mind × the + gap ™

KENNETH M. HARVEY AT HSBC HAS HAD A LASTING impression of an IT leader for me. And I believe in the capacity of a corporate executive, 'richness' (see: Money ) has more to do with quality of role, thought leadership and budget at disposal. In all of these terms, one might wager, Ken Harvey indeed must be a very rich man, for him being the group CIO of the world’s largest organisation , and then having a whopping USD 5bn in terms of his annual spending budget. It always felt great to conclude my induction sessions for the newly joined Business Analysts in my team by saying, "While certain organizations (vendors) aspire to make millions every year, Ken plans to spend in billions..." It rather gave everyone, me included, a sense if you like, of having a bundle or two of "cash" from Ken's kitty into our pockets. I specifically recall Mr. Harvey’s discussion with the Gartner members where one of the panellists posed him with the question of the challe...

AT TIMES IT SEEMS impossible to not to include statistics in my analysis while making a proposal for a client or to the higher management. This is also at the cost of pure brilliance of a point that need to statistical support but is rather a marvel of common sense. Statistics and sensibility are supposed to be the right mix. Statistics are to be handed to the right personal, at the proper time and format, to be utilised in the appropriate manner in aid of the point rather than being the point themselves. This seldom becomes the case nowadays. I couldn't help but mutter to myself at such times the following: "Statistics are like a lamp-post to a drunken man - more for leaning onto than for illumination."

HAVING BEEN TRAINED FOR CULTIVATING 'GROWTH' AND evaluated for a few appraisal cycles by now for tasks that were marked under a title called 'Business Development' (or something that either sounds or seems similar), the debate on the subject by a certain groups of 'experienced' personnel almost immediately drew my attention. And it becomes interesting when, with all due respect, the so-called experts, having built their careers in the relevant fields, seemed rather confused between the functioning and mandate of 'Business Development' and 'Sales' functions. Before taking a dig on that, respectfully, here is my version of the 'classical' definition (or differentiation) of the two: "Business Development is a bunch of activities of today, based on your strategic vision of your product/service framework, that the Sales people would be selling tomorrow." Well, this definition might neither be universal nor be entirely technically acc...

Cheers! To The Many Faces in Life of Life as Life That Makes a Life * * * When old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart; and where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders. --Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali (1912), pp37. Today, May 7, is also Tagore's Birth Day.

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...

ANYONE WITH A SOMEWHAT SERIOUS SLANT towards one's blogging lines would want to publish something in a physical paper format (read: book ) at some point in time. At least that is what my general observation has been. On one hand, while the technology of bringing words online in the forms of Blogger, LiveJournal, MySpace and alike have made content creation a one-click job and in doing so might have taken the 'authors' away from the traditional book-publishing process, on the other hand it is really interesting to see how the same technology loops back and makes publishing a book in paper format an equally user-friendly and accessible experience. Add to that the ability to enable Creative Commons options, variable pricing options, and manufacturing (physical printing on paper and binding) and shipping on-demand, provides the new dimension of flexibility in the hands on authors. This is the modern technology looping back to aid the traditional medium of publication rather tha...

Crowded 'Facts': "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it - there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." -- Arthur Conan Doyle ( Sherlock...

April 23 - TODAY BEING ST. GEORGE'S DAY is also considered to be the Birth Day of William Shakespeare . (Nobody knows for sure of the bard's exact date of birth.) If one wonders about the alchemists of that era, and if they would have got a couple of 'immortality' pills of which one was taken by Shakespeare such that he would still be alive at this time, what kind of blogs would he be maintaining..? Perhaps a blog with the highest hits on the net! Footnote: Sampling only Technorati may perhaps be a rather narrow view, but looking at their popular index stats available of top 100 , the most popular blog as of this moment is - The Huffington Post , closely followed by (my personal preference) TechCrunch . (Well, by including weblinks here, I just contributed one more point to the 'authority' count on Technorati for both.)

THEY CALL HIM "FRED THE SHRED...". If you count "few good men" who took the lead in the "rationalisation" of workforce in the conservative European banking and Financial services, Fred has to be in the front row. Sir Frederick Anderson Goodwin, remained in the news in Europe, mainly Britain, for his often visionary yet unorthodox methods of running Britain's second largest Banking group. After he assumed control, the RBS groups, perhaps for the first time, saw a rather American-styled cost-cutting, or Shredding as the Britons prefer to call it. Managing nearly 1000 people worldwide at the age of 32, the acumen more than the aggression made Fred the CEO of the Clydesdale Bank at the age of 36. He has been quoted as famously saying, "I have no time for cynics, spectators or dead wood". And as we speak, being with the RBS group, he is the longest serving CEO in the FTSE-100 index. (That precisely makes me wonder if the pool underneath is in a ...

WINDMILLS WERE A THING fascination, especially in the farmland of picturesque Europe, more so perhaps because they spoke of a bygone era that I felt I just missed. To much delight, the winds continued to blow in their directions, as it were, and the windmills kept going around. With time, however, as the water-table got deeper and deeper, the Netherlanders found other ways and means to keep them spinning, namely, Electricity generated by turbines spinning by the winds. And I would say, this is a niche electro-mechanical engineering field - building a very energy efficient and 'light' turbine, such that the winds can spin at, and at the same time it gives sufficient torque to the dynamo to create electromagnetic charge that could be refined as usable domestic electricity. And along with all that technical things, the ROI turns profitable within reasonable metrics (and also, that we don't end up having a dog catching its own tail). Now, so far there was no direct conflict of...

[A little background: It had been a few months that I was searching for twin-blade cartridges for the Gillette SensorExcel safety razor that I prefer. I had almost given up on it by now, and was looking towards this seemingly inevitable upgrade to Mach3 or something when I suddenly hit a jackpot - I found a supermarket selling the make and model that I was looking for. I could finally purchase a year worth of supply. In other words, another year that I would effectively dodge Gillette Mach3 upgrade 'threat'.] The history goes that some hundred years ago, Mr. King Gillette was a wealthy but frustrated failure of an innovator at 40. He had written a book called " The Human Drift ", which argued that all industry should be taken over by a single corporation owned by the public, and that millions of Americans should live in a giant city called Metropolis powered by the Niagara Falls. His boss at the bottle cap company, meanwhile, had just one piece of advice: Invent somet...

I FOUND IT VERY SYMBOLIC SEEING the Dalai Lama paying homage to Mahatma's memorial at New Delhi. And, rightly so. Mahatma Gandhi, who always advocated for equanimity of all religions, was not a Buddhist, yet, without any exaggerations, he was a perfect example of one. Mahatma brought independence to his people through practising non-violence, and that is what the Lama teaches the world. [Left: Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama throws rose petals at Raj Ghat, The Memorial to Mahatma Gandhi in New Delhi on March 29, 2008, to attend a public inter-faith prayer meeting for those who lost their lives in Tibet. Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Jain leaders offered prayers along with The Dalai Lama and hundreds of Tibetans and their supporters at the cremation spot of Mahatma Gandhi. - tiskali.co.uk] The Dalai Lama is a defacto (though dethroned) King of the Tibetan people. And he is at his Kingly duty while he takes on China with respect to the rights for the Tibetans. In doing so, as alway...

Question: Is Analysis an Art or a Science? Answer: Part - I Analysis is an art of keeping it strictly scientific, until it starts defying itself against the known 'rules', and that's when to push it towards the realms of 'Strategy'. Part - II Analysis is essentially an Art {lavish, spendthrift and something to marvel about} that needs to be enclosed within certain boundaries {make it budgeted and time-bound} that's when it becomes a Science. {a tool to extract tangibility out of subtlety} Part - III Neither and Both. The problem with this question is that it is holistic, which it should not be. The answer would largely depends on the field and domain where the 'expertise' is required. If the field is predominant with numbers, scientific approach should lead artistry; Otherwise, let science and data support artistry. What would be your answer?

(Statutory warning: Contents of this post are Highly Addictive!) The versatile, genius, immensely talented and intelligent, life-time achievement award winner, and winner of stand-up comedian of the year 1998, Jeff Dunham who made me roll over the floor laughing... Simply brilliant.. Your overtaxed mind needs a 10 minute break.. Go for it! To meet with Peanut, the one above: go here . For a list of the gang on YouTube: go here . If you are wondering what ventriloquist and puppetry or a stand-up comic is, go here . If you would want to learn how to (legitimately) download YouTube videos to your desktop, don't go anywhere, just email me... :-)

SOMEONE RECENTLY POSTED A QUESTION to the BA community at large to the effect of identifying 'universal skill-set' for a Business Analyst. A variety of responses were received in the public forum, some of which (including mine) were chosen under the 'good answer' category. At the outset, the field of business analysis is far too wide, spread-out and pan-industry to have a single set-of-skills. However, in terms of 'universal' skill-set for analysis in business, a certain personality traits could contribute to the arsenal of an effective Business Analyst. A Business Analyst is a management consultant in the making, and IMHO, basically you need a balanced personality between the ears and having: common-sense ability of seeing the Big (macro) picture in smaller (micro) details neutrality of judgement (having the effect of 'being' external) poly-point-of-views, with negotiation skills stakeholder management with the ability to provide (respective) 'view...

A loving girl friend led the charge on me by saying something like this: "You all men are like that... Hello! this is not Victorian age any longer..! Wake up.. else we would just march over your dumb head and pot-belly..."

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...

What is the reason for someone to create and maintain a Weblog? Blog is a tool to put ideas, reactions and observations into public. A personal diary in public. In the process, one creates content, expresses likes and dislikes (and gives opportunities to Web2.0 apps to sell you a relevant product!), have the contentment of speaking it out (and, in some cases, being 'heard' also), and it creates a possibility for an interaction for you where someone might respond to your views. As to the frequency of blogging , I do not suppose there could be any rules as such. I think if you get one good idea per week to talk about in your blog, and you keep that practice for an year, effectively you would end up having about 50 good ideas. I would say, that makes a really productive year: 50 good ideas! Not bad... This also goes on speaking about the new Social dynamics that the technology has infused among us. On the downside, the chief one, as I see it, is that there is a real threat to a pr...

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...