My Scratchpad

Dear Mr Shiv Sainik,

I trust you have read Rajdeep Sardesai’s open letter to Mr Uddhav Thakeray doing the rounds on the internet. Frankly, for two reasons I won’t be surprised if you haven’t. One, it is in English. And two, it is extremely well-written and very thought–provoking. If you haven’t read it I suggest you ask your children to translate it for you. Like the offspring of most Shiv Sainiks I presume yours too are studying in the most elitist of convent schools. But first, let me introduce myself. I am just a Stupid Common Man. Have you seen the film ‘A Wednesday’? You must, even though it is in Hindi. Nasiruddin Shah’s soliloquy at the end of the film where he spits out his pent-up anger against the system and all politicians will make your hair stand on end. He calls himself just a Stupid Common Man. That’s what I am too, as are the faceless thousands and thousands of us in this city. And like the Stupid Common Man, we are a very angry lot today; angry at your silly and immature antics, and angry at the city being held to ransom by your aging leader and his coterie of Yes Men. I have tried to understand what your core values are, but I am stumped! Let me spell out why. Your agitation against Shah Rukh Khan, Rahul Gandhi, Mukesh Ambani and Sachin Tendulkar turned out to be as riveting as a deflating balloon. Nobody paid heed to your leader’s call, least of all we Bombay manoos who you have turned into a kind of experimental guinea pigs in the political laboratory. What kind of wishy-washy, spineless, sloppy fellows are you! Sorry, Mr Shiv Sainik, the nation did not want an apology from SRK – far from it. They just want good, edge-of-the-seat cricket. And the nation showed what they think of your fading leader by making SRK’s film the biggest grosser in Bollywood. What Rahul G gave you gentlemen was a resounding slap-in-the-face by doing what your leader has never done – Rahul mingled freely with the ordinary manoos in Bombay. Sachin endeared himself to the whole country by proclaiming that he was an Indian first. As for Mukesh Ambani, please await the next chapter. Now let me tell you why we are an angry lot. Your creaky gramophone record about Marathi pride being hurt has ceased to convince us any more. During your current tenure at the BMC, 35 Marathi municipal schools were shut down. Is this your idea of pride? Rahul Bose (I don’t think you gentlemen have even heard of him) in a recent TV interview gave statistics to show that Bombay has already lost out to Delhi in virtually every department of administration. Forget Delhi, it is losing out to Ahmedabad and Hyderabad. Is this your idea of pride? And your flip-flop about allowing the Australians to play in Bombay has many of us in splits. If you are against immigrants, surely you should be supporting racism in Australia! And if you are protesting racism in Oz, does it mean that you have had a change of heart about the North Indians? Is this pride, or total Alzeimeric confusion? Yes, we are angry at your threats to paralyse Bombay at the drop of a sparrow’s droppings. And, more important, we are angry at your wanton destruction of public property. Your loss at successive elections is enough proof of the adage “You can fool some of the people all the time, or all the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time.”    Now let me tell you why some countries are great and the others are not. This will perhaps appeal to you, if you have progressed beyond high school. You have probably heard of a country called USA – it is the most powerful nation in the world today. It is so because of the way it allows the human potential to flower and flourish. Leaders – in politics and in business - in the US come from all parts of the world. If you ever were an avid newspaper reader (real newspapers, not the Saamna variety) you will recall that there was a man called Henry Kissinger. He was a German refugee from the Holocaust, and he became Secretary of State. That Mrs Indira Gandhi gave him a bloody nose during the ’71 war is another story. But let me give you an example that you would probably relate to better. You surely have seen Arnold Schwarzenegger’s films. He flexes his biceps and can put Salman K to shame – iconic and breath-taking stuff for your stone-throwing, public property-destroying foot-soldiers. He migrated from Austria about 40 years ago determined to make it big in the US. Arnold is presently Governor of California. And there are several Indians in Obama’s (he happens to be the President of the US) administration, including a few Marathi manoos (No, Please, Al Gore is NOT a Marathi manoos). And their contribution to American society and economy is just enormous. The point I am making is simply this: you can throw out the ‘outsiders’ only at your economic peril. All along you have been talking only about job reservations. Have you ever given a thought to job creation? Have you ever wondered why very, very few Marathi manoos make it to the IFS, IAS, IRS and the higher echelons of the armed forces? It’s now high time you gave a thought to that, AND DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!! Now try to picture this. Bombay accounts for about 35% of the income tax collections of the country. This you probably know. What you probably do not know is that companies pay income tax in the city where their registered offices are situated. Now just imagine - and please try to do so seriously because we are not talking kaanda bhajiya but real big mega stuff – what would happen if the big 3 suddenly decided to shift their registered offices to Baroda, or Bangalore, or Delhi? Do you recall the downfall of Calcutta when Charu Mazumdar and his naxalite thugs ran amok there? And the ruins of Uganda when Big Boy Idi Amin threw out the Indians? In economic terms it’s called flight of capital. The Tatas called Mamta didi’s bluff and shifted the Nano project lock, stock and barrel to Gujarat. That left Bengal gasping for breath. Mukesh Ambani is already talking of shifting his registered office to Jamnagar . . . I leave the rest to your imagination. And have you ever thought what would happen to Bombay if the film industry, what Bombay is really synonymous with, decided to move to Noida? Sorry for being harsh on you, dear Mr SS, but I am just a Stupid Common Man letting off steam against your apathy, utter lack of vision and foresight, and utter lack of concern for us. Now let’s see what you gentlemen CAN do. You are controlling the BMC for the moment. And I say for the moment because I see the Rahul G tsunami in the distant horizon fast approaching Matoshree. SO IT’S TIME YOU DID SOMETHING FOR BOMBAY! You have until 2012. Merely changing names of cities and roads and monuments, and creating an identity crisis for everybody, will not help. I’ve never heard you gentlemen talk of Urban planning, eliminating corruption, especially in the BMC that you presently control, giving us good roads and footpaths, parks and gardens, upgraded municipal hospitals and schools, uninterrupted water and electricity. All that I’ve heard is the tinkling of shattered glass panes of the IBN Lokmat office, cinema theatres and of bhaiyya-owned taxis, and attacks on Kumar Ketkar. And you gentlemen have woken up to the existence of Vidarbha only when they started demanding a separate state. It just boils down to plain neglect; so much for your oft-touted Marathi pride. This polemics has ensured your survival, but it has not taken you very far. You are fast approaching a dead-end. In fact, when the obituary of the Shiv Sena is written what will be remembered will not be the flyovers you built, but for   Bashing up south Indians, Bashing up north Indians, Digging up cricket pitches Damaging the only world cup trophy brought by Kapil’s Devils, The Enron-Dabhol scandal, The  Michael Jackson fund-raiser and the funds that disappeared, The   Miandad-Supremo camaraderie, Flight of capital and business (Hope you read ET. There must be a Marathi version), But there is hope for you yet. Start talking economics and you may just survive the Rahul Gandhi tsunami. But above all, please read Rajdeep’s mail. If you survive you will have Rajdeep Sardesai to thank.

Yours angrily,

Stupid Common Man

21st Feb 2010.

Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor on Listening to your dreams.

You can change the world during a 30-minute shower. There's something about the hot water flowing over your head that makes what I call the "good part" and the "absent part" of your brain talk to each other. When you stand there with the soap in your hands, you begin to reinvent the soap. You think, I can put this clear soap together with this cream soap... I can make a better soap! Then you think, The shampoo doesn't have very good packaging. The next thing you know, you dream up a cool business idea. You turn off the shower and step one foot out onto the bathmat, then suddenly, you can't remember anything.

[In the shower], your mind, body and spirit are all moving into your subconscious, where you invent new things, solve problems and potentially create opportunities or big ideas. You have to pay attention to your subconscious. Learn to focus on your idea and maintain that idea long enough, so that when you get out of the shower, you're able to capture your idea on a nearby pad of paper.

I keep a pad of paper next to my bed, ready to catch my dreams and ideas. This leads me to a small, but important, life story.

In 1994, I had an ad agency that specialized in recruiting and retaining talent. Our success was built around the concept of creating "big ideas" for our clients. One day, a client said, "No more big ideas. I want a monster idea."

I actually had a dream about a monster idea, a bulletin board system for jobs. Paying attention to my subconscious, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and wrote down much of the interface and the concepts that are still used at Monster today.

Monster.com is now in 25 countries and has become the largest and most popular job search and career management site on the internet. Listen to your subconscious, learn to capture its power, and maybe, just maybe, you'll be the one to come up with the world's next monster idea!

Jeff Taylor is now working on Eons, a web business targeted at the 50- to 100-plus age group.

The entire article is here. One of the best entrepreneurship articles I've come across.

I was running through some articles when I came across something about the relation between reverse innovation and disruptive innovation. Being a marketing enthusiast, it got me thinking, which streamed into me disagreeing too, to some extent. Or more really having second thoughts on the outcome of the concept. 

For starters - Reverse Innovation is an innovation which is taken in and used by developing countries before (if) it is used by the cash rich developed countries. So like when a twitter would not classify as a reverse innovation, a tata nano would.

Disruptive innovation on the other hand gets a little complicated. Imagine a product which has 2 primary features. For example a phone which has 2 features. Feature A --> Ultra super camera. Feature B --> Low Price. Now while most of the world is kicked about Feature A, or the camera, very few are worried about the price. Now from the backdoor slips in a Disruptive innovation. While the current phone focusses on enhancing the camera, and hence catering to the major audience, the disruptive innovation launches a phone which a mediocre camera but an ultra low price, targeting the smaller market share. Slowly, due to technological innovations, R&D, and some super Chinese production, they manage to produce the same camera phone at an ultra low price. Now the audience begins to slip from buying the old phone to the new one, which NOW offers both a super camera, and a terribly low price.

As much as this might make sense, it just forces me to think otherwise. I don’t believe that customer decisions are based on feature comparison parameters alone. It's of course more than that. Why would I be paying so much for a star bucks coffee? I might get a similar coffee at a much cheaper price. But I am paying for it being starbucks right. Not too add star bucks launching an instant coffee, which they claim to be as good as their regular coffee is one of the lamest decisions I’ve come across. Why would I pay for a star bucks brew when your instant is as good? Anyways, going further, when a disruptive innovation is launched, it automatically brands itself to be a cheap product with toned down features. So for me, in my mind, you have blocked the cheap priced - mediocre feature seat. And our mind doesn’t play musical chairs that easily. To get me off that chair and jump up, it’s going to take much more than some music and a lame prize at the end.

Point being - economically it might make sense. But I'd never wish that purchase decisions are based on mere feature comparisons. Its the clever branding, the mega ads, the perceived value that makes the market exciting.

~S

P.S. The original article is here

P.P.S. Reading the HBR (and likes) is sort of therapeutic.

Inspired by "Top Ten Things I Learned About Life from Playing Computer and Video Games" I was excited to add my lifes lessons from Bollywood. I've been bought up on indina cinema, and I thought if I've spent so much time at the cinemas, there is surely something I've taken from it. So here goes.

There are bad days, and most bad days are (seem) long. Good news is, they do get over.

Follow your heart. Eventually, they have to understand you.

When everybody says you not making sense, and it just cant work, you might be cooking up your biggest success.

Contacts and money might get you in the ring, but you fight is backed ONLY by your talent.

It's life. It's alright to fuck up once in a while. We do get second chances

It's never a bad time to break into a song.

Life is unfair. Opportunities are directly proportional to who backs you. Unfortunate, but true.

If you are hot, the world's willing to overlook a lot of what you lack.

Bad guys have fun yes, but suffer eventually. Be good, get the woman and the money.

~S

Situations in life are always binary. They always function on the Base 2 number system of having either a 1 (yes) or a 0 (no). Programmers / Mathematicians could reverse that, but the meaning doesn’t change.

I think most times I tend to presume it’s bigger than that. But stripped down bare, its not. It’ always a 1 or a 0. The problem seldom lies in the multiplicity of choice as much as it lies in making the choice. I’ve seen that with a lot of people too, but I’d rather use this forum to talk about myself. Am I selfish?  YES Am I Narcissistic – NO. Again Binary :-) 

When you sit down and complain about something, there is always an option of making that change. No I don’t mean it in a social sense here. Not that we couldn’t do with some of it though. But yes, I mean in a more selfish manner. When you sit down and complain about how boring my life is and how unfulfilling it is, the option is always there to make that change. Problem arises in making that gear shift. I particularly liked what I read the other day. It said – to get something in life you never had, you have to do something you never did. So true. You wished you had a better car, but the wishing is never going to get it. You have the choice to make that change, do that ‘something’ to bring that change. And yes, it takes time. Sometimes a lot of time. It might take a life style change for some. But it depends on what you are bargaining for right. The best view is always from the peak. And getting to the peak doesn’t happen easily. 

Particularly Indian attitude sometimes gears towards the miracles. I’ve also read a lot about the Secret and how imagining and feeling it in a parallel space translates to surely achieving it – apparently as certain as the law of gravity. I am not sure. It works more on a basic level of keeping you motivated and positive in the times you would most times be otherwise.

Our maths works on Base 10, and we end up studying that for most part of our student life. Choices (like computers) are still primitive though. It’s still black and white. The primary colours are meant for Base 10, and of course we do love a colourful life. But only if we could work them in Base 2, like they are designed, and leave the colours for art. 

~S

Rome wasn’t built in a day apparently, and the same goes with everything I do in life. It takes time, a lot planning (and re-planning), some coffee, for the effect rather than the caffeine in my case, and emotions running through a spin machine running at a few million RPM. Amongst the many ‘Romes’ that I plan on building, the largest and most significant one is reaching my 15’th August… 4’th July if you in states.

Fear / Apprehensions are cyclical in nature. Funny bit – the wheel can be broken. Tough bit – it’s not as easy. Were good things ever easy? Apart from twitter of course, which I am a newbie too. The sweetest part though is once broken, its cant be glued back on. It’s like one of those ‘unbreakable’ things at the toy store.

I’d like to live in a world where I fear nothing. But that really only comes from facing your fear. Once you expose yourself to your greatest fear, it holds no power. So those dinners with 10 people you don’t know and a lot of esoteric jokes, breaking into a dance in the middle of nowhere, losing your dependence on a routine, to even making the first move with the loner at the next table. Do it once, and you can do it again, and again.

Luckily for me, it’s doesn’t take Gandhian measures to build a free life. Its like an internet meme to a great degree. Should hopefully snowball.

So yes, my Romes on its way. Its going to take a lot of time, but what the heck, am chasing my ‘la la’ land 

~S

Lying in the depths of the sea, massive waves crashing on all sides, and engulfed by the wind, the water running into your system, and the fear lurking below you in the unknown depths, its all about survival and making it out of there alive.

Running a start up is something of that sort. Only difference being you don't just want to get out of there, you want to get out of there with the loot. And you want the loot so that you can go out there more effectively, and come out with a bigger loot. And then you send a team, and do the same thing. Over and over again. And then you realize, it's not about the loot that makes you go back there. It is the thrill of going in, accompanied by a lot of factors that force you to go in again. One of the factors being of course your semi risque mind space.

There is so much that goes on in my mind at most times, money is mostly the last, if existent item on the list. Being covered on rediff and suddenly a lot of people tend to believe you make a lot of sense. I want to plan logistics to the minutest detail, and then plan it a little more. GPS needs to be checked and worked on again. Sales calls are in process. And there is so much that is needed to be done. When I sit back on a night like this and think over it, it's not about the money. It never is about the money actually. If it was, I would be doing something else. Is it my semi resque mind set? Am I a fool who loves saying 'i do my own thing'? Am I a passion driven guy who just decided to take the broken road this time. I am not sure.

And btw, doing your own thing doesn't work well with women too. I just read a Paul Graham article, which said exactly that. (Ok, so we establish it's not about the money, and it doesn't work with women - hmm...)

The coffee gets darker (Am a tea drinker. I said that for effect). The beds less used now. My TV misses me. My dvd player is running the same movie for a week now. I pause and play 10 minutes of it. And something kicks me back to the key board.

Yes, the greens are faint. The surprises, well, bright.

~S