Month: May 2009

I wrote this in August 2004 looking back to 1994: ” Ten years apart, I had spent two summers trying to imagine a very different future from the one we saw around us.”

In India, there is what I call, a “rainbow of revolutions” – seven of them happening simultaneously: computing, as PCs become cheaper and proliferate; mobile communications, as cellphones materialise everywhere around us creating a ubiquitous envelope of connectivity; software, as open-source weaves its magic and helps construct the real-time world; broadband, as high-speed networks lurk around the corner; the Internet, as access to it becomes faster, better and cheaper; content, with everything that we need to know becoming available in a few clicks; and commerce, with the way we buy and sell coming in for an upheaval.

The developed world saw these revolutions happen sequentially. Emerging markets like India will see all of these happen in parallel, creating a marvellous amplifier of rapid change and development. The challenge is for us to catalyse and capitalise on all that we see happening around us.

This week’s links:

• Your Phone: by Scott Adams. “I was thinking about how different our lives will be as cell phone technology continues to improve. Someday your phone will be your only computer, and your home will have a screen in every room that senses the proximity of any phone that approaches.”
• Muhammad Yunus: Lifting People Worldwide out of Poverty: From Knowledge@Wharton.
• A Local Revolution: by Paul Graham. “The first [idea] is that startups may represent a new economic phase, on the scale of the Industrial Revolution…The second idea is that startups are a type of business that flourishes in certain places that specialize in it—that Silicon Valley specializes in startups in the same way Los Angeles specializes in movies, or New York in finance.”
• Default Behavior and the Internet Operating System: by Fred Wilson. “Don’t make a frontal assault on a default service. Build or finance a service that can become a new default function in the Internet operating system. And if you have a shot at becoming one of these default functions, invest all of your time and energy attaining and solidifying that default position before working on monetizing it.”
• Harnessing India’s Technological Potential: by Rajeev Mantri on Wall Street Journal’s India site. “India missed the information technology and electronics manufacturing wave. If India is to transform itself from an economy driven by agriculture and services to one with high-technology industry and manufacturing as its bedrock, it should put in place effective policies to ride the new Schumpeterian wave of creative destruction driven by physical sciences-based technology.”

We (Bhavana, Abhishek and I) will be going to London for a vacation in the second week of June. (This is my third visit to London — had gone there once as part of an SOTC package tour in 1981, and then a few years ago with Bhavana.)

I wanted to get inputs on the following:

• place to stay:  we need a service apartment (with a kitchen) in central London. One reco that has come is Citadines (South Kensington or Trafalgar properties). Budget: 100-150 pounds per night. Should be close to the Tube.
• restaurants: good Indian restaurants, which will serve Jain food
• things to see and do: Abhishek is 4 years. So, things will revolve around him. Some recos: Legoland, London Zoo, Hamley’s toy shop, Thomas Land (the train engines place).
• bookshops – for me!

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Last week, I was on my way to Chennai by the early morning Jet flight. I reach the airport and find this incredibly long queue at 5:45 am to get inside. It took 15 minutes to just go in – past the security check of the ticket and ID. I gave the lady at the Jet check-in counter a piece of my mind — this just be a daily occurrence, and there is no reason why it cannot be solved by adding more people at the entrance. The gentleman who was behind me did the same.

Then, after going through security, we got into the bus to take us to the aircraft. It turned out that the aircraft was parked at the international bay, which meant a 20-minute bus ride. I couldn’t help commenting that it is hard to imagine they did not have a slot near the domestic terminal for a 6:45 am flight. The same gentleman also felt quite strongly about this issue. Others in the bus didn’t seem to mind.

And then I started staring at the gentleman. He reminded me of someone from my past life, someone from the time spent in IIT. I am not normally the kind of person to walk up to a person and ask their name, but something made me do it. I asked him, “Ravi?” And almost instantly came the reply, “Rajesh?” And then we hugged each other right there in the bus!

We had known each other quite well in IIT since both of us were active on the cultural scene. And then life took us our own ways. And here we were, meeting after 21 years! We had so much to catch up on!

And we also couldn’t help but comment that there is something about the IIT system which made us the only two “cribbus”about the way things are!

It has been a fascinating exercise reading the diversity of op-eds over the past few months in the context of the elections and the unfolding political landscape. I have also developed a liking for some of the regular columnists:

• Swapan Dasgupta (Sunday Times of India, Pioneer)
• R Jagannathan (DNA)
• Shekhar Gupta (Indian Express)
• MJ Akbar (Sunday Times of India, Pioneer)
• Tavleen Singh (Indian Express)

Each one has their own perspective which they weave into a compelling argument. I like to read different opinions on the same topics so one gets a wider set of inputs to make a call on the issues involved where one stands. Among the international writers, my two favourites are both from the New York Times: David Brooks and Thomas Friedman.

During the elections, I was struck by the lack of databases and real-world linkages. Such tools could be great assets for both campaigning and direct marketing. I think of this as a “mirror world”– a virtual replica of the real world along multiple dimensions:

• start with maps
• add a layer of establishments (buildings, schools, retail outlets, roads, etc.)
• overlay this with the voter database that one can get from the Election Commissio. The voter database has names of people, their addresses, gender and age.
• add the actual voting numbers based on the data published from the EC post-election (can also incorporate historical data to get trends; need to take into account the delimitation)
• integrate the socio-demographic and development data that is available from census, various government sites (and collated by independent companies)
• finally, buy contacts lists of people with information of their digital identity (email IDs, mobile numbers)
• this database can then be continuously updated based on user interactions, thus enhancing people profiles

The work to be done needs to be done at 3 levels:

• data acquisition
• software development for ingesting the data
• creating analytics tools on the data for decision-making

Such a database would be a very powerful marketing tool. For example, a new multiplex can now reach out to people within a 5 kilometre radius via email or SMS (provided people are not registered on the Do Not Call registry). There are many such applications that I can think of.

Anyone done/doing this, or interested in putting this together?

PS: Credit needs to be given to David Gelernter for his book of the same name (Mirror Worlds). 

Atanu Dey gifted Abhishek (on his fourth birthday) the most amazing book I have ever come across —  “The Ultimate Alphabet” by Mike Wilks (Wikipedia – Amazon). It is a collection of 26 paintings, one for each letter of the alphabet. Each painting comprises many objects starting with the specific letter – the A painting has 361 objects beginning with that letter, while S has 1,234. You have to see it to believe it! A book worth having for kids of any age.

I wrote this in Jan 2004 about the state of Indian portals then:

It is time for us to rethink the Indian content space. As telecom competition makes connectivity cheaper and available at higher speeds, as the cost of access devices goes down, there will be a need for innovative content and community services which can bring the fizz back. Ready for version 2.0 (or is it 3.0) of the Indian dotcoms – or have we already gone to sleep?

…An always-on, broadband access infrastructure and affordable access devices are two of the three legs that the Indian Internet infrastructure needs to be built on. The third is the availability of content, software and services which can attract users and make the Internet a key part of their lives. This is where visible innovation has stagnated, with the current art being the web browser, websites that we visit and search engines that we scour to get to the websites. What is needed is a New Information Platform.

I was reminded of this when a journalist called me up recently to talk about IndiaWorld and the state of Internet portals in India. The Great Indian Portal that becomes a utility in our daily lives is yet to be created.

This week’s links:

• The Rise of Social Distribution Networks: by John Borthwick on Silicon Alley Insider.  “Today there seems to be a new distribution model that is emerging.   One that is based on people’s ability to publically syndicate and distribute messages — aka content — in an open manner.    This has been a part of the internet since day one — yet now its emerging in a different form — it’s not pages, it’s streams, its social and so its syndication.    The tools serve to produce, consume, amplify and filter the stream.”
• Steve Ballmer Interview: in The New York Times. “I want the culture of your company to be more efficient…That’s the direction that every business leader is steering their company culture toward right now. Given the current economic climate and the uncertainty about how long the recession will last, this is a time when organizations need to do more with less.”
• The Lost Art of Reading Aloud: in The New York Times. “Reading aloud recaptures the physicality of words. To read with your lungs and diaphragm, with your tongue and lips, is very different than reading with your eyes alone. The language becomes a part of the body, which is why there is always a curious tenderness, almost an erotic quality, in those 18th- and 19th-century literary scenes where a book is being read aloud in mixed company. The words are not mere words. They are the breath and mind, perhaps even the soul, of the person who is reading.”
• Conducting the Indian Election: Sheela Bhatt of Rediff talks to Election Commissioner S Y Quarishi. “India’s election is not just an electoral exercise, but an event of such a magnitude that will never be seen in the world.”
• How David Beats Goliath: by Malcolm Gladwell. “David can beat Goliath by substituting effort for ability—and substituting effort for ability turns out to be a winning formula for underdogs in all walks of life.”

Every crisis presents an opportunity, and that is what needs to be thought of now. BJP at 116 is on a road downwards even though the decline this time was only 21 seats. The time to rethink and reinvent is now. There needs to be a sense of urgency.

The BJP now faces a clear fork in the road. Either it has to become more Hindu-oriented and thus aim to win the majority Hindu vote, or it needs to discard its religious overtones and become a clear right of centre party. The former is not going to be easy since that is where the roots of the party lie, and the latter will end up making it look almost like a clone of the Congress without any cadre support.

The BJP needs to take the moderate approach with a tinge of inclusive cultural nationalism. It needs to come out with a strong statement that India belongs to all, and not just the Hindus. It needs to take on the “secular” word everytime it is mentioned in the context of the Congress. It needs to remove the aura of untouchability that has been created – for some voters and potential allies. This is perhaps the most important challenge facing the leadership. BJP needs to combine its good governance message with a strong message about an inclusive India to start re-connecting to the growing Middle India, because that has historically been the BJP’s strength.

There are other things that the BJP needs to start working on:

1. The BJP must forget about allies in most states and build on its own. It has to start thinking of itself as a real, national party with a presence of its own in every constituency of India. Allies are ephemeral. Even if they fight elections together, there is no guarantee that they will stay on after the elections. Also, with allies, the party is hobbled in building its own base.  Orissa was a classic case and Bihar could head the same way next year when assembly elections take place.
2. Establish a presence in the four key states where it doesn’t exist – West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. In the two Left states of WB and Kerala, it has a 7-10% vote share which can be grown. Mamta is not really the exciting alternative that the people of WB are looking for.
3. Focus on Uttar Pradesh to build the base. This is going to be hard, and needs a leader and lot of work on the ground. A lot of time has been lost. But the good news is that the politics of UP is shifting from caste and identity to aspirations (as Shekhar Gupta also wrote in his recent Indian Express article).
4. BJP needs to bring out its next-gen leadership – and develop leaders at various levels (local, state, national). The old guard needs to hand the torch and to the next level, and mentor it. This includes building leaders from minority communities and establishing a dialogue with them with the central message being around governance and development.
5. Effort needs to be also made to ensure nurturing of good candidates who do work at the grassroots, engage and connect with the voters constantly, and are seen as honest and genuine. The MPs who have won must keep the dialogue going on a formal basis with the voters.
6. The BJP needs to play the role of a constructive opposition. It should appoint a “shadow cabinet” so it can start training and showcasing its leaders, and also keeping the real spirit of Parliamentary democracy and debate alive.
7. It has to build an Institutional memory. The data, learning and contacts from this election must be leveraged.
8. The BJP needs to start a membership and funds drive to collect small amounts of money from a lot of people, rather than just relying on the big donors (many of whom are going to be disappointed and frustrated with the result). With a small contribution will come the offer of help from the people, and that is why this is so important.

Most important, the BJP needs a strong leader who is given a freehand for the next five years. This is no time for consensus thinking which will put the party in a state of analysis paralysis, or create factions. The greater goal for the country must override individual ambitions.