Social entrepreneurship: An INSEAD Article

Rural and social entrepreneurship are becoming reality today. There is a huge amount of effort that has started to make ideas click in the rural areas. I saw this great article by Grace Segran, who talked with Rathin Roy and wrote this article. (click here)

Question the world

Everyday after he came back from school, the kid was asked a single question by his mom – What did you ask the teacher today? She made it really a fun session while asking this question and the kid felt happy explaining how he could ask clever questions to his teachers. But as time went by, he really fell short of good questions. He used to think a lot before making up a question worth asking. It was a good exercise for him everyday, though he really felt frustrated on days that he could not get a reasonably good question – his mom just smiled at these times and said, 'Look deeper and wider, sonny!'. A simple childhood game started to develop as a passion inside the child – he no longer asked questions that he knew answers of – rather, he tried to get more and more original in his thinking pattern, trying to find out every unanswered question around him. This small boy grew up to be a Nobel Prize winner in Physics (if I am not wrong, in all probability, he was Niels Bohr, the first Nobel Prize winner in Physics from Denmark! Please correct me if I am not right.)

 

What matters in the above anecdote is the fact that there is an art to observing deeper and wider around you. You get propelled towards original thinking only by asking questions. Asking relevant questions is as much an art as asking irrelevant questions is an irritation. To quote Hal Gregersen, INSEAD Affiliate Professor of Leadership, "Transformational leaders ask numerous innovative questions. Research on the entrepreneurial founders at 25 of the most innovative companies in the world — places like Apple, eBay, and Amazon — reveals that they rely heavily on countless, catalytic questions to create revolutionary new ways of doing business.  Such questions help break the status quo and prompt powerful, personal action."

 

One good thing about a good leader is that (s)he not only asks good questions, but also genuinely makes an effort to answer them, even if the answer is preliminary. People who just ask questions are smart, but folks who try to see around for an answer are smarter.

 

Questions change the world.

Garbage Truck

From an old email fwd

How often do you let other people's nonsense change your mood? Do you let a bad driver, rude waiter, curt boss, or an insensitive employee ruin your day? However, the mark of a successful person is how quickly one can get back their focus on what's important. David J. Pollay explains his story in this way….

Sixteen years ago I learned this lesson. I learned it in the back of a New York City taxi cab. Here's what happened. I hopped in a taxi, and we took off for Grand Central Station. We were driving in the right lane when, all of a sudden, a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car's back end by just inches!

The driver of the other car, the guy who almost caused a big accident, whipped his head around and he started yelling bad words at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean…he was friendly. So, I said, "Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!"

And this is when my taxi driver told me what I now call, "The Law of the Garbage Truck."

"Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it. And if you let them, they'll dump it on you. When someone wants to dump on you, don't take it personally. You just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. You'll be happy you did."

I started thinking, how often do I let Garbage Trucks run right over me? And how often do I take their garbage and spread it to other people: at work, at home, on the streets? It was that day I said, "I'm not going to do it anymore."

Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. Love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don't. Believe that everything happens for a reason. Never let the garbage truck run over you….

Being Yourself

From an older blog of mine

Going in the right path, when all around yourself are free to do whatever the hell they want to do, is a bit difficult but not impossible. We know we have to keep pace with this world but it does not mean that we are supposed to change the values that we have. If we are convinced of our values, they should be given the first preference while deciding on the factor of changing oneself to suit the world.

Changing without losing your own distinct identity is the key to a successful change. Keeping pace with the world, while folowing our own ideals is an art.

One of the first things in this direction is to be positively assertive. Don't take anyone's opinion or remark too seriously.

Secondly, identify, upto a certain extent, what your core values are. Is honesty a part of your character or you are a person who fits the situation? Or are you a totally dishonest person? Is taking risk your nature or you are always one who'd prefer a safer path. Identify who you are and what are your best qualities. Do not compare with others. It may be that you are best at doing house work. But the friend near you who is too popular in your workplace is some one different: think twice before emulating her blindly. Be yourself. And for that you have to know what are your best qualities. One of my friends is best in keeping quiet and that helps her in her life.

Continuous progress is an untold things that we always want. I said progress. Not change.

Let us believe that continous change is mandatory. You cannot stop it. But continous progress is what is under our control.

Progress continously. Follow your own values.

This world is a very funny place. You cannot ever say for sure what the world wants. But it is an easier task to decide what you want. Focus on few things at a time. (You may wish for hundreds of things!)

The following is a quote I had seen long back - repeating it - it is by Ralph Ellison, "Battle Royal"

All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself.

Time Up?

Time is an intriguing and abstract concept - and its management is more of a 'performing art' rather than anything else. You do get rewarded if you manage time well - but like the 'walk-on-the-rope' act, you got to keep on doing it if you want to continually benefit from it. Out of all the solutions available till date that promise you to make a super-productive person, you have to figure out what suits you best. I am going to review some of the things that worked for me and some that did not and all from the perspective of an individual. You will find what works for an lone non-jargon fellow rather than huge management concepts applicable to big projects.

The 80-20 rule applies to many situations in life and time management is one of the most crucial of them. 80% of the stuff can be done in 20% of the time and the rest 20% needs 80% of your time. This just boils down to - only one out of every five tasks that you do is the time taking one. If you can focus on that one (out of five) task, you will improve your efficiency and get more time in hand (which you may fill with newer tasks!). Here I have found that if I categorize a task as that of category 'A', I assume it is urgent as well as important. For category 'B', it is urgent, but not important, so I need to do it on a priority basis. The 'C' tasks are the one that are important but not urgent, so that I can do them before the week ends but cannot ignore them. The 'D' tasks are the one that should go to the trashbin. I don't use a notebook to categorize this way (though I do write down some of the tasks which I may forget - say getting Nail paint for wife!) but inside my mind, I just remember the A and B jobs to be dealt with faster.

I have never been successful with the ideas of using yellow post-its for two basic reasons - one that i wasted more time writing and pasting (my handwriting make the notes puzzles in disguise!) and the fact that they are visible to my cubicle mates (I am not comfortable). It never was successful for me and like most of my friends, even I believe that such post-its are just to impress your manager that you are good at work (maybe the work of pasting notes!?).

While dealing with people, I am friendly with everyone but I have a priority inside my brain about how much of my resources (time, attention, blah blah) are to be with the other person. Anyways, if you meet more people in the day, figure out a method to be nice to folks and still keep your priorities. It is importance to prioritize - you are not unfair to them this way, in fact you do more justice to them by being more efficient for the reason you are dealing with them.

Some people use POSEC (Prioritize by Organizing, Streamlining, Economizing and Contributing). Don't you really think this is too much to apply to personal time management? I feel so. It is more of a management jargon that will make you feel better about managing your time (whether or not you really end up saving time!). If you look at this principle with respect to simpler tasks of life, it all boils down to the simpler steps I mentioned earlier. (Don't bring too much management jargon while dealing with personal stuff, say for creating time for your kids! Leave that to office stunts! - try applying similar stuff dealt with traditional project management techniques - you are human, not a project!)

The last to be mentioned, but which is really very important, is that - its not that big a deal, just remain relaxed. You waste more time worrying about saving time than if you were a bit more relaxed and planned things well. Believe that it is a simple job, if you go one step at a time and give yourself a bit of time to really catch-up on what you plan for this. As the old saying goes, 'plan out your work and work out your plan'!

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Dirty (Office) Dynamics?

There are many skills that I learnt in office which are not a part of the defined responsibilities nor the job-related learning. In fact, no one cares that you learn them though everyone gets affected in a positive or negative way depending on whether you know or don't know such skills. To begin with, you got to learn the secret organizational structure in your office - this is not the one published on the intranet or told to you on your first day of the job. It is something that you discover for yourself. You got to know who/what influences your manager the most and what you need to do in order to get ahead in your office. You will be able to understand the term pseudo-authority once you are able to understand the actual control flow in the management. How indivuduals try to gain advantages that they are not entitled to or how they prevent others from getting benefits that they should have. Life is rarely fair, but then, you are the one who can control your own life! There are many fallacies that you got to avoid at the workplace - make a list of them appropriate to your office environment.

There are many who get wary of office politics. For me, I feel this is all about a mind game. If you look at it from a lighter note and remember that life is not fair, you will understand what Dalai Lama had once said, "Know all the rules well, so that you can break the rules!". And office politics is something that will make you sharper at making critical decisions, if you don't lose your mind. It takes a lot of time for people to make/change opinions about people and many a times, they themselves are not sure of the opinion - its more of a mob-ocracy than demo-cracy! Subroto Bagchi once asked his mentor about tips to improve his image amongst his colleagues - whatever tips he got further worsened his image at office - and to this his mentor just replied, "wait for one more year - people take time to change existing opinions!". Office politics is like the shark in the japanese fish tanks - the fish remain alert (and thus fresh to be eaten by humans) due to the shark's presence. If the shark is removed, fish become lazy in the tank and by the time the ship reaches the coast, they are no more fresh to eat! A bit awry example though, but we all are fishes waiting to be eaten up by the next responsibility awaiting us. Learn how to get ahead of office politics if you don't like it, and be the best office politician if you like it - but the bottomline is, never cry for no one cares anyway!

Office gossip forms an integral part of office politics. There is a section of the public who support gossip as a good method of unwinding the office stress and increase employee interaction. As long as it is taken with a pinch of salt! You should know, by your previous experience in the office, which part of the gossip you heard is likely to be closer to the truth and which is the part that was fabricated purely with the intention of picking on you. You get to know the equations of 'power' in the office through gossip! This is one of the most common form of social networking and you can always leverage it to your advantage. Identify the folks in office who are serious about gossip talk from those who pretend not to be. Although John Austin's book titled 'Cubicle Warfare' might be a bit on the funnier side, it does matter to understand gossip in the correct perspective.

There is a whole lot of more office dynamics when it comes to women, and I would like to make a new post out of it, later!
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Waiting for ideas?

What do you really want to get a good idea? An apple falling on your head or just simple observations of things around you that make your thoughts 'click'! Going through an array of ideas that folks have used to really setup a business, I find that all that is needed is dedicated and passionate implementation of your ideas. I was surprised to find that people have made money out of making a new style of clothes hangers as well as new style of gift wrapping. In fact, there is a cool start-up called ASAP "Any Surprise Any Place" which specializes in giving surprises to your friends at any point of time, any place and in truly surprising ways.

Many a times such ideas are inspired by a personal need - here is a dad who invented a really innovative kind of hairbrush whose bristles vanish when they get tangled in the hair and re-appear in a short while to continue brushing the hair - have a look at http://www.orbitbrush.com.

What do really need is observation and a continual thinking of how to make things better/different/more useful.

What do you say of the idea of a boy who designed a window pane color using ultra-violet colors that is very visible to birds but not to humans? The result is that thousands of city birds save their lives by not crashing into window panes (and the window panes are just the same for humans!). Have a look at the story (click here).

Any ideas? ;-)

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The 'Add' of Advertising

There is an art in advertising. With the coming of online ads in a big way these days, we got to be really careful in making our ads creative as they face excessive exposure on the net. Exposure on the internet is a boon because you can reach an audience which you never could have through any other means. It also means that there are chances that your ad is going to be ignored by the user in the presence of more relevant information on the site itself.

Context ads are useful only when the information on the advertized website is something more than the current website where the ad is displayed. This can be known by measuring the amount of time taken by user to click on the ad. The current site may have more relevant information which will prevent the user from following the ad. This means that the displaying ad agent, has to decide that the current is not rated high on a topic, say 'A' and so display ads on topic 'A'. If the site is a good place for info about topic 'B', the ad agent should preferably not display ads on topic 'B'.

I was interacting with the WatBlog team and I found that they are employing innovative means to target the online audience. They are one of the front-runners for ads on mobile phones. They cover a number of media and you will not be surprised if you find unconventional media being used by these folks to really 'add' to the advertisement.

A lot more mathematics goes in to the analysis of online ads than for conventional ads.

If you look at upcoming applications such as ReminDo, who combine social networking with office chit-chat and target ads a such audience, you will find the extent to which the ad agents analyse your needs. It is like taking the spoon right up to the user's mouth, because in case of online ads, you will not be sure that the (s)he eats from that spoon, until (s)he actually eats.

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Re-public Vote

I seriously do not understand the voting system in India where you cannot vote if you are a resident of a city other than where you got your voter's card. Like a driving license, I should have the ability to vote in any city that I reside in if I satisfy the other criteria that allow me to vote. I know we have gaps in this proposition - but isn't it high time that a IT driven country uses IT to eliminate the gaps in implementing the above requirement. The call is a long one, but I want to contribute my two-paise thoughts in to this. I have a I-card like my PAN card or a driving license and I am qualified to vote in Bangalore - I walk to the voting center and register my vote for the required election. If I vote at one place for the same election, I cannot vote once more. But if I want, I should be allowed to vote in my native place for the lok sabha elections as well. We can sit together to formulate how things should be. This will help me if I am unable to travel to my native (or wherever I have the voter card issued), to still vote. It is really important that the educated India votes. Any thoughts?

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A Proto.in Weekend

The proto.in event that happened over 23 and 24 Jan '09 was something that showcased the huge potential of young Indian entrepreneurs, who need, not years, but few days (48 hours, precisely) to prove their talent to the world. I missed the first day in person, but kept on getting updates through the live blogging going on and from a bunch of friends who were at the event. Still, I could never complain of the good things that I had on the second day! The day began with a talk by Bob Young, the co-founder of Redhat Linux. It had never been this fun with this old a man - the session was really interactive with the audience shooting questions on the fly and Bob answering them all with a twist of humor. The day had many more speakers - Ashish Gupta from Helion Ventures, who talked about the elements of building a winning team; Sandeep Singhal, from Nexus Capital, who emphasized the importance of thinking beyond the mobile and the internet domain; and Prof Ashwin Mahesh from IIMB who filled the auditorium with his humor filled half realistic half sarcastic speech on the effect of incubators on startups!

We had a open discussion with Rajeev Dhingra (Wat Blog) and Shradha Sharma (Yourstory.in) on the importance of having experience before starting up! It was a fired discussion with many folks from the audience chipping in very useful remarks and queries.

We also had a talk on the benefits of and issues with, starting-up in a downturn economy.

There were numerous showcases of startups such as OOHA, Mosambe, I-Flapp, Indiakhelo, FingerPrints Fashions, InkFruit, LifeMojo, Noddler, Parking Systems (Park Assist), PlanetTutor, ReminDo, Artin Dynamics (SPARA), TAROBY, Astuon Networks (traWELLr), and NuAlgi. One great characteristic about each of them was that the idea came from people who were not the experts in that field. For instance, the founder of Yourstory.in is from commerce background and it was his sheer guts and efforts which have resulted in the success of the venture. Similarly, the founders of NuAlgi are CAs.

Another amazing aspect of Proto.in was the contest to do something innovative withink 48 hours. And the results were over-whelming. Could you imagine coding a email to mobile and vice versa code within 48 hours and make it work in front of stranger audience! Or someone coming with an implemented idea of tracing your friend using just GPRS phone, on a map displayed on your phone screen and that too, up to a resolution of 500 m! There was this amazing idea of using LED lit lamps and making a showcase out of it, and using it in a detachable manner anywhere in the house! (Man, you got to see this to really get it!)

I am simply amazed at the energies at display - young India has the guts to do ANYTHING! The future is ours! This was the third time I was with Proto.in and as always, the fire in the startups showcased has been gathering more and more flame!

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Make a difference

Reeti Roy has this great post (Click here) about the thoughts of Warren Buffet. One of his quotes that inspired me most was "You only have to do very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong." There was a recent article that advised not to expect miracles from Obama. This is so normal from a person who knows how to handle his cards. I still believe that he can do better things in office with Obama than his predecessors. In the article that Reeti has written, Buffet has inspired us to believe in ourselves and go ahead with our ideas with guts and determination. "Think for yourself!"



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India and Global Slowdown

Some good thought soup:

 

http://knowledge.insead.edu/Indiaglobaleconomicslowdown081215.cfm

Rural Indian Branding

Branding is too broad a subject, and is effectively a 20th century concept. Apart from the huge psychological impact from the customer point of view, there are many aspects from the product or service provider's perspective, that make branding a beautiful but competitive art. In rural India, the concept of branding is completely different from what is considered the generic aspect of branding.

Though it is clear that there is a huge impression of urban brands and nametags on rural people, it is not always true that they follow the urban public blindly. Many a times, the initiating thought comes from the urban folks but soon it becomes customized to the rural aspects.

The younger public, in any situation, lead the knowledge (and at many times, lead in imitating) brands. However, utility brands are ones that get customized cool.

 

(To be continued..)

Satyam!

What the Satyam fiasco has proved is that there are bigger scams that can happen in bigger companies and the only thing that stops smaller entities from doing so is the scale of operation. It is so surprising to make fool of so many folks, unless it comes in the news in the coming days that it was a team that duped the shareholders. Waiting for 'confessions' ! There is a lot of buzz about following processes to ensure that we do not have a lapse in quality in our work. In many cases, it really holds true. Until you reach an unplanned failure mode. The term is used in many areas such as in sciences, engineering, and management. Although all of these are interconnected and similar, the amount of ambiguity is most in case of the managememt definition of a process.
In case of Satyam, there are multiple process failures, which makes it difficult to trace back the failure route!


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