Month: February 2003

Workplace Manifesto

Bruce Mau has a nice collection of idead [via Shrikant Patil]. The 3 that I liked:

Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.

Harvest ideas. Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.

Web Services

NYT writes about Web Services:

Web services standards — developed by industry and academic computer scientists — seek to enable machine-to-machine communication, allowing corporate and personal databases to transport information seamlessly. The goal is a new level of computer-mediated automation in business and personal transactions, promising big gains in productivity and convenience.

The race to deliver Web services will shape competition in the computer business over the next several years. And there are broadly two paths: Microsoft on one side and a handful of major software competitors on the other side, including I.B.M., BEA Systems, Sun Microsystems and Oracle.

While the Microsoft approach links Web services technology closely to its operating system, the other camp is putting the technology in a layer of software separate from the operating system, called middleware. That lets it run on a variety of operating systems.

Adds Dave Winer:

Web Services are technology for gluing desktop applications to each other and to centralized servers over the Internet. It’s the next layer on the Web, a little higher level than XML and HTTP (on which it builds). To see the furthest development of Web Services look no further than the weblog world, where new tools are being created in just this model, actually for quite a few years.

NYT’s Aggresive Stance

Stories about the media in the media always make interesting reading, especially if it happens to be about one of your favourite media sources. Ever since I started buying the New York Times regularly during my Columbia Days, I have enjoyed reading the paper. I also subscribed some time ago to the International Herald Tribune (now owned entirely by NYT). The website is a must-read daily. I read recently (I think it was the WSJ) about the NYT planning half-screen-sized ads on their website like what we are used to seeing in magazines.

This WSJ story has more:

For years, the Times was one of the most staid companies in a staid industry. But since Mr. Sulzberger took over in 1997, the Times has learned to throw its weight around. To push its brand overseas, it leaned on an unwilling Washington Post Co. to part with its stake in the International Herald Tribune, a Paris-based paper they had published jointly for more than 30 years. The Times took a tough line with book publisher Random House Inc. and online news service TheStreet.com Inc. to extricate itself from unfavorable relationships. And the Times has thrown sharp elbows in promoting its paper at colleges, irking rival Gannett Co.

Rather than following the traditional newspaper-industry route of protecting its flagship paper from economic swings by acquiring other businesses, Mr. Sulzberger is deploying his company’s brand name more than ever before by means of cable television, book publishing, national newspapering — and now international print journalism. Times executives say they’re trying to make their once-neglected business side the equal of the company’s respected newsroom.

Imagination

As we grow older, we seem to be lose our ability to Imagine. I remember as a child and teenager imaging about the world of the future. Computers. Space. Intelligent Buildings. Robots. I’d listen to programmes on BBC World Service like “Science in Action” and “Discovery” and dream about the future. Somewhere down the line, I’ve stopped doing it. I’ve become too caught up with the present and immediate future.

Which is not right. I need to be thinking more of life and technology 5-10 years out, or even beyond. If I cannot the worlds of tomorrow, how will I work on creating those? I need to free myself up for a few days once in a while to reflect less on the present and more on the future, to get a sense of how all the things that are happening (and not happening) can make a difference.

Perhaps, its the reading which has changed me. Now, more of my time is in shorter chunks which I spend reading more “microcontent”. Its been quite some time since I read science fiction or magazines and sites other than the ones dealing with business, management and technology.

The attention span has reduced, in keeping with the nature of what I am doing. I would not think twice about spending hours listening to radio or while away an afternoon reading a novel. I only managed to read “Lord of the Rings” (for the second time) a year ago because I was sick and in bed for 2 days. Life shouldn’t be like this.

Imagination is our most wonderful asset. Its a pity we make so little use of it. I need to rediscover some part of me that I left behind 20-25 years ago in one corner of this world, and use that as a springboard to let the mind roam ahead free and far away.

TECH TALK: The Rs 5,000 PC Ecosystem: Schools

How can the Rs 5,000 PC (5KPC) make a difference in education? First, well take a look at schools. In India, there are 1.2 million schools. Today, few of these schools have computer labs. The focus of the 5KPC should be to enable the creation of computer labs in every school in every emerging market. By teaching about computers from an early age, we are preparing the next generation from the IT-enabled era. In todays times, it is not good enough to be just literate one need to be computer-literate.

Let us consider the economics. Consider a school with 1,000 children. The first objective should be to setup a computer lab with 10 computers. While the ratio of 1 computer for every 100 children, it is a start. What would it cost? 10 computers for Rs 5,000 apiece with a thick server for Rs 30,000 and software for Rs 20,000 make the base cost Rs 100,000. Other costs would be networking (Rs 10,000), a printer (Rs 5,000). The total costs would be Rs 115,000 (or about USD 2,300).

Recurring costs would be for maintenance Rs 1,000 per 5KPC and Rs 3,000 for the server and printer, making an aggregate of Rs 13,000 (USD 260). Taken over a 3-year period, the total costs are Rs 141,000. Take into account some financing costs, and we are probably looking at a 3-year total cost of ownership of about Rs 170,000 to Rs 180,000 (about USD 3,600), which works out to a per student per annum cost of Rs 60 (USD 1.20), or Rs 5 per month (10 cents).

[As an exercise, let us compare this cost with that of new PCs and Microsoft software. The cheapest new PCs in India will cost about Rs 20,000 each, with maintenance costs of Rs 1,600 after the first year. Microsofts software (Windows and Office) is available for the education segment for Rs 2,500 per annum. Thus, the three-year cost of ownership for a 10-computer lab is Rs 232,000 for the hardware and Rs 75,000 for the software, for an aggregate of Rs 307,000 (USD 6,000). This compares with Rs 126,000 for the 5KPC solution. Thus, for every 2 schools equipped with new PCs and Microsoft software, one could provide the 5KPC solution in 5 schools.]

For this investment in technology, a student will get about half-hour of shared computer usage per week. Heres the calculation for that: a day has 10 periods of 30 minutes each, with 5 days a week. This makes for 25 hours of education a child gets per week. This is also the computer time available for use. Across 1,000 students, this works out to 40 students an hour on 10 computers. Or, put differently, two students per computer per half-hour. Over a year (9 months of education), the student will get about 18-20 hours of computer education.

The above calculations do not take into account two other significant costs: the cost of the IT curriculum, and the salary for the teachers. Let us assume that the IT curriculum is available for Rs 100 per student per annum, including the cost of the text book. The IT curriculum would cover the basics of computing, logic, programming languages, the various applications, and so on. (On a separate note, I happened to see one of the text books being used in a school in India. I was shocked to find the concepts being taught at least 10-15 years old the discussion in one of the chapters centred around IBM PC XTs and ATs! Obviously, a relook at the curriculum and standardisation will be needed.)

The schools will also need two teachers, at Rs 3,500 per teacher per month. Over a year, the teach costs work out to Rs 84 per student per annum. Thus, the total cost for providing education in schools is as follows:

Cost of technology: Rs 60
Cost of IT curriculum: Rs 100
Cost of teachers: Rs 84
Aggregate Cost: Rs 244 per student per annum, or about USD 5.

Tomorrow: Schools (continued)

Continue reading TECH TALK: The Rs 5,000 PC Ecosystem: Schools

Microcontent as a Business

Guardian writes about the business of blogging, and how the strategies are focused on keeping costs low and looking for niches. Nanopublishing.

Weblogs are one of the few things online still capable of generating both media buzz and bucks…A growing number of entrepreneurs, media types and marketers have taken up blogging, in all senses of the word. And as they crank out their own daily contributions and links, they’re starting to see blogging as a way to reach out to and research opinion formers, as a lesson in online media, and ultimately as a place they might eventually make a little money.

BlogStreet is our venture in this world. At this point, we have no idea how we are going to make money. But we will eventually come up with a plan. I like to walk along some paths because there’s that feeling that you just have to do it!

AOL’s Future

AOL needs a new vision, and there have been plenty of suggestions. Business Week suggested selling AOL to Microsoft (and integration with its MSN service). Dave Winer and Doc Searls too have made their own thoughts. New York Times too has its ideas.

I think the easy way out is to contemplate selling AOL. That would be the wrong thing to do. I think what they should do is get Steve Case back and let him run it. There are few who understand AOL and its strengths better than him. As Dave Winer says, just as it is hard to imagine Apple without Jobs, it is tough to imagine AOL without Case. Throw Case a challenge. Give him 2 years.

In the current environment, my guess is that AOLTW will do is clean up AOL enough to line it up for a sale or spinoff in a year.

Continue reading AOL’s Future

Sony Emphasises Design

Sony is seeking to emphasise design in its products to counter growing threats to its consumer electronics business from companies like Apple and Microsoft. Writes New York Times:

Led by its dominant lines – including Walkman personal stereos, Handycam video cameras and the PlayStation 2 game console – Sony sold 86 million gadgets last year and is the world’s second-largest consumer electronics maker, after Matsushita Electric Industrial, which owns the Panasonic and National brands.

“The packaging is as important as the item inside,” says Mitsuru Inaba, the vice president in charge of Sony’s Creative Center in Tokyo.

Continue reading Sony Emphasises Design

Generation Gap in Media Consumption

Shrikant Patil makes an interesting point about we are becoming consumers of rich media but are unable to express ourselves using the same media:

Today’s children want to only see cable TV, surf the internet and are not interested in reading books, said the [library] owner. The only ones who subscribe to the library service anymore are the ones above 50.

In a historic joint discussion between Andy Grove and Steve Jobs at the Intel Sales Conference in January, Jobs brilliantly explained a similar situation, the big problem today is children consume a lot of video and rich media but are not able to express using the same media, a phenomena pretty much one way. We may disagree but cannot ignore, this will be the media of communication for the next generation, he added. The computer industry needs to build authoring tools, that are easy to use and allows the next generation to author and communicate using video. Steve showed us a number of video demos, making it very clear that Apple is a leader to make this a reality. I was extremely excited to note the significant role the PC has in making the next generation author and communicate using video, a industry designated mature and boring.

I definitely agree – there is so much more which needs to be done to make authoring and sharing of ideas and information easier. Blogs are the first step – they make mass publishing easier. Cellphones can enable moblogging. Digital cameras will make it easier to publish images. The future of computers lies not just in making faster processors but making them more integrated with our lives – both on the information consumption and production side. Computers need to enable the Two-Way Web.

India Rising

I have been feeling this for quite some time: India’s star in the world is on the ascendant. Its a mix of various things taken together which makes me feel like this.

The construction activity that I see all around – roads, bridges, buildings. And the quality of this new construction is now becoming on par with the best in the world, not the makeshift stuff we used to do a decade or more ago. Gurgaon, Whitefields, Lower Parel, Bandra Kurla Complex…places and neighbourhoods are changing.

India is in the news. Indians are in the news. India a key part of the recent Business Week cover story on outsourcing. The recent IIT-50 bash in the US. Kalpana Chawla on the Columbia shuttle (sad). Sarin taking over as CEO of Vodaphone. The growing business and profits of tech companies like Infosys and Wipro. Tisco exporting steel to China. Times of India becoming the largest selling English newspaper in the world. Reliance Infocomm offering the world’s lowest telecom rates.

Life becoming faster. This struck me recently when I took the train from Pune to Mumbai. For all my life, the journey time for the 192-km distance used to be 3 hours and 10-25 minutes. And the trains used to be packed. Now, the trains are running a bit empty. And the journey time has reduced to under 3 hours by Shatabdi. The reason? The world-class 6-lane expressway between the two cities has shrunk road time, and that has got in extremely comfortable bus services which do the journey in 3 hours. People are also preferring to just take their own cars. Nice to see the railways reacting to competition by reducing travel time.

A mix of geographical, economic and social factors is putting India in the limelight. The doom and gloom being felt in many parts of the world (slowdown, job losses, war fears) doesn’t seem to be resonating in India. It is business as usual. In fact, there’s a sense of positive energy.

Perhaps, China must have been like this in the 1990s (and continues to be). But India has always moved slower. Now, thanks to a mix of circumstances, technology, opportunities and a few good Ministers (people like Arun Shourie), there is a feeling that life tomorrow will definitely be better, that India can yet claim its rightful place in the world.

Unlike China, India is WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get). The openness, transparency and democratic principles embedded in the people make India still go a little slower than China. But I can’t help feeling that this is a more solid growth. The dragon might have raced ahead, but the elephant has finally started moving, much to the relief and delight of the rest of the world. The dragon invokes fear, the elephant is an epitome of friendliness.

A start has been made, and this is just the beginning. But for the first time in my life, I sense that India is slowly getting its act together, determined to not just not miss the bus once again, but to leapfrog.