mind × the + gap ™

There are two kinds of self-fulfilling prophecies. They are broadly defined by wiki as follows: The Pygmalion effect , or Rosenthal effect, is the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform. On the other hand is the Golem effect , in which low expectations lead to a decrease in performance. In ancient Greek mythology, Pygmalion fell in love with one of his sculptures, which then came to life. The theme was in the main stray of many English literary works during the victorian era. One of which is George Bernard Shaw's play titled "Pygmalion" from which Rosenthal effect gets its name. In Shaw's play, the protagonist, a professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech. (The pl...

THE SOCIAL MEDIA AND WEB 2.0 (though both are considered synonymous by some) provided the netizens with amazing new possibilities, like a new universe opening up with everyone mingling with everyone else. While the web (no pun intended) of these collaboration network, social in nature, kept increasing in complexity and continued expanding, there was no measure for if it were to follow the same yo-yo model of the actual Universe (try here ) . In other words, it was very difficult to ascertain if the motion was inward or outward, for there were no clear boundaries defined or known. The size of the neocortex of the brain allows humans to have stable networks of about 150. This is known as "the Dunbar number". With the help of Dr. Robin Dunbar’s research, perhaps we now have the first indications toward the limitations of Web 2.0 vis-a-vis human psychology and behaviour. Dr. Dunbar is an anthropologist currently with the Oxford University and has studied primates and humans and t...

NO EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT HAS A PERMANENCY CLAUSE. The category "permanent employee" is only to differentiate one from temps - both remain time-bound nonetheless. There may be a clause in the employment contract talking about retirement age of an employee, and rather misleadingly, that might go on to give an impression to the newly joined that her job is secure and permanent until the age of say 60 years. However, in reality that section of the employment terms is just another clause suggesting when would you be required to leave your present job. As the "globalization" story propagates to more and more regions and industries, it is getting increasingly important, especially to the optimistic lot like myself too young for that retirement age yet, that the realities of the impermanent nature of jobs and employment be realised, the sooner the better, such that one can make a more informed and rewarding career planning. They also call it acting "professional". ...

FINALLY, THE IT TZAR TAKES THE BACK SEAT. And as Mr. Bill Gates completes his last full working day by the EOD today - June 27, 2008 - at his Richmond, WA office in the US , an era of Biggest, Richest, and Fastest draws towards a change. Call him Innovator , Software Evangelist , Chief Software Architect , or by any other name, above all, Mr. Gates is a successful businessman, Zero-to-billions kind. And that is how I would want to reckon him, for Mr. Gates is not perhaps a mesmerising orator, neither a charismatic leader, nor a magnanimous personality. Even if he is all of these, they rather remain secondary, for the bottomline is, Mr. Gates knows business, does business and means business. Period. Arguably the world's most famous dropout - and thus perhaps the tallest example that education and money may not have a direct corelation - wrote the first BASIC compiler 17 years ago, and left the legacy as the world's richest man with such words: "There is nobody getting ric...

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE AMONG MILLIONAIRES? If you are in IT in India, perhaps you already are! First, some bullet-points about the global and Indian IT industry that got me thinking: Indian Software Industry is approx 66% of Worldwide Software Services Top 6 Indian IT Companies makes of approx. 50% of total Indian IT Industry In terms of sales among these top six (in descending order of reported figures for 2007 - TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Cognizant, Satyam, and HCL), the first three clocks almost 60% Now, a Forrester Research forecast reports says that the total Global IT spend (IT industry potential) is projected to be at USD 1.55 trillion in 2007-08. Wow! A quick back of an envelop analysis reveals some pretty interesting monetarily figures. (above: rather front of the envelop; the back was already taken by the groceries' list...) Enjoy: Global IT industry at USD 1.55 tn (2007) ↓ 66% of it is served by companies in India ↓ 50% of which is with the top 6 players of India i.e. 33% of g...

A really interesting article by the Editor in Chief at Wired magazine , Chris Anderson titled "Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business" was the subject of much debate recently. Accordingly to Chris, the economy of the brave new world is mainly driven by "scarcity" and "wastage" (as against to the old world concept of demand vs. supply). Out side of online business it may take a rather detailed and elaborate study to apply this new economy driver phenomenon to the world at large, such as manufacturing or airline industry. Chris talks about six business models with examples that are used in the web2.0 economy, and goes on the indicate that all of them revolves around the concept of "Free!". At the same time, he argues that less successful (or failed) ventures have not appreciated the psychological bearer called "penny gap" which separates the cheap from the free. Talking about "Freeconomics", he says that what makes 'free...

While reading " Mind, the Gap " again, I felt the need of explaining the usage of term 'economics'. The classical definition of the terms goes somewhat like the following: economics (ĕk'ə-nŏm'ĭks, ē'kə-) n. 1. (used with a sing. verb) The social science that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services and with the theory and management of economies or economic systems. In other words, it is classical trade but in a much advanced and re-defined form. All throughout 1900's, economics remained the force of forces, surfacing in clear sight in forms of capitalism, especially towards the last couple of decades of the century (whilst communism was being defeated by its own self). In the current century, however, the term has to expand event more that "production, distribution and consumption" to encompass the new dimensions of technological proliferations of the society - namely, Web 2., et al. In the sense that I...

In an interesting parallel with the ' Mind Gap ' concept, here is a quote from the strategy by a marketing guru to the modern successful IT enterprises, advising the CEO's of the interplay between psychology and economy in making of an effective marketing strategy and selling their systems: "... the strategy is to focus market development efforts on the end-user community [who you want to use your system], not on the technical community. Specifically you want to enlist the support of the economic buyer , the line executive or manager in the end-user organization who has the profit-and-loss responsibility for the given function your product serves... [Psychologically] you should not expect to secure primary sponsorship from the IT professionals... [A new product and a paradigm shift] is not in the interest of the IT department. It means extra work for them, and it exposes their mission-critical systems to additional risks... [Psychologically] it would not have been in t...

An ancient Sanskrit saying has it: तुंडे तुंडे मतीः भिन्ना। (tunde tunde mateehi bhinna) Which literally means that every head has a differing mind. Less subtly, everyone has a different opinion. It may remain unsubstantiated at this hour, but I would argue that this difference and diversity is stemming from the ‘Genetic diversity’ as found prevalent as a principle under Biodiversity as a hole. Biodiversity, in a sense, is a science of studying all the various species and their interdependence that gives the significance to the ecology and bio-ecosystem of the Earth. Taken a few logical steps further on the same line, this would translate into the social phenomenon classified as Cultural diversity, and so forth. It is the Mind , the psychology , that divides and at the same time units all individual aspects under the single ecology of the cultural fabric. In other words, things are as they are in the world, good or bad, because of this Diversity principle - what may be considered...