Serendipity and Learning

 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.  

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...

India has so many monuments that one spend a lifetime seeing them and still have a few left to see. Monuments, temples, sites, geographical wonders - there is a rich treasure trove for anyone willing to explore. This one is about Aurangabad - Ajanta and Ellora to be specific. We started with Ajanta - which is a spectacular sight whether you see it from the view point on the top or you go cave by cave and wonder at both the genius, artistry and rigor of the humans who did this for hundreds of years. Going over the caves, takes the good part of a day at a leisurely pace and it is a place one can spend weeks getting into nuances. And this - after a significant level of destruction. One can just about visualize what the original works might have looked like. And if Ajanta blows your mind away, Ellora takes you to another level. Specifically the Kailasnath temple. Imagine that someone decided to carve down (yes, down) a mountain - from the top and imagined a temple while carving it dow...

During our generation, our parents coped with the advent of the washing machine. Why washing machine and why not TV or refrigerator or Internet? Because the washing machine made them do a particular chore differently. Clothes which were hitherto washed by hand had to be washed by a machine. They were not sure if this was good or bad. There were rumours that clothes would be damaged by them. There were rumours that people died because of washing machines. There was of course proof that washing machines were not cleaning clothes as good their maids would. All in all it was a difficult transition. Washing machines saved time. And also saved water - by and large - if used in the right load and configuration. But the quality of the work was still suspect. Most people figured that it worked and in a generation, people adapted it. Now, this generation (as much as they consider themselves progressive as compared to the previous generation, like every other generation), is facing the same ...

Bhujia Barons is a book on the Haldirams story. Haldirams is among the foremost name in Indian friend snacks and has made a name for itself in the past few years. Prior to Haldirams, there were no major nationwide 'namkeen' brands in India - and it was mostly serviced by local small businesses. Perhaps it is timing or their marketing astuteness they were ready when the Indian supermarket boom happened. It is not that they were the first snacks in the market, but they have created a category for themselves and are a leader of the snacks market in India. And their entry and success have prompted many a small and big player into the traditional snack market in India. They created a market which not many people realised existed - right under their noses. What I liked about the story was, about the founder was just one of the snack makers in Bikaner - a place which, now, like then was a place for traditional namkeens. The story of many other namkeen makers would not have been v...

I was talking to a friend who does a lot of work in the Diversity and Inclusivity space and she mentioned to me that a senior executive from a company (MNC) stated "All this diversity work we do here - where is India in it?" This is something I have experienced throughout my working career and now even more so as I interact with companies of different backgrounds. Not one company that I have come across is 'Indian' or has anything Indian. Be it start up, tech firm or captive. Yes, meeting rooms may be named after freedom fighters or Indian rivers or they may celebrate Indian festivals or wear traditional clothes a few times a year or they may have a sculpture in their lobby, but in general, we shy away from anything Indian. If at all there is any reference, it is fairly self deprecatory or apologetic. And I love that question posed by the senior executive. And it is a very good question to ask yourself as you put together your shining new diversity program. Is ...

I started reading Driving Honda by Jeffrey Rothfeder.  More about this book soon, but as someone who reads business books - it strikes me that Japanese companies have so much 'Japan' in their culture. Read about any Japanese company and there is so much Japan in it. To a large extent it is because a lot of manufacturing principles that are taken as granted today originated there. Having known and worked with a few companies - the French companies have a bit of France in them, German companies have a lot of Germany in them and American companies have a lot of America in them. But when we read about Indian companies - there is very little India in them. Yes, we have our own 'partha' system. But we have done precious little to make it our own. When I read 'Rokda' (refer earlier post - there definitely was a touch of Indianness in them - but nothing that makes you think.) And this from a nation that has a rich history of philosophy of over a thousand years. ...

Noticed these two ads recently - both on a similar theme. The theme of jugaad:  And the second:   The theme of these ads (and some recurrent ideas - makes you think if it is by the same agency) - is anti-jugaad. Represents a fairly different strain of thought than I have seen in the last many years. The sentiment over the past many years has been largely pro jugaad - where as these ads are anti-jugaad. And that is what the popular sentiment is these days - that while jugaad is good upto a certain extent, the jugaad mentality allows us from seeking long term solutions and instead we end up relying on band-aid solutions. I have seen this clash in organizations. As Indians work more and more with 'anti-jugaad' countries, it is perhaps Indias own evolution into a culture that seeks long term solutions as opposed to quick fixes.

This is in continuation to the previous post. Ask anyone in the Indian software industry - who are nowadays in middle or senior management about their entry in their first project ever or second. Or better still, ask them about their early success? They will all tell you that their success came with a great learning. This was in the days before IT companies discovered training. Prior to organized IT, there was a term in vogue for many IT companies - Bodyshopping. In the early years, both bodyshoppers and IT companies had something in common - that was training - rather the lack of it. And this is also something some training companies cashed in on - but that is not the point of this post. Most of these people were thrown into projects - when their knowledge was barely anything. Or they signed up to take up projects without knowing what they might run into. Most of these companies provided very little organized training - and most of the training they provided was rudimentary. After...