THE FIRST EVER TECHNOLOGY, ENTERTAINMENT, DESIGN (TED) EVENT IN INDIA drew to a close this afternoon at the lavish and state-of-the-art technology campus of Infosys at the Indian city of Mysore - about 120km south of Bangalore. It was an adrenalin pumping experience, and it left so many feeling spent at the end of four days. Absorbing a torrent of ideas condensed in a time-capsule is a demanding event for the creativity centre - glucose consuming frontal cortex of the human brain.
After all, TED may be the new religion. For generation Y + X.
If so, then the 'India nodding' ought to be its spiritual signature. It is almost certain that the closing act would not have left many young Indians amused. Apparently, "Orgasm on the lawn of Infosys campus" and the mocking act of "Indian nodding" in front of the home crowd are not the most popular ideas worth spreading. It helps to have heart though, and pardon the comedian for once; he promises to come back with sensitivity coaching next time...
A few lucky ones got to experience the live streaming directly on the Infosys intranet. However, the outside world had to depend on a rather sorry services of indiatimes.com with no late streaming available, and youtube being largely silent on the whole event. (The website now suggests to make the clips available from next weekend.)
[Above: "Indian nodding" from the light comedy film FLAVORS.]
See also:
Go here for the official TED India website and blog.
Go here for the official public streaming website of indiatimes.com
Santa and Banta submitted the tender for digging the second underwater Euro Channel Tunnel connecting England with France and continental Europe. This was perhaps the first time that a bid for such an extreme engineering project was coming from India, and apparently so it raised a few eyebrows and steered interest. An outsourcing relationship with India was not a new thing, but bidding for second Euro tunnel - that had got to be special...
Mr. Santa and Mr. Banta, the proprietors of Santa Banta & Co., were also among the main invitees to present their ideas describing their technology, tools, budget and time-lines to the consortium presiding over the project. As it turned out S B & Co had the lowest quotation, the shortest time-line for the project, the simplest possible plan and most straightforward execution using the most standard of tools: Santa would take one team (of a few hundred thousand labourers) digging from England towards France, and Banta would do the same from the opposite direction. The consortium was now specifically interested in the technology that S B & Co would employ like Global Positioning GPS for estimation and co-ordination of their efforts and meeting midway through the English Channel.
To the bafflement of all the engineers and architects of the world, budget owners and state leaders attending the consortium meeting Santa and Banta declared that they had no such plans of using any such satellite technology or high-tech machinery. (Most likely, limitations of the outsourcing budget was the issue.) After emerging from the initial shock and chaos, when someone tentatively asked what would happen if both the teams failed to meet in the middle, S B & Co reportedly replied: "That is even better for you... you would get two tunnels in the budget for one!"
FROM A PROJECT MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE this clearly is a disaster. Yet, there is a lot of creativity in the above response. And that is why S B & Co is more attuned to a consulting business than perhaps digging tunnels.
One of the basic lessons that I learnt from seasoned consultants is that consulting is all about options - How one puts one’s skill-set at the disposal of the clients to create multiple set of solutions for a given problem statement. The value-add of the consultant then is to compare the options in the context of the clients' situation and help them choose the best one.
There are many senior folks in the IT industry at the moment with decades of hands-on expertise and domain experience. But only those with the right blend of creativity shall succeed at consulting.
At least in their classical sense designing Logic and creating algorithm and programming is a creative activity. By that design Information Technology has to be a very creative field since it has Logic as the central premise. Further, I have found Solution Designing for IT as one of the most creative fields to work with. As against to project management paradigm, solution design desires a certain creative license to commit Santa Banta & Co kind of "crimes" of missing each other midway. These are also they guys who happen to tumble over the best product ideas most of the times.
Some of the creative attributes of the job that can be listed out of experience are:
Creative Thinking (out of the box, cleans slate, devil's advocate, constructive critic, etc.)
There are only a handful of successful consultant, and consulting and product companies.
Apparently, these skills and attributes, this creativity is uncommon.
P.S.: Trusted and highly placed sources suggested that following various presentations the consortium dropped the plans for building Euro Tunnel 2, at least for the time being.
Go here to know more about the Creative Commons licenses. This website also makes use of them. This post makes a rather 'creative' use of the catch phrase.
Continuing from the previous post, following are a few more Catch Words of Consulting:
Q x A = E : Quality of Solution x Acceptance = Effectiveness of Change. Q is good most of the time. The Key differentiator is Acceptance and Adaptability for a successful Change management.
Passive Resistance: is nodding the head, but not actually going to participate in change; civil disobedience of a personal kind; dragging the feet with a smile.
Planning vs Plans: D. Eisenhower once said, "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." Planing is so important that PMBOK devotes the largest of its five process groups entirely on planning.
Shubh Deepavali A warm wishes to you and your family for A Happy and Prosperous Diwali
The Festival of Lights of India - illuminations, oil lamps, firecrackers, colourful lanterns, rangoli mandalas, bright clothing, sweets, feasts, and festivities with families and friends.
"CHANGE IS THAT BIG FAT PINK ELEPHANT that drunkenly roams around this large organization, stamping on people, without anyone having any idea what to do about it." This is how the elderly consultant illustrated in his concluding report to the senior management of [an organization] that was undergoing post-Outsourcing blues. (As the low-cost location, do notice the hidden reference to India in elephant.)
It indeed was a significant experience to participate in a professional forum in Australia with such Consulting veterans and alumni of the global consulting 'Big 5' sharing their vivid experiences.
A handful of the 'catch words' that did the talking from those lucid presentations, interesting anecdotes and keen observations of these leaders and successful change agents are marked here.
Elevator Speech: Brevity rules. Elevator speech is to a presentation what a ppt is to a thesis documentation. It's a distilling process of ideas that should also help lead complexity to simplicity. [One doesn't need an appointment to run into a senior executive in an elevator. That's the opportunity knocking if you have your elevator speech ready.]
Journey Map: SWOT analysis tool, minus "weakness", plus action strategy. A completely optimistic tool that assumes "failure is ignored as an option". This tool shall require risk management separately. A brilliant tool when faced with a group having negative mindset in majority.
Follow the Money: All change strategies shall revolve around economic drivers. Simply put: When in doubt whom to influence, target the one with the budget.
Healthy Tension: One of the most critical and effective productivity enabler skill for any people manager: Knowing the thresholds of the resources - Pushing resources up to the *right* limit to deliver more.
Tribal Knowledge: Islands of Knowledge in any large organization where knowledge management has been virtually non-existent or ineffective. Only a handful of people, mostly through 'inheritance', know about a certain function, system, technique or procedure.
On a lighter note, below is the quick-wit commercial on corporate Change that I always liked:
This is a Slow Blog about, among other things, thinking and perspectives of contemporary life; which, I believe, on the vertical pole is driven by Psychology and Economics (Psycho-economy), and is pivoted by Analysis and Intuition (Intu-nalysis) on the horizontal axis.
Writing this is an IT consultant who was on a high with Investment Banking, until the layoffs... Like any auto-critique I read my writings and revise them, for communication is something that can be improvised upon, continuously.
Views and ideas expressed here are strictly personal. And if you like what you get here, you are free to reuse them by respecting this Creative Commons licensing.
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