DeepakSethSpeak

Creating "Rypples" - Social Technologies and Performance Management

2011-12-28T15:01:00.004-05:00

It all started with the McKinsey Quarterly article on "How social technologies are extending the organization". I liked the article but for me it raised a few questions which were published as a comment on the McKinsey Quarterly website:

The growth of social technologies within organizations creates an interesting conundrum: how to reward employees for contributions they are making or changes they are driving across the organization by using thsee boundary-less social technologies? Many current performance-management processes focus on evaluating contributions to the “silo,” as judged by the supervisor or, in some cases, other stakeholders. However, social technologies can significantly increase the breadth and scope of an employee’s contributions. How are companies preparing their performance management processes to reflect the emergence of social technologies, and how do these tools enable those processes?
Sooner or later, as social technologies become an integral part of the organization’s fabric, there will be a need to integrate them into the reward and recognition process for employees.

More details on an earlier blogpost: How social technologies are extending the organization: My comments on McKinsey Article

Most of us have been in situations where the boss either has no clue or cannot fathom as to what we have been doing during the year ; a scenario which bites us in the back during the Annual Performance Review (or when "they" make lists on who to fire during downsizing). A problem likely to be compounded when with the new emerging social technologies an employee can be making contributions far beyond the span of the classical "silo" which a typical boss oversees.

Interesting dilemma, but seems like I an not quite the visionary I think myself to be :-) . The smart guys and gals at Rypple have already seized the bull by the horns ("The social way to improve performance at work : Build a results-driven culture and make reviews meaningful with Rypple’s social performance management platform").

Here's a look at how Facebook is using Rypple to manage the Facebook generation (How Facebook manages the Facebook generation. People at Facebook talk about how they use Rypple's social performance platform to support their social, collaborative, fast-moving culture.)

And looks like the mighty salesforce.com has now decided to ride and steer the bull (Salesforce.com Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Rypple – First Step Toward Human Capital Management for the Social Enterprise). They plan to rebrand/relaunch it as SuccessForce.

The action has just started in this space and I can only see it hotting up as social technologies become part of the "life and blood" of more organizations; which will then need them to figure out ways to integrate them with performance appraisal; and the technology companies (SAP, Oracle, IBM) which will also need to figure out ways to incorporate these capabilities in their own offerings (What with ZDNet blogger Dennis Howlett headlining it as: Salesforce snubs SAP with Rypple flip )

Stay Tuned.

How social technologies are extending the organization: My comments on McKinsey Article

2011-12-28T11:48:00.001-05:00

My comments:

Finding the right place to start change : My comments on McKinsey Article

2011-12-28T11:39:00.002-05:00

My comments:

Death of Email?

2011-12-01T12:40:00.001-05:00

Interesting article: Tech Firm Implements Employee ‘Zero Email’ Policy

You’ve got mail–not. Employees of tech company Atos will be banned from sending emails under the company’s new “zero email” policy.
Atos is evaluating a number of new tools to replace internal email including collaborative and social media tools. Those include the Atos Wiki, which allows all employees to communicate by contributing or modifying online content, and Office Communicator, the company’s online chat system which allows video conferencing, and file and application sharing.

Is this beginning of the end for email? Will social networking and IM strike a death-knell for email like the automobile did to the horse and buggy (or more recently, what digital photography did to print)

Not surprisingly the first blow is being struck by a French company. A decade ago the French had launched a war against the word "email" which they considered as a brutal Anglo incursion on their chaste French environment (first McDonald's and then email, what was the world coming to)

Goodbye "e-mail," the French government says, and hello "courriel" — the term that linguistically sensitive France is now using to refer to electronic mail in official documents.
The Culture Ministry has announced a ban on the use of "e-mail" in all government ministries, documents, publications or websites, the latest step to stem an incursion of English words into the French lexicon.

And also not surprisingly, the CEO of Atos, Thierry Breton is no fan of email, he has not sent one in the last 3 years.

Evolution of the Digital Work Environment

2011-11-29T09:45:00.002-05:00

We are all aware of the Evolution of Man:

Here are 2 videos which outline the evolution of the Digital Work environment from Xerox's vision in the 1990s to Microsoft's vision for the 2020s.

It is interesting to observe which elements of the future have clearly morphed from the original vision, which ones got dropped by the wayside and the ones which are totally new. Here goes:

XEROX (vision framed in 1990s: Digital Desk by Pierre Wellner)

MICROSOFT (vision framed in 2011: Productivity Future Vision )

Addendum (12/7/2011)

On the same topic here’s an interesting article from Businessweek ca. 1975 predicting how the “office” will look in 1995 – “The Office of the Future".

Here's what another blogger says about it:

It predicts the paperless office. My favorite quote comes from the head of the (then) newly formed think-tank in Palo Alto known as PARC, George E. Pake, who says “… that in 1995 his office will be completely different; there will be a TV-display terminal with keyboard sitting on his desk. “I’ll be able to call up documents from my files on the screen, or by pressing a button,” he says. “I can get my mail or any messages. I don’t know how much hard copy [printed paper] I’ll want in this world.”

Full of quotes like this, the article may seem comical in retrospect – however, it’s worth a read.

Frugal Innovation/Jugaad #5: Reebok goes Frugal

2011-11-28T12:24:00.002-05:00

Check this out. Reebok plans to roll out a $1 shoe for the "bottom of the pyramid":

Reebok Cobbles a Plan for India's Rural Poor

Still in the planning stages, but is already being described as a "win-win situation for the poor." and "the move is likely to be viewed as a social initiative that could positively influence the company's brand."

What would be interesting is to see if India's poor will really covet a $1 shoe or would shoes continue to be an aspirational purchase for which they are ready to save and pay more to flaunt their favorite brand. Maybe that's why it is being positioned for the "rural" poor rather than the urban poor. Urbanites I guess are more likely to equate lower price with lower status.

Tata has discovered the fickle mindedness of those at the bottom of the pyramid when to their surprise and chagrin the $2000 Nano car was not "flying off the shelf" at the pace they thought it would.

Also, the $1 shoe will be going head-to-head (or will it be feet-to-feet) against a tough competitor - the $0 shoe ("bare feet").

While on the topic of shoes, attended an Entrepreneurship themed conference where a panelist, local self-made entrepreneur I.C. Shah recounted the old shoe company salesmen story in his own inimitable style. Here's the gist of it:

Multinational shoe corporation sends 3 hot-shot salesmen to India (in the 1950s) to scout the market and report back. The first one wires back " Nobody here wears shoes, No market opportunity". He was promptly called back and fired. He now mans the shoe sale counter at a departmental store. The second wired back "Nobody here wears shoes, immense market potential". The person retired as Head of the International Business Division for the corporation. The third wired back "Nobody here wears shoes. I have tied up with someone here to make them and can supply some back to the corporation at a fraction of the current purchase cost". The third one now has vacation homes in Bali, Aspen, Jamaica and St. Tropez. He has people making shoes for him in India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, China....... He's the "Entrepreneur"

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 23: BI gets "Sixth Sense" Revisited

2011-11-22T13:09:00.002-05:00

DeepakSethSpeak: The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 17: BI gets "Sixth Sense"

Looks like it is time to revisit the above blogpost. See what a technology giant like Microsoft has up its sleeve as far as leveraging the user-interface technologies of the future. Came across this interesting video:

A phone nobody can buy.......yet

2011-11-22T12:56:00.000-05:00

based on Nanotechnologies, the phone is flexible and bendable, reacts to gestures or flex/bend, and provides electro-tactile feedback.

Frugal Innovation/Jugaad # 4

2011-11-21T13:21:00.002-05:00

Today was a Jugaadoo delight day, as I came across not 1, not 2 but 3 fantastic tales of Frugal Innovation/Jugaad.

It all started off when a friend forwarded me a chain mail about the experiences of the renowned filmmaker Shekhar Kapur as he finds a hole-in-the-wall shop to get his expensive Blackberry repaired. Not only did he save a ton of money he left with a new found sense of admiration for India's pioneering innovative and entrepreneurial spirit : A Blackberry addict discovers grassroots enterprise in India

Let's see if he makes this the theme of his next artistic endeavor, it's been some time since Kapur dazzled us with his portrayal of Elizabethian intrigue and splendor.

As I was meandering through the search results for my search of the authentic source of the Shekhar Kapur story came across the interesting story of "Nano Ganesh" from The Economist , a frugal innovator's solution to a common problem plaguing Indian farmers - how to start and stop their irrigation pumps remotely, his solution " – a mobile-phone adaptation that triggers irrigation pumps remotely – is saving water in India and helping more than 10,000 farmers avoid several taxing, dangerous long walks a day."

The trifecta was when I came across "Gogola" :

So this innovator is using the brand recognition of Google to drive people towards his own product - Gola - an Indian shaved ice concoction leveraging his location in a tech park frequented by Google savvy techies. I wonder if the Google attorneys will go after him for Trademark infringement/violations.....

If you come across any more, please pass them along.........

From the Finger Lakes to the World : "Think Globally, Act Locally"

2011-11-18T11:52:00.002-05:00

Kudos to the Finger Lakes Regional Economic Development Council for finalizing its list of 10 projects for submission to Gov. Cuomo as contenders for a share of approximately $1 billion in state economic development funds. Being first off the bat compared to other regions indicates a strong focus and commitment on part of the team tasked with putting this together.

The list though exemplary still appears to be slightly conservative and run of the mill. The projects listed are ones which would normally appear in any wish-list of projects for the area. I was under the assumption that by framing this sanction of funds in the form of a competition, Gov. Cuomo is looking for revolutionary out-of-the-box ideas to kick start the economy.

One of the biggest global macro-economic trends is the current and projected growth of BRICS economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) compared with the slow or stagnant growths in rest of the World. What we need at all levels of our own economy (national, state and local) is to figure out ways to tap in the growth and revenue streams of these booming economies. At a local level it may translate into helping local small and mid-sized companies gain footholds in these countries or expand their presence there. The big companies have already got a presence in these markets. The smaller companies may need a little boost. Germany has already proven such an approach works, as reflected by its growing economy (in contrast to the moribund economies of rest of Europe) fueled by exports by its mid-sized companies to these emerging markets.

So I would love to have seen projects which focus on leveraging the strengths of our local small and mid-sized businesses (which have been the linchpin of the local economy even as the big players shrunk) and couple them with the burgeoning demand of goods and services abroad. Perhaps a project which funds an initiative to help small and mid-sized Finger Lakes region businesses become bigger players on the world arena . This could be in terms of facilitating more active collaborations with overseas chambers of commerce, hosting trade delegations, participation in trade shows abroad, crafting appropriate promotional material etc. We have to look beyond Europe where the traditional trade linkages of this region have been.

Growth in the future is likely to be determined by how outward focused we are rather than inward looking. We have to "Think Globally, Act Locally" to profit from global trends.

Update: The article got published in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle:

Xerox the "rich neighbor" of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates....

2011-11-17T11:58:00.003-05:00

The influence of Xerox PARC on Steve Jobs’ creativity has been much publicized in the reporting after his demise. Here’s another take on the role of Xerox, this one includes another technology stalwart – Bill Gates. This comes from an article by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker “TheTweaker-The real genius of Steve Jobs” :

In the nineteen-eighties, Jobs reacted the same way when Microsoft came out with Windows. It used the same graphical user interface—icons and mouse—as the Macintosh. Jobs was outraged and summoned Gates from Seattle to Apple’s Silicon Valley headquarters. “They met in Jobs’s conference room, where Gates found himself surrounded by ten Apple employees who were eager to watch their boss assail him,” Isaacson writes. “Jobs didn’t disappoint his troops. ‘You’re ripping us off!’ he shouted. ‘I trusted you, and now you’re stealing from us!’ ”

Gates looked back at Jobs calmly. Everyone knew where the windows and the icons came from.

“Well, Steve,” Gates responded. “I think there’s more than one way of looking at it. I think it’s more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.”

Jobs was someone who took other people’s ideas and changed them. But he did not like it when the same thing was done to him. In his mind, what he did was special.

Build Faster, Grow Jobs!

2011-10-01T18:38:00.001-04:00

Step up downtown construction

published in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Oct 1, 2011

Unedited version:

Build Faster, Grow Jobs
by
Deepak Seth

Working downtown and the nice weather spell gives me an opportunity to step out during lunchtime and take a quick stroll soaking in the ambience of our beautiful city. Some of the beauty you can see with your eyes while some of it you have to imagine with your mind's eye, visualizing what it would be like when all the construction is completed.

This brings me to my current pet peeve, why is the construction so slow? Why do these projects seem to take forever? I have come back to downtown after 2 years, things look different but not as much as I had expected. In the 1930's I believe a 22 floor section of the Empire State Building was built in as many days. More recently Chinese bloggers set the construction world abuzz after posting a video of a 15 story hotel being built in 6 days. Downtowns in many boom cities – Shanghai, Dubai, Singapore seem to be transforming literally overnight as frequent visitors gawk at the changes since they last visited a few weeks or days ago.

By fast construction I do not mean shoddy construction or work which violates safety guidelines. But definitely faster than the snail’s pace at which our downtown projects trudge along. As a layperson to me it seems faster construction will result in more jobs at a time when they are most needed. Also will help in making the building operational faster resulting in quicker return on investment as well as create more downstream jobs. On the flip side slow construction is a double whammy as not only it keeps jobs down it also blocks resources which could be better used elsewhere.

Is lack of funding an issue? I would think that rather than releasing more funds for projects yet in the blueprint stage it would make more sense to open the spigot for the ones which are already in progress.

Most surveys indicate that lack of jobs is listed by most as the number one issue plaguing the economy today. Speeding up the progress on our construction jobs and bringing the speed on par with international norms should help bring about a quicker influx of much needed jobs to the local economy

Healthcare and “Big Data”

2011-07-05T13:53:00.002-04:00

This is part of my series on Healthcare and Technology. Read earlier article: Smartphones and Healthcare.)

As technology continues to pervade our daily activities the amount of data available to corporations for analysis is exploding (“Big Data”). Yet as recent events have shown quite clearly, many of us fear organizations that seem to be monitoring every aspect of our lives.

Can “Big Data” nonetheless help consumers and corporations alike? New research from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) finds that collecting, storing, and mining this trove for insights could create substantial economic benefits for both.

Healthcare is one of the largest sectors of the US economy accounting for 17 percent of the GDP and 11 percent of the workforce. Effective use of “Big Data” can help in reducing the currently unsustainable five percent per year rate of growth of US Healthcare expenditures.

The US Healthcare system has 4 major pools of data:

provider clinical data,
claims and cost data,
pharmaceutical and medical products R&D data and
patient behavior data.

Unfortunately all of this data is not yet integrated to be leveraged effectively to drive down costs. As much as 30% of the clinical data may not even be in digital format.

How exactly can the “Big Data” be used to drive down costs? Critically analyzing large datasets of patient characteristics and treatment outcomes can help identify the most clinically and cost effective treatments helping reduce over or under treatment, both of which drive up healthcare costs. Clinical decision support systems can match physician orders with best practices reducing chances of mistakes. Individuals who can benefit from lifestyle changes can be proactively identified. Fraud detection can be improved. Aggregating “Big Data” for pharmaceutical and medical products R&D can cut down time to bring new drugs to the market, help design better clinical trials, better analyze disease patterns and develop personalized medicine. Public health surveillance and response in case of breakout of epidemics can be improved.

These examples are just the tip of the iceberg. McKinsey Global Institute indicates that US Healthcare can capture $300 billion in value ever year with potential $200 billion savings on national healthcare spending.

But all this will be a pipe dream unless the Healthcare sector does a better job of allaying public fears about misuse of Healthcare data. We will become more receptive as we see the benefits directly impacting us in terms of lower premiums or improved service. Lawmakers and policy makers need to stay ahead of the curve ensuring that “Big Brother” stories about “Big Data” do not detract us from the benefits that can accrue if it is properly leveraged. The need for establishing a transparent system of checks and balances that protects individual rights while allowing the societal benefits of “Big Data” to accrue will be paramount.

USA and Innovation

2011-05-27T09:21:00.001-04:00

The May 2011 edition of the McKinsey Quarterly carried an article "Translating innovation into US growth: An advanced-industries perspective " which attempted to answer the question "Is America losing its innovation edge? " and opined that "The United States faces a future in which the elements of economic leadership are moving abroad. Reversing these trends will require the private and public sectors to collaborate."

I responded with a few comments of my own which have been included on the McKinsey Quarterly website:

Skilled immigrants are one of America’s greatest competitive advantages- the US has the unique advantage of having amongst its citizenry people from all parts of the globe. This “integrated diversity” is not yet fully utilized by corporations to its full potential. No other country operating in the global arena has this advantage. You may not find a Fijian or an Icelander in China or India but you would very well do in the US. And that’s a strength which needs to be leveraged.

Let us celebrate the "integrated diversity" of US and the pursuit of the "American Dream". Both of which contribute to the continued growth and prosperity of the US in a global economy.

More at Immigrants as Entrepreneurs: creating jobs, enhancing prosperity

What do you think? Is America losing the innovation edge? If yes, how do we get the edge back?

Local vs. Global; a dialogue with McKinsey experts

2011-05-26T11:28:00.005-04:00

The McKinsey Quarterly recently carried an article Is your emerging-market strategy local enough? in which the authors opined that the diversity and dynamism of China, India, and Brazil defy any one-size-fits-all approach. But by targeting city clusters within them, companies can seize growth opportunities.

The article however focused only on socio-economic measures as the means of identifying the clusters- an approach which I think will not work for India. I commented on the article:

"The “clustering” in India would need to factor in state and linguistic boundaries and cannot be just on the basis of socio-economic indices. For example, the cluster around Delhi will span across the states of Haryana, UP, Rajasthan, MP, Uttarakhand, etcetera, each with its own local laws that will impact a marketer’s objective of achieving some kind of homogeneity across the cluster.

Similarly, the cluster around Calcutta will span across the Hindi-Bengali socio-linguistic divide while the one near Hyderabad will be impacted by the political crisis around which states that area falls in. Definitely a twist to the tale.

Look forward to the authors moving beyond the rudimentary socio-economic clustering; layering it with the colors from a politico-socio-linguistic palette to paint a more realistic picture."

The editors of McKinsey Quarterly " passed along your feedback to the authors, who then wrote a response, and we are considering them for publication in the Idea Exchange section of our upcoming print edition. We thought your comment about sociolinguistic divides in India was an insightful point that will push the conversation around strategy forward"

I am looking forward to seeing this conversation progress forward and will welcome your thoughts on this issue.

McKinsey’s Ireena Vittal responds:

Yes, getting granular in India requires understanding the market not only geographically but also through other relevant lenses, including language and community. Indeed, some of the best insights emerge at the “sweet spots” where all of these variables intersect. For example, one food retailer has looked at Mumbai as a grouping of 32 separate wards, and then as a mix of two or three cultural communities within each ward. The resulting clusters are very revealing. For example, there are catchments within Mumbai with food tastes that are similar to catchments in Chennai, and others that more closely resemble Ahmedabad.

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 22: BI and Data Governance- "show warts and all" vs. "a world through rose tinted glasses"

2011-04-20T10:23:00.001-04:00

In an earlier post (The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 16: Is Michael Jackson still alive? (aka Doubting Thomas/BI Skeptic) I had talked about the need to allay the fears of data skeptics - the guys who question the veracity and accuracy of information presented to them via BI tools.

Picking up that thread again I wanted to talk about the close relationship between BI and Data Governance and the two distinct forms the relationship can take.

Approach 1: "A world through rose tinted glasses"
Filter out bad data from the presentation layer and place it in an "exception report" or club it into "unknown" or "orphans" or "all others" category in the presentation layer

Approach 2" : "show warts and all"
In the presentation layer show data as is - errors and all. Visibility to errors will drive action to get the source data rectified. As a fellow blogger commented "nothing quite gets data fixed as quickly as the bad entries showing up on something the CEO sees".

The decision on what approach to take leads to an interesting dilemma for the BI manager - "Will my BI system not appear less trustworthy if it shows all the warts?" or " Will I be able to get the focus and attention required to rectify data issues if Senior Management are not exposed to them"

This leads to an excellent opportunity for Leadership to couple the BI and Data Governance initiatives with BI becoming the trigger point of a feedback loop into the Data Governance mechanism which then initiates action to identify and rectify the issue (user error, lack of validation in a data input system, problem with one or more interface etc.). And voila! if all works well the next run of the report will show correct information.

Obviously all this holds true if senior management values the BI they receive and realize the importance of its accuracy. If that holds true than the quality of data can improve drastically within a few cycles. Nothing inspires action more in a corporate environment than a missive from the CXO.

Mr. Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.

-Oliver Cromwell

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 21: Data warehousing Title Fight, get your bets in...

2011-03-24T11:36:00.001-04:00

After BI now the turn of Data warehousing.

Per Gartner 2011 will be the year when data warehousing reaches what could well be its most-significant inflection point since its inception, the new data warehouse will introduce new scope for flexibility in adding new information types and change detection.

Gartner adds, in 2011, data warehouse platforms will evolve from an information store supporting traditional business intelligence (BI) platforms to a broader analytics infrastructure supporting operational analytics, corporate performance management and other new applications and uses, such as operational BI and performance management.

Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse DBMS

Key Highlights:

1. Organizations are adding workloads with online transaction processing (OLTP) access, and data loading has moved to intra-day — approaching continuous — loading in many cases.

2. While cost is driving alternative architectures, performance optimization is driving multitiered data architectures, including a strong interest in in-memory data mart deployments. At the high end, data warehousing is now mission-critical.

3. data warehouse "ideal" is changing and will give way to new kind of warehouse that addresses more extreme types of information assets. As a result, data warehouse DBMS vendors must begin to address numerous, new information asset formats, or be relegated to supporting roles in the future.

4. real opportunity for data integration tools vendors to challenge the database management system (DBMS) vendors as the primary data management architecture, and the DBMS vendors should not underestimate this potential competition.

5. The market is shifting from storage and access to delivery and comprehension, and that means context as depicted in metadata will become paramount. Another contender for the crown of information provider is business process platforms, which deliver business process management. Although late to the game and less mature than either DBMS or data integration, these solutions assist in managing the business context of information management.

6. By 2013, Gartner predicts that data warehouse DBMS vendors will combine their offerings to become something more like an information management platform. The DBMS will become, above all else, an execution platform. It will support and perform data management and integration tasks as well as for query and analysis execution.

7. "Many traditional data warehouse DBMS vendors already offer both the DBMS and execution platforms — but the independents may surprise the mega vendors. By all indications, acquisitions as well as research and development will set the stage and the deciding factors for the big winners and losers when the 'title fight' begins."

After Jeopardy what's next for IBM's Watson? Bring about a Healthcare Revolution as "Dr. Watson"?

2011-02-17T10:56:00.002-05:00

Not as far-fetched as it sounds. After pummeling previous Jeopardy Super Stars Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter into submission over the last few nights on Jeopardy (with Ken signing off his final answer with " “I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords”), IBM's Watson may take on a new Avatar as a Physician's Assistant (from MobiHealthNews)::

“For IBM, the future will happen very quickly, company executives” told the Times. “[Today] it plans to announce that it will collaborate with Columbia University and the University of Maryland to create a physician’s assistant service that will allow doctors to query a cybernetic assistant. The company also plans to work with Nuance Communications Inc. to add voice recognition to the physician’s assistant, possibly making the service available in as little as 18 months.”

Nuance, of course, offers the very popular Dragon voice recognition software for healthcare providers and others. Imagining a voice-enabled “physician assistant service” that taps into Watson and available as a smartphone app is not at all difficult. A desktop version of the service would be substantially less useful.

“I have been in medical education for 40 years and we’re still a very memory-based curriculum,” Dr. Herbert Chase, a professor of clinical medicine at Columbia University who is working with IBM on the physician’s assistant told the New York Times. “The power of Watson-like tools will cause us to reconsider what it is we want students to do.”

For those who are not Jeopardy Buffs, Watson is a new super computer from IBM that prove itself more than capable of besting and replacing today’s top Jeopardy! players. In a television spectacle reminiscent of the super computer Deep Blue’s win over chess world champion Gary Kasparov in 1997, a room-sized computer developed by IBM managed to beat out a pair of Jeopardy! all-stars over the course of a three night game this week. Watson, ended the run with $77,147 compared to Ken Jennings’ $24,000 and Brad Rutter’s $21,600.

The match included a medical related question — no, a diagnosis question really: “You just need a nap. You don’t have this sleep disorder that can make sufferers nod off while standing up.” Watson beat out the humans with the answer: “What is narcolepsy?” Maybe you don’t need an M.D. for that one, but still the computer got there first.

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 20: The Battlelines are drawn: Traditional Enterprise BI Platforms vs. Data Discovery Platforms

2011-02-16T10:09:00.008-05:00

Gartner's recently released Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms highlights a trend which all BI practitioners have observed over the past few years : the divide between Traditional enterprise BI platforms and Data Discovery platforms and the resultant confusion amongst decision makers about which one to opt for.

Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses as Gartner has very nicely captured in this comparison:

Gartner goes on to say

"The chasm between these segments has deepened because business users find the benefits of using data discovery tools so compelling that they make this choice despite the risk of creating fragmented silos of data, definitions and tools. This has accentuated the need for IT organizations to back away from a single-minded pursuit of standardization on one vendor to a more pragmatic portfolio approach."

Gartner's magic quadrant as it stands today still shows the Traditional enterprise BI Platforms (IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Microstrategy etc.) in the Leaders quadrant while the Data Discovery Platforms with the exception of Qliktech are in the Challengers (Tableau, Tibco) or in the Niche Players category (Jaspersoft et al)

However, that will be in a state of flux as Traditional BI vendors add Data Discovery to their portfolio (Microsoft with PowerPivot, SAP with SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, IBM with IBM Cognos Express and Information Builders with WebFocus Visual Discovery ) as they see BI spend dollars slipping to Data Discovery vendors with their ability to model, navigate and visualize data.

Meanwhile, Data discovery tool vendors (like Qliktech) are implementing capabilities to improve their enterprise readiness.
Gartner views "capabilities for integrating departmental and enterprise data models" as one of 10 important capabilities for Quadrant placement.

Surprisingly there is no player in the "Visionary" category. So it seems that we are stuck with these two alternate approaches (Traditional Platform and Data Discovery) and their hybrids for the near term horizon. I was hoping that time was ripe for a player to emerge with a Google/Amazon/Facebook mash up kind of approach to BI of the kind I described in an earlier post: The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 8: Star Trek returns.... :

I would focus on the direction it should be headed. And the single word answer to that is "simplification". The current and evolving paradigm of user-technology interface can be defined by a single word : "Google". Never before has the "Keep it Simple, Stupid" paradigm been so successful.

And that is the direction which BI needs to head to also.

A simple, single line search box which delivers context specific search and reporting capabilities. A sales rep types in the name of a city and links to sales report(s) for all customers in that city appear.

Also an Amazon.com kind of feature -" People who viewed this report also viewed...". Gives the user a quick and easy feel of what else s/he should be looking for. Building in "crowd intellect" into the reporting capabilities.

And what about a feature which allows a user to know who else is looking at a particular report in real-time or has viewed the report earlier (a viewing history). Combine this with interactive chat or communication capabilities and you have transformed a "report" into a "collaborative interaction".

Did I miss Geospatial analytics and GPS, how about integrating them with BI capabilities. A manager viewing a report, identifies issues with a particular customer, is able to identify the sales rep closest to that location based on the GPS capabilities of the handheld the rep is carrying and asks him/her to visit the customer.

BI has already ventured beyond Reporting & Analytics to Actionable Intelligence. Now it needs to venture even further to "Intelligent Actions". The gap,distance between the availability of intelligence and resultant action needs to be reduced by incorporating other emerging technologies into the classical BI Framework

A (non) player which I have been bullish about has been Google. I wrote in 2009 ( The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 12 :BI - "Head in the clouds but feet firmly planted on the ground") :

Staying on Google, I think that it may not be long before they enter the BI arena. They know how to manage huge volumes of data, run server farms and manage an analytics front end , currently primarily used to present information related to blogs/website statistics but can easily be modified as a front-end for business related information.

They have confounded me by not showing their hand yet.

Maybe IBM may have something up its sleeve with "Watson". They'll have to put it to work after it is done clobbering Ken and Brad on Jeopardy. BI would be a good space to put is skills to use. I had speculated :

There was a time when we had BI Tools, then vendors started branding them as Applications. These days several vendors are offering BI Appliances. Following the trend to it's logical conclusion, I would think that very soon we may see BI Machines or BI Engines.

Is "Watson" going to be the BI Machine/BI Engine of the future? "Elementary, My dear Watson", I hear as I stroke my Sherlockian chin.

Fat Nation: The cost of obesity...$450 Billion and growing....

2011-01-20T15:32:00.000-05:00

$ 450 Billion and growing.....that's huge. Read more : The real cost of obesity from The McKinsey Quarterly.

Smartphones emerge in new health care role.

2011-01-09T17:34:00.001-05:00

When the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle approached me to contribute an article on emerging healthcare trends in their "Speaking Out" edit page today focused on Health Care, I decided to write about something which I had alluded to in an earlier blogpost on this blog: Good bye Doctor! Hello Smart Phone!

Here's the article as it appeared in the paper today:

Smartphones emerge in new health care role.

Deepak Seth • Guest essayist • January 9, 2011

Move out of the way, Doctor! Just when you thought rising liability insurance costs and declining Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements were your biggest worries, you have a new one emerging on the horizon — the evolution of the smartphone into a primary care physician.

The scenario is not as farfetched as it sounds. A recent survey by Pew on the adoption rate of mobile health ("mHealth") applications found that a full 9 percent of American mobile phone users said they have mobile health apps on their phones that enable them to "track" or "manage" their health. Other studies predict that more than a third of 1.4 billion smartphone users in 2015 will be running some kind of mobile health care application.

Smartphone and other mobile health care apps include those for diabetes and other chronic diseases' management, and hospital-based Radio Frequency Identification.

Smartphone health care apps seem set to emerge as a differentiator in the increasingly competitive health care marketplace as health care players such as insurance and pharmaceutical companies queue to launch their own apps or co-branded apps as promotional tools or potential revenue streams.

Joining the bandwagon are telecom and technology companies that will attempt to get into the health care sector now that they have a foot in the door through their control of the newly emerging health care delivery platform — the smartphone. Opportunities may exist for health care players to work out collaborative agreements with telecom players to leverage each other's strengths.

Doctor, no reason, though, to lose heart yet. Nearly half of smartphone and mHealth applications are designed for health care providers aiming at improving their effectiveness and efficiency in areas such as continued medical education programs, health care management and remote monitoring applications.

Seth, of Brighton, is an information technology and business intelligence expert.

Frugal Innovation/Jugaad Edition # 3

2011-01-04T09:18:00.000-05:00

From the Jan-Feb edition of Harvard Business Review(New Business Models in Emerging Markets) as reported in the Wall Street Journal:

Chamak : A Laundry Service that is designed to serve those fed up with doing laundry themselves. Their current choices: A cheap but potentially unhygienic dhobi (washerman) or an unaffordable fancy launderette or dry cleaner. Both take several days.

From an economic standpoint, setting up a chain of self-service laundries was deemed too expensive to make a decent return.

Their solution: Portable, seven-foot-square kiosks with a front-loading washer and dryer, with an independent water supply, placed where there is most foot traffic. Customers drop off their clothes to be washed, dried and ironed in 24 hours.The company can charge 50 rupees (slightly less than $1) for a kilogram of clothing. And they'll SMS you when they are done! The service now has 5,000 customers patronizing 20 booths in Mumbai, Bangalore and Mysore.

ChotuKool from Godrej & Boyce: this little refrigerator, which holds just a few products and can run on a battery during power cuts

.

Happy New Year 2011!

2010-12-31T07:51:00.001-05:00

A message I received for the New Year which nicely captures all that I wish for you & your family ...

H appiness depends upon your outlook on life.

A ttitude is just as important as ability.

P assion, find yours this year!

P ositive thoughts make everything easier.

Y ou are unique, with special gifts, use them.

N ew beginnings with a new year.

E nthusiasm a true secret of success.

W ishes may they turn into goals.

Y ears go by to quickly, enjoy them.

E nergy may you have lots of it.

A ppreciation of life, don't take it for granted.

R elax take the time to relax in this coming year.

I wish you and yours a very Happy,Healthy,Safe and Prosperous 2011. Keep visiting and sharing feedback. Thanks for your support.

Good bye Doctor! Hello Smart Phone!

2010-12-17T09:26:00.001-05:00

Good bye Doctor! Hello Smart Phone!: The emergence of the Smart Phone as a Healthcare Delivery Platform

Move out of the way! Doctor. Just when you thought rising liability insurance costs and declining Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements were your biggest worries, you have a new one emerging on the horizon - the evolution of the Smartphone into a Primary Care Physician.

The scenario is not as farfetched as it sounds. A recent survey by Pew on the adoption rate of mobile health ("mHealth") apps found that a full 9 percent of American mobile phone users said they have a mobile health app on their phone that enables them to "track" or "manage" their health. Another recent study compiled by research2guidance, predicts that more than a third of 1.4 billion smartphone users in 2015 will be running some kind of mobile healthcare application.

Over a six month period from Feb 2010 to Sep 2010 each of the Smartphone Applications Platform: Apple App Store, Google Android and Blackberry App World have shown robust double digit growths in the number of Health Apps available. The composite growth across all platforms was 78% with Apple growing 66.6% from 4276 Health apps to 7136; Google showing a growth of 156.6% from 505 to 1296; and Blackberry showing a phenomenal growth of 141.4% from 140 to 338.

Smartphone and other mobile healthcare applications include those for diabetes and other chronic diseases' management, hospital based RFID and the use of technologies such as Bluetooth and ZigBee for health and fitness monitoring. A number of SMS messaging and Health 2.0 based medical applications are also emerging.

Smartphone Healthcare apps seem set to emerge as a differentiator in the increasingly crowded and competitive healthcare insurance marketplace (USP: "My smartphone apps to track your health are better than the competition" ) as healthcare players (Insurance companies, Pharmaceutical Companies, Device companies, Providers etc) queue to launch their own apps or co-branded apps as promotional tools or potential revenue streams.

Joining the bandwagon could be telecom or technology companies who will attempt to backward integrate into the healthcare sector now that they have a foot in the door through their control of the newly emerging healthcare delivery platform - the smartphone. AT&T recently launched AT&T For Health. The objectives for this group sound almost like that of a Healthcare plan: “combine mobility technologies, devices, connectivity, and applications to help drive down medical costs and deliver improved patient outcomes." These services aim to help healthcare providers and patients manage disease, stay adherence, age in place, manage weight loss, and monitor wellness.

As telecom companies step in the same "Health and Wellness" space Healthcare insurance companies are trying to expand into, the battle for the "patient" is likely to heat up. The telecom companies may have a technology advantage but are likely to be limited by their lack of a "patient base". Opportunities may exist for Healthcare players to work out collaborative agreements with telecom players to leverage each others strengths.

Doctor, no reason though to lose heart yet, nearly half of Smartphone or mHealth applications are designed for Healthcare Providers aiming at improving their effectiveness and efficiency in areas like continued medical education programs, healthcare management and remote monitoring applications.And there's another side to the story too. A recent Harvard Health publication indicated that as phones and their apps become smarter and smarter, more clinicians are incorporating them into their practices. They say, in a few years, filling a prescription may be just as likely to involve a session in the apps store as a trip to the pharmacy.

Pssst…let me check my Smartphone mHealth app to see how my Blood Pressure and Heart rate tracked as I penned this piece.

Cornflakes? We've got an app for that too!!

2010-12-09T09:02:00.000-05:00

This week major food brand Kellogg’s entered the world of smartphone apps with its first offering — myPlan, the Special K Challenge application for iPhone and Android platforms. The app enables users to create a two-week diet plan, update daily and weekly menus, track progress, find recipes, create shopping lists and receive motivational tips.

More details at : Interview: Kellogg on new myPlan diet app

Frugal Innovation/Jugaad Example # 2

2010-12-02T11:54:00.000-05:00

What if you cannot afford a motorbike?

You dress up your cycle as one!!

Jugaad at work (Frugal Innovation/Jugaad Example # 1).

Gartner's Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users for 2011 and Beyond

2010-11-30T13:00:00.002-05:00

Gartner Reveals Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users for 2011 and Beyond

By 2015, a G20 nation's critical infrastructure will be disrupted and damaged by online sabotage.
By 2015, new revenue generated each year by IT will determine the annual compensation of most new Global 2000 CIOs.
By 2015, information-smart businesses will increase recognized IT spending per head by 60 percent.
By 2015, tools and automation will eliminate 25 percent of labor hours associated with IT services.
By 2015, 20 percent of non-IT Global 500 companies will be cloud service providers.
By 2014, 90 percent of organizations will support corporate applications on personal devices.
By 2013, 80 percent of businesses will support a workforce using tablets.
By 2015, 10 percent of your online "friends" will be nonhuman.

These were selected from more than 100 of the strongest Gartner predictions across all research areas submitted for consideration this year. This year's selection process included evaluating several criteria that define a top prediction. The issues examined included relevance, impact and audience appeal.

Additional details are in the Gartner report "Gartner's Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users, 2011 and Beyond: IT's Growing Transparency" (you will need to register at the Gartner site)

Do you agree with these? Do you have some predictions of your own which you think need to be added to the list? Let's do some crystal ball gazing of our own........

Cytotron: Exciting New Development

2010-11-23T17:52:00.002-05:00

One of the most popular posts on my blog has been Cytotron : A cure for Arthritis ?? . Many have wondered when would this pathbreaking technology become mainstream and be available in the US.

Now there's some exciting news on that front: "The CYTOTRON is a Rotational Field Quantum Magnetic Resonance device to treat cancer and improve drug targeting and delivery... Shréis Scalene Sciences LLC, an Organization de Scalene member company, today announced that it has been awarded a cash grant of about a quarter million USD, under the U.S. Government’s Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project (“QTDP”) program, for 2010 "

The grant has been awarded to Shréis Scalene Sciences LLC (USA) to use "the CYTOTRON, as a stand-alone device utilizing Rotational Field Quantum Magnetic Resonance (RFQMR) to treat cancer and improve drug targeting and delivery through nano-permeabilization”.

The device uses Rotational Field Quantum Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (RFQMR) to deliver highly complex quantum (packet switched) beams in radiofrequency (RF) bands and harmonics ranging up to 300MHz in the presence of high instantaneous magnetic fields between 1mT to 6T, with specialized near field parabolic antennae.

Despite the wide array of prevailing therapies covering the entire range of the EM spectrum - from minimally invasive (thermal) RF ablation to complex ionizing radiation/prohibitive proton beam therapies - there is no stand alone, whole body, multi-organ suitable therapeutic device on the market today.

The CYTOTRON uniquely combines RF with instantaneous NMR, to safely yet effectively perform in vivo multi organ tissue engineering, with minimal/no collateral damage. A clinical trial was also registered with clinicaltrials.gov (NCT01220830) using the CYTOTRON to treat Multiple Sclerosis. The trial is ongoing at the S-CARD campus in Bangalore.

An international patent application filed by the inventor Dr. Rajah Vijay Kumar, for the use of a Cytotron application called Focused Resonance Nano-permeabilization (FORN) has been recently published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Evidence exists that FORN can be combined with chemotherapy, using it as a "drug focusing and delivery tool" to non-invasively target intractable, impervious lesions, helping to reduce systemic toxicities and improve therapeutic windows.

Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia (PA) has issued a letter of intent to conduct a clinical trial using the Cytotron in brain cancer. Early interest was received from the Center for Prostate Disease Research-WRAMC for the use of the Cytotron to treat prostate cancer. SSS executives are confident that the award of the prestigious QTDP grant will open up more doors to make the device and the treatment available in multiple medical institutions nationwide.

Read more details at : Shréis Scalene awarded Federal QTDP grant to advance use of the CYTOTRON

Future of the Web: A web visionary speaks

2010-11-23T12:27:00.004-05:00

Came across this interesting and informative presentation ("Ten Questions Internet Execs should ask and answer") by Mary Meeker, Morgan Stanley M.D.; delivered at the Web 2.0 Summit at San Francisco on Nov 16, 2010.

Meeker is head of the firm's global technology research unit (Latest Update 11/30: A Onetime 'Queen of the Net' Heads to Silicon Valley : Meeker moves to Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a partner) . She has been called "Queen of the Net" by Barron's and was named "one of the ten smartest people in tech" by "Fortune" magazine in 2010. Her prognostications about the state and future of the Internet are much awaited and respected. Meeker helps set the tech agenda in her annual state of the Internet address at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

The 10 questions Meeker asks and answers are:

Globality
Do you know which players in which countries do what you do better (or at least differently) than you do? Do you study / implement it?
Mobile
Ramping faster than any ‘new new thing’ – is your business leading or lagging?
Social Ecosystems
Would you rather be Apple, Google or…Facebook?
Will their future directions help / hurt your business?
Advertising
Ripe for innovation – will your business benefit?
Commerce
’Wal-Mart in your pocket’…location-based services…group buying power…flash sales… deep discounts…transparent pricing…real-time alerts / ratings…virtual goods...immediate gratification… Products must be fast + easy + fun.
Have you ever seen ‘constant improvement’ in products like we are seeing now? Is your business keeping pace?
Do humans want everything to be like a game?
Media
What does the extraordinary ramp in on-demand video usage mean for your business?
Internet Company Leadership Evolution
Shocking changes over just 6 years… are you prepared for next half decade of change?
Steve Jobs
What’s his ‘secret sauce?’ Does your company have it?
Ferocious Pace of Change - What’s Next in Tech?
When do consumers / enterprises & incumbents / attackers need you?
Closing Thoughts –
Large companies do not typically support rapid growth rates of the magnitude that follow… will these trends continue?

Food for thought!...not exactly what you needed as you visualize the food laden platters for Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 19: SAS vs. Cognos or is it SAS & Cognos??

2010-11-19T10:49:00.002-05:00

Comparison of user feedback on the two tools for various parameters (compiled from various sources)

Companies with big data crunching groups often end up with a conundrum related to tool selection esp. when making a choice between SAS and Cognos 8. My thoughts on the issue:

Issue boils down to Predictive Analytics vs. Descriptive Analytics with each tool a powerhouse in their respective sphere

Both can coexist. Rather than it becoming a "SAS vs. Cognos" scenario it can be "SAS and Cognos".

(A scenario which exists at some players: Generally, Cognos used as a data presentation layer that includes descriptive statistics and OLAP. SAS having a substantially more powerful ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) capability, used for data prep processes. Finally, SAS handles the inferential statistics and data mining, including predictive and optimization modeling.

To summarize, SAS used to integrate and perform ETL on data, Cognos to present the data, then SAS to analytically crunch the data.

The analytical results may then be reported back through Cognos. This whole process can be made to feel seamless.

Potentially some of the same synergy can be realized by a Cognos-SPSS combination.)

Release of Cognos 10 and integration of Cognos-SPSS makes the comparison more difficult as SPSS adds the predictive/statistical analyses capabilities which Cognos was weaker in. On other hand the SAS - Enterprise Guide provides a very analytical user friendly front-end

How have you dealt with your Predictive Analytics vs. Descriptive Analytics dilemma ? Peaceful co-existence or daggers drawn ?

Ancient Indian Mathematics ; and the World Wide Web running out of IP addresses

2010-11-12T15:57:00.004-05:00

Modern technologists have shown a remarkable lack of vision when envisaging the potential scope and spread of their innovations especially when dealing with numbers. Y2K, D10K etc, were manifestations of this malaise and now we come across the latest - the Internet may be in a danger of shut down as it runs out of IP addresses ("It sounds far-fetched, but a crisis with the potential to close off the Internet is imminent.").

How will my refrigerator talk to my toaster then? A big reason for running out of IP addresses is that almost every household device is Internet compatible now and has a unique IP address associated with it.

Juxtapose this against the logic of mathematicians of ancient India who had names for numbers as large as 10 to the power 17, yes 17

10 power 0      Eka
10 power 1      Dashah
10 power 2      Shata
10 power 3      Sahasra
10 power 4    Ayuta
10 power 5      Laksha
10 power 6      Prayuta
10 power 7      Koti
10 power 8      Arbuda
10 power 9      Abja
10 power 10 Kharva
10 power 11    Nikharva
10 power 12    Mahapadma
10 power 13    Shankha
10 power 14    Jaladhi
10 power 15    Antya
10 power 16    Madhya
10 power 17    ParArdha.

Why? as early as 1st Century B.C.E. (perhaps even earlier) would they be wrapping their arms around such huge numbers baffles the imagination.

The reasons were often mundane but can be well appreciated - like a prayer from Krishna Yajur Veda (4th Khanda, 4th Prashna)- a prayer and a wish for the wealth of cows to abound in large numbers, like millions and millions. The counting of cows here goes by hundreds, thousands, and thousands and millions of hundreds.

Now one can get an idea about the roots of a sense of exactitude even when things are nebulous - no , it's not God give me lots of cows but God give me a ParArdha cows!! ("..........parArdhashcemAme agna ishTakA dhenavassantu." - sanskrit)

So ye Gods of the Internet (aka "American Registry for Internet Numbers") move soon from the antiquated IP address of the type 74.125.227.19 (system offering roughly 4.3 billion possible IP addresses) to the the ones which look like fe80:43e3:9095:02e5:0216:cbff:feb2:7474 (offering 340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 addresses......that should make the "cow counters" happy). In techspeak move from IPv4 to IPv6.

Now let me go back to counting sheep....or is it cows..sheep...cows...sheep.....zzzzz

Useful Resource: IPv4 / IPv6: The Bottom Line

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 18 : Lost (or Found?) in a Cloud

2010-11-12T09:41:00.005-05:00

The Business Intelligence Chronicles in a Word Cloud

The Business Intelligence Chronicles in a Phrase Net

As I played with the new data visualization capabilities from IBM Research Labs (Many Eyes), I thought it would be nice to see how previous parts of The Business Intelligence Chronicles would appear in a Word Cloud and Phrase Net. The results are above.

Many Eyes are Data visualization tools from IBM, currently described as an "experiment" from IBM Research and IBM Cognos software group. Site allows users to upload data and then produce graphic representations for others to view and comment upon.

Word Cloud Generator was first published by Jonathan Feinberg on wordle.net. It was designed to give pleasure, and not to provide reliable analytic insight. That said, many people have found unexpected uses for it, from presenting the "gist" of a text to displaying personal identity. Word Cloud Generator draws each word at a size proportional to its frequency.

Frugal Innovation/Jugaad Example # 1

2010-09-16T09:56:00.001-04:00

Jugaad or Frugal Innovation, a way of life in India is the latest corporate buzzword (HBR, WSJ, Businesweek, The Economic Times) in the US.

Doing more for less is the new mantra for success in a stagnant recessionary economy and nowhere is the spirit of doing more for less better epitomized than by "jugaad", called by some as "art of creative improvisation", using things in a way they were not originally intended to achieve an objective.

Here's how Wikipedia defines it : ""Jugaad" is also a colloquial Hindi word that can mean an innovative fix, sometimes pejoratively used for solutions that bend rules, or a resource that can be used as such or a person who can solve a vexatious issue. It is used as much for enterprising street mechanics as for political fixers. In essence, it is a tribute to native genius, and lateral thinking."

I would like to share on my blog some of the examples of "jugaad" I come across. Please share your experiences too.

How's this for keeping your footwear safe oustide a temple or on the beach:

Updating this post to add a link to another interesting article on Jugaad from the WSJ : Jugaad on the Road to Success

How can your Boss kill you?

2010-09-08T14:47:00.000-04:00

"Bosses matter,” says Stanford management professor Bob Sutton in “Why good bosses tune in to their people.” Among other things, bad ones can kill you: a study found that their subordinates had up to 40 percent more heart attacks than people who had good bosses."

India vs. China.... The Battle of "Public Transport"

2010-09-05T07:38:00.001-04:00

India

China

And the winner is............??

Evolution of the Apple "iDevices"

2010-08-16T11:05:00.002-04:00

Something funny I came across. Enjoy!!
And I don't mean "funny" in a disparaging sense....nobody blends "fun" and "innovation" as well as Steve Jobs.....

2016 iHome??

US-India relationship: "one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century"

2010-08-16T10:30:00.000-04:00

Happy Independence Day (Aug 15) to all my Indian friends. Thought I would share President Obama's message on this occasion.

Statement by the President Obama on India's Independence Day

On behalf of my administration and the American people, I wish to congratulate all who will celebrate the 63rd anniversary of India’s independence. Indians around the world can not only look back on their history with pride, but can also look ahead to a future filled with hope and further progress. Ever since August 15, 1947, India’s non-violent struggle for freedom, its rejection of terrorism and extremism, and its belief in democracy, tolerance, and the rule of law have been an inspiration and beacon of hope for people around the world. India’s example has had a profound effect on many countries, including the United States. Leaders of our civil rights movement, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke about the debt they owed to Mahatma Gandhi. Ties between our two peoples have never been stronger. The over two million members of the Indian American community are living examples of the bonds that bind our nations together and their accomplishments have become well-known and admired in both countries. The strategic partnership between our countries will continue to grow, and I am looking forward to my November visit to India. Our goal is to make this one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century. Once again, congratulations and best wishes for a happy and safe Independence Day.

We are proud to be new Americans

2010-07-06T08:47:00.002-04:00

We are proud to be new Americans

Deepak Seth • Guest essayist • Rochester Democrat and Chronicle • July 4, 2010

On July 4, 2007, in a piece published in this newspaper, I had written "On Fourth of July I think of Fireworks, Festivities, Family, Food, Fun and much more but most importantly FREEDOM."

Three years down the line that still holds true, as it will for even the next 300-plus years, the cherished ideals of Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness on which the Founding Fathers laid the keel of this great nation continuing to serve as shining beacons all over the globe. What has changed for me and my family though since I wrote that piece is that this year we join the festivities as "new" Americans.

On May 17, 2010, we joined 70-plus individuals from 35-plus countries as newly minted United States citizens in taking the oath of naturalization in a ceremony at RIT. The ceremony was solemn and joyous and the presiding judge reminded us of some of the illustrious footsteps we were now stepping into: Scientist Albert Einstein, Secretaries of State Madeline Albright and Henry Kissinger, songwriter Irving Berlin ("God Bless America"), Astronaut Kalpana Chawla etc. The list is long and awe-inspiring, and a reminder that immigrants have been the lifeblood of this great nation.

My thoughts flashed back to the Founding Fathers, who with their sagacity and foresight created a strong foundation in forming the U.S. Constitution, which has withstood the tests of time; and the subsequent leadership at all levels of government which has more often than not consistently placed the nation's interest ahead of their own personal interests to the extent we now take that for granted. Sadly, that is not the situation in many other countries around the globe.

I think of our men and women in uniform who are spending this day in distant lands far away from home. The Red and Blue of the Star-Spangled Banner I am sure shines as bright under the desert sun of Iraq and Afghanistan as it does swaying in the breeze off Lake Ontario, a constant reminder that freedoms earned have to be defended often at the cost of one's own blood.

I salute these heroes and our hometown heroes, but more importantly I salute the PEOPLE of our great nation. The people are what have made the nation great; the voice of the people reflected in our democratic institutions have enabled us to right the wrongs of history and move ahead even as other nations continue to stay mired in the quicksand of the past.

Deepak Seth is a former community member of the Editorial Board.

Bills organization spans generations

2010-01-29T18:43:00.000-05:00

Bills organization spans generations
Published in The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Jan 28,2010

Owner: 90-plus years old
GM: 70-plus years old
Coach: 50-plus years old
Players: 20 to 30 years old

If ever there was a team spanning generations it is the Buffalo Bills. "Back in my times" takes a whole new meaning with so many generations present. Let's hope this intergenerational dynamic generates some action on the field rather than the usual intergenerational issues of trying to figure out what the other generation means — I cannot make sense out of my kids' texting.

—DEEPAK SETH
BRIGHTON

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 17: BI gets "Sixth Sense"

2009-11-20T15:16:00.002-05:00

Well, some of you may say isn't it too late in the day for BI to be getting "Sixth Sense". Isn't BI supposed to be a moniker for organizational sixth sense capabilities?

My answer: To all ye tech geeks who walk the hallways with your noses buried in your iPhones and Droids, here’s a look at some technology of the future which will really blow your mind away. Pranav Mistry of MIT has morphed the cellphone, projector, camera and a few other devices to create something that looks like it’s pulled from the pages of a science fiction book:

Sixth Sense (presented by Patti Maes,Professor,MIT)

Sixth Sense (presented by Pranav Mistry, PhD Student, MIT)

What does it mean for BI: interactive reports projected on the walls of elevators as people continue their discussions after heading out from meeting rooms? Reports dynamically structured basis who is participating in the discussions?

What are your Sixth Sense ideas?

DeepakSethSpeak: The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 17: BI gets "Sixth Sense" Revisited

Realpolitik vs. Moral Principle

2009-11-20T10:06:00.000-05:00

Realpolitik vs. Moral Principle: A classical dilemma manifested often a time in the way nations react to each other and to issues confronting them. US today confronts this dilemma as it warily treads towards a new relationship with a economically and militarily resurgent China eager to establish a new World Order.

India's dealings with China may offer some lessons as I expounded in a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal in response to an earlier published Editorial:

LETTERS NOVEMBER 14, 2009

India Stands Up to China on Tibet

Your editorial "Dalai Lama Lesson" (Oct. 30) points out the differences in approaches in dealing with the Chinese Dragon's bellicosity by India and the U.S., but fails to mention that China is the U.S.'s largest creditor. The Indian administration has no such constraints.

India has not budged on its principled stand regarding hospitality for the Dalai Lama and Tibetan refugees over the past five decades even as China has grown in military and financial clout. One wonders how the U.S. would have reacted to Chinese pressures if the Dalai Lama would have been a refugee here. Realpolitik and commercial pressures might have prevailed over moral principle.

The bitter experience of the 1962 India-China war has led to a wary "better safe than sorry" approach while dealing with China, and the shared belief among most Indian politicians about the need to call a bully's bluff every time a threat is made.

Regardless of the party in power in Washington, China knows that in the case of a face off it will be the U.S. that will blink first. Think of President George W. Bush and the spy plane fiasco or President Obama and the Dalai Lama's visit.

Deepak Seth
Rochester, N.Y.

Make sure you have some "yellow" with your greens...

2009-10-28T09:29:00.005-04:00

Remember my earlier post Getting to the "root" of the matter : US "discovers" turmeric. Looks like the story gets even better.

The BBC quotes new research published in the British Journal of Cancer in a news story "Curry spice 'kills cancer cells' ":

An extract found in the bright yellow curry spice turmeric can kill off cancer cells, scientists have shown.
The chemical - curcumin - has long been thought to have healing powers and is already being tested as a treatment for arthritis and even dementia.

Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, said: "This is interesting research which opens up the possibility that natural chemicals found in turmeric could be developed into new treatments for oesophageal cancer. "

Hand me the spice jar....."yellow" suddenly became even better !!

McKinsey "rediscovers" Gandhi

2009-10-19T12:57:00.008-04:00

In a blog titled Financial Firms and the New Diplomacy I came across an interesting news byte : "today the McKinsey Quarterly released a video of public-relations expert Richard Edelman exploring the new landscape of corporate reputation and trust. "

The blogger talks about the new mantras for the financial world -"common good";"commitment to a stakeholder model as opposed to just for the shareholder'';

To me it sounded like Gandhi 101. Gandhi addressing very rich people had said “I venture to suggest to you that you are not using your riches wisely, though you seem to be using them profusely.”

He went on to add “The art of amassing riches becomes a degrading and despicable art if it is not accompanied by the nobler art of how to spend wealth usefully. Let not possession of wealth be synonymous with degradation, vice and profligacy.”

Gandhi defined this concept as “Trusteeship” – ‘“That no matter how much money we have earned, we should regard ourselves as trustees, holding this money for the welfare of all our neighbours.”

Looks like McKinsey and others are “rediscovering” the same principles and repackaging them in a “common good” model.

Gandhi was more forthright in acknowledging that he was drawing upon pre-existing ideas from religion and philosophy :"Having been in my own days in possession of some amount of money, I want to present you with my own recipe. That recipe is nothing original that I am going to give you. It is really a part of our religion, and it is this: that no matter how much money we have earned, we should regard ourselves as trustees holding these moneys for the welfare of all our neighbors.... If God gives us power and wealth, He gives us the same so that we may use them for the benefit of mankind and not. for our selfish, carnal purpose."

Well, consultants have sometimes been described as people who borrow your watch to tell you the time and get paid handsomely for that. Looks like they are borrowing heavily from Gandhi too as they advise Wall Street Firms on how their “rating” reflects less about the dollar value of the deal they just won — and more about what the deal does for the common good.

I'm sure if these "new" mantras are likely to boost bonus payouts, Wall Street managers will be quick to adopt them, else, they will be discarded by the wayside once the tarnished reputations of their firms have been burnished by a generous application of the PR polish of "common good".

IBM Global CIO Survey: Old Wine or New Voice?

2009-10-08T13:33:00.005-04:00

IBM has come out with their Global CIO Survey titled The New Voice of the CIO. They have based their findings on interviews with 2500 CIOs spanning 78 countries and 19 industries.

Key Highlights:

At any given time, a CIO is:

An Insightful Visionary and an Able Pragmatist
A Savvy Value Creator and a Relentless Cost Cutter
A Collaborative Business Leader and an Inspiring IT Manager

By integrating these three pairs of roles, the CIO:

Makes innovation real
Raises the ROI of IT
Expands business impact

Is this Old Wine in a New Bottle? or is it the New Voice of the CIO? I will leave it up to you to decide.

Getting to the "root" of the matter : US "discovers" turmeric

2009-07-13T16:08:00.010-04:00

I could not help but chuckle reading this article in Time magazine: Can Turmeric Relieve Pain? One Doctor's Opinion

I realized that this article with an anecdotal evidence of one individual would do more for popularizing this wonder root in the US than the avid testimony of billions of Indians who have been partaking turmeric as food and medicine for thousands of years.

Minor cut or burn , apply turmeric paste (in fact yellow color of turmeric was so closely associated with burn treatment in India that Burnol when launched in India as a burn treatment cream had a bright yellow color).
Worms in the belly or body ache/inflamation and pain: add turmeric powder to milk and drink it before you go to bed.
Worried about your skin condition or want to keep your skin in glowing condition : apply turmeric and sandalwood paste. Most marriage traditions require both the bride and groom to be anointed with turmeric.

The list is endless....... Ayurveda- the ancient Indian medical system waxes eloquent about the benefits of turmeric. This is only some of the stuff I heard growing up as a kid. And the urging from my mother to make sure that anything with turmeric in it does not fall on my white school shirt for those yellow stains were almost impossible to make disappear.

And in any case for good measure, add it to whatever you cook. That sure came in handy as it now appears that Indian have low rates of Alzheimer's/Senile Dementia, attributable arguably to prevalence of turmeric in the diet .

And the chuckle turns into a guffaw when I see people rushing to specialty stores to buy small bottles of turmeric powder for tens of dollars when they can buy a few pounds of the stuff for the same amount at the local Indian ethnic store (every US town has one. If you don't know where it is, ask your Indian friends, they will love to direct you to it) . And Guys, don't end up pushing the prices up because it may be a fad for you it's food for many like me!

Looks like after yoga it is now the turn of turmeric to be "discovered" by the West!!

Since I originally wrote this post came across this another interesting validation of the benefits of "curcumin"- the key active ingredient in turmeric : "Turmeric cuts postmenopausal breast cancer risk"

"Baseballers" from the Land of Cricket

2009-07-08T10:34:00.010-04:00

The fertile fields of Indian villages and the bustling streets of its cities have been the breeding grounds for many a world class cricketer.

It was only some time before somebody figured out that the same soil which produces great cricketers can produce great baseball players too esp. given the strong similarities between the 2 games. That's why I was pleasantly surprised by a small news item in the WSJ recently about the first Indian players- Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel being hired as part of Major League Baseball (Pittsburgh Pirates) : Game-Show Winners Earn a Place in Minors

And in the land of the Slumdog Millionaire is it not apt that these players were selected after winning a game show "Million Dollar Arm" ? A victory that transformed their lives moving them across the globe from small hamlets in Uttar Pradesh, India to the bustling ballpark of Pittsburgh.

And obviously as Cricket tries to make inroads into the uncharted waters of the US sports marketplace, Baseball would also be planning similar moves in India: "Indian hurlers' inking opens new market:Contracts for Singh and Patel could pave way for their countrymen"

Watch these "Baseballers" in action: "I don't know who Babe Ruth is" . Neither of them knew what baseball is or had ever touched a baseball before they took part in this contest.

Maybe this will open the floodgates......What next, Indian cricket teams hiring ball players from the wheat fields of Kansas?

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 16: Is Michael Jackson still alive? (aka Doubting Thomas/BI Skeptic)

2009-07-01T15:52:00.005-04:00

One of the biggest challenges of Business Intelligence is dealing with the die hard skeptic who in the face of overwhelming evidence will still question the veracity and reliability of the information (just like the people who believe "Michael Jackson is still alive") .

How does one deal with these Doubting Thomases ("BI Skeptics")? Well, you can never truly satisfy them but the following measures should help keep their skepticism in check:

Clear traceability of the data flow from the source system to the presentation layer. Educate users how the data flows from the source to the final report(s). Make that part of end user training. Include a link to a high level data flow diagram from the presentation layer.
Reconciliation reports generated and widely disseminated on a regular basis. These should be user friendly and match check totals, counts etc. for key data chunks with discrepancies clearly flagged.
Error Handling process: which identifies and flags any significant data drops/misses and enables initiation of corrective action much before it hits the presentation layer.
Complaint Handling System and Feedback loop which allows the skeptics to raise their concerns and track them getting addressed.
Ensuring the presentation layer/tools clearly display the filter criteria used to generate the displayed report.

With all that in place you should have allayed most fears (Most, but no winning over the "Michael Jackson abducted by aliens" kind :-) )

US and India : Ready for a slow dance number?

2009-06-18T15:09:00.006-04:00

US and India : Ready for a slow dance number?

The US India Business Council’s “Synergies Summit” held June 16-17, 2009 occured at a time when significant changes have occurred in both the US and Indian polity : election of Democrat Barack Obama as President in the US and the re-election of the ruling Congress Party in India but this time without the stranglehold of it’s traditional Leftist allies.

The two dance partners have danced an amazing tango over the last few years and it would be interesting to see which foot they put forward as they step onto the dance floor again this time for a more slow and intimate number. The relationship had blossomed during President Bush’s tenure and there were expectations that with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke slated to attend; this summit might be used by the Obama Administration to spell out its policy for India .

The US is increasingly viewing India as a “deep” strategic partner while India too has found itself more closely aligned to the US on several issues. However US should realize that given the often contradictory pulls of the many factions within India’s democratic polity and it’s vast diversity, India will always be a “quirky” partner more in the mold of France than the always-toe- the- line UK. Multi-nuanced relationship is how some commentators are wont to describe it.

Right now, India might be ready for some self-righteous gloating, India ’s mixed economy has weathered the economic crises much better than the free or unregulated markets of other countries and it is on track to achieve growth in the 5-6% when rest of the global economy is shrinking. To many in India , US steps like “nationalization” or “state ownership” of banks, Insurance companies, auto companies and protectionist trade measures would seem to be a vindication of India ’s own economic policies which have included such features. Though the Left is no longer part of the ruling coalition in India , trend for economic liberalization,Free market reforms etc. may slow down as the policy wonks there try to figure out the causes of the US meltdown and try to ensure that it is not repeated there.

The flavor of the summit may also be different this year as while in the past it may served more as an opportunity for US companies looking for partners in India this time it will be equally matched by Indian corporates with fat wallets and hearty appetites looking for pickings from the aftermath of the economic maelstrom. While Hummer may have been picked up by a Chinese firm, I am sure there are sizable chunks of GM, AIG, Hollywood etc. which are being eyed as investment opportunities by Indian companies.

On the US side, despite many years of engagement in India most companies still do not have their act together. European, Korean, Japanese companies have proven to be more nimble and more adept to realize profits from what C.K. Prahalad has described as the “Bottom of the Pyramid”. Making profits selling chocolates for a few cents each or cell phones for a few dollars still seems to be like the proverbial Indian Rope trick :”Is it really happening” to many. The Business Process Outsourcing market may lose some of its sheen because of the protectionist measures in the US and the overall state of the US economy but most Indian BPO companies have climbed up the value chain to emerge as Knowledge Partners. Collaborating for technical and scientific innovation should be an important item on the agenda during the summit

As always, from a US perspective any conversation about India is not complete without bringing up the P-word. Pakistan is now more on the front-burner of US security policy discussions then ever before. India may find itself increasingly drawn into those discussions, though it is too soon for it to be considered a honest broker given it’s long history of discord with Pakistan and the still unresolved Kashmir issue. However the realization has slowly emerged in Washington that India is a responsible player with much at stake and is a strong stabilizing force in a region plagued with turmoil. Nobody knows the region better than India and as the stakes are raised with the US presence in Afghanistan and anti-terror actions in Pakistan , security collaboration with India is only going to increase.

Let the slow dance begin!!

Hillary Clinton's Remarks at the Summit

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 15 : The Cost of Intelligence- A Fistful of Dollars? or a Few Dollars More?

2009-06-17T08:42:00.007-04:00

A recent study by Gartner about reducing the costs of reporting through data mart consolidation finds "Organizations can save up to 20% of data reporting costs and provide better business information by replacing fragmented reporting in disparate data marts with a single instance of widely used data."

Data Reporting Costs? How much are they? With "spreadmarts" (personal spreadsheets, thousands of desktop database instances, customized reporting solutions for small business groups etc.) proliferating all across an organization, it is very difficult to get a good estimate of the Data Reporting Costs.

And in the absence of a good estimate it often becomes difficult to calculate the ROI of BI initiatives (Show me the money .....Should I ? :Can we easily or accurately calculate the ROI of delivering key Business Intelligence to Sales Reps on their handheld devices versus the information being mailed to them periodically ?)

The existing Data Reporting Costs used by the Enterprise Information Management proponents for their savings projections are challenged by those who favor a more Distributed Information Management strategy and vice-versa.

So in absence of a good estimate should we assume the existing Data Reporting Costs to be "A Fistful of Dollars"?

I would recommend any IT organization making a case for enterprise wide consolidation of BI capabilities to first initiate a study to identify existing "spreadmarts" and the costs associated with them. This could be through a questionnaire or 1:1 interaction with key stakeholders. These stakeholders are likely to be the same ones who will have a key voice in whether the company goes ahead with an enterprise strategy so this will also give an opportunity to get them engaged early on. The process of answering questions related to the costs may also help them realize the many hidden costs associated with such "spreadmarts" and the savings that can accrue in their own area if they are rationalized. If they feel like owners of the cost saving resulting from an enterprise strategy they will become its staunchest advocates.

Well, are the costs just a Few Dollars More than a Fistful of Dollars ? That will determine The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of further discussions on any Enterprise Information Management Strategy.

(p.s. you can guess I am a fan of Sergei Leone's Clint Eastwood starring Spaghetti Westerns)

To Bee or not to Bee....

2009-06-12T12:20:00.007-04:00

Remember my blogpost The Indian Spelling Bee Hive at Washington dated June 3, 2009 which mentioned about an interesting opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal by James Maguire : "How to Win the Spelling Bee. You don't have to be Indian. But it seems to help."

Well, I decided to send my feedback on that article to WSJ which was published on June 8,2009 Letters to the Editor on the Opinion page.

Being published in the WSJ, that's a first for me :-) :

LETTERS JUNE 8, 2009
Hard, Disciplined Work Is How You Spell Champion
As an Indian immigrant and parent of a student who has won an award at the recently concluded Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Reno, Nevada, I can relate very well to the points made by James Maguire in "How to Win the Spelling Bee" (op-ed, June 3).
As expected, my daughter's achievement got nary a mention in the local papers, which seem to have no problem filling many pages with results of any sporting event, however obscure, in the local school districts.
American society likes to put sports achievers on a pedestal while academic achievement generally receives short shrift.Participation in research projects at local universities, science fairs and quiz competitions is more often than not at the initiative of the student or his or her parents. Schools often look askance at such activities and would rather allocate precious funds for participation in athletic meets than academic events.
This situation is baffling in a market-driven economy. People ought to ask: Who is going to create more jobs in the future -- the "popular" football player/cheerleader or the "nerdy" kid with the 4.0 grade-point average?
Most of these achievers are not just spelling geeks; they are well-rounded and have many other interests and hobbies at which they excel.
Let's get our priorities straight and start giving the real leaders of tomorrow the respect and encouragement they deserve.
Deepak Seth
Rochester, N.Y.

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 14: The Color of Intelligence

2009-06-05T09:18:00.013-04:00

Color or Colour - whichever way you spell it, has been a critical part of Business Intelligence in particular and Business in general. Red ink, in the black, greenback, traffic lighting, dashboarding all highlight the role of color in business.

In BI , color provides an extra dimension to reporting and an opportunity to cue immediate responses based on color perceptions deeply ingrained in the brain (Green is good, Red means immediate action etc.)

While color has played out well in the web delivery of reports, cost has been a key constraint in effectively using it for printed output. That sure acts as a dampener esp. when printed reports or briefing books are still the preferred report delivery option of many C-suite executives. From early in my career I remember putting briefing books together where only a select few got the color versions while others had to make do with black and white. They sure had a difficult time figuring out the various shades of gray or shading patterns.

Looks like we are on the way to see more color come into our reports. Xerox recently announced the launch of ColorQube 9200 Series which is supposed to cut the cost of color pages by up to 62 percent compared to traditional color lasers − without compromising print quality. And that too in a Green way since proprietary solid ink technology (check it out, 361 patents, wow!) lowers the environmental impact of office printing and the Cartridge-free design generates 90 percent less supplies waste and reduces the effects of manufacturing and transportation on the environment.

Have you any colorful stories to share about your own experiences with color or lack thereof in your reports ?

Show me the money .....Should I ?

2009-06-04T14:10:00.006-04:00

Jeff Hayzlett, chief marketing officer and vice president at Eastman Kodak Co., gave the keynote speech at the annual Ad Council of Rochester luncheon yesterday.

"Marketers are going to have to stand up against ROI," Hayzlett said. "People talk about ROI, what's your return on investment. What's the return on ignoring? That's a bigger factor than ... the finance." (as reported by the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle).

Interesting observation indeed. Diametrically opposite to the established Conventional Wisdom. But a dilemma faced increasingly by people working in the spheres of technical or business innovation. Can we easily or accurately calculate the ROI of delivering key Business Intelligence to Sales Reps on their handheld devices versus the information being mailed to them periodically ?

What is the ROI on laying off people ? Have companies ever taken stock of what the real gains from layoffs are after factoring in all the costs (including the hidden costs like loss of institutional wisdom, connections, business knowledge etc.)

Can we calculate the ROI of keeping a pet? raising a child?

Should ROI have determined the feasibility of Wright Brother's efforts to build a heavier than air flying machine? Did ROI calculations justify the replacement of the horse and cart by the automobile? or the invention of the computer?

A few years ago, in a similar vein some economists had come up with the Gross National Happiness (GNH) instead of the usual GDP and GNP to measure the wealth of a nation.

Looks like we are ready for a measure better than ROI.

p.s. I wonder what the conversation between Mr. Hayzlett and the Kodak CFO would have been after the now famous ROI quote. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall to listen to that conversation.

How about you share your thoughts on what the CFO said to the CMO....in 140 characters or less (this is the era of Twitter)

The Indian Spelling Bee Hive at Washington

2009-06-03T12:14:00.007-04:00

A year ago I had blogged about :"Indian spelling "bees" swarm Washington . Looks like those bees have continued to swarm the Washington event in even greater numbers.

Today the Wall Street Journal carried an interesting opinion piece on the phenomenon by James Maguire : "How to Win the Spelling Bee. You don't have to be Indian. But it seems to help."

I would ascribe the success of the kids not to their being "Indian" but on the Indian value of "Focus on Education". Anybody who subscribes to the same value can achieve similar success. Cultures which focus on sports find similar successes for their kids in the sports arena (a place where Indians are often noticeable by their relative absence - 1 Billion people, 1 Olympic Gold at the Beijing Olympics).

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 13 : This is no torture - "Dashboarding" the Stimulus Package

2009-06-01T15:22:00.013-04:00

The stimulus legislation, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, calls for detailed reporting and tracking of the federal funds that will be handed out.

"Dashboarding" is just what the doctor (aka "IT Consultant") would recommend for dealing with this. Many companies, large and small, are rushing to offer BI and Project monitoring software for state and local governments.

Here are some quick links to what is on offer :

Microsoft Stimulus 360

IBM Economy Recovery Fund Reporting

Acumen's START: Stimulus Tracking and Recipient Transparency Application

Microstrategy Stimulus Dashboard

CGI ARRA Reporting Gateway

Visible Strategies SEE-IT

Onvia Economic Stimulus Package Tracking

Would be interesting to see which one walks away with the Lion's share of the cake. What do you think ?

Battle of the Search Engines Round 1: Google 1, Bing 0

2009-06-01T10:15:00.006-04:00

Excited by the hype around Microsoft's new search engine : Bing , I decided to take it out for a quick test drive.
Typed my phone number in and hit the magnifying lens. Well it found me alright but displayed an address which was definitely not mine. Got the town right and the general area but was definitely not my address.
Repeated the test with Google and got the correct address.
If Bing has not been able to synchronize it's search capabilities with the published White Book of major towns it definitely means that it has some more work to do before it is ready to play with the Big Boys (aka Google) and other neighborhood kids with new tricks up their sleeves (Wolfram).
Have you "Bing"ed yet? What is your feedback ?

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 12 :BI - "Head in the clouds but feet firmly planted on the ground"

2009-05-28T09:24:00.012-04:00

A few weeks ago I wrote about emerging trends in Business Intelligence (The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 8: Star Trek returns.... ). Today I am in the mood to do some crystal ball gazing again and share some random musings :

Last couple of years saw several big time players enhancing their share and leverage in the BI arena through strategic mergers & acquisitions : IBM-Cognos, SAP-Business Objects, Oracle-Hyperion. I think by the end of this year the big names will complete their "digestion" of these entities and will make them shed their old monikers. Some may say that the goodwill of names like Cognos, Hyperion etc is too big to be easily written of and the big players will balk from doing that. On the contrary,I think that a company like IBM gains more overall by having a single integrated "Business Intelligence Suite" under it's own name rather than retaining the Cognos name and creating confusion and competition with it's own other BI offerings. Similarly the case with the other players. So this may be the last year for die hard fans to order their Cognos Coffee Mugs or Hyperion T-shirts. They may be the collectibles of the future.
I had written "The current and evolving paradigm of user-technology interface can be defined by a single word : "Google". That was before I saw "Wolfram" . "Computational Knowledge Engine" is how it is described. The front end is not very pretty but I was impressed by what it does. Typing in :China, US in a routine search engine like Google will give you links to millions of web articles where these 2 words appear. On the other hand Wolfram will deliver an output which compares China and US on various attributes : Name, Location, Flags, Demographics, Economic Indices etc. Type in the name of 2 companies : IBM, Oracle and it will compare the 2 companies for several parameters -Latest trades, Fundamentals and Financials, Recent Returns, Relative Price History etc. Pretty Cool. An "Intelligent" Search Engine. I am sure the smart guys at Google would be cooking up something similar in their Labs.
Staying on Google, I think that it may not be long before they enter the BI arena. They know how to manage huge volumes of data, run server farms and manage an analytics front end , currently primarily used to present information related to blogs/website statistics but can easily be modified as a front-end for business related information.
There was a time when we had BI Tools, then vendors started branding them as Applications. These days several vendors are offering BI Appliances. Following the trend to it's logical conclusion, I would think that very soon we may see BI Machines or BI Engines. Or better still combining BI capabilities with Cloud computing, one may see the emergence of "BI Clouds" . BI will then live up to the classic proverb “It may have it's head in the clouds, but has it's feet well set on the ground.”

Let's see how many of these predictions pan out. If they do, remember where you read about them first !!

Are you ready with some of your own tea leaves readings ? please share......

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 11 : BI : Rear-view Mirror or Real-time Dashboard or Forward Looking Crystal Ball or All 3?

2009-05-19T13:33:00.008-04:00

Classical BI with it's roots in Data warehousing has always been more of a Rear-view mirror : offering creative insights into essentially historical data. You can slice it, dice it, drill up, drill down, view it in cubes or reports or dashboards but it essentially is historical.

Last Friday IBM launched IBM System S , a real time data analysis software. IBM is positioning it as "software designed to analyze streams of real-time data". It "could help financial institutions monitor transactions and analyze risks, or help hospitals monitor patients to detect problems early ". I have not had the opportunity to look at the software or it's documentation yet.

Interesting !

However, even a "Real-time Dashboard" is meaningless without a functional "Rear view mirror" as we all know from our experience driving automobiles or running companies. A real-time dashboard may indicate that sales are dropping or manufacturing defects are rising at 3:00 p.m. This data in isolation without a "Rear-view mirror" giving historical perspective ("Over the last month sales have started declining or manufacturing defects rising at 3:00p.m.") is only of marginal importance.

I am sure IBM would be envisaging buyers complementing it's System S with some of it's more traditional BI offerings like Cognos etc.

I think BI should be Rear View Mirror, Real Time Dashboard and Forward looking Crystal Ball all rolled into one......

Speaking of Cognos, attendees returning from Cognos Forum (held over last week) were slightly disappointed by the lack of new offerings. Last year their was a great buzz around the 8.4 release, nothing such this year around.

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 10 : What happens when Data driven BI meets BI Joe ?

2009-05-15T11:10:00.008-04:00

One of the most interesting aspects of blogging is the interesting conversations one strikes up with a wide variety of people.

The latest interaction I am engaged in is with Ken Allard, military strategist turned BI guru. Not your classical textbook BI but BI with a twist. His worldview of BI takes it beyond "tactical information harvested from IT and DW" to "war gaming and simulations".

My perspective is that Yes, war gaming and simulation could be useful additions to the world of BI. The catch with war gaming is that there may be a perception that the technique has not been able to project the trajectory and outcome of recent conflicts. Well, that may be less a result of ineffectiveness of war gaming as a tool/technique and more so because of incorrect scenario formulation/projections or failure to implement the results of war games into the real life battlefield.

Corporates can "war game" new product launches, emergence of new competitors, delays in new product development etc.

Ken takes the concept even further. Based on his military experience he finds that the real value of war-gaming is not the precise prediction of events, which rarely turn out as expected - Murphy's Law governing almost everything. Rather, it is in the minds of the commanders who are steeped in the variables (What can go wrong?) and learn what they need to do to react effectively enough to accomplish their mission (usually expressed as the commander's intent).

There seems to be nothing comparable in business today where the leadership seems to focus obsessively on smaller issues - usually short-term financials.

His view of war gaming in the BI context takes it beyond single events like product launches, (though he acknowledges those too can be important forward steps) into the realm of entrepreneurial strategic planning that focuses three or four years out and applies that rigor to basic corporate decision-making.

Interesting indeed.

Ken tells me he is appearing on the Huckabee Show on Fox News Channel this weekend (Sat and Sun night). Worth checking out....

Hot off the press (May 18) : Got a note from Ken. He never got to BIzWars (BI and War Gaming/Simulation) on The Huckabee Show. They got caught in the quagmire of discussing his run in with the NYT regarding their article about Pentagon's influence on war reporting. Watch

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 9: Can a cat be simultaneously dead and alive ?

2009-05-01T13:53:00.004-04:00

Schrödinger has already grappled with that paradox leaving us with the famous Schrödinger's cat

In the world of BI the famous paradox manifests itself in terms of what I will call the "Consulting Conundrum" : Can a consultant be simultaneously objective towards an agreed upon BI roadmap/strategy and ever changing needs of his/her clients ?

Before I attempt to answer that , let me digress. In my experience there are a few different kind of BI consulting outfits spanning the spectrum of the following 2 opposite poles :

1. "We will help you frame your BI strategy and roadmap" type.

2. "Where's the software box, we will install it for you" type

The first one views the second as "below their paygrade, hands dirty" kind of guys while the second ones view the first as "head in the clouds, cut off from reality" kind of guys.

Very few and far between are the kind of consultants who straddle the two extremes . These are the kind of guys who understand that the client often has nebulous ideas about BI , they know what they need and sometimes not even that; and are not sure how they can get there. Reminds me of Alice in Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland :

"Cheshire-Cat," said Alice, "please could you tell me which way I should go?"

"That depends on where you want to go," the Cheshire-Cat answered.

"I don't really care," said Alice.

Well it doesn't matter then, does it?" the Cheshire-Cat said.

"As long as I get somewhere," said Alice quickly.

The solution to the "Consulting Conundrum" lies with the "integration roles" ("functional") within the client organization that span the "technology - user" divide. Unfortunately these roles are often the hardest hit as IT organizations within companies downsize. This can pose new challenges for consultants in fathoming what a client actually needs but also an opportunity to provide services to bridge a gap which companies have created through their short sightedness.

What are your solutions to the "Consulting Conundrum" ?

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 8: Star Trek returns....

2009-04-28T13:21:00.008-04:00

Come May 8, Star Trek would return to the theaters with another saga in the journey to "boldly go where no man has gone before"

What are the bold new directions in which Business Intelligence user interface is headed ? I'll leave that question to the crystal ball gazers, tea leaf readers and the pundits amongst us.

I would focus on the direction it should be headed. And the single word answer to that is "simplification". The current and evolving paradigm of user-technology interface can be defined by a single word : "Google". Never before has the "Keep it Simple, Stupid" paradigm been so successful.

And that is the direction which BI needs to head to also.

A simple, single line search box which delivers context specific search and reporting capabilities. A sales rep types in the name of a city and links to sales report(s) for all customers in that city appear.

Also an Amazon.com kind of feature -" People who viewed this report also viewed...". Gives the user a quick and easy feel of what else s/he should be looking for. Building in "crowd intellect" into the reporting capabilities.

And what about a feature which allows a user to know who else is looking at a particular report in real-time or has viewed the report earlier (a viewing history). Combine this with interactive chat or communication capabilities and you have transformed a "report" into a "collaborative interaction".

Did I miss Geospatial analytics and GPS, how about integrating them with BI capabilities. A manager viewing a report, identifies issues with a particular customer, is able to identify the sales rep closest to that location based on the GPS capabilities of the handheld the rep is carrying and asks him/her to visit the customer.

BI has already ventured beyond Reporting & Analytics to Actionable Intelligence. Now it needs to venture even further to "Intelligent Actions". The gap,distance between the availability of intelligence and resultant action needs to be reduced by incorporating other emerging technologies into the classical BI Framework.

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 7: The Need for Speed - Call for Special Forces or the Infantry ?

2009-04-20T10:48:00.005-04:00

In all organizations generally two ideological camps emerge around the best way to implement BI : The first one driven essentially by the ERP implementation methodology which almost always precedes a BI implementation is process focused. It wants all specs to be nailed, users requirements documented, the last 'i' dotted and 't' crossed before development can commence. The second one is driven by the kind of close to the users analytical team methodology which had existed within user departments (like Sales or Finance) before ERP implementations made IT centralized. Here the focus is on speed. Specs are at best considered a necessary evil to be completed after the development is complete.

The first camp is considered as "Process Fiends", "Slow moving Bureaucrats" by the second camp which in turn is considered "Bunch of cowboys","Bulls in a China shop" by the first.

My personal approach is to effectively leverage the strengths of these two what appear to be conflicting ideologies. The larger BI group needs to be split into 2 components -

a small "Special Forces" contingent which can quickly scout new options , build prototypes, execute limited precision deployments for a selected target audience. Focus is on 4 S's : Scout, Speed, Scalable and Selective.
The larger "Infantry" component focuses on scaling up some of the early wins of the Special Forces component , establishes a process framework around it and launches them for mass deployment. Focus is on 3 P's: Parameters, Process, Performance.

For example , when deploying BI capabilities on a handheld device like a Blackberry, instead of getting caught up in the specification definition process, a small "Special Forces" contingent was deployed to "scout" the technology, "speedily" build a "scalable" prototype for a "selective" deployment to key stakeholders.

Subsequently the "Infantry" stepped in to scale up the "wins" of the "Special Forces" for deployment to a wider user base.They worked on the detailed specifications ("parameters"), Job Scheduling, Database Tuning ("performance"), Training documentation ("processs") etc.

Some projects executed by the "Special Forces" may never reach the "Infantry" stage and there may be others which start straight with the "Infantry"

In my opinion this two pronged approach is better, a "win-win" rather than the single pronged approach of either making your team just a Special Forces contingent (support issues when their "wins" are ramped up) or just an Infantry contingent (slow development leading to waning user interest).

What do you think ?

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 6: The CIO giveth and the CIO taketh away

2009-04-13T15:54:00.005-04:00

The role and success of BI in an organization depends to a large extent upon the attitude and interest of the CIO. I will characterize them as :

1. The Creators : Have a keen understanding and appreciation of the relevance of BI. Will lay great emphasis on creating strong technical underpinnings and a robust BI strategy. May not be as effective in selling BI to other groups as they are more the "Build a better mouse trap" kind of people. Other business heads like Chief Sales Officer or Chief Marketing Officer will find this kind of CIO to be very "technical" and "boring".

2. The Preservers/Enhancers : These are the showmen types. They have their ears to the ground and are attuned to what the other C-suite officers are talking about. These are the guys who will push their team to have dashboards delivered on the Blackberry or whatever the latest fad is. They do a great job in spreading awareness about BI capabilities in the organization. They are the "Build a mouse trap with the latest gizmos, and I'll find a buyer"

3.The Destroyers : BI bores them as does anything "technical". They are generally non-IT people placed in an IT leadership role because they had liberally spiked their conversation with the CEO with fancy buzzwords like Twitter, Social Networking, Facebook etc which the CEO construed to be IT (one will be surprised to know what passes off as IT in the C-suites of many corporations). They generally end up destroying BI capabilities by underfunding it and creating an environment where talented BI resources are forced to leave. These are the "Why build a mousetrap, when you can just Twitter" type.

Obviously these are generalizations. A typical CIO would be a mix of all the three attributes in different proportions.

What do you think your CIO is ? Can you think of any more kinds ?

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 5: What They Don't Teach You At Any Business School?

2009-04-09T11:04:00.004-04:00

What They Don't Teach You At Any Business School?

The answer is "Business Intelligence"

By that I do not mean the oxymoron phrase - given the state of the economy today and what actions led it there many people think that the words Intelligence and Business cannot be put in the same sentence together.

I mean Business Intelligence , the discipline all BI professionals are practitioners of. I made enquiries at a few Business Schools and surprisingly it is not a part of the course curriculum for the MBA program. I would have thought that given the importance this field has in the actual real-life business environment ; it's inter-disciplinary, cross-functional nature pulling data and information from various sources together; and more importantly it's role in presenting information in a manner which facilitates decision making it should have been an apt candidate for inclusion in Business School curricula.

Seems like Business Schools are more fascinated by course options like Stochastic Modelling, Pricing of Derivatives, Game Theory, etc. etc. (many of which contributed in creating the pseudo-expertise which led to the current economic fiasco) than to consider more practical, real life day to day usable options like Business Intelligence.

If more would be CEO's , business leaders of the future are introduced to "Business Intelligence" as they pursue their MBAs would we have more "Intelligent Business" ?

Maybe the onus is on us BI professionals to sound a wake up call. What do you think ?

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 4: Raiders of the Lost Ark

2009-04-04T10:30:00.006-04:00

Or should I say Raiders of the Lost Data. As BI professionals we are often confronted with Business requests for historical data ,to deal with product recalls or product litigation or for historical trending and for a myriad of other business reasons.

Obviously, the cubes and other reports cannot be structured to meet all these adhoc requests. They are generally structured for dealing with regular requests. For the purpose of speed and efficiency very old historical data is purged from the cubes and underlying models.

The source data warehouse too may either have the data or it may not if the data has been archived off site. In any case regular business users may not have either the security access or knowledge of the tools required to access this data.

To cut a long story short, a Data Archival and Retrieval Strategy needs to be part and parcel of any Business Intelligence Strategy. In the absence of a coherent Data Archival and Retrieval Strategy one will find a gradually deteriorating performance of the BI applications and lots of dissatisfied users groping in the dark to figure out the who ?,how?,where? of their requests for historical data..........

Well atleast till they find their BIndiana Jones !

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 3: All that glitters is Gold

2009-04-03T08:40:00.006-04:00

Well, this one twists the age old adage on it's head. Yes, all that glitters is gold. And the gold I am talking about is the BI capabilities developed within organizations.

Most times companies are unwilling to share or showcase these to a wider audience. Reasons can be many :

Secrecy : Fears that competitors may end up acquiring competitive advantage by becoming aware of BI Strategy/capabilities.
Lack of confidence : underestimating own potential and fearing becoming laughing stock
Over confidence : "what can we learn from others"
Poaching : talent may get poached by others

Left to themselves most BI professionals would love to showcase their work to others, bounce ideas and seek feedback. Most push back comes from the CIO Office. Their fears in most cases are unfounded and can be mitigated/managed.

Competitive advantage/disadvantage does not depend on what your competitor/others know about your BI capabilities but how effective your own Business teams are in using those capabilities effectively and efficiently.In any case, most BI capabilities are vendor driven with everybody having equal access to them. There is an almost zero probability of being taken by surprise.

But in some cases enlightened CIOs have taken the lead in reaching out to their peers in other non-competing organizations and have the BI teams in both places engage in constructive evaluation of each others work. I would love to see more of that happening.

If the idea of showcasing to other companies is a little far fetched, an alternative is to periodically get an independent consultant to review the BI strategy/development and interact with the team and key Business users.

CIOs may feel that it may be viewed by the BI head as an encroachment on their territory.

Nothing can be farther from the truth.

The BI head would love to have the opportunity to "use" the consultant to say to the CIO what they have wanted to say for a long time but haven't been able to or have been saying for a long time and has been falling on deaf ears. (need more servers, need an upgrade, delivering "best of class" despite limited resources, Strategy/Organization needs an overhaul etc. etc.).

The Business would love this opportunity to vent and share their pet peeves about BI (Development Lead times too high, Reports/Cubes not available on time, Key BI contacts not identified etc etc ).

The CIO can look forward to an objective unbiased appraisal.

A win - win for all.

All that glitters is gold but there is no sense keeping it locked up in the vaults, rather put it out on display like in the Gold Souks of Dubai (with proper security and protection) . Or better still invite an independent appraiser to come evaluate it.

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 2: Flexible is Flexible, Fixed is Fixed, and never the twain shall meet

2009-04-01T15:45:00.007-04:00

With apologies to Rudyard Kipling "Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet"

The biggest wow factor for OLAP based BI applications has been the flexibility for the end users - slice and dice, drill up and down, build reports on the fly. The techies were the first to be floored. And next came the Analyst types. My Finance users loved the first Financial Insight we came out with. Adopted the same approach for a Sales Insight and the response was mixed. Lot of positive as well as negative feedback.

I myself went into the Field and took couple of the developers along too, conducted a few sessions with the Field Sales Force and sat through some training sessions. As I discovered first hand the response spanned 2 extremes - many of the more computer savvy sales reps were all wows and praising the flexibility of the application and it's analytical abilities as being the next best invention since sliced bread. On the other hand many others had their eyes glazed over. They were still stuck 3 steps behind where the trainer was. "Can we not get our standard XYZ report mailed to us weekly", was their refrain. The daily availability of cube based reports or ability to drill down to specifics did not impress them.

Boy, we had a big problem on hand. Substantiated that by conducting an end user survey at an upcoming Sales Meet attended by the entire sales Force. (A slight detour - the response rate for the user survey was near 100% since we conducted a lucky draw for iPods every night amongst those who submitted). Voila ! In an open ended question to list the Top 5 weaknesses and Top 5 strengths of the application - "Flexibility" found pride of place on both sides. On one side it was as Very Flexible - Easy to Use on the other side it was Too Flexible - Need Fixed reports.

Needless to add , while retaining cube based reporting for the analytical kinds ,we added "canned" reports with some routine prompts for the Sales Force. Next Sales Meet was a different story altogether. More on that later....

In this case, Fixed and Flexible did meet as we pursued a Middle Path.

Moral(s) of the story :

1. One size does not fit all.

2. Nothing beats going out into the Field and interacting with the end users. I would recommend all CIOs to mandate some end user interaction for all - including developers. Let them sit through some of the end user training sessions where their applications are deployed. The first hand feedback will be invaluable.

3. Feedback, Feedback, Feedback - the good old fashioned user survey can still come in handy at times. And nothing like an iPod or iPhone or the latest iGadget to get the completed forms back in.

4. The users is always right ! make the changes required. If not fully, meet them atleast half the way.

The Business Intelligence Chronicles Part 1: Six Blind Men and a Elephant

2009-03-31T09:46:00.006-04:00

Many years ago when I transitioned into Business Intelligence Applications (Peoplesoft EPM/Cognos) from a ERP Transactional Applications (Peoplesoft Financials) background, one of my first endeavors was to "sell" the concept on an ongoing basis to what almost always used to be a wary audience of executives, managers and users who had heard the buzz but were not exactly sure what it meant. With my Sales and Marketing Background I knew that a picture will do it better than words.

The first slide in my presentation deck was the parable of the Six Blind Men and the Elephant :

Is it a Wall ?
Is it a spear ?
Is it a snake ?
Is it a tree or a fan or a rope ?
Each blind man describes the elephant from where he is standing, from his perspective, and each is different...
With EPM - Provide timely & consistent information across the global organization in order to align executives, operational managers, field sales force and knowledge workers in defining, viewing and pursuing strategic objectives.

The slide always drove the message home and I retained it in my deck as we continued to roll out BI applications to more sites/functions. Always succeeded in getting the audience engaged as it very aptly described the state of data and information in most sites/functions/organizations and what we intended to do about it. A very clear positioning for our "Brand".

What do you think ? With the multitudes of BI applications and Data Warehousing Solutions are organizations today better equipped to see the Full Elephant or are they still like the Six Blind Men ? Share your stories and watch out for Part 2 of The Business Intelligence Chronicles.

Business Transformation - Analogies from the World of Nature

2009-03-25T14:36:00.004-04:00

As I have worked over the years transforming organizations, I cannot but help but draw analogies with the World of Nature :

1. The Hibernators : These organizations have a penchant for cycles of accumulating fat and then trimming it down. Almost like polar bears or other animals of cold climes. Much of this comes about from the cyclical trend of the business they operate in. I once worked in a company where this trend was driven by the cyclical supply of milk- the key ingredient of their final product. All winter it built up stocks of intermediates, added manpower. Only to trim it all during the harsh Indian summers when the milk supply dried down.

2. The Chameleons : Nothing intrinsically changes about these organizations as they supposedly "transform". An appearance of change is created to satisfy stakeholders like banks, shareholders, media etc. Many of the family owned public companies in India in the 80's and 90's used to fall in this category. The internal processes and structure of the company remained unchanged fixated on the mindset of the owner but the external portrayal constantly changed to suit the environment.

3. The Butterflies/Silkworms: Many organizations grow fat as they are inefficient utilisers of resources which are available aplenty since these companies are generally market doyens or operate in a protected environment. Latest trend is for them to go into a transformative pupa stage away from the prying eyes of external stakeholders under private ownership. The objective being that they after transformation will emerge from their cocoons as attractive butterflies, the cynosure of all eyes, worthy of great premiums. Many will not reach this stage as the private equity investor may decide to harvest the silk from the pupa rather than waiting for the butterfly to emerge. Needless to add the company itself would be killed and the value (silk) extracted by sale of brands, patents, equipment etc.

Any other analogies come to mind ?

Do you know ? Reinvent yourself or become obsolete...

2009-03-19T13:34:00.003-04:00

A very powerful and fascinating video on the progression of Information Technology, a compilation of unique factoids which you will appreciate (to the beat of some nice remix music).
Do you know ?
Drives home the message that we need to constantly reinvent ourselves so that we do not become obsolete!!

Start the Day with some Dibertism's

2009-02-03T08:44:00.002-05:00

How about something different on the blog today. Start the day off with some humor.
Some of Dilbert's best one liners:
1. I say no to alcohol, it just doesn't listen.
2. Marriage is one of the chief causes of divorce.
3. Work is fine if it doesn't take too much of your time.
4. When everything comes in your way you're in the wrong lane.
5. The light at the end of the tunnel may be an incoming train..
6. Born free, taxed to death.
7. Everyone has a photographic memory, some just don't have film.
8. Life is unsure; always eat your dessert first.
9. Smile, it makes people wonder what you are thinking.
10. If you keep your feet firmly on the ground, you'll have trouble putting on your pants.
11. It's not hard to meet expenses, they are everywhere.
12. The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot. The guy who invented the other three, he was the genius.
13. The trouble with being punctual is that no one is there to appreciate it.
14. In a country of free speech, why are there phone bills?
15. If you cannot change your mind, are you sure you have one?
16. Beat the 5 O'clock rush, leave work at noon!
17. If you can't convince them, confuse them.
18. It's not the fall that kills you. It's the sudden stop at the end.
19. I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.
20. Hot glass looks same as cold glass. - Cunino's Law of Burnt Fingers.
21. The cigarette does the smoking you are just the sucker.
22. Whenever I find the key to success, someone changes the lock.
23. To Err is human; to forgive is not a Company policy.
24. The road to success...... Is always under construction.
25. Alcohol doesn't solve any problems, but if you think again, neither does Milk.
26. In order to get a Loan, you first need to prove that you don't need it

Slumdog Millionaire : Contrasting Reviews

2009-01-27T14:01:00.004-05:00

BBC- Soutik Biswas
'Why Slumdog fails to move me'

Rolling Stone - Peter Travers
What I feel for this movie isn't just admiration, it's mad love.

Uplifting ,"Poverty Porn", Breathtaking, "Slum Chic" - all terms used by various critics in describing the same movie. Has ruffled the feathers of Bollywood's movie icon, Amitabh Bachchan. Well, if the critics have such dramatically opposite opinions then it means the movie is really worth watching.

To my American Friends who ask me, "Do things like this really happen in India ? Is India really like this?"

My answer, " This is as much India as 'Die Hard' is USA".

Part Real , Part Director's imagination.

I will give it the highest accolade most Indian viewers give to a movie they really like - "Paisa Vasool"- got my money's worth!!

7 + 1 E's for President Obama

2009-01-13T15:36:00.007-05:00

(Published in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle on Inauguration Day, Jan 20, 2009 as part of "Rochester's letters to President Barack Obama" as "Key in on seven points and you'll find success"

Dear President Obama,

Congratulations!! The US needs change like never before and I am glad that you are going to be that "Change". You have been entrusted with an unenviable responsibility of immense proportions - almost like cleaning the Augean stables and rebuilding the Parthenon at the same time. But the mission can be well accomplished if you stay focused on what I call the 7 E’s:

Economy: Restart the economic recovery focusing on the public rather than just the financial institutions.

Employment: Get people back into jobs to restart the demand engine.

End the War: stem the bleeding of national treasure and precious lives to fight needless wars.

Energy: reinvigorate plans to end dependence on fossil fuels and foreign oil; and develop new alternatives.

Education: re-establish American leadership in innovation and technology.

Environment: a cleaner, greener planet for future generations.

Enhance Healthcare: ensure affordable healthcare for all.

These E's are interdependent and build on each other. Please focus on them under the umbrella of another overarching E - Eliminate Corruption, breaking the deadly stranglehold of endemic and pervasive corruption in many of our institutions, and we will be on the path to success.

All the Best!!

Deepak Seth

India may need anti-terror help

2008-12-18T14:42:00.004-05:00

Abridged version published in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Nov 30, 2008

Terror struck again. This time half a way across the globe in Mumbai. As a person of Indian origin with many friends hailing from Mumbai I was glued to the news channels watching the drama unfold in the city where I had started my first job. A city I would describe as a heady concoction of NYC and LA (in equal measures) to my American friends.

The attacks underscored the fact that democratic civil societies all across the globe are menaced by the same forces of radical fundamentalism. Also reminded the world of the unique capabilities of radical groups to asymmetrically project their abilities by selecting soft targets and bringing entire cities/nations to a standstill.

Making me less than 2 degrees separated from the crises was an email from an old classmate from management school. He had subsequently joined the Indian Police Service and had now lost a police batch mate to terrorists' bullets in Mumbai.

What he had to say as he vented and shared his grief has relevance for us in US as we try to fathom what is transpiring there :"Another Terror attack in Mumbai and I expect the same stereotype stands from the political parties, same response from the media and the same anguish and feeling of helplessness from the public. Rightly so, they ask, what is the Government doing about it? The opposition parties will exploit the situation to say that the Government has been soft on terror…..While legislation and awarding deterrent punishments are very essential in our fight against terror, they are by no means sufficient to put an end to terror. The public at large rightfully ask – if US could stop terror attacks after 9/11, why can’t our security system do the same here? Friends, we will continue to have such attacks till we as a nation and as a society do not decide to invest in the police of the country. We expect a first-world police reaction from a third-world police. But we as a society are not bothered – or is it that human life, and more so a life of a policeman, is too cheap? Or is it that we are not aware of the deficiencies in our security systems? The reaction of the Government is also on the same lines – will legislate a strong anti-terror law, will create a federal agency, will bring in police reforms, etc. Unfortunately these terror attacks are only ‘action events’ for the media to keep people hooked on to the TVs. But hardly we have informed and consistent discussions in media to improve the security situation." Not unlike the reactions we had in the US or London or Madrid or Bali after terror attacks.

What hit home for me was that the US is perceived as a role model for securing the homeland from terrorist attacks. There may be a need to share that expertise and intelligence with other US allies as terrorist organizations start picking out as targets US interests and citizens in those countries. Mumbai and India are no strangers to terrorist attacks but this was the first time foreign nationals were also targeted. We also need to continue to strengthen our own defenses against terror attacks as the bad guys continue to plot new ways to cause us damage

Bailouts reward poor performance

2008-11-24T15:14:00.002-05:00

Bailouts reward poor performance
Deepak Seth • November 24, 2008
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

The president and Congress seem to be caught up in the mindset of bailouts being the only mechanism for getting us out of the current economic crisis.

I think it may end up being a case of throwing good money after bad.The federal government should instead figure out a way of rewarding the successful and efficient operators rather than bailing out the inefficient. Obviously the successful operators are doing something right and it is their approach which needs to be propagated throughout the economic system.

The bad practices and processes of the inefficient operators are the contagion which needs to be eliminated to bring the economy back on track.The bailouts allow the same bad practices and processes to get a new lease on life under the very same managements which had created them and allowed them to thrive in the first place. This will only prolong the pain for the entire economy since these companies will continue to sap the system as they continue their market-unfriendly practices.

While the big Wall Street players, banks and insurance companies were driven by insatiable greed to follow unsound practices or to overlook warning signals, several relatively smaller institutions kept their eye on the ball, making sure that they had sufficient collateral before extending loans and have emerged relatively unscathed from the crises.

The government needs to figure out ways of extending the lines of credit for these institutions.These players are more likely to get the monies to deserving borrowers faster and more efficiently. That is what the credit-starved economy needs right now.

A similar approach needs to be followed for the automobile sector. Rather than bailing out the General Motors, Fords and Chryslers, why not reward the Toyotas, Hondas and Nissans that have been consistently more successful in the marketplace? Maybe assist them in acquiring the failing Detroit behemoths and turning them around. Most foreign car companies do a significant part of their manufacturing for the U.S. market in the United States and thus such an approach would better safeguard U.S. jobs.

More damaging is the fundamental organizational and cultural transformation that bailouts may bring about. The shift from "we need to be better focused on consumer needs to be successful" to "we need to have better linkages in Washington to make sure we have a finger in the bailout pie."

It's a shift from "competition" to "patronage" from "consumer" to "feds" from "global competiveness" to "protected islands" from "eliminate waste and improve efficiency" to "who cares, we'll be bailed out in the end." This will be detrimental for the United States in the long run.

Politics has buyer's remorse, too

2008-11-03T14:25:00.004-05:00

Politics has buyer's remorse, too
Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, November 3, 2008

As we head to the polling booths on Tuesday, a fear gnawing in many people's mind is: "What if I make the wrong choice?'' The run-up to the presidential election has branded it as a "pivotal,'' "epochal,'' "once in a lifetime'' kind of election in the psyche of the voters.And that makes the weight of the decision even heavier — as if the fate of the universe hangs in balance on each individual vote.

I do not feel the same way.I agree with the point that this election is very important, perhaps more important than any ever.But I have enough faith in American democratic institutions (the executive, the legislative and the judiciary) to know that any changes forthcoming would be within the parameters of what has been enshrined in that shining beacon: the U.S. Constitution.

As I saw both the candidates and their teams in action over the past few months, I felt even more reassured that we are being asked to make a choice between two equally exemplary individuals.Both hold the best interests of the United States first and foremost in their hearts.So whether Obama wins or McCain, we the people have won in either case.

And once the voting is done, the "What, if I make the wrong choice?'' will morph into "Did I make the correct choice?'' That is a question all marketers are aware of. It is what almost any consumer goes through after making any big-ticket purchase.Marketers/psychologists call it "post-purchase dissonance'' or "buyer's remorse.'' Experts say buyer's remorse can be caused or increased by the knowledge that other people will later question the purchase or claim to know better alternatives.It comes down to the "we told you so'' or "you should have known better" moment.Companies deal with buyer's remorse by having return policies that allow consumers to return goods if they are not fully satisfied.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing for election results.However, the lead time between the declaration of results and the oath-taking by the new president (an anachronism from the horse-and-buggy days) provides a release for the remorse and an opportunity to reinforce or rationalize the validity of one's choice.

I would think that any such remorse after the election would be misplaced if every voter makes his or her choice based on the sole criteria of "Who is best for the country?'' without bringing factors such as age, race, sex, appearance or color into play.

If every voter does that, we will end up on Wednesday with the best guy winning.

Google “Power” - From “Search” to “Rescue”

2008-10-02T12:37:00.001-04:00

The Search Giant has proposed it’s own Rescue plan for the Environment and reducing U.S. dependence on fossil fuels - Clean Power by 2030 .

The web giant in a release posted on its site said: “While this plan will cost $4.4 trillion (in undiscounted 2008 dollars), it will ultimately save $5.4 trillion, delivering a net savings of $1 trillion over the life of the plan”.

Highlights reported in the Times of India :
———–
The three basic elements of the clean energy plan are new transmission lines and policies like national renewable portfolio standard, new generation vehicles running on non-oil fuels and greater energy efficiency by installing smart meters and real time pricing.
———–

Now that the Googloids have got this figured out can they start “searching” a solution to our Economic Crisis ! The “Do No Evil” company may do a better job of it than our Government has…..

U.S. must rediscover innovation

2008-09-29T11:14:00.003-04:00

U.S. must rediscover innovation
Deepak Seth • September 29, 2008

Innovation has been the lifeblood of the American economy and the American way of life. America's success has been built on the model of inventing stuff, branding it, manufacturing it efficiently and then reaping the profits from a global market.

Now the innovation engine seems to be slowing down. There are some reasons:

Science and technology are taking a back seat in a country distracted by other issues — wars, natural disasters and economic crises.
We've missed the bus with key emerging global trends — climate change, stem cell research, alternate energy. Europe was faster off the block and now, as the rest of the world buys in, they reap the profits.
In a culture of the "cool," science and math are viewed as "uncool." That shrinks the talent pool from which the innovators of tomorrow can appear. Funding for science and math education is not at desirable levels.
Post-9/11 travel restrictions, global uncertainties and the growing prosperity of China and India have reduced the inflow of scientific talent to the United States for higher education and research.

The large-scale shift of manufacturing capabilities from the U.S. has created a disconnect between the lab and the shop floor. The effects of that are now starting to show. Most U.S. companies view themselves as "bundlers''—bundling together goods and services developed and built elsewhere. Research and development is viewed as another process ready to be off-shored.
The next president needs to re-establish U.S. preeminence as the innovation hub of the world. While bailouts of sinking financial firms can provide a short-term solution to economic crises, a focus on innovation can leverage the inherent resilience and ingenuity of the American people to restore the energy and creativity of a free-market economy. Here are some suggestions:

Redirect financial institutions to focus on what they used to do best: financing innovation, weeding out the crazy ideas from the true blockbusters.
Launch a big national initiative like the Manhattan Project, Apollo moon program and Human Genome project. The spinoffs from these programs created much of the technology we see in our homes today.
Pay bigger incentives for U.S. corporations for R&D. Reward investments made at home in the U.S.
Make a big push for science and math education in schools and for more academic scholarships at colleges.
Have a finger in every pie. Offer incentives to corporations and universities to invest in technologies focused on the global marketplace rather than just the U.S. market.

"Innovate or perish" is the new mantra.

America's brands face global test

2008-08-25T15:01:00.001-04:00

America's brands face global test
Deepak Seth • Guest essayist • August 25, 2008

China may be basking in the glory of leading the Olympics Gold medal tally, but anybody following the coverage of the Games would realize that it is US brands which reigned supreme. Coke, McDonald's, Nike, GE et al were ubiquitous in their presence. In fact, for many a decade US brands have been at the forefront of spreading Americana - a love for all things American all across the globe. Many a time the US brands have succeeded in areas where formal diplomacy has failed.

US brand power is facing some interesting challenges in the global economy. The most important one is on how to retain a single global identity straddling various markets each with its own unique characteristics. On one hand you have a huge but mature and stagnant market like the US with its single digit growths and on the other you have the small but rapidly growing markets like China, India with sustained double digit growths.

If one allows distinct brand identities to emerge in the different markets than the global brand identity weakens. The same brand would mean different things in different parts of the world. If a single global brand identity is enforced all across the globe than it becomes less appealing in the high growth markets. A Hobson's choice if ever there was one.

Several options:

1. Think globally, act locally - a single global brand identity with sub brands to allow for regional variations. This way even if something goes wrong with a brand in a local market the entire global brand is not impacted.

2. The message may be global but delivered in a way that addresses local requirements. So while Coke retains its distinct red color in China it adds "shuang" (Chinese equivalent of "awesome") to its campaign to provide local flavor.

3. Incorporate features from the emerging markets into the global brand identity to make it more universally acceptable. GE's recent advertising campaign utilizes elements from other markets (Indian doctor using portable EKG machine, Dragon heating water for a Chinese village etc.) that reinforce its global identity.

4. Increased cross-ideation from other markets. As marketers attempt to increase growth in the US market they will increasingly look forward to ideas/success stories from other global markets.

Chinese companies are also increasingly making forays into the global market and enhancing their efforts to become global players. The US however is uniquely poised to retain its position as the global brand powerhouse. It has the early strike advantage of already being present in most global markets. Most importantly it already has a microcosm of most global markets present within the US in terms of the local immigrant communities to test market stuff and draw talent from. All strengths which companies from relatively insular countries like China cannot currently compete with.

Satire makes politics less stuffy

2008-07-29T08:57:00.001-04:00

Satire makes politics less stuffy

Deepak Seth • Rochester Democrat and Chronicle Editorial Board community member • July 28, 2008

When I was growing up in India, satire was a part of the daily newspaper reading ritual. The central piece on the editorial page, very aptly called the "middle," used to be a satirical look at the issues of the day.

And the "middle" is where I used to go to first before I moved on to the other sections. Moving to the United States, I longed for the "middle." On inquiring about it to my journalist friends, I was told that "news and satire are not mixed together here." People go to the late-night TV shows, Saturday Night Live or Comedy Central to get their dose of satire.

Last week, The New Yorker magazine brought satire center stage by publishing a satirical cartoon of the Obamas on their front cover.

The cover depicts "President Obama" in the Oval Office, wearing a Muslim-style outfit and doing a fist-bump with his wife, Michelle, who is dressed in camouflage with an automatic rifle slung over her back.

A picture of Osama bin Laden hangs above the mantel of the fireplace, which has an American flag burning in it.The Obama and McCain camps both have described the cartoon as "tasteless and offensive." The New Yorker has said the cover satire was obvious and should be seen in that light.

The McCain camp must be thanking their stars that Obama got picked on and not their candidate. But there's a long campaign ahead, and some satirist is going to pen McCain enjoying a back rub in a Hanoi Hilton hot tub as burgers cook and wine flows. Or in a geriatric home fumbling with his hearing aid, senior diapers and other accoutrements of advanced senility.
Both descriptions are over the top, aren't they? Such is the nature of satire — challenging deep-seated prejudices.Maybe the Obamas need to respond with their own satirical interpretation of the cartoon:

Michelle Obama has the AK-47 as a salute to the Second Amendment right to bear arms. She is protecting her home and hearth from disgruntled Republicans.
Obama is dressed as a Middle Eastern Christian (who dress like their Muslim brethren) as a salute to global Christian unity and world peace.
The portrait of bin Laden on the wall indicates that Obama has gotten rid of him (unlike Bush) and has hung his portrait up on the wall like a trophy.
Flag in the fireplace: Obama is disposing of an old flag in the only correct way as per U.S. Flag Code, which states: "The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.''

Let the battle of the satirists begin. Elections are serious business, but we all have a funny bone that needs tickling!

IBM plans : potential good news for Rochester ?

2008-07-15T13:14:00.004-04:00

Today's news item about IBM's growth plans in New York had an interesting twist which piques my curiosity. It talks about : "the creation of a new, advanced semiconductor packaging research and development center at an undetermined location in upstate New York"

I do hope Rochester area business, political and educational(RIT, UofR) leaders have made a strong pitch for this center to be located in the vicinity of Rochester. I wish them luck and am keeping my fingers crossed.

America's a land coated in sugar

2008-07-07T08:40:00.002-04:00

America's a land coated in sugar
Deepak Seth • Editorial Board member • July 7, 2008

Ms. K entered the meeting with a basketful of candy, which she strategically placed on the table before she commenced her presentation. All of us around the table stared longingly at the goodies; most of us were overweight and battling weight-related issues.

Each waited for someone else to make the first move. As soon as the bravest one made his move, the rest followed. The presentation got drowned in the crinkling of the candy wrappers and conversation about the candy. Meanwhile, Ms. K continued her dreary monologue about missed targets and declining sales. The boss was lost in her thoughts, thoughts driven more by the chocolaty nougat she was chewing rather than the sales numbers being presented. "Excellent job, Ms K," she intoned, followed by, "Thanks for the great chocolate, very thoughtful" as Ms. K wrapped up her presentation. The "sugar high" had won again.

This scene plays out at offices every day. And to very detrimental consequences for our health. As we battle an epidemic of obesity, diabetes, hypertension and a host of other lifestyle-related illnesses, it is high time people start bringing in apples, oranges, nuts and other similar healthy alternatives for meetings.

The concept of bringing "coffee and doughnuts" in for the team needs to metamorphose into "coffee and celery sticks."Is it not strange that the things that taste the best are most likely to be the unhealthiest? Seems weird from an evolutionary perspective. Why would our taste buds evolve in such a way that what tastes the best can be harmful for us?

The reason is that food processing and our propensity to consume have evolved at a faster rate than what our taste buds could keep pace with. We like sweet because sweetness drew our caveman ancestors to food that can provide the highest burst of energy in the shortest time — honey, ripe fruits etc.

The efforts in collecting such foods and their high spoilage made sure that there was never an excess of these calories. But before long, mankind had discovered a way of extracting those sugars, concentrating them and overloading ourselves with it. Many times beyond the capacity of the body to effectively process it. And that's where our woes began.

Should we then give these guilty pleasures up? No, not at all. The answer lies in moderation. The food industry can help by an across-the-board reduction in the sugar content of all food items by at least 20 percent.

It can be easily done. Many European/international versions of our favorite brands are much less sweeter than what is sold here.

You don't like sweet, you like salty? Don't even get me started on the woes of too much sodium.

Community members serve on the Editorial Board and write regular columns.

Regulate speculators in oil market

2008-06-23T13:16:00.002-04:00

Regulate speculators in oil market
Deepak Seth • Guest essayist • June 23, 2008

The soaring prices at the gas station have got all of us flustered. While some may argue that the high prices will finally ensure that other competing products/technologies get a fair chance, most agree that these prices are detrimental to our global competitiveness. US industry unlike European & Asian industry has evolved under the premise of cheap and abundant availability of oil which would keep the cost of transportation low. The rising prices strikes at the foundations of the US production model.

Unfortunately, an issue of so much importance to the economy and national security is caught up in partisan wrangling. One side argues for opening up more domestic areas for drilling notwithstanding industry reports indicating that oil from new areas like ANWR will have an insignificant effect on oil supply & prices in the short term. Moreover, domestic oil production from existing oilfields in Alaska has been declining every decade despite increasing prices. Oil companies are global conglomerates and business economics dictates that they source from wherever they find oil cheaper. New oilfields in the US will produce oil at a higher cost than older fields outside the country.

The other side argues that any new drilling will destroy the environment. They ignore the fact that the mad rush towards bio-fuels is leading to massive deforestation in the Amazon region for planting more bio-fuel crops. That is as or more damaging to the environment as drilling in ANWR would be. Climate change is a global phenomenon so destruction of the Amazon rainforest affects the US environment too.

Oil companies, OPEC and the US government all seem to be in agreement that the prices are being driven more by speculative pressures rather than any demand-supply equilibrium related reasons. The government and regulators have a role to play in correcting any distortions in the market caused by fraudulent activity or structural deficiencies. Public memory is short and most people seem to have forgotten the havoc wreaked by Enron in the Energy Futures markets in an under regulated environment. A few ways in which the government can step in:

1. Impose a cap on volume of oil trades allowed in the Mercantile Exchange
2. Install price governors which stop trading if the price hits above/below a certain specified range.
3. Increase margin money norms for trades.
4. Impose a tax on the profits from speculative oil trades. This tax is not on oil or oil companies but on profits from speculative trading in oil.
5. Aggressively investigate fraudulent activity in oil trading.

However I do not expect any action in the near future as the current Administration prepares for transitioning to a new one. With the lack of action I will not be surprised if prices hit $5 a gallon at the pump before the year is up.

Tax alternatives are everywhere

2008-06-15T17:21:00.002-04:00

Tax alternatives are everywhere

Deepak Seth • Guest essayist • June 9, 2008

In my May 27 column titled "Taxes aren't only revenue option.'' I shared some ideas about alternative ways to raise revenue. Today, I offer other ideas to accomplish the transition from the "raise taxes and/or cut staff/services'' mindset to the "raise revenue and cut costs'' mindset.
Ideas related to cutting costs by improving efficiency and effectiveness open up a veritable Pandora's box.Here are some more readily executable ideas, which hopefully should not get caught up in political or administrative gobbledygook.

Institute reverse-bidding as the means for awarding all county and city service and supply contracts. Whoever bids the lowest for providing a service or supply to the county/city should get the contract as long as they meet other criteria. The process should be open, transparent and Web-enabled so that citizens can also keep tabs on what the county is paying.
Review the routing and scheduling of the county/city fleet of vehicles on a scientific basis. Many new routes may have been added over the years and the existing routes/schedules may not be optimal. Multiple/duplicate trips might be happening when a single one would suffice.
Think of opportunities to sell when buying a product or service. The county/city may be intending to pay for a certain service, but it may be possible that vendors are willing to install the service for free or pay money in return for certain privileges.
Go green, think Earth and save dollars. Take energy audits of buildings and vehicles with corrective actions to make them more energy-efficient, solar panels on buildings, harness geothermal and wind energy opportunities, convert diesel vehicles to run on bio-diesel (including used cooking oils). It's more relevant now due to rising fuel prices.
Standardize and consolidate information technology —infrastructure, software, hardware — across all county/city organizations with interoperability so as to get better rates from vendors and service providers.
Some county/city services appear to be monopolies with only a single provider. Introducing some competition and more private players into the mix can drive costs down.
Investigate opportunities to transition some services traditionally assumed to be in the public-sector domain to private entrepreneurs. Generally, the private sector is more efficient in keeping costs down. In other words, can driving license, vehicle registration and passport applications be collected by local pharmacies, photo shops or driving schools? Would the private sector be interested in running some bus routes?
Government has to find more creative and thoughtful ways to raise money.

Community members serve on the Editorial Board and write regular columns.

Indian spelling "bees" swarm Washington

2008-05-30T15:38:00.001-04:00

Each immigrant community has enriched the American melting pot in their own unique way. The Indian-American community has added its own colors to the mosaic of Americana by its steady participation and successes in a classic American tradition : the Spelling Bee.

The Indian-American community accounts for less than 1% of the US population . But 10 out of the 45 semi-finalists (nearly 25%) in the Howard-Scripps Spelling Bee this year are Indian-Americans. There were 35 kids of Indian-origin among the 288 qualifiers from the millions nation-wide who try and make the final cut in Washington DC -- around 12 per cent qualifying rate. Five Indian-Americans have won the contest in the last 9 years.

Indian bees swarm into Washington DC for spelling fest; ten remain in fray

The Championship Finals air live on ABC from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. EDT today Friday, May 30.All the best Kids !! I will have to be extra careful checking for misspelt words in my writings - you are setting very high standards (Reminds me of the edit in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle today : Detroit teen teaches grown-ups a lesson in civility. )

Another male bastion falls .......

2008-05-28T09:09:00.001-04:00

An interesting news item is floating round in the news media today :

Was William Shakespeare a Jewish woman in disguise?

I caught this story in Haaretz(Israel) and the Times of India.

Only way for the guys to score a point in the battle of the sexes is to hold steadfast to the claim that Mona Lisa was actually Leonardo Da Vinci in drag.

Shakespeare himself summed it up in Romeo and Juliet "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

A Paradigm Change for Local Government

2008-05-27T11:49:00.001-04:00

Brighton resident suggests a 'paradigm change' for governments
Deepak Seth • Community member, Editorial Board • May 27, 2008

Traditionally, attempts to balance government budgets have focused on the axiom: Raise taxes and/or cut staff and services. This generally raises the hackles of people on both sides of the ideological and political divide and ends up with muddled measures that do not balance the budget.
I would suggest a paradigm change: Raise revenue and cut costs.Implicit in this statement is the premise that raising revenue is not the same as raising taxes, and cutting costs is not the same as cutting services and staff. My proposals hinge on raising revenues through innovation and cutting costs by improving efficiency and effectiveness.
Raise revenues:

Sell/lease naming rights to as many county/city resources and events as possible. Airport, airport concourses, parks, park shelters and lodges, new streets, summer and winter festivals, sound and light shows, etc. Crass commercialism? No, not at all. Visit any college or university campus and you will get a sense of what I mean. The county leadership should pick the brains of the local universities to figure out how their kind of naming/branding programs can be replicated.
Most county/city resources like park shelters, etc. are rented out at a fixed price. Move to a demand-based pricing model where the same resource needs to be rented out at different rates depending on the popularity of the spot/time slot. People should pay more for peak times and less for lean times. Another option: Instead of a first-come, first-served booking model, a bidding model (akin to eBay) should be used with the highest bidder getting the resource. Some leeway could be allowed for charitable organizations, community groups, etc.
The county and city may be sitting on a treasure trove in terms of its historical archives. Genealogical and Internet search sites are willing to pay good money for such information. Recently, Ancestry.com paid a sizable amount to the federal government to digitize IRS archival data and sell it on the Web.
Many European countries charge differential penalties for minor traffic and civic violations based on the paying capacity of the violator. A similar model can be investigated here. A $100 surcharge on a traffic ticket is a lot for a fast-food attendant but is a mere slap on the wrist for a rich businessman.
Negotiate right-of-way agreements with utilities and telecom service providers based on a fixed fee plus a share of revenue rather than the fixed fee. If the cable company is making more money because of selling more premium and HD programming, county and city revenues should go up, too.
I'll write on how to cut costs and improve efficiency in my next column two weeks from now.

Community members serve on the Editorial Board and write regular columns.

Fad, Fiction or emerging reality ? "Dead Pets are Forever"

2008-05-21T09:05:00.003-04:00

What would you think of the idea to convert a beloved dead pet or relative into a diamond/gemstone which you can wear on your body for the rest of your life ?

Apparently, that is possible now. Chicago based LifeGem converts dead people and animals into everlasting gems :

Pet owner turns dead cat into a ring!

Seems like another addition to what we may want to be done with our remains after we die. Ranks right out there with cryogenic preservation.

"Diamonds/Dead Pets are Forever"

"Baby Onboard: Please switch off cellphone"

2008-05-20T16:14:00.002-04:00

Cellphone radiation had been suggested as a possible cause for the disappearance of the honeybee. And the internet is full of unsubstantiated rumors about gas station fires being sparked off by cellphones or eggs being boiled by cellphone radiation.

But this one is more real. Could the recent spurt in behavioral disorders in young kids be related to cellphone usage by them or their mothers during pregnancy ?

In a study, which is to be published in the July issue of the journal Epidemiology, scientists from universities of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Aarhus, Denmark surveyed the mothers of 13,159 children born in Denmark in the late 1990s about their use of the phones during pregnancy, and their children's use of handsets and behaviour up to the age of seven. The findings show that women who used mobile phones were 54% more likely to have children with behavioural problems, and that the likelihood increased with the amount of potential exposure to the radiation, the Independent daily of Britain said.

Study also found found that using mobile phones even two or three times daily was sufficient to increase the risk of their babies developing hyperactivity and difficulties with conduct, emotions and relationships. The health implications likelihood is even greater if the children themselves used the phones before the age of seven.

The Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, the official Russian radiation watchdog body, holds that the peril cellphones pose "is not much lower than the risk to children's health from tobacco or alcohol".

Scary stuff.......However, the researchers warned that the results "should be interpreted with caution" and need to be verified by further studies.

Show me the Money.........

2008-05-20T14:38:00.000-04:00

I had always wondered why all currency notes in the US whether $ 1 or $ 10 or $100 had the same exact dimensions. Coming from India and with my experience in other European/Asian countries I was more used to the graded sizes of the currency notes. The smaller denomination in a smaller size with progressively increasing sizes as the denomination increased.

Reduced the chances of accidentally handing out a wrong bill and was particularly relevant in parts of the world where literacy is low and people relied on the dimension of the bill to interpret it's denomination.Varying the sizes would also make it easier to handle for the visually impaired.

A recent court ruling may force the treasury to move in that direction :
Paper money unfair to blind - court

Surely, a very welcome step for the visually impaired.Costs involved may be high as ATM's, Vending machines etc would need to be retrofitted.

Does anybody know the background of why all US currency is the same size ? Also, what are your reactions to the idea of having different sized bills in your wallet ?

Roll out red carpet for Canadians

2008-05-14T10:29:00.002-04:00

Roll out red carpet for Canadians
Deepak Seth • Guest essayist • May 12, 2008

As our elected officials struggle to balance their budgets, help may lie right across the lake — in petro-dollar-rich Canada.While the U.S. dollar has weakened, the Canadian dollar has gotten stronger in recent years. The weakening dollar has made the U.S. an attractive tourism and shopping destination for Canadians.

Friends in Buffalo talk about Canadians swarming area malls. Buffalo Niagara International Airport is seeing massive influxes of Canadians who get an automatic 10 percent or more discount if they fly out of Buffalo vs. flying out of Toronto. The plans for the Buffalo Bills to play in Toronto works wonders, too.

This is all great news for Buffalo's moribund economy recovering from the decades-long manufacturing slowdown.To benefit from this boom we need to ensure that the welcome red carpet extends to Rochester and the Finger Lakes area. Area businesses and tourism bodies all have a role to play:
* Local business, civic and tourism leaders should be actively promoting Rochester in Canada at all forums.
*Stock merchandise preferred by Canadian buyers. Accept Canadian currency or make more currency conversion options available. Add French speaking staff. Add Canadian favorites to menus (fries with gravy and cheese anyone?) Make Canadian TV channels/newspapers available in guest rooms.
*Hand out "Visit Rochester'' literature at the border. Create a "Canada Week'' in Rochester in which area museums — Strong, Eastman, Memorial Art Gallery —showcase Canada-themed collections or Canadian artists. The Rochester Philharmonic can have a guest conductor from Canada. Local stores can have Canada-themed displays.
*Names such as Xerox, Kodak, and Bausch & Lomb are still big draws. There could be an "Imaging Tour'' of Rochester which showcases Rochester's "inventive genius'' heritage.
*The high-speed ferry was ahead of its time. Now, there is potential for a privately-run hovercraft operation between Toronto and Rochester. Congresswoman Louise Slaughter's efforts to reinvestigate options are laudable.

Let's take a page out of the Canadian playbook and replicate the same measures they had employed to motivate us to spend our powerful dollars in the days when one dollar equaled 1.4 Canadian dollars.

Does an integrated "Visit Rochester'' campaign for Canadians already exist? If not, can our city, county, tourism and business leaders get together to create one and present it to the community within the next 90 days?

We would have no one but ourselves to blame if we are left by the wayside in this mini gold rush. Community members serve on the Editorial Board and write regular columns.

Have you "hypermilled" lately ?

2008-05-02T15:01:00.000-04:00

This appears to be a new driving technique to help people cope with the rising gas prices. Seems slightly risky and foolhardy too. But with the gas prices rising the way they are people are ready to try anything to make that gallon stre........tch longer :

An increasing number of motorists in US are following a radical driving technique designed to eke out every last mile from a tank of fuel. Known as 'hypermiling,' the methods can double gas mileage, even in gas-guzzling vehicles.

Hypermiling includes pumping up tires to the maximum rating on their sidewalls, which may be higher than levels recommended in car manuals; using engine oil of a low viscosity, and the controversial practice of drafting behind other vehicles on the highway to reduce aerodynamic drag.

The "advanced" techniques of hypermiling are in addition to well-known approaches including keeping speed down, accelerating gently, avoiding excessive idling and removing cargo racks to also cut down on aerodynamic drag.

Do we vote for people who look like us ?

2008-04-29T16:42:00.004-04:00

Seems like we do. Esp. if we are weak partisans or independents. We seem to be more favorably disposed to vote for someone who looks like us that is shares many of our own facial characterstics. Stanford University had done an interesting study on this ahead of the 2004 Presidential election.

Would be interesting to see how this plays out in the 2008 elections.

Maybe with Obama's mixed parentage both the African-American and White populations see a little bit of themselves in him. Or everybody see's their favorite grandpa in John McCain. Wonder how that all plays out :

Facial Identity Capture and Presidential Candidate Preference

To test the effect of facial identity capture on vote choice, we passively acquired digital photographs of a national random sample of voting aged citizens. One week before the 2004 presidential election, participants completed a survey of their attitudes concerning George Bush and John Kerry while viewing photographs of both candidates side by side (See Figure 1). For a random one-third of the subjects, their own faces were morphed with Kerry while unfamiliar faces were morphed with Bush. For a different one-third, their own faces were morphed with Bush while unfamiliar faces were morphed with Kerry. The remaining one-third of the sample viewed un-morphed pictures of the candidates.

Post-experiment interviews demonstrated that not a single person detected that his or her image had been morphed into the photograph of the candidate. Participants were more likely to vote for the candidate morphed with their own face than the candidate morphed with an unfamiliar face. The effects of facial identity capture on candidate support were concentrated among weak partisans and independents; for "card carrying" members of the Democratic and Republican parties, the manipulation made little difference.

Do you suffer from "nomophobia" ?

2008-04-29T16:39:00.001-04:00

"nomophobia" : the fear of being out of mobile phone contact.

Researchers in Britain have carried out a study and found that nomophobia is plaguing our 24/7 life -- running out of battery or credit, losing one's handset and not having network coverage "affects 53 per cent of mobile users". "Being phoneless and panicked is a symptom of our 24/7 culture," Stewart Fox-Mills, the Head of Telephony at the Post Office, which commissioned the YouGov survey, was quoted by The Independent newspaper as saying. According to the survey, men suffer more than women, with 48 per cent of females and 58 per cent of males admitting to feelings of anxiety.

Looks like this should be a big fear amongst Rochesterians too esp. during winter hoping that our phones don't die out as we commute to work in a winter storm... anybody got any interesting Nomophobic stories to share ?

Gaming craze no game for parents

2008-04-29T08:28:00.004-04:00

Gaming craze no game for parents

Deepak Seth • Community member, Editorial Board • April 29, 2008
Spring is in the air, the days are warming up and the outdoors beckons. Or does it? Not if you ask my 10-year-old son and many other boys his age.It is almost impossible to drag them away from their wintertime "screen" pastimes of TV, computer games, DS, Game Boy, Xbox, Wii, etc. The virtual world seems to be slowly encroaching upon the real.

"What happened at school today?" is more likely to be answered in terms of what armor some friend has accumulated in Runescape or what level another has reached in Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Any visit to the mall with him now includes a pilgrimage to the games store for the weekly ritual of new release browsing.

Like most other parenting decisions, this one leaves us in a bind. Is this gaming helping kids acquire skills for the future? The fighter pilots of tomorrow are more likely to toy with a joystick controller opposite a giant screen than suit up and get into a cockpit. Surgeons are going to use robotic devices guided by game-like controllers.

On the other hand, the harmful effects of too much exposure to electronic gaming on the eyes and the brain have been well-documented. Many games carry warnings about the risk of causing epileptic seizures because of the constantly flashing images.

This is just the beginning. The lure of gaming is only going to increase as teenage years commence. Discussions with friends facing the same dilemma have thrown up some interesting options:
- Restrict exposure to any screen-based device to a fixed duration, say a couple of hours per day. The kid chooses how he wants to allocate that time across various devices. "No TV if you have played Xbox for two hours.''
- A mandatory break after every 30 minutes of gaming. Luckily, some of the newer devices automatically give some warnings when the game has been going on for too long a time.
- No gaming during certain hours of the day or if the outside temperature is in a particular range or if certain mandated household chores and homework have not been completed.
- Request teachers to monitor whether the entire conversation among kids is focused on gaming exploits. Maybe try distracting them with some other activities.
- Lobby with games companies to create more "educational" games. Today a majority of the popular games primarily focus on "killing" or "capturing" or blowing things up.

Most important, maybe I need to get off the couch and go outside more often — be the positive role model I should be. Is it my incessant pounding on the keyboard or flicking from one news channel to another while the winter debris awaits cleaning in the yard outside the right example to set?
The parental guilt trip starts again.

Community members serve on the Editorial Board and write occasional columns.

Earth Day(April 22) : Confluence of Science and Religion

2008-04-21T08:51:00.001-04:00

Long before the "Environment" and the "Earth Day" became key talking points for the glitterati and the chatterati, humankind's ancient heritage had already provided a spacious spiritual home for the environmental ethos. All religious traditions established the principles of ecological harmony centuries ago - "not because the world was perceived as heading for an imminent environmental disaster or destruction, nor because of any immediate utilitarian exigency, but through their quest for spiritual and physical symbiosis, synthesized in systems of ethical awareness and moral responsibility."

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Bible (Genesis 8: 22) says "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."

Native American peoples have long recognized and celebrated in story and song the interdependence of the earth and all her creatures. 'I was born by these waters. The earth here is my mother'

Hindus in Vedic hymns (('Atharva-Veda,' XII, I, ) pray "O mother earth, kindly set me down upon a well-founded place! With (father) heaven cooperating, O thou wise one, do thou place me into happiness and prosperity"

Muslims believe that God compels them in the Quran to respect and revere the environment "Greater indeed than the creation of man is the creation of the heavens and the earth." (40:57)

His Holiness The Dalai Lama in The Buddhist Declaration on Nature, in words which breathe and pulsate with the Buddha's ethical and ecological vision: 'Destruction of the environment and the life depending upon it is a result of ignorance, greed and disregard for the richness of all living things.'

In my own Jain faith the scriptural aphorism "Parasparopagraho Jivanam" states that all life is bound together by the mutual support of interdependence. Jainism founder Mahavira proclaimed a profound ecological truth: 'One who neglects or disregards the existence of earth, air, fire, water and vegetation disregards one's own existence which is entwined with them.'

While many of us are convinced by the Science behind the need to care for the Earth and our environment, others who look for guidance on such issues from Religion can draw strength from the fact that in all likelihood their own religious traditions strongly endorse care for the Earth in some shape, way or form.

Take solar power out of the shade

2008-04-14T09:01:00.002-04:00

Take solar power out of the shade
by Deepak Seth
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, April 14, 2008

As we deal with the vagaries of spring weather, the thought of solar energy being the panacea to deal with our rising energy costs seems pretty far-fetched.But evidently it is not as far-fetched as it sounds. Germany on an average receives significantly less sunshine than New York but is currently the world leader, accounting for nearly 50 percent of a global solar industry valued at $16 billion.

This and many other such interesting facts were highlighted by Jigar Shah, chief strategy officer of SunEdison, the leading solar energy service provider in North America.Shah was the keynote speaker at the annual banquet of the India Community Center.

With the current focus on the environment and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, solar energy enjoys more uniform support from the public than any other technology.In a survey, 89 percent of Ohio residents indicated that they were willing to pay 50 cents or more extra per month for solar power. Wind power is also environmentally friendly but suffers from "not in my backyard'' syndrome.

Many people and companies worry about the high upfront costs associated with solar power. However, solar is now moving from the expensive to the competitive state. Nuclear, coal and natural gas power plant costs have increased significantly. Transmission infrastructure has increased in cost and takes significantly longer to implement. Distributed technologies such as solar can be built quickly, averting power crises more effectively.

The entire power needs of the country can be met by 10,000 square miles of solar generating systems in the Nevada desert. But you do not even have to look farther than your own roof for installation of solar generation systems.

Several big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart, Kohl's, and J.C. Penney are already taking a lead in installing rooftop, solar power generation systems. Each year, more than 2 billion square feet of new roofs are installed. Brownfields, airports, wastewater treatment facilities and public lands are excellent sites.

I would love to see organizations in the greater Rochester area — town boards, county and city offices, school boards and the Rochester airport take the lead in evaluating and adopting this technology.

Another sunny side of this story: As a distributed resource, solar generates more jobs that any other renewable energy technology per megawatt hour. Implementing solar initiatives upstate can arguably fuel $1 billion in economic growth — 1,000 job years of employment while reducing the growth of electricity prices by half.

Community members serve on the Editorial Board and write regular columns.

Be pragmatic in China dealings

2008-03-31T08:36:00.002-04:00

Op-Ed piece by me published in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle today (March 31, 2008).

Be pragmatic in China dealings

Talk of a boycott of the Beijing Olympics by President Bush in my opinion is ill-advised. There is much at stake in a long-term Sino-U.S. relationship. A knee-jerk reaction to recent happenings in Tibet is therefore undesirable.

It is time both countries started viewing each other as strategic business partners (which they are) rather than foes/rivals in the traditional Cold War mindset.

Business leaders in corporate America show great acumen in managing their strategic relationships with long-term vendors/partners/financiers. A similar approach should be used in managing the relationship with China. Contentious issues should be dealt with in a businesslike fashion with very little saber rattling in public.

It is presumptuous to assume that China will grant autonomy or freedom to Tibet as a result of a boycott of the Olympics. The Beijing Olympics have been showcased as a matter of national prestige, not only for the government but for the people of China, too. Any incident that causes loss of face at what has been deemed to be a big coming-out party for the New China will lead to lasting rancor. Rather than improvement in the situation in Tibet, it is most likely to lead to a hardening of attitudes, as the Chinese would view the Tibetan leaders and people as a cause of national shame.

I would suggest that:

President Bush attend the Olympics and share American concerns about Tibet in discussions with the Chinese leadership. He would also then need to be prepared to hear the Chinese opinion on various United States policies (Iraq, human rights, etc.).
The Dalai Lama should continue to exhort his followers to use peaceful means of protest rather than violent confrontations with the Chinese establishment. Younger factions within the Tibetan diaspora are proposing alternate paths, as they have not perceived any concrete results from his approach.
Chinese leaders had been pragmatic enough to establish a "One China, two economic systems'' policy when China reintegrated Hong Kong. A similar approach is needed as they deal with Tibet. An out-of-the-box idea: Invite the Dalai Lama as a guest of honor at the Olympics Opening Ceremony. China needs to soften its stance toward the Dalai Lama.

While the Dalai Lama has dropped the demand for independence and is willing to accept an autonomous status like that of Hong Kong within China, he and many others are wary of losing their distinct cultural and spiritual heritage for which special safeguards may be needed.

The United States should continue to pragmatically engage China as a strategic partner — in the boardrooms of the corporate world, in the staterooms of government offices and on the playing fields of the Olympics.

Tata buys Jaguar/Land Rover from Ford

2008-03-26T09:42:00.005-04:00

Fortune columnist John Elliot headlined this story as "Tata buys into 40 years of trouble"

I would call it a ray of hope for the beleaguered Land Rover/Jaguar brands. They were languishing in the bottom of the heap in the Ford world but would now be the crown jewels in Tata's burgeoning global automotive empire.

India's image has changed in United States

2008-03-18T21:09:00.002-04:00

India's image has changed in United States

op-ed piece by me published in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle today.

Buried under the deluge of the media blitz surrounding the Obama-Clinton fracas and Gov. Spitzer's shenanigans was an interesting news item about the results of Gallup's World Affairs Survey 2008. This survey rated the perceptions (favorable vs. unfavorable) about various countries among the American population.
Not surprisingly, of the 22 countries rated in the survey, long time friends Canada, Great Britain, Germany and Japan were at the top of the "favorable" list, winning the favor of at least 80 percent of Americans.
I was pleased to see my own country of origin, India, at the sixth position (69 percent favorable) alongside France and right behind U.S. ally Israel (71 percent favorable).
There are several reasons that can explain the growing positive image of India among Americans:

Shared democratic values and commonly cherished ideals of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
Efforts by the Indian community to assimilate with the U.S. mainstream. Strong focus on self-help without being a drain on the larger community. No longer are images of poor, starving children the only iconic images from India.
The contributions of Indian professionals — doctors, engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs.
Increasing popularity of Indian traditions in the mainstream socio-cultural milieu — yoga, karma, chai tea, Bollywood and others. What started off as a trickle with Mahesh Yogi, Ravi Shankar and the Beatles in the 1960s is a veritable deluge now.
Strong cooperation on the anti-terrorism front with a nuclear cooperation treaty also on the anvil. Many in the United States see India as a strong bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism as well as a counter to China's growing military power.

On the bottom end of the scale, Iran, North Korea, the Palestinian Authority, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Cuba are viewed more negatively than positively by a greater than 2-to-1 margin. China is in the company of Pakistan and Russia as the only countries to see their favorable scores decline significantly over the past year.

Gallup found some significant partisan gaps in favorability toward some countries. Israel, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq are all viewed more favorably by Republicans than by Democrats. France, Mexico, China, Venezuela and Cuba are all viewed more favorably by Democrats than by Republicans.

Interesting findings indeed. One will see them ebb and rise as relationships with the United States evolve in a complex geopolitical scenario. The focus should be on how people from other countries can be "goodwill ambassadors" for their own countries as they continue to assimilate here.