the role of blogs

Facebook has taken away about 50% of the reason for blogging for many amateur/occasional bloggers like me. The desire of letting out how you're feeling, letting friends know what you're up to and having a more interactive (vs. one way) conversation - facebook has beaten blogs. Hence, nothing from me since August! What are some of the other reaons people would still write blogs?

1) commenting with more depth/quality on external and internal events (books read, politics, economics, personal goals etc.)
2) sharing a writeup from someone else
3) others?

come to think of it, facebook has also eliminated myspace (haven't visited that site in months), orkut etc.! Need to log on to secondlife though - been a while.

The future of training

Had a very interesting discussion with a seasoned HR guy who's my master-trainer at this course I'm conducting. He talked about how, in a few years time, it'll be impossible to get employees to attend 3-4 day long corporate training programs - maximum one in a year or 2 years (making the courses compete with each other). We got talking on what are some creative ways, theoretical or in practice at other places today, that exist. I was quite delighted to learn about the Satyam leadership development program - 2 years long, international in nature and very unique (too long to describe here). We also talked about how we should conceptually build in training into day-to-day working with the trainers actually observing trainee groups (a multifunctional team for example) in meetings and then debriefing / helping them learn from that actual experience every few hours, over a few days. Adult learning is by practice and application and not by theory anyway.

What other ideas do you guys have to ensure folks remain sharp/trained/in tune and keep growing their skills?

If you exploit it, gimme royalty!

Wondering what the logic flaw is and if not, why entrepreneurs haven't created this yet. Benefit is that of converting 100% of old physical photographs into digital formats, via rapid, well classified (easy to find) and high quality scanning. There exist no physical products (Canon - listening?) that allow for high speed scanning (eg. put in 50 pictures into a tray and go have a drink). There exist no services for people to walk into a Kodak shop and come back a week later to find everything into one easy to manage CD. Now that computer penetration is much higher and since 90% of computer owners also probably have physical photographs that have not been scanned - is there a business idea here? Why am I not doing this? Simply that the idea doesn't drive me to burn the midnight oil & the money has never mattered anyway! So if you guys go crack this and earn a few million, send some across for atleast a nice car this way!

media as social change driver

Indian Idol. Watch it occasionally with family - what struck me this time around was the number of non mainstream profile contestants. We have a chinese boy whose family has settled in Patna, we have a boy who has both biological parents and parents who have adopted him and we have a police constable from the north east. I really doubt they've been selected to drive viewership in east india (though one can always think that these shows are manipulated). Rather, the bigger and more interesting thing for me was to see mainstream gujarati/marathi girls sitting in the bombay studio audience cheering for these non mainstream folks. Suddenly, the north-east has become mainstream and suddenly it's okay for kids to be adopted. Suddenly, the tiny chinese community in India gets visibility and HOW (saw a banner titled "change, marry me!" in the audience!). Now we need to get in gays, single parents, live in partners and inter-religious couples into Indian Idol...!

Human body continues to amaze

Average sleep of only 4-5 hours every night these days and that too broken by about an hour in between if we're lucky. Amazing though that after the initial days when we were just walking around like zombies, bumping into furniture, losing our cool, never calling up family (just too tired all the time to find the phone and the calling card!) and generally displaying all symptoms of insanity - now it's just one feeling of exhilaration if we get that extra hour of sleep one of the days or if we sleep in on a weekend with MIL taking care of baby.

P completed 40 days a few days ago so it was to the temple we went (he ofcourse slept right through the meditation) and to a mall & to the swimming pool in his pram for the first time (bright red - cool ferrari colour!). Met a chap from kerala originally who was born/bred in Holland with a Malaysian wife and 2 kids (live in our building) - seems like there is always someone to meet who has experienced a more interesting life than you! Despite the 27 countries I've travelled to so far (counted!).

Visited Countries

Visited Countries

black magic woman

Been 17 years that I was waiting for a band that would play this with me (any santana actually). Got a band aid on the finger after 10 rounds of trying to get it right but finally came to something that the audience won't puke at. New Trilok Gurtu sticks (rubber coated grip) really awesome and better than the usual wooden ones. Couldn't get the percussion right fully - need my co-drummer to play along during the end section (for those familiar with song).

Sept 8 is the show - for those who are keen (SG $40 per person - tickets with me). Still trying to reconcile to the hindi stuff - not too kicked about that at all. But it's a fun group and it's good to break away from the usual corporate shit at office.

Sherman's lagoon

One of my first few posts ever was about cartoons and I wanted to let the world know about another brilliant one - Sherman's Lagoon. Came across it by chance but am hooked now! Just finished this huge coffee table edition - it really does take a lot of wit to create this kind of humour! hats off to Jim Toomey.

http://www.slagoon.com/

a glimmer of hope in africa

Africa has always been seen by most as this write off case - aids, disease, famine, poverty, civil war, dictators and heat! Ask a 100 managers in Europe or even low income Asian/latin america markets and they will likely balk at accepting a job there. Was discussing this with a friend who's getting transferred there pretty soon.

Coincidentally read the latest time magazine which has a cover story on Africa's oil and how it's transforming the continent in a way faster than most imagined. It's the hidden gem that Shell & others have found that could radically reduce poverty in the continent. The continent has oil and not just any oil - cheap oil (due to the landscape & how it's easier to take out without too much capital equipment; also lower freight costs to the US, largest global consumer) and good quality oil (better than most parts of the world). Primarily in the west africa (nigeria, ghana, ivory coast) area. Already, the area is brimming with chinese, western investment and our company's local office is apparently the fastest growing geography among all that we have (80 on ground operations)!

I see this glimmer of hope there - I see less people having funerals for their infants, I see less women crying for losing their family, I see people moving beyond survival to thriving (having dreams/hopes/aspirations/hobbies) and I see the world economy exploding because of the indigenous demand of African consumers.

I see hope and I am happy for the African people! A smile that will last on little mobutu vs. the natural smiles they anyway have despite the adversity.

week 2

So they all said "your life will change forever". Well so far the changes include sleepless nights and a reduced social calendar. But will not let that affect us:-) Slowly getting into a rhythm of diapering, burping, rocking him to sleep, sleeping on your own for 1.5 hours and then repeating cycle!!! Amazing how the human body adapts slowly from the first day of burning eyes and spinning head to day 5 being far more manageable. Not too much response / interaction yet (these are the "give give give" months of a baby) but it's still rewarding if he sleeps through or just looks plain clean (and no smell!). Feeling way more relaxed a week at home now. Having the time for "self time" (defined as a new asterix comic).

fatherhood!

it's an awesome feeling ! more later!

The grrr factor

Read an interesting concept today in context of a 76 year nobel economics prize winner's work. There is empirical data to indicate that economic growth and progress (not necessarily the same thing) is driven not just by basic economic metrics like infrastructure, debt as % of GDP or an efficient public sector. The discriminator is the passion, innovation mindedness, work ethic and the "grrr" factor of the people in the geography. Which explains why France, Italy etc. are falling behind while the US has moved ahead.

Linking cultural factors to overall GDP was something we don't see too often, especially after I finished reading another article by Ruchir sharma in newsweek just now which said that Brazil should not do what Spain did in the 1960s to reach a high GDP per capita ($5000 to $26000 over 20 years). The prescriptions were all economic in nature!

I quite buy the cultural factors theory / data - one sees it all around, including why certain ethnic communities do better than others in business. So what can a government do? The article goes on to talk about building a "culture of competition" or "culture of competence" in the country - sort of like what the Singaporean leaders tried to do in the early parts of it's history. When folks are lazy, one's gotta use the stick as well as the carrot.

40 winks in 10 minutes

Whirlwind of early morning to office with visitors from abroad, late evening to multiple places for domestic work and little sleep at night due to sick spouse. Now I know what I can expect in a month! completely zoned out and I was lucky to get several hours of sleep more than I expect to get in a few weeks time! So if you don't see me on the blog for a few months, you know what has happened. I'm just using those extra 10 minutes to catch a few winks!

The front

I have some theater background, mostly from college and mba days. And then I saw Phantom of the Opera 2 nights ago (highly recommended!) which is like a "theatre in theatre" since the content of the musical is about an opera house. Finally, today I went to one of the largest malls in this city - neon everywhere, lots of happy people with families/prams and impeccably clean stores & salesmen.

So what suddenly hit me as I walked around the mall today? The Front.

Malls are like this giant theater happening on mega scale. Just behind the "staff only" sign of the connecting door lies the equivalent of stage props, disused lights, green room smells and old buckets of paint. One doesn't want to know where the food has come from as long as it's presented in neon. One doesn't seek to ask who made that T-shirt and under what working conditions (non airconditioned is a given). One doesn't ask what domestic stresses the salesman is going through under that smiling face, all for a monthly salary of $2000. One doesn't know about the double shift of the bathroom cleaning bangladeshi worker and the fact that his mom is ill back in Chittagong but he's too poor to go & meet her.

The shoppers are like masquerade participants (from the phantom of the opera). Each with a smiling face, walking by exchanging pleasantries with others in the ballroom (i.e. atrium & aisles). In pairs or familiar groups, walking past the other actors in the production.

But just like we seek to "forget" in the hustle of a large mall & walk like robots guided by subliminal signals of neon, so too must the actors. Deaden out last night's argument with wife via a pleasant, non-meaningful exchange about a toaster's features with a potential customer. Besides, it pays the bills. The dark side of the moon is best not seen.

The show must go on. Encore monsieur!

Pathfinder the movie

Avoid

the first moment

Was observing 2 guys on the road the other day while parked at a red light. One was about 40, clearly full of life's stresses and walking purposefully early morning towards employment in singapore. The other was about 20, walking along with the other guy but was nearly bumping into electricity poles with his mouth open - staring at the city around him.

Got me thinking about the 'first moment' when people from low income countries experience life in a developed country. We all remember that first moment when we first saw the clean streets, the hip cars, the fashionable people, electronics galore, the short skirts, the taller/whiter race of people and the amazingly tall buildings.

Some had the first moment earlier in life and we were extremely jealous of those "uncles & aunties" who used to come loaded with toblerones bought off discount grocery stores selling them on sale in foreign lands (little did we know the source!). Whenever we would go through the first moment on our own, we were full of conversation and came closer to family - more words were exchanged with "did you see that?!!!!" than probably in the previous few months of "beta, karela kha lo" or something similar.

Since it had been a long time for me, was very refreshing to see the 20 something fellow with his mouth open, walking the singapore cement pavements (no fallen leaves ofcourse! this is foren land and would not want to disappoint the laddie and his stories for the folks back home).

what was your first moment?

In Pursuit of Happyness

Powerful film and a critic rightly said "will smith delivers the performance of a lifetime" - leaves MIB far, far, far behind! I actually loved the screenplay (wonder if the book by the real chris gardener is as interesting). The little touches of the medical diagnostic device getting stolen & then retrieved - hilarious! Powerful acting by the kid also (think he's will smith's actual kid going by his name in the credits - even longer than & similar to Jada pinkett smith, his wife's name!). Direction also good - lots of cuts but never felt the transitions!

corporate espionage

Found a great new businessweek today in some random shopping with pav bhaji. It has a great story of how a private investigating firm was hired by a rival to infiltrate KPMG and get some audit results out before others saw it. The story was just like a spy thriller and what was amazing was the fact that it was real. I'm sure these things happen but to see it described in public was a first.

Starts with the "search" for a prime target who could be bought over in KPMG - they wanted a young, bored man or an older, spinster woman (stereotypes galore!). Anyway, they found a guy and then fooled the hell out of him by spinning a story on how they were British top secret operatives & they wanted him to help the british government! What bull !!! He bought all of it without a thought and kept feeding them information/documents for weeks! What's more, after all this has been found out and lawsuits are flying all over, he's quietly shifted country and is working in yet another blue chip company! I guess not being director of a company has it's advantages! What does he get at the end? A rolex watch courtesy the brits (or so he was told and bought!). Time seemed to have been on his side.

D-day approaches

Saw Al Gore's "an inconvenient truth" a few weeks ago in the US. Made a lasting impact on me, whether or not the data was all above board or not. Didn't bother me that some felt he tried to put his political angle into it - I didn't see him doing that intentionally. It was just to make a point on reasons why climate control legislation didn't move forward in the biggest polluter's senate. Only when people are seeing unseasonal stuff for the past 2 years (eg. groundhog day coming early, cherry blossoms in jan/feb) that the general public is finally saying "you know what, those guys were right 10 years ago". Personally, am very worried since this also ties in with ancient mayan/indian theory about how this is the last civilization before "Pralay" (final devastation) occurs in only a few centuries from now (or maybe earlier). More on that later one day. Richard Branson has declared a high cash prize for anyone with ideas on how to manage global warming but not sure that's the right approach:-) ! Though no harm in doing so - at minimum a great PR gimmick to get attention on the problem.

This matters to me and to my family - it's personal now. Ironically, am facing another d-day of my own (albeit on a smaller scale) - am bringing in my own child into this world in 3 month's time! Hope he/she will get to live in a normal world with normal weather - a world that lasts his/her lifetime at the minimum.

Month 1 update on resolution

In the interest of discipline, shall try and update the public on resolution progress so far. One month into the year (or slightly more) and I'm down only 1 kg unfortunately. Now that travel is banned, shall put more rigour into the routine. Clearly golf is not going to be burning too many calories, esp if we take ham sandwich breaks and roam around in a battery-powered toy all day.

travel ban and chinese new year!

Beautiful! No travel for next few months due to budget cuts! Some reduction in effectiveness but after a harrowing experience 2 days ago from Jakarta (torrential rain, plane delay, new airline taken which also delayed etc.), I really needed a break from airports. Now on a 10 day supposed holiday for chinese new year but lots of telecons etc. already into the schedule since the rest of the non-chinese world does not stop for singapore. 18 holes golf today - loved it! But desperately now trying to become a union member etc. (ways to cut down on the exorbitant course fees!). Rest of the 9 days shall be spent catching up on music DVDs bought over past few months, movies, sleep, more golf, some music practice with 2 bands and some reading.

yay for limited budgets!

Bobby

Went for an under-reviewed movie tonight - Bobby. Loved it absolutely. Extremely huge star cast, way more than the newspaper ads talk about (several "surprise" actors - including harry belafonte!). Great stories weaved into each other (complexity creates an adrenalin high on occasion and always in movies). What struck me was how old some of the actors have become these days - jodie foster (teenager in accused; young lady in silence of the lambs) now looks 45, anthony hopkins (amazing dialogue delivery still) looked 75 and sharon stone had wrinkles! Highly recommended movie though.

Stuck at LAX

Horrible planning! 9 hour, 45 min stopover at LA airport - will definitely check bookings next time instead of delegating! Anyway, been quite a breeze so far - reading "tipping point" finally (book gifted to me in Sept'04!), blogging, msn chats, office work, idle daydreaming! Only 3 hours more to kill!

Top 2 things that make American airports unappealing
1) Infrastructure - much of the route for passengers is not temperature controlled (freezing here!) Toilets are a mess and the only food one can get is chilli dogs! Only thing "diverse" about the food is a restaurant selling german sausages!

2) People - Very impersonal, insensitive and (as always) with fake laughter & fake comments ("you have a good day now, hear?")

Tried for "top 5 or top 10" but it all boiled down to just the 2 above!:-) On the way back, shall meet up with friends and go out for some seafood!

apocalypto

Had a boys day out recently to see Apocalypto (mel gibson's latest). Expected a fair bit of gore (got lots more than I needed) but also expected (and didn't get) a lot more of story around their obsession with "the gods". I guess my bias was the books I've read on ancient civilisations etc. so I was quite disappointed at half the movie being just about a random "rambo" hunt for the protagonist. First half was really interesting since it gave insight on what daily life was like in those days. Reminded me of "Curse of the golden flower" which also transported us into daily lives in Beijing several centuries ago - weak storyline right out of a ZEE tv soap I thought.

Got me thinking that Mel Gibson will be my one link to history - my fascination of knowing what daily life was like "back then" is coming alive through his movies like passion and apocalypto - they speak in the ancient languages and the scripts/dialogue etc. are very realistic & (i guess) representative. Now I want him to make something on Egypt, The rise of protestants and subsequent religious warfare in Europe, the industrial revolution in England ala Hugo, the battles for Jerusalem and Marco Polo !

a firm resolution 2007

Am typing this up for all to see so that I actually live up to this! I WILL lose a minimum of 5 and a goal of 10 kgs within the next 12 months! Watch this space and ask me in 358 days!

a new passion

Started golf over the holidays! Made me realize how out of shape I was even for such a low-activity game! But it's interesting enough and a 100% brain game so I have developed quite a liking - the complexity is interesting (at the moment at least!). Took a week or so of lessons from this pro arjuna award winner (etc etc etc) kind of guy in Delhi. Went and bought a basic set of clubs and shoes this afternoon - all sparkling clean without the muck so far! Feeling good even after having slept over it and no longer averse to giving this a shot for a few months and seeing where I want to take it.

As the family expands, music expands (3 bands active), work expands, waist expands (unrelated but fits!), I remember this Philippines country manager words that one can only play 5 roles in life at a given point of life with any focus on each. These could be that of father, son, husband, brother, friend, nephew, uncle, golfer, musician etc. etc. Interesting concept from him - let's see how this goes since I've kind of taken on 3 new roles all within a 6 month period! My guess is sleep will be first casualty, followed by either lower or higher stress in personal life (depending on the NET effect of the extra hobbies:-)).