Mutterings that Matter

Monday, July 25, 2005

Killer Application

In 2001, John Chambers CEO of Cisco Systems said "E-learning is the next major killer application", and I sat back with pride thinking, finally someone significant has stood up and taken notice of the field I was in. That was long time ago and there has not been enough that has happened in this field other than mergers and acquisitions. No one has become a mega
corporate doing eLearning, and I wondered why did John Chambers say that about eLearning. Maybe he was right in what he said, maybe we didn't know how to get the right ROI for ourselves and suggest the right ROI for the customer to be very successful. Successful we are, but one could always get better.


There have been successful eLearning companies or companies who have become successful practising or implementing eLearning. I would have ordinarily rated comapanies also in the category of who has made the biggest impact internationally using eLearning. That was however true till yesterday, July 25th 2005.


Yesterday while watching BBC in the UK I came across a program called the New Al Qaeda. It spoke about how the Al Qaeda has begun to use the internet to spread their blanket of terrorism across the world. They are using eLearning through user manuals, videos, training applications to train prospective terrorists to learn from the comfort of their homes. Whether it is making bombs, creating suicide bombing kits, and other nuances they have it all. They recruit based on this because they have made learning about spreading terror so easily applicable and accessible. I can't think of any organization who has successfully managed that. They have changed the face of eLearning and made it their killer application.

They are definitely not my role model, because I don't believe in their ideology or the lack of it, but one thing I will want to pick from them - Passion and a Go all the way spirit. That is what will make someone successful in achieving their objectives and realise their expected ROI in a more positive way. That's my killer application!

Stealth Colonization

A time was when the Indian subcontinent was a colony of an empire where the sun never set. These days too it doesn't set, albeit for a long time, though now it is more natural phenomenon than a colonial one.

The times have changed today though, the persecutor is now the persecuted. Time was when our forefathers bore the brunt of their colonial masters. Today the erstwhile colonial masters dread in fear of what damage the children of their colonial subjects can inflict on them. Change that has happened in less than half a century.

Immigrants have a voice and they use it today. Some trigger happy MET Policeman shot a Brazilian who apparently looked Asian – and there was chaos and apprehension amongst the Indian Subcontinent community. In some form they are doing the same thing the colonial masters did to their ancestors. They, the colonial masters, followed the divide and rule policy on a community to whom territory mattered the most. Today the Indian Subcontinent community is doing the same, but this time taking advantage of being a vote bank. Maybe today it’s the vote bank, tomorrow the rulers. Who knows – Watch the History Channel maybe 50 years from now to know more.

Saturday, July 09, 2005

Freedom

Freedom! 4th of July just went by, 15th of August is just round the corner. Two mega democracies! Every year these two days are celebrated to signify that one word with which I started this blog.

What is freedom? The condition of being free of restraints, as the dictionary puts it. What’s this state of freedom? My nation is free hence I have my freedom. My father was not born in a free country, I was. So I am free from restraints to do what I want, because my country says so. I understand that the law is there to control miscreants, but that’s not what I want to talk about.

I ask myself the question, am I really free. Am I really free from all the restraints? Or am I a slave? A slave to what I think. A slave to what I think I can do. Chained but free to walk, like the elephant in the picture. I do surprise myself by setting myself free sometimes. I am enslaved to myself, giving myself independence sometimes and then back to slavery.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Think Different - Make it Happen!

A lot of times we wonder what is it that is required to think different, think lateral, thinking out of the box. I had mentioned in an earlier blog "Going North" what inspired and what transpired after looking at a commercial called Think Different from Apple™ and the impact it had on our lives. Whether good or bad is a matter of perception, but at the bottom of that lies change. Change in the way one thinks and does things.

Is just thinking enough? Did Apple™ only think different? I'm sure they didn't just think they made it happen. Take a recent example, the whole music industry was ganging up against the likes of Napster™ for killing the music industry by distributing music, people came up with solutions after spending millions to copy protect CDs, the music desperados found a way out. Then Apple™ comes by with this device called iPod and a concept called iTunes and creates a revolution in the music industry. Everyone gets hooked on to it and everyone is happy. What did they do here? They just made it happen.

The next revolution maybe lurking round the corner, the Mac mini, allows PC users to shift onto a Mac at fraction of the cost. First they squeezed an entire computer into a flat screen and now they have compressed it into the size of a lunch box. They have just made it easier for people to shift their platforms without much of an investment.

This is in no way Apple™ propaganda, but just a passing thought, how do they think different and make it happen? While I get away and back to my work, I'm still thinking on that...

Monday, July 04, 2005

Courtesy of Choice!

The screen reads 'Intermission' for the 8:15 p.m. show of 'A lot like love' at Fame Malad, I turn around to my wife and in the same often repeated dialog I ask her 'what do you want to eat?' She says samosas and I grapple down the steps and head straight out of the hall into the cafeteria zone.

Look around for a stream of like minded people who make a beeline to this one particular place in any cinema hall in Mumbai and probably India, the smoking place. Lo and Behold! I smell the beeline and also see a board that says ‘Smoking Room’. And I think to my self, wow courtesy of choice. Make my way to the ‘Smoking Room’, albeit quickly lest I miss out of the start of the movie after the interval. I can see this nice door that has ‘Smoking Room’ written on it, I enter it and I find I have entered a matchbox. There are some 10-15 people in the matchbox with their sticks lit, in a 6 ft by 7ft room. The walls are plastered with film posters of movies that have long gone. People concentrating over every drag that they are taking in of that long awaited nicotine fix. Thankfully there are a few late comers who end up being the smarter ones and they stay out and smoke. Some relief to the rest of us, who are already getting a first hand experience of what happened in the concentration camps of Hitler’s Germany. I’m thinking to myself, so much to courtesy of choice, they are discriminating against me.

Nevertheless I eke out of the matchbox and move out back to the cafeteria to pick the samosas I was to buy. Not that this was the first time that I experienced the discrimination. All international airports, public places make you feel like a criminal. I find it nonsensical because I can’t evade taxes when I buy the packet of cigarettes. So if I pay taxes for buying cigarettes, how dare they treat me this way! I have a freedom of choice what I want to or not want to do with my life.


Now I hear that the Health Ministry in alliance with the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has decided to ban smoking from being shown in movies. Again who are they to decide on creativity, they can never be creative anyways. So there goes nearly 70% of all Hollywood movies and lackluster chocolate faced I’m an insult to actors become stars, what with thrillers finding it difficult to be made without having smokers in them. Maybe they'll add a new thing to the beeps and blurs to pass them through. Oh yes murders, polygamous relationships, and the rest of the world's evils can still go on scot-free, they do not have an impact on the impressionable minds of our youth. What they don’t have the guts to do is shut down cigarette companies.

Taxes my dear, how will the government fill their coffers otherwise. So they offer you courtesy of choice if you smoke, they will tax you, show you how evil you are, not let you get impressed with other smokers on screen, discriminate against you, but they will not do anything against polluting vehicles, traffic jams, bad roads, shoddy infrastructure, crime and all the other issues that I pay taxes for. Well that’s the courtesy I get for my choice of government.

Friday, July 01, 2005

If Music Be the Food of Life, Play On

"If Music Be the Food of Life, Play On" - a various famous saying that oft gets repeated during airplay on radio stations across the world. Yes to me this line has made a lot of sense right from childhood, where my dad and mom used to utter musical notes to put me off to sleep or to keep me amused and wean me away from crying. Or when I used to put a stop to mom's cooking because all her utensils were in use, as they took various positions on my elaborate drumkit. Or when I went to church early only to hear the choir singing and not out of respect for punctuality or solemnity. When I got my first 2in1 that my uncle gave me with some of his cassettes, it was one of my favorite gifts as a teenager. Or when I had one of my biggest fights with mom to lend me 18 bucks to buy an audio cassette of certain famous hindi flicks of the late 80s, which she finally yeilded to, after much emotional black mail and guilt tripping. There was a time when my biggest spend while earning was on buying audio cassettes and hiding them lest mom would see. She would eventually get to know, because she maintained the cassette drawer. When I used to tune in regularly to Saturday Date on All India Radio and record the songs and sing along. And then credit cards happened to me and I had more spending power, switched to CDs bought a new sound system and rocked the house, when I was alone that is. Buy CDs for everyone at home, so everyone was happy and no one raised an alarm on my spending. I had my food of life and I played on, till I stumbled on a Karaoke bar in uptown Mumbai, called Merlins. All the aspirations of being a singing sensation suddenly seemed a reality. I found a new me, and newer voices as well. Life couldn't have been better. I toured the other karaoke haunts showcasing my new found talent. One such trip had a personal impact. I met my wife, Keisha, and love happened. Music bonded us and kept us going. Suddenly All India Radio’s FM station was a regular feature, because I had the best of what I loved. Hearing to my to-be-wife RJing and playing music as well. We knew it was Up Where we Belonged – The classic Joe Cocker/Jennifer Warnes song became our love anthem and our wedding special that we sang together. Incidentally that was also the first song we sang while courting.

The symphony of life continues, and I don’t know what’s in store. Maybe this entire blog will be repeated with us playing different roles. One thing for sure the music will be the food of life and it will continue to play on till they sing Abide with me.

Maybe next is a stint in the court above. Maybe I’ll be there on the cover of the “Daily Heaven” along with the choirs of angels singing “The Messiah”. Just Maybe.

Qualitatively Qualified Quasi Quality Quantifications - The Principle of 5Q

Why such a complicated title? State of mind, you are having a 'quality' time, I consoled myself. Truly speaking these are external ramifications of what’s going on internally in my mind. Screaming using all my lung power that we need to be quality conscious has been a favorite cry in a long time. Unfortunately it has always fallen on deaf years. Now it is back in a new avatar.

So, how important is quality? Very important if you ask me and I’ll stick by that. But that needs people who are mature and hold it in the same level of importance as it needs to be. So now you got to do it. That’s when you measure the capability of your maturity and make that a modality and it suddenly starts making sense, not to everyone though, but to people like you who are more business focused. Why? Because all your life you have grown giving importance to certificates, be it in school, college, and career; so your business can’t be left far behind, can it?

So what do you do, you qualify that quality certification is critical to your business and you will not hold much value if you don’t. Good Show! That’s like doing your graduation for the sake of a degree. You can show it and get a job, doesn’t matter if you remember what you majored in. Look at me the only chemistry I know now is one that happens between individuals. That apart.

The qualification’s done, but who will do it? You qualitatively analyze and take a candidate you have who fits it to some degree to run the show - The Great Indian Quality Show! In the name of growth now you will manage quality, you instruct your quasi candidate. You have utilized him and given him purpose, shows your skill in delegation and all that management glib talk. Your candidate gets started, searches, poaches, and preaches.

Finally, who will be responsible for making this happen? Your employees of course! You tell your employees the quantifiable benefits they will derive because of this. Blah Blah Blah Bla Bla Blah! The sheep have understood rather sheepishly. Fantastic! A job well done! Now they are ready to be herded and sheared over a year long process.
Hey, wait a minute, I said process. Ofcourse! if there is no process in shearing how will you get good wool.

So now, you have successfully kick started the Qualitatively Qualified Quasi Quality Quantifications Process a.k.a 5Q Process and you are on your way to your corporate graduation.