The Architecture of Fear

Why do we buy things we really don't need? Why do we seek control over things and people? Why do we seek predictability in business? Why do we love brands? If wish to answer this 'why' we have to move into the realm of psychology and understand the origins of fear. The more acceptable for fear in the corporate world is 'stress'.

Every Hindu god and goddess raises his or her palm in a gesture which means 'do not be afraid' (a-bhaya), indicating that ancients knew the role of fear in day-to-day life. If there was no fear (bhaya), there would be no hunger or desire (bhook), hence no desire to consume (bhoga). Our desire to consume results in a heavy toll on resources (bali) for which we have to pay a price (karma). Thus fear is the seed of all issues we face in the business world from demand to supply, from transparency to governance. It is fear that shapes our relationship with consumers, auditors, authorities, bosses, processes. Yet, this is not part of business school curriculum. Perhaps because we are over reliant on human reason and forget that humans are essentially not reasonable but rather insecure and frightened. The word fear does not go well with the corporate image of a valorous confident warrior, dressed in a smart black suit, tablet in hand.

Stress or fear can be traced to the first life form (sajiva). Unlike inanimate objects (ajiva) it was determined to survive, fight for its life, avoid death, by seeking nutrition from the earth around. As more life forms emerged, everyone competed for food. Mutation took place and diversity emerged to improve chances of survival. The greatest mutation was the split between life-forms that move (chara) and life-forms that do not move (achara), meaning animals and plants. A plant grows towards food, but it cannot run from predators that feed on it. An animal can run towards food and away from predators. In animals we see the fear inherent in the food chain: the fear of the prey of being hunted and the fear of the predator of starvation. The other fear that is superimposed is that of the pecking order: who will be alpha and hence get access to most food and most mates. The one at the bottom of the pyramid is at a disadvantage, especially the male, who gets least food and probably no mate. Can this be the reason for the aggression seen in men? But humans are the most unique life-form. We have a mind that can imagine (manas) and so we imagine who we are and wonder if others imagine ourselves the same way. This creates anxiety, fear of invalidation. We seek status and justification and most importantly meaning (artha). We seek nourishment for our self-image, and constantly protecting this self-image from rivals and predators. This constitutes our architecture of fear.

It is significant that the word artha-shastra simultaneously means economics (do we generate and distribute enough wealth, income, revenue?), politics (do we get enough power to compete, catch prey, shun predators?), and philosophy (do we know who we really are? do we live meaningful lives?). This was a holistic approach to business and management, restricted not just to making ourselves efficient money-making businesses but locating business in society, and even the cosmos. This is missing in students one finds emerging from the best universities in the world. They are skilled warriors but clueless what are they fighting for. And this cluelessness results in strange, even dangerous behaviour.

Let us take three examples of behaviour found in the corporate world to demonstrate the key role of the fear-seed in business activities:

• Consumers and vendors constantly seek deals and discounts. It makes them feel powerful. Shopping becomes retail therapy, a chance to feel significant in a world that does not care for you. Service providers realise the value of making a customer feeling valuable. Fear is intensified by creating hierarchies amongst customers: you are level 1 customer, level 2 customer or level 3 customer. Depending on the hierarchy you get a different level of service. Your waiting time is less, if you are more loyal.

• A senior manager finds himself, or herself, being continuously judged. The auditors judge the processes he follows. The bosses judge his performance. He is constantly told what he has not achieved and how he is not adequately aligned. He discovers his compensation is never good enough, always lesser than his rivals, and this poor compensation is always rationalised and justified during appraisal time. He is repeatedly told, in quarter after quarter, he has to be better, run faster. He has to stay the ever-hungry predator who is never allowed to rest and play to satisfy the insatiable hunger of the anonymous institutional shareholder.

• A very successful investment banker wonders if people he meets knows how smart. So he buys the best car, the best house, throws the best parties, goes on the finest holidays, brags how he just works for an hour a day, or maybe an hour a week, constantly positioning his brilliance, and even doing charity, because he wants to succeed even in social responsibility. Finally, he starts seeing value in possessing a bathtub made of gold. Or gets a kick in getting freebees like celebrities.

A knowledge of fear is critical in management if one accepts that humans are animals with imagination, who cannot be domesticated using reason. Desire, greed, ambition, control, success, compliance all impact the everyone's architecture of fear. We look at institutions to raise their palm and display the symbol of a-bhaya. Instead their massive size, steel and glass coldness, impersonal business processes, swipe cards and closed circuit TVs only amplify the bhaya.

Source devdutt.com 

More than a clash of cymbals: Making Sense of Indian TV News Channels

They're very shrill, but they're not anchoring TV news. Instead, they're critics sharply criticising television discussions for giving shrill thrills whenever Pakistan fires at India or a politician crosses an ethical LoC. As TV anchors prepare arsenals, critics also craft lofty columns about Outdoor Broadcast vans winging it to the borders or wars raging inside newscasters' heads. They thus reveal how they're stuck at a centuries-old version of Indian news, unable to understand powerful new changes underway.

For such critics, news still lingers somewhere in the good old days between Doordarshan and AIR, where it was read out to placid listeners, and views were a one-sided affair. Even when there were two speakers to tango, they either agreed or civilly agreed to disagree. Nothing could be more civil, in fact, except perhaps a chat over cheese toast and chai at a club where you rang a little bell for a refill.

In the 1990s, when non-government TV news emerged, reportage grew more hectic but analyses felt the same. Government views were presented as fait accompli, politicians and anchors looked cosier-than-thou while daily events were treated as an amiable wrangle over an invisible gin.

Today's 'shrill' TV news shatters that clubby calm. With its furious arguments and accusations, direct insults and cutting responses, its blood pressure, scowls and tears, it shreds the warm 'ideological quilt' Slavoj Zizek describes. It bridges the gap between metropolitan leaders and citizens across this vast land. And it emphasises the one element traditionally erased from Indian news — emotion.

From the ancient myth of Sanjay live-streaming the Maha-bharata battle, to modern milestones from Bhakra Nangal to Bollywood, the telling of Indian news set itself on an air-waved version of the Westminster model — calm and steady, whilst side-stepping the latter's insights. Our model snuggled easily into the familiar gurukul, the lazy lecture hall, the seminary of yawns, where audiences simply heard and the speaker never once said, the nation wants to know.

But modern TV news insists on this and thus becomes the shrill but vibrant beast it is, rushing to all corners of stories, perhaps not pausing long and deep enough, but certainly giving you a clue as to what lies where. Its energy surprised even Amartya Sen recently, the Nobel laureate confronted by his economics on live TV, multiple analysts offering versions and views, cutting into each other and Sen simultaneously. Such discussions make the ancestors of Sen's own argumentative Indian, debating din-e-elahi in palatial Fatehpur Sikri or reflecting on life under the shade of a Bodhi tree, look just that — ancestral.

For today's 'shrill' TV news has understood something its critics haven't. India is aspiring and not just to buy designer shoes and emulate the powerful, but also to access news that truly empowers ordinary lives. With a sudden profusion of media, India's citizen wants to know everything, and not for vicari-ous thrills.

Faced with corruption, ineptitude and criminality, the citizen wants to know how to live with dignity and hope. She wants to draw courage from others and offer sustenance to them too. She wants to connect to a community bound by middle-class ideals, which, in the previous obsession with patricians and proletariats, was completely overlooked.

And living in an interconnected world, where American drones, Chinese dolls and EU visas impact her life, she wants to know exactly how India's policies are made. Old TV discussions, involving chatty camaraderie, don't touch this need but 'shrill' TV news, with daily stamina and occasional skill, presents emotions, ideals and demands that do.

Yet critics claim events are pumped up for decibels to follow suit. They couldn't be more cynical or wrong — the shocked public protests following the Nirbhaya gang rape, the frustration over Pakistan's border-line madness, or the support to Anna Hazare's anti-corruption movement weren't spurred on by TV. These emotions — disappointment, grief, hope — exist tangibly around us. Smart TV simply picks up on this pulse and gets its act together, presenting an emotional nation inside a studio.

Against a backdrop where mandarins and manholes both impact lives, a shrill TV show doesn't reflect its creators' lack of imagination or their ratings race. It reflects the far greater failures of politicians, bureaucrats and public services — everyone taxpayers pay — to do their job. Why quibble at righteous indignation there?

Thus, an OB van becomes the opposite of a red-beacon car, its earnestness a contrast to the shiny pomposity of those paid to serve. The proliferation of shrill TV is much more than Indian media adopting loud, pushy Ame-ricana over polished, restrained Britannica — it is ordinary India reshaping its own democratic space, giving voice to emotions birthed from politics, posing loud questions and demanding answers after 66 patient years.

This is also the acknowledgment that 'news' is simply the opera of our collective life, its drama reflecting our beauty and tragedies, our chaos and brilliance. It is this opera that has changed from muted and mundane to shrill and surprising. The nation's volume has indeed shot up and with good cause. As Pierre Bourdieu writes, the most successful censorship gives voice to people who have nothing to say except what is expected of them — quietly at that.

Source: http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Doctor-in-the-House/entry/more-than-a-clash-of-cymbals

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Aseem Seth - Unmistakably speaking  of , without naming, my channel http://www.timesnow.tv/ ;)

Protect yourself by Juggle-Bandhi : Jug Suraiya's blog-The Times Of India

Jug Suraiya, one of the Top Editors at my newspaper, has a wonderful way of highlighting really disturbing issues in a humorous manner - I was particularly moved by this post of his, so i re-blog it here.

Protect yourself

Your local government school has no teachers, textbooks or even a blackboard? No problem. Send your children to a private school. No sarkari hospital or even basic health centre where you live? So go to a private hospital or clinic. No electricity or municipal water in your house? Buy a generator and send for a water tanker.

Step by step, the Indian state has been giving up its most basic duties and obligations to its citizens and leaving them no option but to fend for themselves: you either pay a private agency for a service which by rights the sarkar should provide, or you learn to live without it.

The latest service which is the fundamental duty of the state to provide and which it seems to be handing over to those who can afford to pay for it is law and order.

The Supreme Court has questioned the government's agreement to provide a Z-class category security cover of 33 Central Reserve Police Force personnel to Mukesh Ambani and his family for the payment of 15 lakh a month. "If you provide security (to the common man instead), five- and six-year-olds will not be raped," Justice G S Singhvi said, referring to the horrifying case of a child who has been sexually violated and mutilated in a public toilet in Delhi at about the same time as a CRPF contingent was preparing to move into Antilia, the Ambani's super high-rise home in Mumbai.

While the court's obvious distress about this state of affairs is laudable, it is also belated. Politically-connected individuals – including many who have officially retired or withdrawn from public life, and who face no obvious threat from terrorists or other criminals – have long and routinely been given state protection while the so-called 'common citizen' – for whose benefit and behalf the state is supposed to exist, to begin with – is left helpless.The anomaly – of the state protecting itself and its own representatives, such as politicians and officials, while leaving ordinary citizens dangerously vulnerable – was brought tragically to the forefront by the lethal gang rape of the young woman that the TOI named Nirbhaya. Had police surveillance and protection in Delhi been more equitably distributed between so-called VVIPs and the common folk – the aam admi, or the 'mango people' as one such VVIP disdainfully called them – Nirbhaya might well have been safe and alive today.

The first duty of a state, any state, to its citizens is that of protection. The state is Hobbes's 'Leviathan', to which individuals submit their freedom in return for security from the lawlessness and disorder of nature where life is 'nasty, brutish and short'. A state which, by implication, tells its citizens to protect themselves as best as they can because it can no longer ensure their safety – unless they are rich enough, or have enough political clout, to pay for it, one way or another – ceases to have the right to call itself a legitimate state.

It is often said that there are two Indias: the India of the haves and that of the have-nots. Similarly, we have those who are clearly above the law, which they treat as any other purchasable commodity. And there are those who remain below the law, a luxury which they cannot afford to buy.

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Source: http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/jugglebandhi/entry/protect-yourself

Understanding GEN Y Millennials

Times have changed, to see how simply turn on the TV. The shows that were watched in 70's and 80's were about "values" they were more focused on family, friendships, hard work and character.

Year 2013, now we tune into Desperate Housewives, Who wants to marry a Millionaire and American Idol. These shows tend to involve lies, deceit and quick, easy routes to fame and fortune.

The same is the case with our workforce:

The unasked questions on the minds of every baby boomer and members of Generation X in the workplace today about Generation Y is:

·         Who are these strange creatures?

·         How do you deal with them?

·         And, how can they possibly become an asset to an organization?

Look around your office. Managers are struggling to keep their high-performing talent within the ranks, especially the up-and-coming young superstars from Generation Y.

You may know them as the Generation Why, the Trophy Generation, Gen Y, or Millennials. They are the generation born between 1978 and 1995. This generation has completely infiltrated your organization. They come with their own unique traits that, when harnessed correctly, can produce incredible results.

But not everyone sees it that way.

By 2020, these young hires will make up 60 percent of the workforce.  They are rapidly climbing the corporate ladder, and much has been made of the supposedly needy mindset they bring to the workplace—and how their predecessors, the Baby Boomers, must change their approach if they want to accommodate these over-coddled upstarts.

They've got the attitude, they've got the ambition, they've got the BlackBerry in one hand and the half-café mocha latte in the other. Welcome to the world of Generation Y.

GEN Y , Also known as the Net Generation, Millennials, iGeneration, Second Baby Boom, Google Generation, and the Cynical Generation, currently are the most influential consumer and employee group in the world.

Although they bring energy and innovation to the workplace, the Generation Y is challenging to manage.

Millennials are creating a change in how work gets done, as they work more in teams and use more technology. Their social mindset, however, is also a significant factor. As Leigh Buchanon writes in Meet the Millennials, "One of the characteristics of Millennials, besides the fact that they are masters of digital communication, is that they are primed to do well by doing good. Almost 70 percent say that giving back and being civically engaged are their highest priorities."

Coupled with the socially minded millennial comes their desire to be creative. Millennials have grown up in a time where information has become available instantly. Through a Google or Wikipedia search, answers to even quite complicated questions can be found. As such, millennials have developed into a group that wants to work on new and tough problems, and ones that require creative solutions.

In a 2009 article by Tamara Erickson, a millennial who had been struggling in her role, admitted to peers that, "I guess I just expected that I would get to act on more of my ideas, and that the higher ups here would have figured out by now that the model's changing." (Gen Y in the Workforce, Tamara Erickson, Harvard Business Review, February 2009)

They appreciate clear direction, demand immediate feedback on performance, expect to be Consulted and included in management decisions, and demand constant intellectual challenge.

In India, they make up the more than half of the population. Despite the large potential workforce, not all are 'employment ready' and so their talents are in short supply.

The Generation Y in India is a remarkable group that is ambitious, optimistic, embraces change and have a clear sense of where they are headed. Most are 'entrepreneurial and business savvy, as well as technologically capable and connected.

With about half of India's one billion people under the age of 25, Generation Y in India is the world's largest. Positioned in a time of exciting and rapid economic growth in the country, they are keen to participate in the country's future and success. The country's recent parliament elections saw a huge turnout of Generation Y population, demonstrating their ambition to take the country forward.

Gen Ys expect challenging work assignments, accelerated career growth, socially responsible workplaces, flexible work environments, freedom, and collaboration and innovation from their jobs and employers.

Highly competitive, Generation Y is more than ever before seeking higher education and landing jobs in multi-national companies in areas such as IT, back office operations, media, strategy and management positions. With opportunities aplenty in the current economy, they are also job-hopping, something not seen in their parents' generation.

There are certainly a lot of negative feelings about this young generation and the impacts they are having on companies. From their use of social media, loyalty to their friends over the organization and their need to be heard (even during meetings on topics they have little experience with), this generation is certainly different.

Trying to change a generation is akin to changing the direction of the mighty Mississippi: It's not going to happen. Instead of trying to force behaviour changes think about how you are managing your Gen Y employees.

The time has come to think differently, act differently and start re-focusing on long-term success. Today's forward-thinking businesses are repositioning themselves….don't be left behind…

With a better understanding of the Gen Y mindset which drives behaviour, business can better attract, manage and engage this generation both as customers and as staff.

Source: email forward

Replacing the Performance Appraisal | LinkedIn

I found this to be useful, so I share it -

My prior post pointed out the deleterious effects of the annual performance appraisal and how they don't actually increase performance. So, what should replace them?

Although I will attempt to provide a superior replacement, I think the premise of the question is flawed. After all, you don't ask the firemen who saved your home what they intend to replace the fire with.
That said, there are three strategic resources to replace the performance appraisal system:

1. Key Predictive Indicators for Knowledge Workers
2. The Manager's Letter
3. After-Action Reviews

Key Predictive Indicators for Knowledge Workers

A critical distinction is being made between a key performance indicator and a key predictive indicator. The former is merely a measurement—such as the number of patents filed, or new clients—but lacks a falsifiable theory.
The latter, by contrast, is a measurement, or judgment, guided by a theory, which can be tested and refined, in order to explain, prescribe, or predict. It is the search for cause and effect.

Knowledge work is not defined by quantity, but quality; not by its costs, but results. The traditional tools of measurement need to be replaced by judgment. And there is a difference between a measurement and a judgment: a measurement requires only a scale; a judgment requires wisdom.

So many leaders worry that if they get rid of objective measures, they will introduce subjective bias into the decision-making process. So what? To get rid of bias we would have to give up emotions and discernment, which is too high a price to pay. Neurologist Antonio Damasio has studied brain-damaged patients, demonstrating that without emotion it is impossible to make decisions.

Admittedly, the following KPIs raise rather than answer questions, but at least they raise the right questions. Better to be approximately relevant rather than precisely irrelevant. Enlightened organizations allow their team members to decide which of the following KPIs are most important to track and develop.

I am not suggesting utilizing all of the following KPIs. These are just some of the more effective ones I have seen.

Customer Feedback
What are the customers saying—good and bad—about the team member? Would you trade some efficiency for a team member who was absolutely loved by your customers?

Effective Listening and Communication Skills
It is easier to teach reading and writing, which are solitary undertakings, than to teach listening and speaking, which always involve human interactions. But how do you measure listening and communication skills?

Risk Taking, Innovation, and Creativity
How often do employees take risks or innovate new ways of doing things for customers or the company?

Knowledge Elicitation
Knowledge elicitation involves educating others so that they are able to generate their own knowledge.

Continuous Learning
What do team members know this year that they did not know last year that makes them more valuable? This is more than simply logging hours in educational courses; it would actually require an attempt to judge what they learned.

One of the objections to investing more in people's education is "they will leave, and possibly become an even stronger competitor." This is no doubt true, although a company faces the risk of their leaving anyway. But what if you do not invest in their education and they stay?

Effective Delegator
Peter Drucker believed that up to one-quarter of the demands on an executive's time could be consigned to the wastebasket without anyone noticing. Does your organization encourage its knowledge workers to become effective delegators?

Pride, Passion, Attitude, and Commitment
If you thought some of these other KPIs were hard to measure, how would you measure pride? Although not a substitute for actual talent, pride in one's work, customers, colleagues, employer, and values are critical to operate with passion and commitment.

High-Satisfaction DayTM

I am indebted to John Heymann, CEO, and his Team at NewLevel Group, a consulting firm located in Napa, California, for this KPI. An HSD is one of those days that convinces you, beyond doubt, why you do what you do.
It could mean landing a new customer, achieving a breakthrough on an existing project, or receiving a heartfelt thank-you from a customer. Sound touchy-feely? John admits that it is. But he also says that the number of HSDs logged into the firm's calendar is a leading indicator—and a barometer—of his firm's morale, culture, and profitability.
We can't measure a doctor's beside manner—it has to be experienced. Efficiency metrics and performance appraisals cannot count all the energy, enthusiasm, and commitment that employees decide not to contribute.

The Manager's Letter

Another practical suggestion to hold people accountable for their future contribution is what Peter Drucker called the manager's letter, as explained in John Flaherty's book, Peter Drucker: Shaping the Managerial Mind:

[Setting objectives] is so important that some of the most effective managers I know go one step further. They have each of their subordinates write a "manager's letter" twice a year. In this letter to his superior, each manager first defines the objectives of his superior's job and of his own job as he sees them. He then sets down the performance standards that he believes are being applied to him. Next, he lists the things he must do himself to attain these goals––and the things within his own unit he considers the major obstacles. He lists the things his superior and the company do that help him and the things that hamper him. Finally, he outlines what he proposes to do during the next year to reach his goals. If his superior accepts this statement, the "manager's letter" becomes the charter under which the manager operates."

Procter & Gamble utilizes what it calls the Work and Development Plan, in lieu of performance appraisals, which lays out the work to be achieved in the upcoming year, how it links to the business plan, the measures and timing for success, and expected results.

So much for the notion that there's no suitable replacement for the performance appraisal. P&G seems to operate quite effectively without them.

After-Action Reviews (AARs)

Reflection without action is passive, but action without reflection is thoughtlessness. Combine experience with reflection, and learning that lasts is the result. What percent of your firm's time is devoted to improving the work, not just doing the work?

The U.S. Army's use of AARs began in 1973, not as a knowledge-management tool but as a method to restore the values, integrity, and accountability that had diminished during the Vietnam War.
Here are the questions you need to ask in each AAR:

• What was supposed to happen?
• What actually happened (the "ground truth")?
• What were the positive and negative factors here?
• What have we learned and how can we do better next time?

The objective is not just to correct things, but rather to correct thinking, as the Army has learned that flawed assumptions are the largest factor in flawed execution—another way of saying there is no good way to execute a bad idea.

The Army also recommends answering the following summary questions to wrap up the AAR:

• What should the organization learn from this experience of what worked and did not work?
• What should be done differently in the future?
• Who needs to know these lessons and conclusions?
• Who will enter these lessons in the knowledge management system, or write the case up for future use?
• Who will bring these lessons into the leadership process for decision-making and planning?

Perfectionist and mechanistic cultures, however, resist this type of candid reflection, as they tend to be intolerant of errors, and mistakes are associated with career risk, not continuous learning.

Confucius said "being ashamed of our mistakes turns them into crimes." The medical world has an appropriate axiom for mistakes made: forgive and remember.

[For more on After-Action Reviews, I highly recommend you read Hope Is Not a Method: What Business Leaders Can Learn from America's Army, by Gordon R. Sullivan and Michael V. Harper].

Not Final Words

Charles Handy, once again, sums it up eloquently in his autobiography, Myself and Other More Important Matters:

Organisations are not machines that can be neatly designed, mapped, measured and controlled. The fact that some particular operations can be and have to be managed in that way has deceived people into thinking that the whole organization is just one super-project. That is what logicians call a category error. For too long management theorists appropriated the language of engineering to describe the way organizations worked. People were human resources, things that could be costed, allocated, controlled and shunted around as the need arose; they were managed, in short. In everyday language it is things that are managed, not people.

"Above all people know instinctively that there has to be trust if any organization is going to work. …Yet organizations need trust if they are not going to clutter themselves up with rules, checks and checkers. Too much time is spent in organizations making sure that what should have happened is happening. If people know what they have to do and are competent to do it, they should be left alone to get on with it."

Ultimately, the purpose of an organization, the intensity of interactions with other intelligent people, along with great ideas, is what attracts and develops talent—not the efficiency of a firm's administrative processes.

One of the beauties of volunteer organizations is that they take advantage of people's gifts, whereas what we call "systems" and performance appraisals are more concerned with people's limitations.

Why do we continue to let yesterday hold tomorrow hostage with the antiquated annual performance appraisal process that demonstrably doesn't work? Are we not capable of doing better?

Source:
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130303194245-38251380-replacing-the-performance-appraisal

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Aseem Seth

The Death of a Brand - RIP Indiatimes Mail

Dear Indiatimes Mail users, We wish to inform our Indiatimes.com Email subscribers that Indiatimes.com Email Service ("Service") will be discontinued and shall be permanently shut down with effect from 18th February, 2013 - 12 P.M(Indian Standard Time). You will no longer be able to send or receive mails or access your account for the purpose of reading mail and or transfer any data (i.e. emails, tasks, documents, appointments, and/or contacts) currently saved in your account post 18th February, 2013 - 12 P.M(Indian Standard Time). You can however continue to log in to all Times Internet Limited network sites using your Indiatimes.com id. You are advised to immediately download all your emails/contents/data from your Indiatimes mailbox via IMAP at the earliest before 18th February, 2013 - 12 P.M (Indian Standard Time), failing which Times Internet Limited shall not be responsible and / or liable to provide you the content of your mailbox as the same would stand deleted. You are further notified to immediately change your login credentials on networks where you have provided Indiatimes.com Email as your primary/authentication or alternate id. You are advised to visit our FAQ page or write to us at mailsupport@indiatimes.com anytime till 18th February, 2013 12 PM (Indian Standard Time) for assisting you through the aforementioned processes. Please note that under no circumstances, would Times Internet Limited and its affiliates & group companies & associates, be liable and/or responsible, at any time, for any actual or threatened losses, claims, damages, whether direct, indirect, punitive, incidental, special, consequential damages , including, without limitation for any loss of information, non retrieval or loss of data, business interruption or arising out of the inability of users/subscribers to use Indiatimes.com email services. We would like to thank you for the immense support extended to us, through the years. Warm Regards, Indiatimes Email Customer Services 04th December, 2012

The Businessman and the Fisherman

An American businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied only a little while. The American then asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs.

The American then asked, but what do you do with the rest of your time?

The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, señor."

The American scoffed, "I am a Wharton MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But señor, how long will this all take?"

To which the American replied, "15-20 years."

"But what then, señor?"

The American laughed and said, That's the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."

"Millions, señor? Then what?"

The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

Source: http://withfriendship.com/jokes/america/american-businessman.php

A Succinct Apology for all that Ails India

"I apologise for the Partition of India; for the lingering Jammu and Kashmir issue and for not resolving it at Simla in 1972; I apologise for India spurning the offer to join the Security Council as a permanent member when it was offered at the time of independence; for the defeat of India in the 1962 war with China and the vexed boundary problem; I apologise for the Hindu rate of growth of 3% for the first three decades of Independence and for all the poverty, deprivation and inequality; I apologise for the massacre of Sikhs in the country in 1984; I apologise for the more recent events like the Army Chief's age row; for the Antrix-Devas deal and for punishing scientists of the eminence of Madhavan Nair without giving them an opportunity for explanation; for the PMO not keeping the PM informed of the 2G scam; for the Supreme Court cancelling the 2G licences; for the CWG scam, the Air India scam, the KG Basin scam, the Adarsh Society scam and for all the other scams for which this government is being wrongly blamed. 

I apologise for the policy paralysis in the government, for the rising fiscal and current account deficits, for the slowing down of the economy. "

Source

Fwd: Thank you from the Wikimedia Foundation

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sue Gardner <donate@wikimedia.org>
Date: Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 12:31 PM
Subject: Thank you from the Wikimedia Foundation
To: Aseem Seth <aseemiphone@gmail.com>

Dear Aseem,

You are amazing, thank you so much for donating to the Wikimedia Foundation!

This is how we pay our bills -- it's people like you, giving five
dollars, twenty dollars, a hundred dollars. My favourite donation last
year was five pounds from a little girl in England, who had persuaded
her parents to let her donate her allowance. It's people like you,
joining with that girl, who make it possible for Wikipedia to continue
providing free, easy access to unbiased information, for everyone
around the world. For everyone who helps pay for it, and for those who
can't afford to help. Thank you so much.

I know it's easy to ignore our appeals, and I'm glad that you didn't.
From me, and from the tens of thousands of volunteers who write
Wikipedia: thank you for helping us make the world a better place. We
will use your money carefully, and I thank you for your trust in us.

Thanks,
Sue Gardner
Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director

For your records: Your donation on 2011-12-26 was INR XXXXX.
This letter may serve as a record of your donation. No goods or
services were provided, in whole or in part, for this contribution.
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit charitable corporation
with 501(c)(3) tax exempt status in the United States. Our address is
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tax-exempt number: 20-0049703

UPDATE - 03 Jan 2012

Thank you from Executive Director, Sue Gardner
Thank you.
We've taken down our fundraising banners, because we’ve hit our target. Thanks to you. Over the past few months, more than one million people have come together from all over the world to keep Wikipedia and its sister sites alive and flourishing for another year.

Your support is how we pay our bills. People like you, giving five dollars, twenty dollars, a hundred dollars. Thank you for helping us.

We’re the #5 most-popular site in the world --- we operate on a tiny fraction of the resources of any other top site. We will use your money carefully and well, I promise you.

For everyone who helps pay for Wikipedia and all the Wikimedia projects, and for those who can't afford to help -- thank you so much for making the world a better place.

Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation 

The Sense of Service and the Civil Servant

Can the civil servant ever feel the sense of service that he is supposed to feel in serving the public?

From my modest experience and empirical knowledge, the answers seems to be an emphatic no.

In India the term "Public Servants" implies the way those not in the government (the public)  are viewed - (The) Public (are our) Servants and the two classes of humanity... those in the government, and their servants (the public).

Take the case of the Telecom Sector, MTNL/BSNL the pan-India telecom service providers run by the government.

Granted, there are some technological issues with Landlines with regards to -
1) Last mile connectivity - the copper wire to the home, long turn around times
2) The Analogue signal - No SMS or USSD services,  Prone to static noise

But the problem is exacerbated by the lack of transparency and customer-centricity of these Governmental  service providers.

Unfortunately, they are still stuck in the "Licence Raj" mindset of a couple of decades ago, when they had a monopoly and customers would stand in long queues, braving the hellish heat and rain to be able to communicate via AG Bell's 1876 invention

Till the advent of mobility very recently, this (and the public) served them well, but like Hosni Mubarak, their false sense of security has lulled them into complacency. With heightened competition, from the private sector one would have expected, some form of improvement in ATLEAST the attitude if not the QoS of these National Service Providers.

But that is just not to be, so the exodus continues unabated, with their employee's persistent time-warped perception which I experienced first hand, as I attempted in vain to have my landline rectified.

Winding my way through the maze of red tape and mind-numbing bureaucracy, these "Masters of all the Survey" are not willing to tell you their name, let alone help, or even do their assigned jobs.

It is easy to fool the blind, which is what the public was prior to private enterprise, we didn't know any better, so were satsified... but having experienced superior support from mobile phone companies, the appearance of the landline appears, torn, tattered and disheveled - definitely not something we want hanging around our homes.

This leads me to the much often heard phrase, governments should administrate corporates but Not run corporations.

Granted the government continues to make blustering attempts to improve the efficiency of these bodies (flogging dead horses), currently there are talks of a superfluous attempt to merge them into one entity.

For sure, this government run teleco will survive (thanks to your taxes), but not in the hyper competitivenes of the urban landscape, but on the fringes, the outskirts and inaccessible or economically unfeasible,  remote areas.

The million dollar question is ... how long will these areas remain remote?

End Note -  No wonder MTNL calls it "SURRENDERING" your connection... it's when you give up fighting with them! ROFLOL

Social on Mobile - The Next Wave in Communications or Revolutions?

These are Social & Mobile REVOLUTIONS that cause Revolutions

This post takes inspiration from where where my earlier post left off

There are two 'new' frontiers in the world of communications today - Mobile and Social, these two spaces are primarily a continuum and the overlap,

While the former  is receiving a huge amount of  public attention both solicited and unsolicited with the 2G Scam, and other skeletons crawling out of the woodwork. It is the impact of Social that is seen on the Regimes in the Middle East, starting with the Story of a Tunisian fruitseller, to the fall of the Egyptian & Libyan  Dictators, to the Rise of Anna Hazare.

"You can buy my hands, but have to WIN my heart" seems to be the dictum of today's youth, and to win it is difficult to say the least.

With the pace of change increasing exponentially, what took microsoft 20 years to accomplish, took google 10 and facebook about 3 years.

When seen in the light of my ealier post "Is it a Bird? Is it a Plane? Noooo! It’s a CELLPHONE!" - and the fact that our mobile phones today have as more computing power than Yuri Gagarin's Space Ship!


How many people would have been able to predict  or foresee such leaps in science & technology, such revolutions?

Do your reach for your phone or paper first thing in the morning?

Like our parents waited eagerly for their morning fix of  coffee & newspaper (to the point that most of you would recall the withdrawal and how uneasy they felt when the paper didn't arrive on time!)

Today youth don't wait for the newspaper to get the news, the first thing they reach for is their smartphone to read the latest tweets - Tweets & RSS Feeds are replacing print for today's youth.

As discussed earlier  The Paradigm Shift from the Ear to the Eye, the mobile phone basic functionality is now visual rather than auditory  - The Twitter Stream, The Facebook Update, The YouTube Video are the New HEADLINES - personalized, customized and delivered in Real Time.

Traditional Media like TV programmes today have have twitter id's (@thenewshour, @face_the_nation), Print publications have online editions  (TimesOfIndia.com),  E-Paper editions and RSS feeds, Radio programmes run facebook contests & campaigns.

The psyche of the youth is so ingrained with Social Media, so pervasive is this technology, that Scientific Studies have actually  found that Youngsters feel disoriented, when they are disconnected  (withdawal akin to dad's morning grumblings when the paper didn't come ;-)

This obviously can not be a good thing... or can it?

The impact of Social Media is seen on the Regimes in the Middle East & Asia, starting with the Story of a Tunisian fruitseller, to the fall of the Egyptian & Libyan  Dictators, to the Rise of Anna Hazare.

"When I first saw that he was getting in, I thought, 'Well, this has got to be a joke,'" the Boone-based evangelist told ABC's Christiane Amanpour. "But the more you listen to him, the more you say to yourself, 'You know? Maybe the guy's right.' -  Franklin Graham

Apple doesn't get social? Wait a minute... think again...

Meet Apple’s secret family: The people Steve Jobs wishes you were  


- by Electricpig staff 

Steve Jobs is disappointed in you. Maybe he always will be. No matter how many iMacs, iPads and iPhones fill your home, and it’s all because you’re not one of these people.

Meet Apple’s secret family. They’re the finely honed faces of Apple’s marketing drive. Used to humanise Apple products, they’re seemingly fictional, and completely perfect in every way. Except, well, they’re not.

After consulting branding and social media experts, and even a prominent psychologist, we’ve uncovered a few chinks in the armour of Apple’s marketing machine. Read on, meet the family, and we’ll show how they highlight weaknesses in Cupertino’s otherwise faultless promotional prowess.

Apple’s family: The perfect adverts

Take a looksee at Apple’s marketing material and you’ll see countless happy faces beaming back at you. But those pictures don’t get there by accident, and neither does the wording Apple uses. Those faces are carefully chosen, and the language used to communicate with gadget fans even more so.

Nowhere is this clearer than in its TV ads for the iPhone 4. It was while watching the one titled ‘Every’ that we noticed a clutch of characters on-screen, showing up in a twitter feed perused by the faceless user. After a bit of digging, Apple’s perfect family is emerging. Even more intriguingly, you can meet them yourself: their profiles are still active on Twitter.

Say hello to the family
Neatly inter-linked as both followers and followees, Apple’s family is a tight-knit group. There don’t seem to be any strangers in their midst. To save you wading through all their profiles in detail though (there are at least six of them, and seven more that are mysteriously closed to public viewing), let us introduce you…

Kevin Dolan
Kevin Dolan is the only member of Apple’s Stepford creations that isn’t comprehensively dull. He likes sushi, but is a bit cack handed on the keyboard. Apple didn’t quite get the hip guy-with-an-afro thing down to a tee though, as Kev tweets quite a lot of bizarre updates, including “What upzzzz”. No, us neither.
He’s hard working though, or maybe hard playing… on September 2nd last yearhe pulled the second of two consecutive all-nighters. He’s a wild one.

Katharine Johnson
There’s no polite way to phrase this: Kate’s a bit of a dullard. She tweets that she’s “excited to see her sister” and that she ran 10k. Repeatedly. Although we wonder what she was talking about on September 2nd when she tweeted: “did anyone just feel that?” Maybe it was Kevin slamming the door after that second all-nighter…

Janielle Penner
Meet Janielle Penner. She’s an incredibly light tweeter, apparently because she’s too busy pulling a string of “all nighters“. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Either Apple’s marketers are getting lazy and hammering the copy and paste buttons, or her mate Kevin is a bad influence. Our money is on both: She’s even copied Kevin’s wording exactly.

Pete Figel
Pete’s a ladies man, only sending messages to female contacts and, seemingly trying to schmooze them at the same time. Sure Kate, Pete is wishing you well on your midterms, but what’s he really after? And does he know we can all see through his thinly veiled chat-up routine on a public Twitter page?

Alex Newson
Alex is a sports fan, and he’s also an optimist. Another light tweeter, posting just one message on September 2nd (just as Katharine felt the earth move and Kevin was stumbling back from an all-nighter). Still, at least he sees the sunnier side of life… Is that something Apple explicitly requires from its family members? We wouldn’t be surprised…

Julie Stumbaugh
Julie is an oddity. She seems to share the same appearance as two other people in Apple’s family. She, Gage Bock and Sarah Crosswell all look identical. Are there triplets in Apple’s idealised clan? Let’s hope not all of them are dreaming of Alex Newson.

And meet the black sheep…
There are also the following Twitter users linked to the accounts above, as friends, followers or followees. They, however, have their tweets protected. Still, we can tell they’re mostly the work of Apple’s marketers: some of them share the same profile pictures as our Apple family above.

Anne Oburgh
Sarah Crosswell (who now seems to have been deleted)
Brandon McGraw (who has the same profile picture as Alex Newson)
Todd Hind
Gareth Coffey (he’s in Sydney, but that’s all we know)
Melina Polly
Gage Bock (who has the same profile picture as Sarah Crosswell and Julie Stumbaugh)

As you can see, Apple’s built quite an intricate group, with different genders, ethnicities and interests. The question then, is why? Simply to plug gaps in the twitter app on its advert? It seems doubtful, as one of our experts explains later on, that could have easily been done by a designer. And why leave the profiles open, or even public at all?

The family psychoanalysed

To get to the bottom of things, we consulted a range of experts. The first is Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a Reader in Psychology at Goldsmiths and the founder of test.mi-id.com, a social networking site that explores the connections between personality and musical preferences. He’s a renowned expert on personality, intelligence, creativity, social networking and consumer behaviour. You might also have seen him pop up on Big Brother, analysing the contestants.

We asked Dr Chamorro-Premuzic what he made of Apple’s family, and his response blew us away: “The key question is whether we (the audience) can successfully pick psychological cues (like personality, preferences, values, and brand identity) from a photograph. And the answer is astonishing: even the average layperson can read the social, emotional, and personal cues displayed by pictures of strangers, with the same accuracy as a trained psychologist!”

So those faces you’ve just met aren’t random at all, or even picked on their good looks alone. They’re designed to make you think happy thoughts about Apple’s products.

“The reason why marketeers have picked up on this is because we are living in the era of “conversational capital”, where word of mouth and “you-vertising” are the preferred mechanisms for brand and product promotion,” Dr Chamorro-Premuzic explains.

“[The Apple family] all refer to people who are young, urban, trendy, and also quite unique (there comes the Sushi). They are saying “we embrace individuality” (and Twitter is an individual platform) whilst focusing on a few rather obvious psycho-graphic and demographic types.”

Still not convinced a photo and a few words can convey that much meaning to you, even in a few seconds of an iPhone ad? Think again. Dr Chamorro-Premuzic explains Apple’s marketers will most likely have tested the profiles listed above before placing them into their commercials.

“The best way to analyse whether their strategy works is to have 20 or 30 naive viewers rate each profile in terms of certain personality characteristics and values (how smart, how friendly, how creative, etc), and then aggregate their perceived personality profiles for each trait… this is what their bosses probably did already (even if intuitively, as marketing often proceeds that way.)”

A brand in microcosm

So now we know the messages Apple’s family are designed to convey about themselves, what do they tell us about the Apple brand? We asked Jonathan Gabay, a creative branding exert, and founder of Brand Forensics to give us his take on the Apple family.

One of the first things that Gabay pointed out was that while the Apple family’s profile pictures span a multitude of skin tones and hair colour, they don’t cover a variety of age groups. Everyone in the Apple family is, unsurprisingly, young and beautiful.

“They’re perfectly framed faces,” he said. “That’s interesting. Look at the people who are following you [on Twitter] – not many of them have full, perfectly framed faces… They’re too perfect.

“It’s like the Tommy Hilfiger family – they’re all just so cool and good looking. It’s one thing to be aspirational but it’s got to be something that people can achieve. I find myself asking: do these people look genuine? Do they seem genuine?”

Scrutinising the Apple family in detail, Gabay singled out Kevn Dolan for critisism. His tweets of “what upzzzz!” and “lalala” triggered Gabay to claim: “The trouble with “What Upzzz” is that even for an old fart like me it’s outdated. We don’t say that anymore. It might seem I’m being facetious, but if it’s been carefully planned, then why is he saying something like that?”
Gabay agreed that when it comes to the detail, the Apple family is out of character with Cupertino’s usually pin sharp branding. Kevin Dolan tweets “lalala” twice, and if we’re honest his profile is bizarre. Is it an advert for Apple’s brand? Hardly. We’d even suggest it gives out a negative message: it looks lazy.

In general, the tweets of the Apple family are badly thought out, repetitive, and often don’t make sense. Even purely as a tool to create promo shots for the iPhone, Apple is shooting itself in the foot.

As Gabay explains: “Apple should be giving [its family] something more interesting to say.” This is a key point – shouldn’t Apple be leveraging these Twitter feeds better, and shouldn’t the tweets be more cohesive? Have we found the one area where Apple has done a half-baked job of its branding? 

What social media means to Steve Jobs

It should come as no surprise that the social media experts we spoke to weren’t too impressed with Apple’s fake Twitter avatars and sporadic updates.

“Aside from being lame, these fake accounts are OK as they’re not promoting Apple’s product,” said social media strategist Aurélien Fonteneau. “Nevertheless, they should update the bios on these accounts and explain that they are run by Apple for advertising purposes.”

But the decision to leave its profiles live mystified our experts. “I really don’t understand why they’re creating fake accounts when they could simply ask an in-house designer to create fake Twitter pages,” Fonteneau said.

“But I guess that this “silence” strategy is part of Apple’s arrogant communication strategy. And they’ve proved in the past that their responding process isn’t adapted for social media,” he added, citing Apple’s handling of the iPhone 4 scoop by Gizmodo, and its fallout.

And Fonteneau wasn’t alone in criticising Apple’s social media strategy. “Apple doesn’t understand social,” says Farhan Rehman, a social media strategist at London agency Total Media, and advisor to the Social Media Week London event taking place this month.
“The people that put that together don’t understand social or how it’s being used by people. All they’re trying to do is show the features of their technology by showing something that looks human, but isn’t real.

“There was a huge opportunity there that they completely did not use, in terms of promoting real people, either celebrity, or causes… Potentially if Apple had chosen to use that advertising space for something other than self promotion, they could have orchestrated it with a couple of partnerships, and constructed the conversation between accounts that were actually being used.”

Rehman concedes that fake accounts work in the context of the print and video ads they appear in, but says Apple’s missing the point and failing to demonstrate an implicit awareness of the technology it is promoting: “OK, yes people might say things like this, it works for the purpose of their advert. But in terms of anybody who is curious and wants to know a bit more…it talks again about the disconnect Apple has with how people use social media.”

Apple’s family: What’s next?

We know what you really want to know from Apple’s family though. It’s not to do with sushi, or family, or pulling all-nighters. You want to know when the iPhone 5 and iPad 2 will be here, and you’re in luck: There are some clues about what’s coming next from Apple hidden deep within their behaviour.

Kevin Dolan and Gage Bock’s accounts have been discussing concert photos with each other a lot, but curiously those pictures keep disappearing. That could tie in with the rumours that the next generation of iOS devices will come with new photo sharing smarts to hijack the buzz from services like Instagram and Foursquare.

Likewise, the family’s fitness fixations could indicate more running and fitness features coming in future Apple devices, in the wake of Nike+. Many of the Apple family talk about their running exploits and boast about them to each other. Most family members bang out 10k runs with startling regularity. There’s no space for slackers obviously.
There are also many, many shy members of the Apple family who are on Twitter, but lurking behind locked accounts. Is that because they’re discussing or testing Twitter-enabled features Apple would rather we didn’t peek at?

Those Apple family members with open accounts have found themselves racking up followers despite their low tweet counts, with their composition split between other Apple accounts, confused civilians and that old Twitter reliable: pornbots.

Apple has been here before: The extensive family tree

This isn’t the first time Apple has dabbled with fictional characters, designed to shift units from stockroom shelves. Before the days of Twitter, Kate and John Appleseed paved the way for the Apple family we know today. They’re essentially the grandparents of Kevin Dolan and all his pals, and occasionally make guest appearances too. More recently, we’ve seen Jane Appleseed pop up on iPhone 4 promo shots.

Occasionally, when Apple needs someone to call in an ad, or to feature in a FaceTime still, John, Kate and Jane are usually its go-to folks.

The real John Appleseed (aka Johnny Appleseed) was an American pioneer who introduced apple trees to large swathes of Ohio, Illinois and Indiana. He became legendary for his generosity and, most importantly for Apple, the symbolic power he gave the fruit.

While John Appleseed’s ancestry is deep rooted in American history, the identity of other members of the Apple family isn’t as clear. Back in 2007 journalist Erica Sadun claimed that she had traced Apple’s family naming source to a small Australian High School in New South Wales. She found a host of names featured in Apple adverts there. There was a John Appleseed, a Shaun David Taylor and a Sharon Anne Diversi whose name she claimed Apple had turned into Anna Haro.

However, that theory doesn’t necessarily hold water, and there’s every likelihood that the current and past members of the Apple family (besides good ol’ John Appleseed) get their names from a random name generator.

Interestingly, Apple has been creating fully functioning accounts for John Appleseed. When the first generation iPhone launched in 2007, it was possible to call John Appleseed’s number and receive a recorded message that said: “Hello, you’ve reached the brand new iPhone of John Appleseed.” You were then pointed back to Apple.com. It seems John Appleseed is as serious about his privacy as Steve Jobs who, incidentally, isn’t on Twitter. Unless he’s Pete Figel in disguise.


Reporting by James Holland, Ben Sillis, Jennifer Allan and Mic Wrigh