developers. Patents already obstruct free software development.

There are strong Marxist undertones above - “the world is full of greedy capitalists who want to usurp property. The poor have no chance against the rich and powerful. The concept of individual property is evil . . “ The assertion is that software patents are a veritable minefield, you just can’t move without stepping on one of the mines. And the mines are laid by the big guys.

Elixir

There is (expectedly) a flip side to this argument that doesn’t find mention above. Consider an individual software inventor with minimal resources, looking to be an entrepreneur. Getting a patent actually levels the playing field for him. Without a patent, he has to fight against larger firms directly in the marketplace, where the larger firms have a big advantage. Opening the source only makes it easier for the larger firms. Even if he keeps his invention a secret, in software, reverse engineering is never a problem. Once you know it can be done, a large firm can put resources on the job to figure out how. Clearly, for entrepreneurs, patent protection can mean the difference between prosper and perish.

Reality probably lies somewhere in between the two.

On one side, software developers have gotten too used to “re-using” software, without giving due thought to the inventiveness of the software being re-used. Solutions always look trivial, post facto. There is always this feeling “I could have come up with this on my own; I am just re-using stuff to save time”.

On the other side, there has been a trivialization of software inventions. The bar of non-obviousness has been set too low; this has actually made matters worse for entrepreneurs while benefiting the larger enterprises.

Software: Patents and Open source – not really at loggerheads

2010-02-05T21:21:00.001+05:30

There seems to be a widely prevalent opinion that patented software and open source software work on completely divergent principles and are therefore incompatible with each other.

However, a deeper look at these so-called divergent approaches reveals surprising similarities and in fact, great opportunities to strengthen both systems by merging the two!

A patent is a time-bound exclusive right granted to an inventor for an invention; in return the inventor has to completely describe his invention to the public at large. If he doesn’t share, he doesn’t get the patent. As such, a patent is a contract between the public (government of a country) and an inventor. The objective of the patent is to speeden the process of innovation. Once an invention is shared, others can build upon it and advance the technological field. An assumption here (and the premise for labeling an invention as an “invention”) is that unless the invention is disclosed, others skilled in the art wouldn’t be able to do the same on their own.

Open source software is basically software where the “source” code is open to the public. Others can work on this open source to improve on it and quickly advance the state of the art. Once open source software is created (whether by an individual or by a group of people), it can be sold in the market. These sales are dependent on specific contracts signed between the creators and the purchasers or users.

Fundamentally, both approaches are working towards the same goal – speedy advance of the technological field.

There are pros and cons in both approaches.

The concept of ownership and protection is intricately tied into the concept of patents (historically it has evolved that way). Since it is a negative right (the right to exclude others), there is a certain element of hoarding and a lot of focus on finding and penalizing infringements. However, clarity about ownership helps the users of patented products in that they know who to get in touch if something goes wrong. Also, too much of “legal” focus takes away from the technology part of the invention. The patent field today has too many lawyers and too few technologists.

Open source software is based on the premise of sharing. However, businesses tend to be wary of using open source software in critical or high value projects since much of the value is unlocked (open source) without adequate protection or liability guards. Also, with open source, it can be difficult to identify and reward truly breakthrough software and correspondingly the value of software is reduced. (Much of the perception of freeware being “free” as in free of cost, as opposed to the original notation of “free” as in “freedom to change, use and adapt” is because of a reduction in perceived value of software across the board). A lot of inventive open source software is grossly undervalued. Large organizations also tend to just use open source software without assigning true credit or economic consideration.

A merger is actually a fantastic outcome for both and solves much of the associated problems.

Open source software, in any case, needs contracts for effective selling. A patent is just another contract, granted however, only to inventive software. Inventors therefore, can choose to patent their software (if they feel it is inventive) before or while opening up its source code. By the way, inventors can also continue to choose not to patent their software and make it public as part of open source. However, patenting is a good option for those wishing to get into successful commercials and also serves as an active deterrent for larger fish that would otherwise devour the smaller fish quite easily.

Software patents also will be greatly benefited by mandating open source for patented software. This is just a step forward from the requirement of completely divulging the invention. Open source will make it much easier to decide on utility, novelty and non-obviousness. Right now, these subjective judgments are made on the basis of reading a “complexified” description of the invention. Open source will help cut down on inventive noise, that is currently hiding real inventions.

Open source can be the new language of software inventions (including patented software). Experts can then play a larger role in deciding if a piece of software is truly inventive or not. All in all a win-win situation.

Software Patents – should they be allowed?

2010-02-01T21:02:00.001+05:30

As with patents in any field, it is important to figure out what may be termed as "inventive". There are instances of trivial, absurd patents in pretty much every field.

In software, clearly, the bar of "inventiveness" can be much higher (inventions have to be non-obvious to a person skilled in the art) - however, since laws are not understood and created by technologists, the law makers have been rather late in understanding the context of inventions where software is involved - confusion reigns. They have tended to apply static yardsticks created with pre-software contexts in mind, where conceptualizing, creating, implementing an invention typically takes much longer as compared to achieving similar functions with software. e.g. it is much easier to write an e-commerce application with software as compared to doing the same with a system using mechanical gears (however the evolution of patent law hasn't normalized this increase in inventive ease).

Having said that, taking the other extreme position (there should not be any software patents!) would also be equally unfortunate for true software inventors. That would be throwing the baby out with the bath water.

If software is a technology field, inventors deserve patents for their inventions. Rather than making software non-patentable subject matter (which is really the easy way out for those who don’t understand the subject), the non-obviousness criteria for patenting can be separately formalized (in greater detail) for software, so that trivial inventions don't get through. Of course, there can be further tweaking such as reducing the life of a software patent etc.

Crafitti – Events in Jan-Feb 2010

2010-01-14T15:13:00.001+05:30

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A tale of two elevators

2010-01-05T00:54:00.000+05:30

My apartment has two elevators (or lifts as we call them in India). Each elevator has its own calling button - you call the one closest to your floor.

A month back the two lifts were synchronized - you could press any one of the calling buttons and automatically, the one closest to you would arrive.

At least that was supposed to be the plan.

The last two weeks have been different.

I have continued to call the lift closest to my floor. Without exception, the other lift has responded. Initially, it was just co-incidence. But now it's the rule.

I trust the algorithm. I know for a fact that there is nothing wrong with it. Whenever somebody has been with me, the lifts has responded perfectly sanely.

Sometimes I have tried to search for logical explanations. And there have been perfectly logical explanations every time. Once, the lift I was calling was actually stuck on a floor. Another time, the display had somehow stopped getting refreshed (it happened after a delay). Many times, the instant after I pushed a lift's call button, it started moving in the opposite direction while the other (farther) lift started making its way towards me.

I wonder if there is a hidden message (for me). Some kind of divine intervention. It cannot be co-incidence.

A message which says that the easiest, most obvious path is not meant for me. That first impressions may not be the right impressions. That those who appear to be close to me may not really be. That I have to expect the unexpected and not try to pre-decide my best path - the best path is what life throws at me.

I am just a passenger.

Five Point Someone Else?

2010-01-02T17:19:00.000+05:30

Well, its another copyright related tussle between an author of a book, whose rights have been purchased by a movie producer who has then hired someone to adapt the story to present it better on a limited-time visual format. (The act of adaptation is by no means simple and in itself requires considerable creative and literary skill).

I just heard Mr. Raju Hirani inform the media today that since the rights on Five Point Someone have been purchased by them, it doesn't matter if the movie's story is 5% adaptation or 95% adaptation of the story in the book.

Well, thats not exactly correct. Even if the movie's story borrows only in parts from the book, rights have to be purchased AND proper credits have to be assigned. Proper credits is part of the author's moral rights over his work, in copyright parlance.

To put it simply, wherever the story credit appears, the names of all the authors of the story need to appear. There cannot be two separate story credits.

Who all are the authors of a story? Especially if the story is adapted first (a new story created as an adaptation of the original story) before writing the script and then into a screenplay? Let us look at an example:
Armageddon (1998), starring Bruce Willis, carries the credits "Story by Robert Roy Pool and Jonathan Hensleigh. Adaptation by Tony Gilroy and Shane Salerno. Screenplay by Jonathan Hensleigh and J. J. Abrams."

Or the more recent and relevant movie Slumdog Millionaire, which was also an adaptation of a novel. The credits read -
Screenplay By: Simon Beaufoy
Based on the Book By: Vikas Swarup

Its quite clear, from the above, what Chetan Bhagat is miffed about.

Even if you have purchased the copyright of a book, you cannot replace or change the name of the author. If you have a new adapted story, you still have to give authorship credit to the original story, even if only a small part of the original story remains in the adaptation.

Further, it doesn't matter if the contract says that credits will be given in the rolling credits at the end or in the beginning. Even if it is not explicitly mentioned in the contract, "wherever" the story credit appears, it has to consistently include the original author's name.

In the case of "3 Idiots", it is quite strange to see a large production house going by the "we have done everything required as per contract" line. Intellectual Property issues often go beyond contractual obligations (because of the inherent intangible nature of IPR). There are ethical issues as well, and the dividing line may not always be crystal clear (only the courts can decide if there has been a violation of copyright in the way credits were assigned (or usurped as alleged by Chetan Bhagat).

Interestingly, this type of issue has come to the forefront only because Chetan is a famous author. One only has to wonder about how lesser know authors are being dealt with.

May the best jargon win!

2009-12-23T01:07:00.000+05:30

Excerpts from an article today in TOI, sponsored by a leading company (I have removed references to the name in the excerpts below)

The big change happening around the globe today is that customers will be taking full benefit of being able to provide and acquire the assets in the way they want. So, services will be core to our strategy while going forward

Can you guess the name of the company?

Could be pretty much anybody right?

Lets read some more,

access to stateof-the-art technologies while allowing elasticity towards business needs, predict and control operating costs and minimize risks in technology adoption

Can you guess now? Not yet?

Weve spent substantial time and assets in building our management software portfolio tools. The effectiveness and efficiency of a corporation is very often driven by the ability to manage application portfolios . Application transformation will be core to our capabilities in building very hetero , service-oriented enterprises for the future.

Still difficult? It doesn't really matter. Does it?

The company has also extended the value proposition of XYZ, launched earlier this year, not just to focus on the governance, risk and understanding what the cloud can do and why, but also on doing what customers want at the right cost, he added.

XYZ, a turnkey solution consisting of business technology optimization (BTO) applications including software and services, is delivered as a cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) programme. XYZ allows users to employ infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), SaaS or combinations of the three.

This, in effect, means that the businesses can right-size the cloud to control costs and also manage risks. The programme also addresses industry concerns like security, performance and availability

Wow! If you are a company working on cloud computing and Software as a Service, you can just copy and paste all of that into your sales presentations. In fact, huge portions can be used by any company for any pitch.

By the time the reader reaches the end of the article (I am talking about readers who understand software), his brain has been trained not to attempt to search for any meaning - it is so numb with all the jargon (I have included only a small part of the article).

And then the "numb and dumb" routine . . .

Cloud computing allows for cost reduction and optimization of resources. Many companies spend up to 70% on keeping the lights on or maintaining IT infrastructure and only about 30% on innovation. Some of the best in class companies have been able to flip the ratio to 65% for innovation and 35% on maintenance, he said

The low resolution diagram at the end doesn't help. Adds to the pain, in fact. And then sinks in the realization that this quarter page article was actually an advertisement, mildly disguised. I am sure even prospective customers wouldn't feel too enlightened either.

But, who needs enlightened customers anyway!

What's bugging me today

2009-12-22T20:19:00.000+05:30

Case study quicksand - everybody telling stories about somebody else's experiences.
Come on guys, are these really, your insights? Have you actually, learnt and implemented something from that case study, or did you just choose the most popular hash tags?

CEO Common Sense
Every CEO, at every conference, is extolling the virtues of collaboration, open innovation, the need for creativity, innovation and risk taking is critical to success, sustainability blah blah. How about sharing some uncommon sense for a change. And some more truth too. Plus, all talk no do makes Jack . . . you know who.

Systematic Innovation
No, no, I don't mean to say that systematic innovation is impossible. Quite the contrary. Creating new systems is what man has engaged in since eternity (not just physical systems, even philosophical ones). It can be argued that innovation is the process of making the impossible possible (essentially make the random, systematic). What really bugs me is people talking about systematic innovation but having absolutely no interest in exploring the "systematic" part. How about going a little bit slow on the "innovation" part and spending some more time on the "system" part?

Climate Change Negotiations
Governments grossly overestimate their role and impact on global issues; they go ahead and sign some accords and treaties. Ultimately, for change to happen, people have to "behave" differently and how people change behavior is really a cultural thing. Not all cultures work in goals and objectives mode, "let us set the target and we'll all work towards it and I will police everybody to ensure that it happens". It is such a wasteful approach for complex non-linear problems. How I wish, the conference was used by nations to present to the world their green actions over the years and share these actions with others who wish to listen (and in the process convey their real intent).

Idle time vs. tweet frequency

2009-10-26T19:35:00.001+05:30

3 steps to differentiated open innovation

2009-08-11T20:31:00.001+05:30

There are a number of open innovation (crowd-sourcing, swarm-sourcing, idea connectors, idea and IP brokers, un-conferences etc.) platforms out there, and several more getting designed, conceptualized and deployed every month. Already, there seems to be a differentiation fatigue (everybody looks similar!) This is surprising because the concept of open innovation platforms is quite nascent still; there is tremendous opportunity for differentiated offerings both in scale and scope, as well as in the definition of “open innovation” itself.

For all existing open innovation platforms (or budding ones), the following 3 steps may help in building the differentiation factor in:

Get the right crowd on to the platform

differentiate on what you define as “crowd”
differentiate on what you find to be “right”
differentiate on how the crowd interacts with the “platform”

Enable the crowd to create new value

differentiate on how the crowd connects with problems
differentiate on how problems are connected with solutions
differentiate on solution relevance

Fairly apportion/ share/ divide the value created on top of the platform

differentiate on how you define and measure value
differentiate on the method of sharing value

If an open innovation platform can work out unique differentiated recipes using the above 3 ingredients, and sustain it cycle on cycle, idea after idea, it should do pretty well. The recipes can be protected with business method patents, so it makes eminent sense to be unique rather than come up with veiled imitations.

Airlines – new revenues waiting to be captured

2009-08-09T00:26:00.001+05:30

There was a time (before the advent of Air Deccan) in India when airlines were out of reach (physically as well as psychologically) of the common man. Regular travel logic (for an upper middle class profile of person)would be as follows:

If journey time > 5-6 hours, see if a train ticket is available, if yes, you are done.
If a train ticket is unavailable (probability of this happening would increase the closer you get to the day of travel), try to get hold of a bus ticket, as the next resort.
If buses are also running full (around weekends and festival days), and if travel is really critical, book an air ticket (Not getting an air ticket was impossible).

(Just to put things in perspective, a Bangalore-Mumbai airline ticket would cost a minimum of Rs. 6000. In comparison, a 3-Tier Air-conditioned train ticket would cost Rs. 1000 (6 times less). A bus ticket would cost between Rs. 600 and Rs. 1200, depending on the type of bus. A 3-Tier non air conditioned train ticket would cost Rs. 330 (18 times less). Of course, the journey time was much longer – 24 hours as compared to 1.5 hours by aeroplane. There was one comparatively lesser known option – an international flight that would fly through Bangalore-Mumbai, but at the unearthly hour of 2.30 AM, that would be available at Rs. 3000.)

Then, the concept of the low cost airline was introduced, airline tickets were available in the price range of Rs. 1000 to Rs. 3000 also, for those who were willing to plan and book early. The fuel surcharge was fairly low then – Rs. 221 for a domestic flight. This really opened up the skies to a vast majority, most people didn’t mind upgrading from trains to aeroplanes, in fact the logic changed as follows:

Check out availability of low cost aeroplane ticket, if available you are done.
If not and if journey time > 5-6 hours, see if a train ticket is available.
If a train ticket is unavailable (probability of this happening would increase the closer you get to the day of travel), try to get hold of a bus ticket, as the next resort.
If buses are also running full (around weekends and festival days), and if travel is really critical, book a full fare air ticket (Not getting an air ticket was impossible).

Clearly, many travellers were shifting over to airlines right at Step 1.

The promise of hordes of new travellers led to an airline services explosion – many new carriers, new aeroplanes, plenty of new routes, new improved airports, infrastructure and innovative time-based pricing. Bottom line – capacity expanded like never before. Needless to say, huge amounts of investment was made in anticipation of future need.

Simultaneously, fuel prices were going up. Infrastructure cesses were being levied. From a total of Rs. 221, these additional fees, in a period of 2 years, rose up to Rs. 1900! Ticket prices (total) moved into the Rs. 3000 to Rs. 5000 bracket.

The cost-benefit ratio threshold in the eyes of the customer was breached. Customers started skipping Step 1 above more often than before. Traffic reduced considerably.

What did the airlines do?

1. Predictably, airlines started looking at their cost structures. There was a movement from low frills to no frills. This made a very minor dent to the cost structure. Airlines continued to sink.

2. The next (again predictable) strategy was consolidation. Why did you need two passenger freight buses, two baggage counters, two booking counters, two inspectors . . .? Lets combine and share the costs! Again this made a small dent. Not too much.

3. It was apparent that while cost was being reduced to the minimum possible, overall capacity remained unchanged. New aeroplanes ordered a couple of years back were now getting added to the fleet. Capacity had increased, but demand had gone down. There have been calls from experts to reduce capacity – reduce the fleet. Predictably, all solutions are about cutting costs.

How about adding new revenues? No one seems to have a clue. Where are the travellers?

Lets see if we can find some of them by taking a re-look at the travelling logic of an upper middle class profile person (a small part of the overall travel value stream):

Check out availability of low cost aeroplane ticket, if available you are done.
If not and if journey time > 5-6 hours, see if a train ticket is available.
If a train ticket is unavailable (probability of this happening would increase the closer you get to the day of travel), try to get hold of a bus ticket, as the next resort.
If buses are also running full (around weekends and festival days), and if travel is really critical, book a full fare air ticket.
If travel can be deferred, postponed or cancelled, explore that.

Well, Step 1 - airline tickets are not “really” low cost any more. Have to go down to Step 2 before taking a decision.

Step 2 - trains are getting filled rather quickly now. The waiting list on one train, just for the air-conditioned classes rises to about a 100 by the penultimate day, and there are 5 regular trains between Bangalore-Mumbai!). So, you have about 500 customers, who have booked a waitlisted ticket before moving on to explore other options. Many more (conservatively 5 times more), at this stage, choose not to get on the waitlisted queue. That’s a total of about 2500 un-served customers, an an average, every day on one long distance route.

Step 3 – out of the 2500, about 500 customers book a bus ticket. Bus journeys are back breaking, if the journey takes longer than 8-10 hours. Plus buses are difficult for those traveling with families (including kids). Customers would love an alternative, even at a slightly higher cost (but not too high).

The remaining 2000, left with no option, either cancel/ postpone the trip. A small number of customers go on to book a full fare airline ticket.

Can airlines convert these 2000 guys? Any ideas on how to make this happen? I have a few, but they will need to wait for my next post.

The search for simplification

2009-08-08T02:33:00.001+05:30

My typical conversation with a new acquaintance asking about my startup:

Other person: What does your company do?

Me: We help companies solve complex problems, uncover hidden opportunities, design innovative business strategies, design around competitor patents, utilize value networks . . .

Other Person: What is your focus area?

Me: Er all of them . . . Strategy, Ideas, Inventions, Networks, Value . . .

Other Person: (Question mark on his forehead which means “give me one word so that I can choose a bucket”?

Me: Innovation research and consulting

Other Person: Oh! Like McKinsey – management consulting . . . (Light on the face which says “I got it now”)

Emergent systems, globalization and localization - why religions clash and cultures merge

2009-08-06T00:08:00.005+05:30

In my previous post we looked at two ways in which complexity is countered by systems that are growing larger:
1. Simple global rules that everyone has to follow (global rules are assumed by the creators of the rules to be conducive to global good). Individual behavior is bounded by these global rules.
2. Simple local rules determine individual behavior. Global behavior is emergent.

We also looked at how the presence of local perturbations (soldiers breaking step) can prevent large scale global oscillations or extremes (bridge collapsing due to resonance). On the other hand, resonance (everybody in step) can also greatly enhance (make the seemingly impossible possible) functionality - e.g. super-conductivity. The context determines if resonance is useful or harmful.

A religion is nothing but a set of rules. Most religions started of as a set of Local rules that later got crystallized into fixed global rules (global simplicity).

This is the path of resonance, falling into step. Most religions chose this path because of the potential of the greatest impact in the shortest time. The global rules are encapsulated in various religious books (I will not name them).

The flip side of the path of resonance is seen when two such religions come in contact with each other. Since global rules are fixed, both are unyielding. The result is an uncomfortable tense interface. If not equally matched, one will break the other and replace it. Not allowing for local perturbations makes it easy for such religions to reach dangerous extremes. There are sharp edges and smooth interiors.

Cultures have evolved along a different path. There are no preset global rules. Local behavior is flexible and allowed to adapt to change. Global behavior is emergent, and what emerges is culture. Of course, this emergence is a slow process. Local perturbations prevent global resonance.

Since cultures allow local perturbations, when two cultures meet, they naturally merge at the intersections. There are no sharp edges. At the same time, there are no smooth interiors.

Culture is a low pass filter. Religion is a high pass filter.

What happens when a culture and religion meet? It depends on the strength of each. Religion, due to the power of resonance, has a pronounced bias. Man for man, religion will overpower culture in the short term. Strong cultures can either ignore or absorb religions in the long term.

It is interesting to note that of all contemporary major religions, Hinduism is the only one that has no global preset rules. (There are some global guidelines, but no rules). Not surprising, since Hinduism didn't start off as a religion, it is an emergent global culture and has been classified as a religion purely because the world needed such a classification. And again, no surprise, India has been most successful at absorbing multiple religious practices, without the culture getting subsumed. In India, you have localized versions of Islam and Christianity, and fusions like Sufism. Local perturbations are allowed. Culture prevails over religion. Of course, this realization takes centuries to build.

Clearly there are lessons to be learnt at present. As Hinduism becomes (artificially) more of a religion, clashes have become more frequent. The deep understanding of emergence as the only stable means of evolution of society is in danger of getting lost very quickly.

Globally, today's technology induced fast globalization has left little time for local perturbations to mature, interfaces to merge and cultures to evolve - the edges stand out in sharp focus. It will take extraordinary cultural strength to resist the invasion of religions. I hope cultures across the world are mature enough and geared up for this challenge.

Emergent systems - a hidden paradox

2009-08-05T01:56:00.002+05:30

"Growth has levelled off and the online encyclopaedia has lost some of its community spirit – Wikipedia is looking in need of a revamp" says this article "After the boom, is Wikipedia heading for bust?" on The New Scientist. View Original Article.

Very interesting, how even in the most open, emergent, collaborative, democratic systems, when size increases, the urge to control starts rearing its head. Ultimately, when people are involved, egos come into play and community behavior starts getting shaped by individual behavior. Being selfless is not easy!

Maybe there is a deep rooted bias in our brains towards a capitalistic model of collaboration (as opposed to socialist). As soon as complexity increases, socialistic behavior breaks down and capitalistic behavior takes over. (I am broadly classifying systems into socialist and capitalist based on whether decisions are made in the system with the objective of maximizing global good or local good respectively).

Makes sense too, because socialistic behavior requires everybody to have the super-system view and this becomes progressively complex with increase in system size (e.g. in a social group, complexity will increase exponentially with every additional member). Of course one way to work around this potential increase in complexity is to fix on a simplified super-system view; a set of never changing rules that everybody has to follow. This was (and still is in some parts of the world) the communist model. The super-system view remains constant and is independent of the system itself. Individual behavior is conditioned by the rules of the system.

A big drawback is that this type of system is not very suited to evolution; it is probably more suited to resist change. But as research shows, local perturbations may actually prevent global swings. This has been proved to be applicable both to rope bridges (when an army marches across a bridge, the soldiers are often told to "break step." This is to avoid the possibility that their rhythmic marching will start resonating throughout the bridge. An army that is large enough and marching at the right cadence could start a bridge swaying and undulating until it broke apart) as well as to the recent economic crisis. Resisting local change may make the system more sensitive and unstable globally (Daron Acemoglu's 'The Crisis of 2008: Structural Lessons for and from Economics').

On the other hand, capitalist behavior is more node centric and possibly fractal in the way individual behavior gets transported and morphed/ manifested across the system. This keeps the rules local and simple and therefore is able to sustain large systems ((Kuramoto effect - Introducing calibrated chaos to solve the economic crisis).

Which now leads to this very interesting paradox that I have realized may exist in emergent systems.

For a system to be collaboratively emergent (open, democratic, no power centers, no central rules) and sustain this emergence, it will need to be capitalistic (from my previous definition).

Now, being capitalistic will create local inequalities, local power centers, local mavens, local hubs because this inequality is what pushes the system to evolve. Capitalistic behavior includes both competition and collaboration, but at a local level. Therefore, while the macro behavior may appear socialistic (everybody is equal), the micro-behavior will be capitalistic. Therefore, the instinct to control (selfishness and local visibility) may be a necessary and very important component of emergent systems. For a system to be emergent, there may be localized behavior to oppose collaborative emergence, we may call it competitive emergence. Localized control is fine. Global control is a problem.

I believe there is much to learn from Wikipedia's experience as we look at open innovation models, social networks, open source systems - our understanding of these systems and their behavior is quite nascent. Contrary to popular belief, local inequalities and power centers may not necessarily be antithetical to large scale democratic, collaborative, emergent systems.

Emergent collaborative systems like Wikipedia are considered to be inherently socialist (community based and evolution is for the global good). This may be difficult to sustain in the long term as the systems increase in size and complexity. The only way to retain emergent nature might be to introduce localized competition rather than forced collaboration.

Growth

2009-07-31T21:46:00.003+05:30

The human body grows till the age of 20 or thereabout and then stops growing. Of course this is a sweeping statement – many parts of the human body continue to grow (and shed, like skin and hair), but for the most part, it is true. And after a bit of stability, the body starts to deteriorate. So, in reality there are three simultaneous processes running – growth (creation), maintenance and deterioration (destruction); and their predominance changes with time.

Of course, this is only about the body. Does the human mind also display similar growth patterns? Probably yes, but hard to say. Some would say, the mind continues to grow, assimilating newer experiences right till death. Others may say, that the mind peaks at around 50 and then starts to deteriorate. However, one thing is clear. Growth is not just about size. You can remain the same size, yet grow.

Well, this is clearly not the pre-eminent sentiment in the enterprise world. Enterprises are expected to grow in size, at least the size of profits, to be considered successful. I wonder why? I have met entrepreneurs who say – I am happy with not growing too big, I just want to be a small company, that does good work. Grow mentally. Age gracefully, if required. Not get publicly listed.

I am not talking about being content with a low rate of growth (say the local grocery store that never ever expanded its business to another locality). I am talking about measuring different kinds of growth, not necessarily just material size - revenue or profit (or market share). How about a local grocery store that started as a retailer of branded goods and slowly morphed into a retail boutique, designing and selling a customized suite of products including own designs – however, there is no significant increase in revenue or profit compared to earlier.

You may ask, well, then what was the purpose of it all – at the end there was no growth! But we know, within our heart, that there is a success story here, a different kind of growth, unrecognized by popular economic standard metrics, but clearly apparent to those who have experienced the story.

Can an organization grow mentally, just as we humans do? And if that happens, will we have more organizations that don’t collapse under their own weight, as they grow bigger and bigger in size – this behavior being driven by artificial metrics of success (like quarter on quarter revenue increase)?

When are we going to question the fundamental “un-naturalness” of our business growth models, metrics, assumptions?

Reality bites

2009-07-21T12:21:00.001+05:30

Complete sharing of life with others? A world where everybody shares everything with everybody?

We have always found it exciting to share slices of our life – starting from caveman paintings to the more recent photo albums and videos. We use various ways to share our thoughts and our life – some of us sing or play a musical instrument, some of us draw or paint, some of us act, some of us dance and many of us capture snapshots and videos to articulate what we think is beautiful and worth sharing (or recording for posterity). Clearly, all art forms have evolved to satiate this basic need – to share what we think is special.

Of course, sharing does not need a separate artistic mechanism. We share ourselves with others and partake of others just by being there. But this is reality and it moves on, captured only in our memories and our experiences.

Art has always played at the intersection of the natural and the artificial, the real and the imaginary, fact and fiction. When a painter paints a subject, both the painter and the subject combine in the painting, inseparable. Which is why photography was initially not considered as an art – there was simply not enough of the photographer in the photo!

Gradually, this requirement blurred or rather a new perspective merged – a photograph is after all a special snapshot in space-time, a unique event. Choosing the special ingredients that make that moment is the photographer’s contribution.

Along the same lines, we had videos (should I say pictures in motion). Interestingly, there are two kinds of videos. One evolved from the legacy of dance, history, theatre and drama; the modern video is the evolved version of the theatre balcony – everybody gets the best view of the performance on stage.

The other kind of video is the documentary video which captures slices of reality. This is not the balcony seat to watch a performance. It is actually first person transportation into reality, but only as a silent observer. Just as with photos, here, the cinematographer’s contribution is in the selection of those special ingredients that make an interesting series of images.

Jammed in between these two was an interesting movie called The Truman Show. The concept seemed quite whacky at that time – an entire city, programmed and created for the sole purpose of capturing and broadcasting an individual’s life; unknown to the individual. Of course, there were other shows like The Wonder Years, which captured the growing up years of a child (and obviously everybody else in that show was aging simultaneously) and sometimes made you wonder – is this a show or a true story?

Every minute on YouTube today, 20 hours of video gets uploaded. Clearly, people are sharing more and more of their lives. From snapshots to moving images. More importantly, we are now OK with sharing these slices of our life with strangers – anyone who may find it interesting! Unlike The Truman Show, the hero here knows that his life is being shared – in fact he is the one doing it!

Obviously, on the other side, there are people interested in these slices. The popularity of reality shows confirms our social roots – we like to participate in each other’s lives (at least watch and observe if not more!).

How long will it take for YouTube’s 10 minute video limit to be removed? And how long will it take for people to start broadcasting 24/7 videos of their lives? Complete sharing of life with others? A world where everybody shares everything with everybody? Everybody gets reading (observing rights) at a minimum! Just as today’s laptops come with an embedded videocam, tomorrow’s houses will come fitted with videocams as the default option. The more squeamish kinds can choose which cameras to activate at any given point of time (I am sure there will be people who wouldn’t want anybody else see them brushing their teeth – I have a funny feeling such people will be in a very small minority).

Obviously, viewers will decide who to watch – who is the most interesting? These collective unique choices and compilations will also be included into the purview of artistic work!

The voting part is not very different from the social bookmarking sites of today. And there can be live comments, suggestions, advice – the mega agony aunt. People can choose to go and participate in an interesting life by calling that guy up or meeting him. People can vote for the hottest couple, the best best friend, most hated man on the planet etc.

A million reality shows to choose from. Or should I say, choose to connect with a million lives! This reality is not very far away!

Teamwork and all that jazz

2009-07-12T02:25:00.000+05:30

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Is teamwork about specific rhythms?

They say that teamwork is all about synchronization – multiple people working hand-in-hand and marching step-in-step to achieve a common goal.

As a child, teamwork was all about those endless games of cricket, football and volleyball played every evening after school – friends would transform into ferocious foes and even proclaimed enemies would relax their enmity for a brief while, during a game, depending on which side one was on. Just the fact that there was a team, and some kind of exciting common goals were sufficient for teamwork to happen! Mental allegiance to a team was the critical all important step. Also the very clear definition and understanding of victory and defeat and associated repercussions (lose too often and invite the danger of being dismissed as a perennial loser with tremendous social impact)!

Later when I went on to college other opportunities for teamwork emerged (or should I say, teaming was essential to capture those opportunities). Study assignments or college projects for example. Here, the stakes were higher and victory and defeat morphed into success and failure respectively. A distinct transition was the concept of the artificial deadline – a number of intermediate deadlines (set by professors) served as the beat to which teams had to form or operate. Invariably, the outputs of such assignments would be fairly predictable and for all practical purposes, indistinguishable from each other. It was designed to be such.

Already I was aware of two types of rhythms that made teamwork “work”:

1. Natural rhythms imposed by the nature of the work and people involved coupled with continuous improvisation and learning in run-time. This is of course, very close to the mindset described in Artful Making by R.D. Austin and L.Devin. These are subtle rhythms, dynamic in nature and require a great deal of real time adaptation to understand and operate. Team games like football and cricket, stage shows, interactive presentations, open-source software development and jazz come to mind as examples.

2. Artificial rhythms imposed in the form of rules, regulations, deadlines, stage gates etc. These rhythms are similar to the marching beat of a military drill or parade. The fundamental objective of these rhythms is clockwork timing, precision and assurance of completion. Synchronized swimming, musical chorus, the daily azaan (prayer) call of the Muslims, working of metal in a smithy come to mind as examples.

Neither of the above approaches are dispensable. Intuitively, (2) above leads to (1) – in other words, jazz can truly happen only after a number of hours of disciplined practice. Another intuitive understanding is that (1) is a higher state of being, more refined, more productive, more elegant and definitely significantly better output.

What is surprising and non-intuitive though is the pre-eminence of (2) in the industrial world and a very active non-pursuit of (1). When I started working, my initial few years were full of “jazz”y teamwork. As time progressed, the artificial beat sounded louder and louder. Ironically, evolution as a “professional” was about reigning in chaos and bringing in discipline; in a way, moving from natural to artificial rhythms.

This can mean one or more of the following things:

Most of the work (and teamwork) in today’s industrial world needs precision and assurance more than adaptation and elegance.
The fear of loss of control makes it difficult to move from artificial to natural rhythms.
The fundamental hypothesis about natural and artificial rhythms is wrong – there are no natural rhythms, only varying degrees of artificial rhythms. And in industry, Keep it Simple and STupid works best; in fact, it is the only thing that works.

Somehow, the loudness of the artificial beat seems to drown out the more subtle sounds of the natural rhythm of teamwork. How often do we see managers cringe at the blasphemy of teams set free to work on natural rhythms! How often have we seen superb teams (already creating jazz together) being asked to end their adventures and follow the more mundane but assured artificial managerial beats! Clearly, this approach has worked for industry so far!

But will it continue to work in the future? My bets are on jazz!

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The smart organizational organism - Language, comunication and memory

2009-07-06T01:26:00.001+05:30

created at TagCrowd.com

A while back, I had started writing about Smart Organizational Organisms. (You will have to read it to make sense of this post!). It was a visualization of the organization of the future - where the organization itself is also an organism, displaying intelligent behavior beyond the summation of the intelligences of its constituent parts (read human beings). Yes, I was gazing far out into the future . . .!

Guess what! Last week, I came across this very interesting article: Email patterns can predict impending doom. As the article explains, social network analysis can help detect macro organizational behavior from the messages and micro-patterns embedded in emails flowing within an organization. Something similar to how we, as humans, can feel an emotion like love or even a more primitive urge like hunger at a macro-level, through the consolidation of multiple micro-signals at the cellular and nervous system levels! Just the beginning of much more complex organizational behavior to come in the future.

Continuing my previous post, lets delve a little deeper into trait 1 of smart social organisms - the development of language, communication skills and memory which has made it possible for social behavior to evolve beyond instinct.

Well, communication has had a complex evolution path. All the senses are involved and each understands its own set of languages - humans tend to predominantly use sight and speech to communicate, taste, smell and touch are used but in a more subtle instinctive manner.

There are transmitters and receivers of signals. Simple signals are woven into the complex fabric of language - standardized form of communication conducive to easy memorizing and learning. In the case of humans, there are specialized organs to transmit and receive different types of signals. The ear catches audio signals emitted by mouth, tongue and throat. The eye catches visual signals - natural or man-made. Man-made visual signals are transmitted by the use of all parts of the human body (gesturing, movements, expressions, drawings and writing etc.). There are other senses as well - the skin receives and transmits touch signals, the nose receives scent signals (again natural or man-made) and the tongue is able to receive taste.

Understanding of these signals, individually and collectively happens in a central consolidator and interpreter of signals - the brain. In effect, it is the brain which communicates with other brains through the use of the senses.

We know this already. Lets map to what this means for groups as higher level "social organisms".
Each group will need to develop multiple types of sensors to sense the environment and to transmit and receive signals from other groups. Groups are nothing but social networks.

Therefore, network behavior will be communicated through specialized signals. It is likely that specific mini networks will perform the task of transmission and reception of these specialized signals (metaphorically, the eyes and ears of the organization).

For example, one portion of the organizational network listens for signals indicating a competitor network's oncoming presence. Or another network transmits the organization's willingness to court a suitor (get acquired).

To start with, these will be intuitive, based on current memes of organizational evolution. Something similar to how single-celled organisms communicate, take decisions, form communities, navigate, accelerate mutation, memorize and learn behavior!

However, as time progresses, this communication will become more intelligent - organizations will start to learn this language of communication with other organizations. This will of course require memorization. Clearly, today's knowledge management systems are inadequate! This should be a good topic to delve into in my next post on this topic.

Finding a fair price for free knowledge - opinion - 24 June 2009 - New Scientist

2009-06-25T19:28:00.001+05:30

Not more than a decade back, we used to pay for information because it was scarce.

Now, we are in a world of information overload, and to top it, all of it is free.

Most likely we will start paying those who help in reducing this abundance of information.

We will continue to be ready to pay for useful knowledge . . .

Finding a fair price for free knowledge - opinion - 24 June 2009 - New Scientist

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Commoditization and recession: impact on business models

2009-06-09T09:50:00.005+05:30

Google damaged a key management principle - "there are no free lunches". Yes, somebody, somewhere is paying the bill, but the point is, you don't really need to know who and how. For you, it is free.

Nice, but there have been repercussions.
As users, we have got used to getting stuff for free.
This is now a starting assumption in most new age product business models. Money has to made through other indirect channels. These indirect channels can be very very long (online advertising).When the distance between buyer and seller becomes very long, economic logic gets jittery, speculation breeds. Try playing the beer game. We have all seen the sub-prime crisis.

Commoditization is accepted as a fact of life.
What is great now will become matter of fact tomorrow. The matter of fact will come for almost free (if not completely free).

One small point that almost everybody has forgotten is that these business models were created in times of plenty. You can offer core stuff for free and charge for the peripheral stuff if you know that people are primed to buy. In a recession, offering core products for free is a recipe for disaster.

Even more of a disaster is to design your startup with the assumption that this business model is going to be successful forever. I just attended the SiliconIndia Startup City Conference at Bangalore on Saturday, May 6, 2009. It was amazing to see the sheer number of startups built around the core for free, peripheries for sale model. We continue to have a hangover of the pre-recession era. Or, we are not questioning the basics of business models.

In a recessionary environment, commoditization doesn't happen very quickly. The core retains value for longer and the peripheries are difficult to sell. Business models need to built around the core, not the peripherey.

Let me illustrate.

You have a shop - floor space. You have two options.
1. Offer free floor space - take a larger percentage of sales
2. Offer floor space at a fixed cost - take a small percentage of sales (or dont take a percentage).

Now, as a shop, your core product is floor space. In recession, you have to have a business model around the core (Option 2). In times of plenty, you can have business models around the periphery (Option 1).

As a guy who is actually putting up products for sale in the shop, in a recessionary environment, will you pay the shopkeeper for every time a customer picks your product up from a shelf and takes a look at it?

It all boils down to your definition of core and periphery. In the online world, the browser is the floor space. Google started a revolution by offering a service on the browser, for free, to the user. Let us say, this was a special shelf in the shop which contains a more customized set of what you, as a user, is looking for. Now, Google didn't put this shelf in a separate enclosure with an entry fee for customers. There is an entry fee for those whose products are on that shelf.

Before starting a business it makes sense to ask,

what is my shop floor?
what is my special shelf?
what's on the various shelves?
who gets space on the shelf?
who is allowed to enter the shop?
what is my core product?
what are the peripheral products?
when and where do you get paid?

[As we discuss post-recession business models, it is interesting to note that
Apple has never sold a trial IPod,
Microsoft continues to charge license fees for its core products]

Service Innovation: Crafitti Innovation Ignition Workshop at Bangalore on June 26, 2009

2009-06-05T14:37:00.005+05:30

This workshop on Service Innovation is a part of Crafitti’s Innovation Ignition Workshop Series — a periodic interaction with industry and the public at large to proliferate contemporary innovative thinking.

Service Innovation: Crafitti Innovation Ignition Workshop Series at Bangalore on June 26, 2009

Register for this workshop at: http://events.linkedin.com/Service-Innovation-Crafitti-Innovation/pub/79072

Download the pdf brochure at: http://bit.ly/3h7vH

Organizational Forms and Social Network Types - A framework for analysis: A paper

2009-04-30T13:52:00.006+05:30

Recent developments in society and business have triggered the emergence of new forms of organizations, beyond the traditional hierarchical form. A study of contemporary literature and industry practices reveals the following distinct forms: hierarchical, ambidextrous, collaborative, learning and emergent.

Simultaneously, embedded within organizations are different types of social networks. Our research indicates classifications of social networks along three key dimensions - the type of response generated by these networks (customized response, modular response and routine response), the centrality of the networks (ego-centric, socio-centric and open networks) and the network architecture (centralized networks, request-based networks, hub-swarms and swarms).

A survey instrument based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process was used to solicit opinions of experts to explore the relevance of social network types to different organizational forms. Preliminary results of this initial survey indicated that specific combinations of social network types are found in particular organization forms. This can be an important tool towards organization design efforts and specifically assist in "building innovative organizations" and "embedding innovation DNA in organizations".

Read more about our research in our paper - Organizational Forms and Social Network Types - a framework for analysis, communicated to the International Social Network Analysis Conference 2008 held at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai in Dec 2008.

Event: A workshop on Innovation and Patents using TRIZ at New Delhi on May 6

2009-04-27T13:59:00.002+05:30

Russian Centre of Science and Culture (RCSC), New Delhi and Crafitti Consulting Private Limited, Bangalore offer a unique workshop on Inventions, Innovations and Patents using a relatively lesser known Russian Methodology named Teoriya Resheniya Izobreatatelskikh Zadatch or Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ).

Rcsc Triz Workshop

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Brochures & Catalogs workshop Patents

You can download the brochure from here

Green Feedback - continued

2009-03-30T17:30:00.004+05:30

An excerpt from Hearts and minds approach needed in green tech drive

"For example, the feature of the forthcoming hybrid electric Ford Fusion that has attracted most attention is its dashboard dubbed the "smart gauge".

Its unique design was informed by research into drivers' habits, which suggested drivers treat fuel efficiency in a similar way to a computer game, aiming for a good score. It was designed in collaboration with New York company Smart Design and shows fuel efficiency using a growing vine as well as with a traditional gauge.

If a person accelerates harshly, or drives in low gears they will see their vine wither and shrink, but if they drive more efficiently it will flourish and grow.

Carling says that more green technology research should be directed by suggestions from social scientists or other researchers interested in human nature, not engineering problems. "I think that would be fascinating – it's an area we haven't even touched, but it would be a great thing to do," he says."

I completely agree. The new green revolution is about small grass-roots innovations that provide actionable feedback to reinforce and reward green behavior. Continuation of this earlier post of mine.

Innovation: From ideas to more ideas

2009-03-30T15:06:00.003+05:30

Let me introduce you to the Tellyscope -

Modern TV technology has come a long way in recent years, but there's still scope for improvement.
Joysticks in the sofa arms and a telescopic tube that brings the set closer are two of Wallace's ideas. Read more here - What every aspiring inventor needs to know.

The original mobile phone was big and bulky - not many people queued up to buy one. The first aeroplane didnt even fly, and certainly didnt sell!

In retrospect, though, we do agree that they were innovative products. Only, in retrospect.

So, what really made these products innovative? The ideas struggled to reach market, and failed miserably, initially. Quite sufficient for one of our favorite filter stage gates to dismiss and discard them. Luckily, that didnt happen. Or maybe it did. Many times. And was kept alive by that one guy who just believed in it, irrespective of what anybody else said or did.

And these products evolved. The ideas were kept alive and one idea led to another. And another. And slowly the idea evolved. And finally the idea was suitable for mass consumption. The innovativeness of the end product became clear. Which is when, the original idea became innovative, in retrospect.

The orginal ideator knew this all along, anyway. So, there is something about inventors that gives them the ability to see the future, much before any one else can see it. The inventor can see potential, before the potential becomes evident.

Inventors can connect ideas. They are not bothered by success or failure. Just the gut feeling that "this will work" and it "will be interesting". They keep ideas alive. And products evolve on the back of these ideas.

It may be surprising to many, but most successful products did not become successful by taking an idea and building a successful go-to-market strategy around it. Most successful products that we know and use, looked very different when they first came along and initially didnt go-to-market very well. Neither was it about "implementation" of the idea. The initial ideas were implemented just fine, yet they were not seen as innovative, till much later. So, current theories about innovation = ideation+implementation+go-to-market dont really hold water - practically. Thats not how things happen.

Successful products have become successful because someone somewhere was able to look even at a failed product and see the promise of the idea, as a base to trigger more ideas. Success has been a result of keeping the ideas alive for longer.

KEEP ALL IDEAS ALIVE FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE!

Service Innovation Workshop by Crafitti Consulting and Elephantversity at Pune, April 9, 2009

2009-03-20T02:31:00.007+05:30

Service Innovation - A workshop by Crafitti Consulting and Elephantversity Institute of Innovation at Pune

Early bird registration now available till March 31, 2009!

Download the workshop brochure pdf and share with your colleagues and friends.

Contact me at karthikeyan.iyer@crafitti.com to register for the workshop!

Innovation formula

2009-03-16T19:54:00.002+05:30

A friend, Vinay Dabholkar writes a very nice blog – one of his blog posts discussed what he calls the I-squared-P definition or formula of innovation.

I do like I-squared-P.

I also like I-squared-R, or I-squared-O where R/O stands for Result/Output. This sort of makes the definition independent of the context, the result or output can be defined by the relevant stakeholders, whether it is profit or social good or performance or satisfaction etc.

However, I have typically not viewed innovation as idea+implementation+result (have discussed this in an earlier post).

I have always looked at innovation as a non-linear function which operates on a set of input parameters (ecosystem) and generates a more evolved ecosystem. Several ideas (big and small) form a part of this non-linear function, and help in circumventing different types of system conflicts (at different levels of the system). So, its really multiple ideas working in tandem or synchronously to push a system to a higher state of evolution.

This reminds me of the way ferromagnetism works – magnetism being an effect of synchronous action. In this context, I-squared-R also leads me to Ohm's law and the definitions of Power, Voltage, Current and resistance, which looks like an interesting concept to pursue. Of course our original definitions of I and R (or P) change.

If you remember, V=IR. You need a certain amount of voltage to drive a current through a resisting element. And, Power P = I-squared R (or VI). Energy = P*t (Power multiplied by time).

Comparing with the whole innovation concept, I can be a set of ideas that are overcoming different resistances (R) in the system (that oppose evolution). So there are multiple (I*R) sets within a system. These are idea voltages or potential, places where some amount of thinking and action is taking place to cause some sort of change. Now, P=V*I, so there needs to be a concerted directed push to get the ideas moving beyond the resistance – this power may come from individuals or groups, as part of top-down action or group dynamics. Finally, E =P*t, so some energy is required to sustain the idea voltages over a period of time and also supply energies at the right times.

In some cases, these energies may cancel out. This happens if the idea voltages are working in asynchronous mode. However, we can have a situation where some sort of external field can cause the voltages to work in sync. In such cases, sufficient energy will be in place to keep all the ideas going.

Now, the interesting part – ultimately, innovation, as we say, is not about ideas, but something more. It is about successful implementation of ideas, as some say (please note that it is successful implementation of ideas , not “an idea”). So, how do we define success? I prefer to define it as indication of evolution, or the overall system moving to a more evolved state.

So innovation is not about the overall energy generated or held in a system, but the way the energy causes the system to change in a manner such that it evolves.

Sometimes system can gain energy, where the extra energy gets consumed by the system and stabilizes it, thereby moving it to a higher state (a system which achieves more, or becomes more complex). Alternatively, systems can let go of extra energy and stabilize by becoming simpler (this is closer to elimination of system wastes, better utilization of resources and system simplification without loss of function).

In both cases, you get more evolved systems – indicating that innovation has taken place.

Green Feedback for Green Innovation

2009-03-10T16:01:00.004+05:30

What really prevents us from becoming greener? What prevents us from turning off the tap, switching off the engine or increasing our vegeterian food intake? Why dont we refuse to use plastic bags or call the neignbourhood plumber to lower the storage capacity of our flush tanks? These things should be fairly easy to do, right?

We all understand the need for energy efficiency, the need to cut down on consumption of fuel, electricity, water, the need to use bio-degradable materials, cut down on green-house gas emissions. We all understand the perils of global warming, the changing climate, the increasing frequency of nature's fury and unpredictability.

So what prevents us from actually getting greener? Even as we wait for the next level of economically viable eco-friendly technology to emerge (read inexpensive solar panels), why are we unable to capitalize on the significant amount of green space that is within our grasp?

Mostly, laziness. Second, the time lag between action and realization of consequence. The larger theme somehow does not trickle down into our day-today, minute-to-minute consciousness. There are decision points that we face. And we make those decisions based on data available ata given moment. In the absence of feedback (that reinforces green action, either by pointing out the positives or the negatives), we choose convenience and habit.

Instantaneous feedback is the most powerful decision influencing mechanism. We need to know at any point in time, why we need to choose green. And we need simple yet powerful mechanisms to provide this information. Green sign-posts of various sorts.

A recent competition called for novel designs that could cut our environmental impact. A must read! Read more about these devices at Gallery - Six Gadgets that could help green our lives.

A quick look at these gadgets:

1. A printer that has a manual crank and uses used coffee instead of ink

2. A meter that measures and records daily consumption and sends a log to Twitter.

3. Window blinds that store energy from sunlight and emit light in the dark.

4. A vampire eye shaped LED panel to highlight electricity consumptions by devices even in standby mode.

5. A piggy bank to teach children the cost of energy - requires them to insert a coin to power their toys.

6. A central kill switch to switch of all devices consuming energy in standby mode.

Three of the above six award wining innovations are based on the principle of green feedback, using devices that are simple but provide powerful visual or functional feedback to aid green decisions.

While cutting edge R&D creates new breakthrough technological eco-friendly energy alternatives, we still have a lot of scope to get significantly greener even with today's technology. Much of this innovation can actually be inexpensive for the consumer while offering tremendous large-scale markets for business (every individual, every family will eventually buy one or more of these devices to cut down on their energy costs)!

Micro-machines and TRIZ

2009-03-09T17:03:00.001+05:30

Micro-machines powered by external magnetic fields;

Providing power for machinery on the microscale has proved a headache for scientists – but magnetic fields are increasingly being seen as a solution - read "Micro-machine power problem solved with magnets".

In retrospect we can see TRIZ in action.

The reverse is very difficult. While it is easy to read an invention and identify the TRIZ principle at work, it is much more difficult to look at a problem and actually follow through on the direction provided by an inventive principle to actually create a working invention. So, even now, the major part of the work is in the doing - of course with the assurance that the direction of effort is likely to be more successful than any random direction.

Just using the law of increasing ideality from TRIZ, it is clear that in the future, the "external" magnetic field will be removed - the micro-machines will power themselves or absorb power from other machines around them or from the surrounding environment. In effect they will mirror micro life forms, albeit with a lower level of intelligence, mechanical intelligence, if you may. (Can we learn something from the way super-conductivity works?)

If this sounds too far-fetched, that's good. Inventions are truly inventions, only if the idea is far-fetched or impossible, i.e. they are novel and non-obvious.”

Perfect Order to Orchestrated Chaos

2009-03-09T11:18:00.007+05:30

Forrester writes - "20 steps to Delivering the perfect order

Managing a perfect order has always been hard, even more so today because of declining sales, shrinking operating margins, and labor force reductions. So how can today's business process and applications professionals lead the charge in optimizing the processes and systems to deliver the perfect order? How does a business process and applications professional know the key steps to supporting a perfect order? How well does the organization support the people, process, and technology requirements for a perfect order? To help answer these questions, Forrester has developed a best practices checklist of 20 steps required to support a perfect order. Business process and applications professionals can score themselves on their ability to achieve the delivery of a perfect order and then use metrics to determine overall effectiveness of their perfect order processes using Forrester's perfect order index."

This is of course about the perfect order, as in the order processing system. But underlying the process of a perfect order, is mankind's quest for perfect order in all our systems, the quest for control.

The quest for perfect order is an old one. CHANGE IS BAD! One has to ADAPT to change, minimize the perturbations, keep the boat steady! The ideal state is that of perfect order - where everything has a known purpose and the known purpose is achieved without deviation, with clockwork precision. The winner is a person who has worked out a way to insulate himself from change.

The acceptance of orchestrated chaos is equally old. Human beings thrive on the excitement of new challenges that pit them against the unknown. All our sporting activities are manifestations of orchestrated chaos - the thrill is in finding out if our skill is equal to the task and in improving our skill to achieve more and more complex tasks.

There are two ways to eliminate our fear of the unknown. Eliminate the unknown. Or embrace the unknown.

The first one is like synchronized swimming. You rehearse and rehearse till every movement is etched into the mind and body. The second one is like an impromptu jazz fusion or "jugalbandi" as it is called in India - where different musicians come together and improvise with each other.

Adapting to change is good, its necessary. But the reason for adapting to change has to be introspected. Is it to eliminate the change (create a perfect order) or is it to flow with the change, to make use of the change, to create the change?

Businesses across the world have been trying to manage change by attempting to eliminate it. Maybe this is more efficient in the short term. But for humans, this sort of perfection is boring. It is therefore unsustainable. It is also a recipe for disaster in the long term. Read Daron Acemoglu's 'The Crisis of 2008: Structural Lessons for and from Economics'. He points out:

1. The same interconnections that reduce the effect of small shocks created vulnerability to massive system-wide domino effects.

2. Aggregation of power creates unstable systems.

Just as with sports or music or any other skill based activity, one starts to learn by creating an environment in which the unknown is at a minimum, perturbations are minimum, Once a basic level of skill is achieved, we move towards greater and greater levels of skill by allowing oneself to interact with more and more unknowns, in a form of orchestrated chaos, the chaos supplying the input and opportunity for greater levels of perfection, defined in terms of evolution of ability and richness of the final output.

Common sense suggests that businesses should be evolving from perfect order to orchestrated chaos, the inflection point being the stage where they have built sufficient skills and expertise to move from fearing the unknown to embracing the unknown. Businesses that claim that their processes are evolved and have reached the continuous improvement stage are in effect claiming that they are beyond this inflection point and are pursuing orchestrated chaos.

Looks like the CMM Level 5 certification mechanisms are way off the mark!

Slow and fast blogs, and the resonance factor

2009-03-08T22:38:00.009+05:30

I think it is commonly accepted now in the blogging community that a serious blogger has to write atleast a couple of posts a week to remain relevant to the search engines. Looks like some sort of rhythm or synchronization has happened in a globally chaotic system (blogs on the internet). Related to frequency of blog activity is the size of a blog post. The trend has been towards greater frequency and therefore smaller sizes of posts (leading of course to a new concept, the concept of a tweet!, as in twitter).

This may of course be driven by the nature of content that people write about in blogs. Illustrative to note that a blog is short for "web log", and a log is usually a series of relatively short entries about something. So, in that context, the intent of small post sizes seems to have been "designed". Of course, its not a formal rule that log entries have to be short, its just that they usually are.

Mostly people use their blog as a public diary, a log of events and related thoughts. Blogs contain a lot of personal "news", and offer an alternative to "public" news (that we are used to reading in newspapers and watching on TV). When the mindset is "news", the expected rhythm is regular, frequent and for quick, cursory consumption. You need a quick read, a quick summary, rather than a more leisured, expansive description of thoughts.

Well, I have been out of sync, to say the least. I have realized that I cant write small posts. Also, I cannot write "news". Sometimes, I cant write at all, because the thoughts have not gotten linked into a larger whole. I keep asking myself, why I cant write more often and the answer I get is, I just dont have anything important to share very often.

Last year, I struck a special friendship with a colleague, a person by the name Raghuraman Kalyanaraman. I had the opportunity to sit across the cubicle wall from him for a couple of months and had the most illuminating time as we discussed many topics of interest (as it turned out many of our topics of individual interest were also topics of common interest) including but not exhaustively complexity, chaos, philosophy, religion, the zodiac, Indian and world history and the future. Needless to say, I found his thinking to be much deeper and broader than mine, and this made the conversations extremely thought-provoking for me.

I recommend his blog, which I consider to be one of the most interesting sets of thoughts that I have ever come across. www.intuivate.com. Its worth an end-to-end read.

One more thing about his blog reassures me. After a spurt of activity last June/ July, Raghu has settled down to writing approximately one post a month. I guess, it takes some kind of people some amount of time to crystallize a particualr line of thought. I would like to reassure myself that I am one of "those" types, who needs time to think (and some more time to write!).

For the most part, the blogs that I stumble upon or randomly reach while browsing the internet are somewhat not in sync with my reading style. When I ask some external intelligent search engine to do the job, it does it based on the "topics or spheres of my interest" based on my internet browsing history, e.g. I like ancient history, philosophy, computer science etc. Occasionally, the search engine throws up a random pice of writing, with the correct assumption that I might like something entirely new that I havent already indicated in my past history (or maybe something entirely new to me).

However, when I pick a book, I dont merely pick it based on the topic. It is also about a certain resonance with the pace of the book, how fast it moves and where it pauses. Very often, the topic is not the reason why I read a book, or pick a book. Or a paper. Or a blog.

I wonder if there are categories of blog posts, that appear at different frequencies or rhythms. Are these rhythms linked to post sizes, or to topic types or to author styles? Can we find people who share similar rhythms? Is there a long tail of such rhythms? Can they be brought together - social networks of authors who are synchronous in their writing activity, but are currently unknown to each other and hidden within higher frequencies. Can we develop a tunable band-pass filter for blogs? Blogs of authors whose hearts and minds are beating at similar rhythms, but exploring different topics.

So did you resonate with this post?

Life and the line of our potential

2009-03-02T21:48:00.003+05:30

Sometimes we overestimate
and sometimes we underestimate our potential.

Life continues to enthrall
with its glorious uncertainties that
keep pushing us to either side of
the line of our potential.

We continue to evolve if
we manage to drag our line of potential upwards
even as we get pushed to either side.

Evolution is to push the line of our potential.

Life is not about touching the line of potential.

Life is about pushing the line of potential.

Vegetables are not rectangular at the supermarket

2009-02-17T18:53:00.003+05:30

Not that vegetables and fruits are rectangular outside the supermarket, but somehow the fact that they are odd shaped (naturally) does not seem odd at all, outside the supermarket. In fact, they look much more aesthetically appealing and unique, and somehow give the sense that despite being "agricultured", they have managed to retain an identity of their own.

However, inside the supermarket, you start to wonder - couldn't they have been flatter somehow? If they had been, then at the weighing counter, the small tape with the magnetic bar code strip would neatly affix on the flat surface.

Then at the billing counter, when every piece of fruit or vegetable is to be billed, the billing attendant wouldn't need to go through the following steps:

Try to read the bar code with the bar code reading machine (which expects a bar code on a flat surface)
Fail, try again, fail, try again, from multiple angles and positions
Give up
Read the fine print to get the numeric equivalent code.
Get into the billing system, manually, and enter the code, manually
Rectify error in manual entry
Back to step one for next.

Well. All of this may take only 10 seconds or so, for each type of fruit or vegetable (or any object which does not have a flat surface). But add it up, in India, it's a big deal. Right now in Bangalore, all supermarkets are perennially full, and the billing counter queues wind like long snakes that devour you slowly but surely. I have seen many a strong man enter the queue with full gusto and come out weary and tired, with the spirit considerably wounded.

Anyway, that's beside the point. On an average, a supermarket goer ends up buying at least 20-30 items of varying shapes and sizes on every visit. For families, the number can safely be doubled or tripled. So every customer remains at the billing counter for 3-5 minutes, while the entire process is completed – sorting, billing and packaging. But that's the conservative estimate, assuming everything works like clockwork, all bar codes are read right the first time, the credit card machines are working fine and transactions go through the first time etc. Mostly, something or the other will be off, adding to the total time considerably. And this bar code stuff fails more often than not. Add 10 seconds for every item, and each customer stays at the billing counter for 3-5 minutes longer, on an average. That's double the cycle time, or half the customers served, depending on the way you look at it. Beyond a certain queue length, customers simply give up, preferring to come back later or go to some other place (that's a loss of customer).

Is there a way to eliminate these errors without having to change the bar code reader (which cannot read non flat surfaces and is expensive to replace), using resources that are readily available at hand? If it can be, we would effectively halve the billing cycle time for most customers at supermarkets and therefore, effectively double the number of customers served, also preventing customer attrition in the process.

Interestingly, some of the billing attendants (not all), seem to have worked a way out of the bar code problem, at least a work around. The bar code strips are printed on tapes and stuck on the objects. SO, whenever the attendant feels that the bar code reader will not be able to handle the shape of the object, he simply pulls out the tape (with the bar code), and places it on the reader screen, and once the code has been read, re-sticks the tape on to the object.

Is this the best solution?

Marker pen with duster - small idea of the day

2009-02-10T14:55:00.008+05:30

Was just writing on the whiteboard with a marker pen, and now that I want to erase some of it, there is no duster in sight. Wondering, why, the idea of providing a duster attached at the reverse end of the marker pen has not caught on from the pencil world!
Mostly, people are doing this bit themselves - either by gluing some felt on the side of the pen or more elaborate mechanisms like this one.

After a bit of searching, I found this electronic marker pen which can hold a conventional marker pen - it also has an electronic and conventional eraser combined!

Well, hypothetically, if the duster can be attached at the end of the marker pen, it can potentially be used to recollect the ink from the white board, for re-use!

Just tried to search on the internet a little bit to see if this is actually possible:

"If dry erase ink was available, we could stop throwing markers away and just squirt fresh ink inside. If it works for printer cartridges, why not?"

As it turns out dry-erase ink is available, indeed.
So, why don't people refill their marker pens?

"Dry erase markers were made to be disposable. If they were priced at $30-$60 each like printer cartridges, everyone would want to re-fill them. As it is, at less than a buck a pop, why bother?"

So, its the business case against refilling marker pens. Fair enough.
However, if the same ink can be re-used, then it does make economic sense . . .

Next, can dry-erase ink be re-extracted from the duster and re-used?
Well this is a problem worthy of TRIZ application! I am going to request some of the sharpest TRIZ minds I know to have a crack at this (Prakasan Kappoth, Navneet Bhushan, Prashant Joglekar, Tim Schweizer), lets see what emerges!

Bacteria, terrorists and collaboration - a summation

2009-02-10T13:38:00.006+05:30

In summation of the earlier post, if one were to learn from the bacterial world and apply to the terrorist network:

You would need a network of anti-terrorists (antibiotics) to fight the network of terrorists.
This network of anti-terrorists would need to be spread wide and deep into the ecosystem, and would need to work at the same level as the terrorist network (micro level, grassroots)
The anti-terrorist network could be deployed on a need basis (similar to how we consume an anti-biotic when needed) or could be perpetually deployed and present (like vaccines that pre-empt the lethal action before it occurs). Considering the scale and impact of terrorism, it seems to me that the vaccination approach would be the more effective one.
As suggested, it is important to cut off the flow of messages that builds up to the terror quorum - when the state changes from passive to active. At one level, this could mean intersection and blocking of messages that are part of the terrorist activity execution plan, the messages used to plan and execute an attack. To some extent this is being implemented as part of the overall anti-terror mechanisms, both covert and overt.
At a deeper, more significant level, the real blockage of build up of terror adrenalin is by intercepting or diluting the import of the motivational communication that builds up a logical, emotional reason for hatred and violence. This is not the job of the military. It is a social anti-terror network which needs to dilute or push back the terror stimulus message through anti-terror messages - preventing, at the grass-roots, the build up towards a terror quorum. The social anti-terror network is all of us!
While it seems difficult to justify, killing the terrorist may not be the best approach, it can actually help the terrorists find gaps and weaknesses in their networks and thereby become immune to further similar responses. Also, the killing of a terrorist (by means other than natural causes) adds to terrorist adrenalin and rapidly builds up to the quorum, maybe sufficient in itself to cause the state change)

Intuitively, this has made sense from the beginning. The real antidote to terrorism is not in the selective elimination of key actors, but the much more difficult task of countering the build up of terrorist activity on the ground, by countering the intent and the objective of communication that causes the state change/ tipping point in unhappy minds.

This means, we would be well advised to:
1. Spend a significant portion of our anti-terror money on finding the places where the motivational rallies are held across the world and sabotage thos rallies - both covertly and overtly and by holding counter rallies that break the momentum of these terror provoking rallies.
2. Spend a significant portion of our anti-terror money on building schools where anti-terror messages are strongly emphasised, in the areas where terrorist indoctrination activity is at high fervour. (Read Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, a mountaneer's extra-ordinary journey to build schools for girls in the North West Frontier regions of Pakistan (and Afghanistan) in direct conflict with the Taliban).
3. Nip the intolerant, divisive communication in the bud, even in our midst in our day-to-day communications (where we believe no terrorist activity exists). The culture of intolerance and divisiveness is the root of all future terrorist activity.

We also need to be aware that the terror networks will also fight back in the same way - with intent to sabotage the anti-terror communication. Which implies, much of this work has to happen imperceptibly, subtly and silently. A big challenge indeed! I am sure we can do it.

Bacteria, terrorists and collaboration

2009-02-09T20:05:00.005+05:30

Just came across this fascinating research work on new antibiotics - reproducing an excerpt of this work from http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16563-jamming-bacterial-chat-could-yield-new-antibiotics.html.

"In future, the most effective antibiotics might be those that don't kill any bacteria. Instead the drugs will simply prevent the bacteria from talking with one another.

Drug-resistant bugs are winning the war against standard antibiotics as they evolve resistance to even the most lethal drugs. It happens because a dose of antibiotics strongly selects for resistance by killing the most susceptible bacteria first.

If, however, researchers can identify antibiotics that neutralise dangerous bacteria without killing them, the pressure to evolve resistance can be reduced. One way to do that is to target the constant stream of chatter that passes between bacteria as molecular signals.

Individual bacteria monitor the concentration of signalling molecules, and when it reaches a certain level, change their behaviour. That concentration provides a rough indication of when the number of cells in a particular population has reached a certain critical mass – known as a quorum.

When a quorum is reached, pathogenic bacteria shift from a benign state and begin attacking the host by secreting toxins.

But hacking the bacterial communication system could make it possible to prevent this transformation, and leave the cells waiting in a safe form for an attack signal that never comes. That would give the immune system extra time to naturally clear the bacteria from the body, says David Spring at the University of Cambridge, UK."

So, new strategy to kill bacteria, is not to kill them immediately - just sabotage their communication links . . .

Terrorist Networks

There is this excellent paper on the various strategies to attack and destabilize terrorist networks http://www.cmu.edu/joss/content/articles/volume6/TsvetovatCarley/index.html.

The authors use Social Network Analysis as a means to identify and study destabilization strategies - elimination of actors using random means, degree (the actors with largest number of connections to others) and betweenness (the actors who appear in the most number of communication paths between network entities) centrality measures, cognitive load based, high-performing individuals and knowledge-based removal.

Again, an excerpt from the paper "Knowledge-based removal proved to be the most effective strategy of the lot, and the only one to outperform the baseline strategies. The key to knowledge-based removal, though, is that its effectiveness hinges on speed of response more than the accuracy of structural knowledge. The experiments show that the highest efficiency of this strategy is achieved if experts are found and removed before they transmit much of their knowledge to the rest of the group, thus favoring quick decisive action to lengthy deliberation and heuristic learning".

Interesting parallels here between bacteria and terrorists! Both of them seem to display learning behavior and over time become immune to anti-mechanisms used in the past. Point strategies focused on killing the most powerful players don't seem to work in the long term, since someone else is ready to take their place. As the papers suggest, killing the communicator or even better (as in the case of bacteria), killing the communication may be the most powerful strategy to combat these agents of death and destruction!

Can the virtual world of communication really replace travel?

2009-02-06T14:17:00.002+05:30

When I was a kid, I used to read books written by people from across the world. The books would describe the locations and culture of various regions and imagination would create images of these far-away unreachable places. It was always a dream to visit these places and live those experiences in reality.

As I grew up, and got to travel a little bit, I always found it to be a life-changing experience – it's not just about the place you visit, or the people you meet – there is something much deeper within the human psyche that makes the journey bigger than the goal. You all would agree, when we make a journey, even a small one, we break our habits, venture out into the unknown, not with fear, but with expectation and positivity, we become open to new experiences – it opens up parts of our mind which did not exist before.

As technology has advanced, the need for travel has been diminishing – at least functionally. To know something, or to see something from another place (at least famous places), one does not need to physically travel – all the knowledge, images, videos, sounds (smells have not yet been ported) is available instantaneously across the world. To meet and talk to people, you don't need to travel any more – chat and conferencing is rapidly moving towards recreating the exact person to person contact experience.

As the globe warms, and we get more and more aware of the fuel we burn and the toll on the environment, it is quite clear in most everybody's mind that we must reduce travel as much as we can.

But is it really that simple? Is this really a good thing?

We spend most of our lives imprisoned to our habits and comfort zones, including geographies. While there are a few born nomads, those who feel uncomfortable staying in one place (or one lifestyle) for too long, most of us are exactly the opposite – we would like to stick to the status quo unless absolutely necessary to change. Most of us prefer not to move to new cities or towns for work (unless prodded by obscene economic benefits). However, within this majority, I have seen that an overseas assignment has a charm that is difficult to refuse, not just for economic considerations. Just the opportunity to see a new place is sufficient to overcome a lifetime of accumulated habits and preferences. There is a small nomad in all of us, and a big nomad in some of us!

What is the role of this nomad who mostly sits dormant in all of us? This nomad epitomizes change, the will to explore, the positivity of new thought. He epitomizes the essential spirit of man. It's this nomad that has caused us to evolve over the ages.

We know that we can make do without travel now – everything can be done from where we are. In the short term it makes perfect sense. But in the long term . . . are we killing the nomad within us? Are we killing that small thrill within us which exhorts us to, once in a while, go out and explore new things? Have we snipped of the "journey" part of travel – the most important part? Are we becoming more localized, further locked into our communities and our habits, further immune to change? Is our urge to travel, satiated too quickly, with the plethora of knowledge available in real time over the communications network, killing the entire "journey of learning" in the process?

Imagine, in 2020, functional need for travel is completely eliminated. Virtual reality, state of the art communication and processing make it possible to transport most of the remote data and experiences in real time. Will experiential learning take a hit? Can people really touch and feel the newness, will it have a lasting impact or will it get trivialized?

Will the small nomad in each of us get extinguished?

2008-2009

2008-12-31T15:36:00.003+05:30

Phew, what a year it has been!

For Indian sports, it was one of the best years ever - chess, cricket, badminton, football and of course boxing, shooting, wrestling at the Olympics. The new set the pace, the old panted to catch up.

Books written by Indian authors started filling more than one shelf at the local book-stores - the new were setting the pace here as well.

Chandrayaan soared into space and landed on the moon - perfect take-off, perfect landing - my pick for the proudest moment of the year.

Also, personally, it was a landmark year for me - Navneet and I started our own consulting firm - Crafitti Consulting.

And some dreadful lows:

There was the small matter of the Sensex roaring to 20000+ and then getting the wind knocked off in the most dramatic fall in history (touching 8000). Still too early to say whether I can survive the mayhem or not but certainly, first hand experience will hold me in good stead! It is a return to humility and good old middle class sensibilities and values - suddenly money has become more valuable and there is more time to appreciate the smaller joys of life.

And the lowest point: the attack on Mumbai - the pain is really felt when you lose someone close to you - a friend of mine lost his parents to bullets fired by the terrorists - the bullets hid them as they stood in the balcony of their house. Confronted with such losses, it is difficult to look for some sort of a silver lining. I do feel though, that the terrorists were more desperate, more foolish this time and that, they have, in their bravado, revealed chinks in their armour and deficiencies in intelligence, and the event is the first nail in their coffin.

I am sure 2009 will bring new hope, strength and health, fat will be toned to muscle. Some people will move out of the malls to enjoy walking barefoot on the grass. I also have a reoslution to make: 2 posts per week in 2009.

The next smart organizational organisms

2008-11-26T15:59:00.005+05:30

As I ended my previous post, I was thinking about how it seems as if the rules of the industrial evolution game have suddenly changed and what these new rules might be.

Well, one thing is clear, the new rules have to be completely outside the scope of the current game - something which throws all established assumptions out of the window. To understand this better, lets again look back at our own evolution and how some rules were similarly changed back then . . .

We know that man made the mammoth extinct, and certainly, the mammoth was unable to cope with "man" who had somehow evolved at a pace faster than the rest of the ecosystem. One of the major contributors to this "faster" evolution was the "social" nature of man - a trait carried forward from what we know about the social behavior of monkeys and apes.

As social behavior evolved, new skills were learnt:
1. Language and communication, leading to memory and learning
2. Tool building and specialization of skills
3. Group psychology and complex social structures beyond hierarchies (many mammals show social behavior, only man and to some extent chimpanzees are able to manage non-hierarchical social structures)
4. Complex emotions

Prior to man, evolution was in essence the result of gradual change in physical and mental capabilities, in tandem with each other. Social behavior changed the rules - man's intelligence evolved at a pace faster than his physical abilities (he made up for the missing physical abilities by working in groups). The gap between physical and mental abilities of man has progressively widened.

While the ability of man to work with other men has evolved, the next level of complexity i.e. the ability of groups to work with other groups did not evolve as much. This was probably due to the constraints of geography and distance - these constraints have only now been lifted somewhat (with the evolution of the internet). What this means is that behavior between groups has remained at a level of evolution comparable to that of lesser intelligent mammals. To give you an example, individuals are able to function in small groups (say teams) in non-hierarchical configurations, but the moment the team size increases or teams have to work with each other, the team reverts to standard, non-complex behavior (hierarchical or very clear peer-peer). Ditto for organizations (larger groups or groups of groups).

It is clear now, why organizations (herbivores) have grown larger in size. Inter-organizational dynamics have not evolved. Today's organizations are like elephants. Smart, to an extent, and capable of some social intelligence, but not sufficiently complex to evolve a whole new intelligence.

Lets look back now at what we can learn from our own evolution:

Hypothetically, small organisms, by evolving complex social behavior between themselves, can evolve their intelligence at a rate faster than their individual physical capabilities and create dynamics that are unimaginable for even larger organisms with a more primitive intelligence.

The only spark that is needed is the initial urge to socialize in non-hierarchical ways.

This should be consistently true (I am guessing) even if we were to replace "organisms" with "groups". We know that in the recent past, the spark has been created - we are seeing the beginning of complex social behavior between groups, on the internet. This should lead to evolution in the following skills (but now these are between groups):

1. Language and Communication (between groups) leading to memory and learning
2. Tool building and specialization of skills (imagine groups of groups)
3. Group psychology and complex social structures beyond simple hierarchies or peer-peer relationships
4. Complex (group) emotions

We have to understand that this new level of evolution will result in behavior that is totally unimaginable by us in the current context.

This will over time, lead to:
1. A species of more intelligent organizations (like humans)
2. More intelligent humans who are part of these more intelligent organizations

In my next few posts, I will attempt to imagine ways in which each of the above skills will evolve at the group level. Hopefully, this will help us articulate the "new rules" of the "new game" - the goal with which we started off.

The end of the large organization - for the time being

2008-11-25T12:26:00.008+05:30

We still don't know how and why the dinosaurs got extinct - however we do know that animals tend to get larger during abundance (making it more and more difficult to be predated upon) and the largeness becomes a liability when this abundance is threatened.

Largeness can also a liability during abundance if there are nimbler, smarter predators from outside the normal ecosystem. Think mammoth and man!

Some organisms have managed to remain relatively small and survive through almost anything thrown at them - roaches, spiders, crocs, sharks. They have either adapted fast or become immune to change. Man has survived the elements through intelligence - by being the smartest predator or by blending in very well with the eco-system.

Some sort of algorithm is visible. Multiple players start playing the game. As the game develops, some players start getting dominant (through a combination of luck and skill). There is a cycle of evolution in place.

At some point in time, some of the dominant players get so dominant, they no longer need to evolve to survive the rules of the game. In effect, they move out of the game itself (they stop evolving). Others figure a way to survive without playing the game, they become immune to the rules of the game and play on a standard low risk, low reward, survival algorithm. Most players continue to play to win, and evolve in the process.

Suddenly a larger event occurs (from outside the game) - either the game itself changes or the rules of the game change drastically. Dominant players who stopped evolving are the first to fall. The smartest nimblest evolving players adapt and survive the new rules. The players who were playing on the low risk, low reward model may or may not survive depending on how drastically the rules change.

The last 50 years have been a time of abundance. Large dominant players have emerged in all industries. Smaller, nimbler, more evolved players have been evolving and attacking the mammoths. {GM, Toyota}. And the (larger than the game) crisis has now changed the rules of the game.

1. Smarter, nimbler players
2. Large dominant players
3. Low risk, low reward players.

Scenario 1:
GM falls despite the bailout package. Who are the smarter nimbler players and how will they survive the new rules?

What are the new rules?

The post continues . . .