What academic world did not teach us?

It is quite common incident all over the world that students who were considered the best often do not

perform that well later in their lives.

What is the cause of this? There are numerous factors behind it and every individual's situation is unique.

But still there are common pointers which I am going to discuss here.

First, school does not teach us how to choose between multiple options!

In academic world, usually most questions have one correct solution. However, in real world, most situations

have multiple outcomes. Depending on what route you choose, the outcomes can be vastly difference. For

example, you are working in India IT. You are getting a 6 month onsite opportunity (which may or may not

extend) in current company but also you got offer in another company in your town which offers no onsite but

promises 50% more salary. Which one will you choose?

Second, schools do not teach about money!

Yes, we do learn compound interest and cryptic formulas about finance. However, it does not teach us how to

handle money in real life. It does not impart the knowledge of how to invest in stocks and businesses. Nor

it teaches how to startup your own business and what problems you might face (well, you do get this in your

syllabus if you study MBA though). This missing knowledge is very valueable in real life.

Third, schools do not not teach how to deal with people!

In real life, people often deal with people. This is a very useful skill as whatever be your profession, you

will invariably dealing with lots of people. You need to know how to go well along with team members, your

boss, your spouse, your family, your relatives etc. You need to know how to satisfy some of their egos.

Sadly, this skill is often difficult to achive by experience and in the meantime you may upset many people

which might cost your business, job, relationship etc.

Fourth, schools do not teach you to spot opportunity!

In schools, you only take action when exam comes :) In real life, you need to take action often depending on your circumstances. If you fail to take action when opportunity arises, you lose a chance of going up on career ladder.

What are Indian Values?

I often hear Non-Resident Indians say about they want to teach their children Indian values. But what exactly it is?

Surprisingly enough, searching for Indian values on internet does not provide too many comprehensive pages! So I searched for this answer myself and then concluded that basically following points gives an overall idea of Indian values.

But some of this assertions are no longer true in modern India - which are mimicking (mostly bad) western cultures at a very fast pace!

Ok, let's go thru the values.

• · Attitude towards marriage and family values

Till today (2010), most Indians do not believe in pre-marital sexual relationship. Marriage is still considered sacred and lifelong bonding. The arranged marriage concept is widely followed. Divorce is still rare – though rising at an alarming rate. Live together is gathering momentum. Husbands and wives do fight among them all the time, but that seldom go to splitting stage! Similarly, it is Indian custom to respect parents and elderly. It is still rare to see Indian kids saying their parents “shake your arse elsewhere”. Grown up children (i.e. adults) still regularly communicate with their parents even they live at a far-away place.

• · Thriftiness about money

Indians are typically very cautious about money. We are more of a “savers” than “spenders”. Western people spend first and then save (or borrow more). We save first and then spend. We also invest heavily for future and kids upbringings. We often sacrifice non-essential purchases because we cannot decide if we really need to spend that much. Often this attitude affects NRIs for their whole tenure abroad. Most Indians buy goods on the basis of “value for money”. Though nowadays neo-riches in India spend so much that can put NRIs into embarrassment! Living within one’s own means ensured that it did not follow Europe/Americas credit crunch.

• · Attitude towards law

To a citizen in developed country, law is often an absolute concept. Either you break the law or do not break it. For Indians, it is a linear concept. Breaking a law only little bit is not considered a serious offence. For example, copying software illegally, paying bribe to traffic cops for speeding etc. are taken as part of life and not a big issue. So, a small deviation from absolute baseline of law is not considered as a crime in India.

• · Education

We value education a lot. I remember in my childhood my parents always chasing for good results in school/college and then universities. Because in Indian, you are very unlikely to get a good job unless you have good education. This has a slight negative aspect though – most Indians try to get a good job in multi-national companies rather than setting up their own business. However, the trend is now changing.

• Sacrifice and adjustment

Indians are famous for these! Whatever be the situation, Indians can usually adjust! We can also sacrifice lots of things. For example, still today, many educated women sacrifice their careers after marriages. A lot of Indian professionals living overseas adjust their lifestyle within a very strict budget. However, after leaving abroad for long time, many NRIs lose this value.

Of course, there are lots of negative things about Indian values too. But that will be another blog.

Our Iceberg is Melting - a fable on change management

Today I went to a bookstore and browsed several books in management section.

Then I found a book titled "Our iceberg is melting" which seemed quite thin and I decided, well I can finish it in the store itself.

So, within half an hour, I managed to finish the book off!

It was a fable about penguins in Antarctica. But funny part is, authors managed to highlight how change management can be implemented through this fable.

The fable naturally draws on eight steps for leading change which I have paraphrased below into seven to make them easier to understand:

1. Get peoples' attention.


2. Establish a change-leading team.


3. Agree on the results you want



4. Allow needed changes.


5. Show regular progress.


6. Stay focused.
7. Build new habits that will serve you well after the change is done
8. Make changes stick



This book is by no means a bible on change management, but definitely a good reading on steps how to deal with it.

Unix distros - where they originate from

This is a tree showing how various Unix distros originated from.

Unix

--Linux

----RPM (Red Hat Linux)

------Fedora

------Cent OS

------SuSE

------Mandriva

--------PCLinux

----Debian

------Ubuntu

--------gOS
--------PinguyOS
--------EasyPeasy

--------Linux Mint

------Mepis

------Maemo

------Linspire

------Knoppix

--------Damn Small Linux

----Gentoo

----Slackware

------Puppy Linux

What is a BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY?

The relevant book where the idea came from - http://bit.ly/c55AK1

First what is red (opposite of blue here) ocean? It is the tradional market place where firms compete with each other.

Blue ocean is a new marketspace, yet to be explored. Since it is new, competitions are irrelevant there.

What is a BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY? The authors explain it by comparing it to a red ocean strategy (traditional strategic thinking):

1. DO NOT compete in existing market space. INSTEAD you should create uncontested market space.

2. DO NOT beat the competition. INSTEAD you should make the competition irrelevant.

3. DO NOT exploit existing demand. INSTEAD you should create and capture new demand.

4. DO NOT make the value/cost trade-off. INSTEAD you should break the value/cost trade-off.

5. DO NOT align the whole system of a company's activities with its strategic choice of differentiation or low cost. INSTEAD you should align the whole system of a company's activities in pursuit of both differentiation and low cost.

Wikipedia link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy

Car sharing does not work

When my long commute session began, I naively thought I could reduce journey time and exhaustion by sharing car thru various car-sharing websites.

Sadly, this scheme does not work.

Main reasons are

· Your co-passenger(s) are highly unlikely to commute to exactly same place. I know slight detour is not an issue but in congested peak traffic that time counts.

· Even if you start at same time in morning, finishing time can be varying. If someone finishes early, it is a problem for other one.

· What if you miss the journey? Alternative transport can be quite expensive.

· You are basically at mercy of other driver.

I did not get a single reply to my sharing post in those sites. This is unusual as my route was not a very strange one!

So now we know why we see so many single occupancy cars on UK roads.

Measurement of Depression

I searched for a scale how to measure depression but could find nothing on the internet! Which is pretty strange as I thought in modern era, almost everyone becomes depressed every now and often.

So I took the pain of defining a scale myself (time pass - eh?).

This is how the scale stands. Please note that the scale is logarithmic (like Richter scale) rather than linear!

Highest to lowest

[9] Lost off sight/limbs, permanent disablement, loss of children, spouse, life threatening illness (eg cancer) to self or loved ones

[8] Divorce (including setback in relationship)

[7] Chronic illness (not life threatening but hampers daily life)

[6] Loss of job/business [including imminent loss which is almost certain]

Set back in professional career - denied promotion, did not get the job wanted, demotion, unable to start a business venture, unable to find date/spouse etc. [ie something you want but can not get it - you feel you deserve it - but you never got it so far], Bankruptcy etc.

[5] Acute monetary shortage - not being able to buy basic necessities like food, clothes, shelter etc.

[4] Loss of large amount [relative] of money/reputation/social status or something which has psychological equivalent of money to the depressed person

[3] Unfortunate incident - accident but no bodily injury or massive monetary/reputation/etc. loss, being robbed off, pick pocketing, burglary etc.

[2] Inconvenience, water leaking from roof, broken down on road etc.

[1] Trivial - food was cold, could have saved £1 by buying from elsewhere, got drenched because didn't carry umbrella, camera I wanted is out of stock etc.

Note: This is measurement of initial depression, as time passes, the depression level usually goes down as people become accoustommed with deperssed condition gradually.