Sunday, November 29, 2009

Ethics and leadership - a personal event to recall

While being a student's leader during graduation, I discovered a racket that conducted free blood donation camps and then illegally sold the units collected. On the one hand, I found them saving lives and on the other hand, a cancerous culture of bribing, fraud and illegal trafficking of medical blood-units was thriving. Ethics was getting murdered, though lives were being saved selectively (by those who had money). I decided to campaign against this racket. At times I got life-threats and even faced the ire of needy patients (who could give anything for a few units of life-saving blood). Taking support from the ADM (Additional District Magistrate), plus the Rourkela chapter of the Red-Cross Society and fellow students, we could counter hordes of unofficial agents who illegally traded blood-units.

The integrity of a professional reflects in his daily work. Although this was just one incident of many that I have faced, the nature of lessons learned are applicable everywhere. Today, I have conducted numerous camps for eye-care, met numerous influential people who trade favor with values and once, I have had to decide between hiring a meritorious candidate vis-a-vis a less apt one but relative of my boss.

In life, we will continue facing similar ethics (or the lack of it!). But when we look at the bigger picture, we always can understand the right direction to go, even if it is seemingly difficult or temporarily unpopular. I believe that if we are determined and courageous to go ahead with the better path, any hurdle (be it government machinery, public misunderstanding or personal loss) can be constructively overcome.




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Friday, November 27, 2009

Supervising the Board

What is the best way to advise the advisory - probably a board that controls another board? See how this system is a new model to discuss and adapted. Indonesian business culture is already one with this arrangement. Indonesia’s two-tier board system works well and could be a model for other countries.

Quoting Tanri Abeng of PT Telekomunikasi:

“The board of commissioners cannot just say, ‘I’m non-executive, so I’m going to play golf.”

What are the pros and cons of a two-board system? Does it handle the issues raised by a single board system? Is it a good idea to ward-off (or nullify a bit) board politics?

Read here for more on this.


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Thursday, November 26, 2009

Launching LinkedIn From a Living Room

The founder of Linkedin opens up in an interview here. From 350 personal invites to 4500 within one month, and 50 million users today, this is a story to read! Click here.


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"How do you manage business objectives and social objectives?"

HEC Social Business Conference: Our Decision Today, Our Impact Tomorrow
Keynote speaker: Emmanuel Faber, Co-Chief Operating Officer, DANONE.



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Friday, November 20, 2009

Thursday, November 19, 2009

The Zero Carbon Car



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A different reason for this recession


Why are we in a recession? An NBER paper by Ravi Jagannathan, Mudit Kapoor, Ernst Schaumburg.

In quotes:
"Arguing against conventional wisdom about the causes of the recession, the authors say that the inability of existing financial and legal institutions to cope with the huge increase in the world’s labour supply in a very short time period, led to the recession."


This paper is available as PDF (741 K) or via email.


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Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of 'SixthSense' technology



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Turning the underprivileged into successful entrepreneurs!

Rediff.com: An effort inspired by the Prince of Wales, by Lakshmi Venktaraman Venkatesan, founding trustee and executive vice president of Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust, is the daughter of former President of India, the late R Venkataraman. The idea behind Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust (BYST) is (Read more..)


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