Serendipity and Learning

Some of the books I enjoyed in 2022 were: Predators and Prey: An Indian thriller - very well written book that is fast paced and never lets go of the pace. 4000 weeks: A different look at time management in life (something I had known but not in this way) Europe, India and the limits of secularism India, Pakistan - the story of a sandwiched civilization: Both books on decolonialisation of thinking and I thoroughly enjoyed them.  India, Pakistan - the story of a sandwiched civilization - this is the second book of a trilogy in 4 parts. The first as well as this one is a very good compilation - one that ensures that as a reader you begin to see the world from a decolonial lens. The topic of decolonialization is an interesting one itself - a movement that is taking place in India and Africa.  50 things that made the modern economy & The next 50 things that made the modern economy - good, but not that great. Non Bullshit Innovation, How Innovation works: My usual quota of innovation bo

Over the years, I have been a fan of both Kindle and physical books.  I like the Kindle books because if you are travelling, practically the whole library travels with you. Highlighting is easy. I never lose the page I am reading. The book is practically new all the time. I can read in any light. I especially love it when I have to browse for content (happens when I using book for reference at work) Downside - It is still not easy as reading a book. I cant sleep while reading the Kindle - what if it falls down or on my face.  Paper books - only issue is space. Rest, all good.  And prices points of both printed and digital books are coming closer to each other than ever before (I wonder why though) Now here is my observation: Nowadays I am finding it difficult to finish books I have started on Kindle because it requires an additional bit of "get-ready" time.  The book otoh is easy to get started on. Plus unlike a Kindle, the book is not visibly screaming "read me" as

Every so often, an idea wanders and knocks the door to enter into my head and I let the idea in (the door is usually open). As I evaluate the idea, it seems obvious that this idea will never be forgotten and I miss taking a note of the idea. The idea comes in and settles down somewhere in a nook. I am also fairly sure that I know where the idea is sitting. And I delay the note taking further.  And then all of a sudden, the idea is gone. I have to run around search around the brain and it seems like that idea was a ghost. Much panic ensues. I retrace my steps. Eat the same food. Spend time staring at various places. Sometimes, one of these steps, brings the idea back or makes it visible and then I quickly jot it down somewhere - usually by messaging to myself on Whatsapp or Google keep or evernote or a piece of paper nearby.  And thats why I take notes. On Evernote, on Google keep, on Kindle, on a paper beside me, by messaging myself on whatsap. More well formed ideas go into spreadshee

This was a question we were often asked when we were children - What do you want to be when you become big (euphemism for grow-up).  I doubt if anyone asks this to kids these days, but hey people asked us and at various ages, my answers were - Scientist, Navy officer, Yogi. And then reality set in and we went through the grind of qualifications.  Now after all these years of experience, what do I want to be? Or what do I want to do?  One possible answer is to be a "master" at something. Really good at something. So good that you are sought after, wanted.  I see some practitioners continue this journey well into their 90s (yes, not a typo) and that is awe inspiring. My own TA teacher, PK Saru, was a master of her craft. And there are many. So, this is a worthy goal. 

Different companies different pace. Work at the pace your company/client wants you work at Culture building is a slow process, painfully slow.  Like painting a wall, multiple coats are required for the paint to stick and then some. Each time the wall peels off, you have to repaint it, else, well, the culture wall looks ugly. Leader engagement, involvement is crucial (makes a huge difference) for any L&D programs success.  L&D's job is not to get people into the room. If people are not coming to the room (real or virtual), perhaps they dont need what you have to offer. (Think of a TV channel complaining, they have no viewers - yes, you get the idea) People in start-ups are obsessed with customer. Training may not be prioritized. Live with it. Show them how training will help them achieve their goal - that is a killer goal for L&D.  L&D is often used an engagement tool. I dont like, but companies use it Take business objectives and run with it - everything else has a

Some time back I was approached by someone who wanted to do a bit of training - since she was free, had recently retired and had time on her hands. Another one told me, I am a trainer - I always had the gift of the gab. Another time, it was recommended for the juniormost employee to work on leadership training. And a set of students wanted to train people on creativity.  All fairly common problems faced by organizations and people and sometimes they meet - to disastrous effect.  Many years ago when I was somewhat new to leadershp training (I did have the experience of few training sessions under my belt), the organization I was part of had paired an HR person and a non-HR person to train First Time Managers. This is an experience I am immensely grateful to because I was able to see both views - the employees, the HR and the system. And it sharpened my instincts as a facilitator. And one thing, I have done over the years is never lost touch with this perspective - but thats for later. I

 Until a few years back, a training could be structured like a movie. Start with some humour or entry. Share an anecdote, share some facts, quote CEOs, make a couple of discussions, encourage participation and engagement and boom you are home as a trainer.  Give or take there are many variations of this method. You can add a dash of inspiration, razzmatazz, charisma, gift-of-the-gab - none of these make the training stick. Yes, it is great engagement scores, but little more than that.  For a training to stick - the audience has to do the difficult work. And as learning facilitator, knowing well that they will go outside and forget it, you need to plan to bring them back in and practice. Many times. And then measure them on the practice or on the outcome that you expect or on the ultimate business outcome. Rinse repeat.  As you do this a few times, people in the company/cohort, realise that this is the way things are learnt, behaviour is changed and people grow and companies progress. Y

 If everything is taught, what remains? How does a child learn to be spontaneous and learn by serendipity if everything is taught? I recently saw an ad for Lego classes and it left me wondering.  My EO learnt Lego by going through the "idea book" - often as father and son. We started off by making Legos as mentioned in the idea book, but very soon, the Lego was dismantled and became a part of his imagination. This was the fate of every set - except the railway set (I got only the locomotive and the tracks) and a set which had Gandalf.  And then what we made became a story. This is a creative process I have enjoyed much and we created vehicles like a snowpusher (no it doesnt exist) or an ice jeep or gliding horse or a double decker with 4 decks or a vehicle that was made every brick we had. We made endless towers that stretched from floor to ceiling and airports and cities that spanned our entire room.  And that was the extent of my expertise - He outpaced me very soon. As he

I had not heard this term until I read Leadership BS.  Moral licensing refers to  the effect that when people initially behave in a moral way, they are later more likely to display behaviors that are immoral, unethical, or otherwise problematic.  The author takes this up in the context of leadership behaviour and says, once you have done some good - say, been vulnerable, apologised - that allows you to go and do something immoral, unethical or problematic. And this is why good leaders slip - once you have done something good, you have a few points that you can lose by doing something "bad". While this is more of a personal "value" compass running amok, I can think of examples outside of Leadership - possibly in schools and NGOs where the organization feels entitled to break a few rules because they are doing good to society anyhow. 

Smaller companies innovate better? Happened to read this piece on Koenigsegg somehow while reading something and searched for more of their innovations and  here is what I found There is more on their website:  Automobile innovations . And heres their ex-design head talking about annoying design trends in automobile design.

Recently I was part of a team that conducted two events. In one of the events, the "owners" of the event took charge of the stage. They wrote everything that described every guest, every word was thought about and rehearsed and delivered and timed. The event started on time and ended exactly on time even though there were some (as usual) mid point glitches (nobody knew them - but the owners had planned enough Plan B's in the system). The result was a fabulous stage management with the event appearing professional. For the second event, we had invited someone else to compere. The compere, especially professional comperes are specialists. They are highly skilled, they know how to connect with audiences, how to engage and bring out the best in an audience. They have a great voice, good selection of phrases, but if you have noticed, some of them don't prepare enough because of the confidence of their skill. Which is why you notice that in company offsites, they often mis-

 Every company claims to be customer first. Yet, they bombard you from day 1 on cross selling, upselling, notifications (check the types of notifications on any app), phone calls, spam emails.  A grocery app has decided to add ads before the customer starts adding to the cart. It also sends me useless information on nutritional value of cabbage (yes, it does). Plus sends me useless offers on a continuous basis. I finally silenced notifications.  The ecom app sends me more scratch cards than I can ever itch. And I have not managed to use a single one yet.  Ditto with the payment app that sends me off on useless collections - stamps, tiles, destinations and what not.  The bank, has spammed me so much I have auto blocked most numbers.  And oh, the grocery app which got taken over a conglomerate, has suddenly offered me a personal loan.  If you are customer first, can you please stop it? Point being: How do you know when to stop? Is it so difficult? Put yourself in the shoes of the user -

 I chanced upon this fascinating write up on Google Maps via Twitter (@angsuman). I wont write more about the post, because you have to read the post, but in that, this caught my eye.  That is a post attributed to this post by Steve Yegg - Why I left Google to join Grab .  The main reason I left Google is that they can no longer innovate. They’ve pretty much lost that ability. I believe there are several contributing factors, of which I’ll list four here.  First, they’re conservative: They are so focused on protecting what they’ve got, that they fear risk-taking and real innovation. Gatekeeping and risk aversion at Google are the norm rather than the exception. As someone who loves and follows stories of innovation, this is both surprising and not surprising. Surprising because it is google. Not surprising, because companies, businesses, individuals - once they reach a point of success often begin to repeat the actions that led to success which ultimately leads to their downfall.  (St

 As a trainer, one of the ways I build the audience connect with metaphors and examples. For instance, in India if you used Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli as an analogy - everybody who was more than 5 years old in the 90s gets it.  Similary, there were cult movies and dialogues and statements and events people are familiar with. Sometimes when you want to drive home a point, these analogies come in handy.  According to me, this is one of the toughest leaps in training people who are from a different culture.  But now, over the last few years, with the fragmentation of content and the things people watch and relate to and recollect, this corpus is shrinking. There are audiences who swear by GoT while there are others that GoT even exists. Ditto for comics, bollywood, hollywood, classical music, sports, fitness and hobbies. There is almost no "mainstream culture".  Of course there is,  it is just tough to define it in a way that everybody in the room relates to it.  And as w

 Many of us have an aspersion to networking and networkers. As do I. Some years ago, in one of my conversations while taking over a new role, I was asked to network. Given my reluctance to network, I redefined it in my head. I redefined networking as "meeting for work" or "create work and a necessity to meet". Networking (or the lack of it) continued to haunt me when I was working a consultant. Until I came upon the Giver/Taker/Matcher framework of Adam Grant. The motto of networking is to network without networking. Or in other words, networking without expectation of anything. Or in other words, be a giver to your network and watch it grow.  Over the last few months, I have given my time for coaching, brainstorming discussions, reading articles or CVs, connecting job seekers to companies (and vice versa), made a course for an educational institution, engaged on panel discussions with students, worked on organizing an event. And within the company, worked on projec

 Many years back I was (as usual) breathlessly presenting an idea to a colleague. I was relatively new in the firm and I thought I had found something interesting. The colleague listened to it calmly and said, "This is such a great idea, but hey, I have just submitted a proposal for exactly this to the boss." I was disheartened and stopped working on the idea.  Time passed and every time I spoke to the colleague about the idea - it was always round the corner. In fact it was round the corner till the time I quit. That was when I read the story of cookie-licking . This is a slightly old blog - it is all of 13 odd years old, but give it a read.  So, this colleague was indulging in cookie-licking by preventing my team from working on this idea. And as time passed, I discovered that the said colleague had many licked cookies and yet, no cookie was ever eaten.  Thoughts as I learnt that one of those initiatives was still "just around the corner"

A s I read Leadership BS - I found myself agreeing to many of the points raised by James Pfeffer. The first thing was the use of inspiration,  the second is an over focus on charisma (or executive presence); the fact that many consultants are only trainers, not practitioners. For trainings(I have had many clients tell me - I want you to inspire the team) of which I am not a great fan of - I believe inspiration is more a personal journey and people get inspired by different things in different ways. So, if your training program promises to be inspirational, you are probably being led up for short term feel good but long term zero utility value.  For those who of you who know me and have attended my trainings, I rarely, if ever use examples or stories like Steve Jobs (or <insert favourite tech tycoon names>) . The only place I do use is to share an example of say, first principle thinking. Else I believe that those are stories anyone can read in books and you need a trainer to repe

Continuing from Leadership BS  Why do leaders think they are leaders? Once you attend leadership programs workshop, read it, see it, talk about it - you end up believing you are doing all of it - while you are not doing it in reality.  And leaders begin believe their own story. And this happens not just to leaders, happens to athletes, businessmen, artists and so on... And they begin to believe that they are infallible and then boom! So, how to ensure a reality check? 

In Leadership BS - this is the authors  take on what is wrong with the leadership industry. It is 1, well intentioned, values laden. 2, set of prescriptions - lots of shoulds and oughts. 3, that are mostly not representative of most people in leadership roles and 4 are recommendations that are almost certainly not implementable and may be fundamentally misguided.  In which case, what should a training program look like? 1. Assessments, observations, honest feedback (the most difficult part in my view). This is difficult because unless observations are unbiased and feedback is honest (best from peers) this cannot happen. Also leaders are leaders - people do not share honest feedback to leaders for a variety of reasons. Assessments are also expensive - so often they are the first thing that is ditched (second being the next one) 2. Lots of practice. That comees by investing in long term behaviour change (the second most difficult thing) It is difficult because of budgets and time constra

I was reading "How Innovation Works" by Matt Ridley . And in that he asks a question - what came first - the moon landing or baggage with wheels? You will be surprised to know that it was the former. The reasons for baggage not having wheels are many - from the travel pattern to the design of travel areas to the demography of travel - but whatever it is, many a times, there is a particular time that an innovation takes root - and some ideas are simply ahead of their time. This was a fascinating story and there were others from olden to modern times. One of the myths about innovation is the flash of insight that changes everything. While that flash does happen and you might get that insight or that brilliant idea - from there to actually making, selling and creating an impact are a far longer road. And the history of innovation has repeatedly proven that innovation is a long and often difficult process. Innovations and innovators build from each other (and rightly so), jump di

 It was a summer afternoon and it was my vacation between two semesters. What better to do than to sleep. But that was not to be.  While I was asleep, one of those "survey" takers had landed at my doorstep. The survey was for some upcoming cosmetic cream launch or something. Survey duly completed, my mother became curious. She asked the boy, "Who are you? How come you are doing this job? Are you studying?" The boy told her how he was in college, but he was using this vacation as a way to earn, learn and gain some experience.  And she told him, "I also have a person like this here, but he is sleeping. Give me the address, he will also come from tomorrow" And thus it was, that my afternoon reverie was broken - with an earful about how college students are being so resourceful and how I, as a college student was lazy. And that I have to show up at 9 at this place the next day since my mother had promised that boy that I would come.  Thus, I landed up next day

Once upon a time, i was tasked with running a newsletter and this was being run by someone else - but somehow the issues never came out. I said, sure and took over the newsletter team. Called for a few meetings, but hardly anybody turned up. And then I asked the one or two people who regularly turned up and then it struck me... I met all the "committee members" 1 on 1 and asked them are they here because of the love of writing or because their managers sent them. Most of them had no love of writing - they were there because someone asked them to be on the committee. I then gave them a choice - no repercussions, you can leave this committee.  Most did. Two stayed back. And we managed to bring out a couple of issues. After that we sent an mail - Would you like to join this newsletter team? With a few fun lines thrown in. In a week we got another 5 people who were there because they liked writing. And then the newsletter never missed an issue! A very similar experience to the ti

We upgraded our washing machine. After nearly a decade and a half or thereabouts. For good measure, we purchased the same brand and roughly the same capacity - since, well, we were used to the machine and as change averse as we are when it comes to washing clothes, we decided to stick to the brand. But little did we realise that the world has changed. From simple washing machines to fuzzy washing machines - nowadays they also use AI and IoT - to wash clothes. I think by the time the next generation of machines hit the market, we will have to offer it crypto coins, biometric scanners and use blockchain to identify the clothes and modes.  Jokes apart, after using it for a few days, I am fairly convinced, washing machine designers do not use the washing machines they designed.  The washing machine does not allow me to put wet clothes into it. Why do I put wet clothes, you ask? (Because I am a user and I have my quirks). But rational explanation - Some times clothes need to be scrubbed bef

 I have three or four subscription programs of ecom sites. I wont name them here, but this is just my reflection after I cancelled one and decided to see how long I can live without a subscription program and some of my thoughts post that.  The moment I have a subscription program - my purchase from the entity goes up. And some of these entities also show you how much you have "saved" and that makes me purchase even more. And not in a binge purchase mode - but the fact that you have subscribed makes you rationalise the ordering in your head. I have already paid for it and they are offering me free/overnight/fast delivery, so I need to order that much to make up for it or it is paid for anyhow.  It obviously locks me up from having to try anything new - because I have paid for one and the second one will probably charge me more. And with all that, is there a significant value add? Possibly nothing that I can discern. One of these programs came for review. (By the way, one of t

 I recently read a report on the future of l&d and I must I am disappointed. To sum up, here were the broad points.  Digital learning will grow:  My take: Yes, but getting access to good content is more and more difficult. Companies want to sell you a billion licences. Employees want learning only at the point where they need it and dont want to waste time searching through dozens on videos, learning and unlearning digital frameworks. So, digital learning will grow - but where is the quality?  In future I hope, Digital learning is relevant, shorter (minus the preambles), crisp and very very context specific. I personally think companies are better off investing in making their own content especially if the content has to be repeated - standard frameworks, relevant to the values and so on.  L&D will be key to talent retention: My take: Not in India. Not in tech. I cant think where else. L&D was never and is never the key to talent retention, except in L&D itself. Compani

 There are series and there are series. One particular series that caught my attention is Thermae Novae and its unique premise. You can read up to see what that premise is and all that, but I liked the juxtaposition of two things that would never imagine to come up with a something totally different.  The imagination, the execution, the premise, the creativity - all blew me away.  As you might imagine, many series are like many other series. And once there is a trendsetter, it is tough to think beyond that. So, after Apollo 13, many space sci-fi's are an enhanced version of the first movie (which is as close as it was to reality). After Sherlock Holmes (or Poirot) - many others are just versions. Ditto Lord of the rings. And I am sure you can think of many more.  This one (atleast from my limited knowledge) is a break out. Enjoying it!

Ever since our house discovered Wordle, there is a family ritual. Each day, we solve the clues independently. Until now, I am the only one who has a loss to his name. The others have an unbeaten winning streak. Why is solving wordle so good from a psychological perspective? You get a boost - I solved something, I overcame a challenge There is a social angle - you share with each other It is not too much - the time investment is a maximum of 10 minutes There is no race - there is only wordle a day - unless you want to try out the numerous clones it has spawned. It is just enough Except on rare occasions, failure rate is low And in the 10 minutes, the brain is sufficiently challenged! Thats a nice dopamine boost.

 For those of you who know me, I have had a rather zig zag career.  And found my (current) calling in learning and development, innovation and game design. There is a single thread that ties it all together - which is the creativity process and problem solving - which if you narrow down what I really like to do. Creatively solve problems.  In this process I have learnt several other things - game design principles, leadership development, training, coaching and then some. I remain a fan of business and ideas. And I am often a brainstormer for hire - people and companies talk to me when they want ideas.  And yet, I also feel that most of my ideas are not necessarily original. I just join the dots differently - and most of those dots are already out there.  And thats when in a conversation with a designer, I came across this word - Multipotentiality. Now I dont know if that is indeed me or not, but it made me think enough to write this out. And that led me to this talk on the topic by Em

I have coached quite a few people of different age groups, experience levels and standing in life. One thing I find common is how much underplay their own uniqueness/strength. This is the -tva suffix of Sanskrit - which signifies "-ness". This is hard to explain and I probably will attempt to do so at some time.  People often either underplay themselves or do not see their own strength - which is so visible to you as a coach/manager/mentor/teacer/guide. Of course, your job is enable them to see it and then they realise it works and it becomes a Eureka moment. Again, they may or may not take it directly - they go through a process of discounting it or telling themselves, "This is no good" or some version of the imposter syndrone. But the process of seeing your client/friend go through the journey to realise it is an satisfying moment...

Its been a few months since the wordle craze took over. The beauty and the simplicity and the "limit" of the game and the sharing have all contributed to the popularity of the game. We all play it at home and share our scores - plus we share it with a few wordle friends.  And now there are clones of it - Nerdle, Stackle, Tamil Wordle, Worldle, Word master and so on and many others I dont know of. Where were these ideas till now? Probably in peoples heads - but ideas which never came out. And that is often how it is with ideas. One idea opens up the proverbial floodgates. On the other hand - in a limitless world of word games or other games that want you to do things endlessly - Wordle wants you to something in a limited way. Just one thing. Just once a day. And thats how the pendulum swings. 

 We replaced our washing machine after 15 odd years. In those 15 years, we had used exactly one setting of the machine. Everything else was pointless (and not for lack of exploring).  The older one had 4 options. This one has 8.  Water level options are the same though (I suspect you cant do much with it) - there seems to be a mapping of the level to the wash program - I havent cracked it yet. But the automatic function has been messing up things. It apparently weighs the load and then decides - but almost always its decisions seem to be wrong with the result that the clothes were not washed properly.  The beeps of the older machine were different - this one sounds odd (for now) We are still getting used to this machine.  So, ultimately, it is a washing machine. What would make it more user friendly? (No, please dont think IOT and app driven sms, notifications for a wash). I somehow feel it can be far more intuitive.  Clothes are X. Water level has to be Y (X and a little more) so that

Today I was listening to someone talk. The topic of was the future of work in a post pandemic world.  What was striking that the leader was saying the right things - yet nothing was strikingly new. It was what everyone has been saying on Linkedin or in any other report. And that led me to think - given that there is the internet and what people write typically and know as typical - it is very easy to believe that "you know everything" because everybody knows it and believes it to be  true.  To find original thought, you have to go beyond that. Else you will be taken by surprise when a different thought comes along. Or caught unawares when the market moves.  Sometimes our confidence in what we know is foolhardly  (this was written when the pandemic had just made an appearance) and will prevent us from seeing beyond what we know. So, at every point, how do we ask this question of ourselves? The title of the post is a question that is ostensibly asked by Jeff Bezos at interviews

Microlearning by itself is pointless. Unless micro learning is preceded by skill building, supplemented by opportunities to practice in a safe space with opportunities to receive feedback, microlearning is about as effective as watching ads. If content has to be more and more condensed because peoples attention spans are reducing, then Netflix would not be making series, people would not be playing games for long hours. That is an engagement or interest question . So, if your content is not good enough or your learners do not find it interesting enough, well, you have to solve for that first.  Learning metrics will not give you causation by and large. By and large it will be correlational. As an L&D professional, your job is to build better correlational metrics. Going after causation is not going to work. Investment in content platforms almost always will not give you great returns or great adoption. Especially if you are a start up. So invest wisely. Unless, of course, you have m

Probably the best book I read this year - User Friendly by Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant. The book traces the journey of how the focus on user friendly interfaces, products, design thinking, watching the user in their natural habit - all of this - evolved.  Part history, part story - it takes us closer to the pioneers of the field, who am sure, most of us did not know. It also takes us into some of the crucial moments that made it happen.  If you are a fan of Design Thinking or work on something for your users (which is true for almost all of us), this is a must read.  Somehow missed posting this when I had read it back in November

 Recently a friend sent a small video he had created with the caption, "I cant believe I created this". I opened the video and it was a nice video with text, images and a simple background score. He had created a small clipping of the Bhagavad Gita. And he wanted someone to create the video - but he created it on Canva and was thoroughly pleased with the effort. This is why Canva is so loved. It makes you feel that you can design your folder, brochure, ppt, video - you name it. The free version is so generous - it is possibly the most generous app - and it makes you feel that design is accessible, affordable and captures your unique voice.  Ideally if you are building something, you want the users to feel the way they feel after they use Canva. That satisfying feeling when a painter takes two steps back from the canvas, admires her work and says "I did that".  Canva makes users feel they are designers. They can do it. It is easy. It is unique. And of course, it capt

I am somewhere in the last stages of designing a game. I have been in the last stages for 3 months now. But each time I see it with a fresh pair of eyes (of my users or my collaborators), it is excruciatingly tough to change what I knew or thought I always knew. Over 20 playtests with approx 80-100 folks and about a 100 odd hours of testing and iteration led us to keep seeing thing that were blind to us. For instance, a design which I thought was working well is now being comprehended in a different way. In order to make that right, I have had to change my thought/approach and come at it from a new lens.  We made many changes as we engaged with users and bit by bit the change has happened. And yes, we could see the improvement of the way the users engaged in the next test. Colours had to be changed. Text. Visuals. Rules. We had to simplify things. We had to explain things we thought were obvious. And things which we thought were difficult - users wanted a degree of complexity as well.

 Sure, I am late for this story - but it so happened that the nephews were playing a tiny match somewhere in a small ground in a small suburb and he shared me a link to see the scores. And I was blown away and thats how I stumbled onto cricheroes.  Servicing a niche community via an app is nothing new - indeed almost every app serves a specific niche, but this one enables cricketers.  In their own words. " Today any team taking part in any cricket game anywhere in the world can score their games on the CricHeroes app. In any kind of match — school, community, corporate, with leather, tennis or any other kind of ball, from 24 Parganas to Zurich." [ Article here ] So imagine you are playing this obscure cricket match - you can share it with anyone and feel like a big player (among other things). A perfect way of understanding a tiny slice of the world and making something that all users (the entire ecosystem) loves.  

Continuing from the previous post... I have been often been labelled as a "creative" person. And I have firmly believed that I am not someone who is artistically creative or someone who has so called original thoughts. I believe (with good reason) that my creative outputs are a function of joining dots that are non obvious.  I read a lot, gather tons of information and sometimes in that pot-pourri ideas emerge which are not obvious to others.  Is this the only way it works - I dont know - this is just my view or my own confirmation bias. Either way my creativity has not been enough for me to make enough money out of it. It is still at a hobbyish level.  What works for ideas, possibly works for opinions as well.  That a lot of opinions we hold are not really ours - they are hand me downs. They come from somewhere else. Mostly some person. And nowadays with social media it comes from a specific cluster. So, what is the way out? Critical thinking. Go and read and find out for yo

 I started this book in December and finished it in a few days. One of the key arguments of this book is that a lot of what we think of as our "desires" are mimetic behaviour. We want something because someone else is doing it. Think of it as imitation.  Most of the phenomenon of marketing is all about subtle or latent imitation. Social media is all about mimetic behaviour -  considering that everybody's lovely lives are put out on display. The author argues that social media has suddenly made the entire world much more suspectible to being caught in this trap.  Think influencer marketing. Or advertisement. That is still in your face - but a lot of other desires are latent - we dont realise why we want what we want. There is a virtuous circle of mimetic behaviour and a vicious circle of mimetic behaviour. The point is to know which of our desires are actual and which of the are mimetic. And there is no good or bad - the very nature of human existence means we display mime

The switch to virtual training was tough - well managed. To think of an analogy - we managed to score runs on a low scoring pitch and bad light - but there is much work to be done in this space. We are still in Day 1 of virtual training, and possibly trying to map Physical training to virtual modes. More thoughts ( here , here , here and here ) Demand for learning continues to go up. I may personally not like learning as engagement - but companies seek learning as engagement, learning as culture, learning as skill building, learning as talent management. So, more power to those who are in these spaces. Indian content is still not there yet I feel. My own book was received fairly well . So again, a space of opportunity and much more. And I am not talking about Indian models - just content optimised for India without the usual biases. I really wonder what will happen to big content providers who sell "licences" or what makes them survive so far? There are newer business models

 The Hanyama puzzle is a puzzle I have been looking in vain to lay my hands on. Finally thanks to a friend, we got our first Hanyama puzzle. The image in blue is what is written on it. The puzzle offers no solution, except asking to work with your logic and intuition. Sure, you can search on youtube and crack it, but the kids are at it so far. One has been cracked thanks to one fellows intuition. The second one has been dissembled thanks to one persons perseverance - but it awaits reassembly.  The second image is the image of the Exploding Kittens rulebook. Earlier, in the pre-internet days, one had to read through the rule books and understand a game. Not any more. Youtube has videos by the makers and the players explaining the game. But I suppose one has to still have a rulebook, so the game has the rulebook with this message on it.