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THE MAVERICK BY RICARDO SEMLER

A colleague recently suggested this book called The Maverick , written by a Brazilian , Ricardo Semler. The beauty of this book is that it talks about business transformation, attitudinal transformation and culture transformation in a family owned enterprise called SEMCO. It is not a new title, and was first published in early nineties (of the last millenium!) and is devoid of jargons that CEOs like to decorate their success stories with. The tone is very lucid and straight and no, Mr Semler does not do any hyperbole. Go ahead and read this book with all my recommendations. A very lnteresting read. (Image courtesy http://www.randomhouse.com.au)

HERE COMES FANOOS!

Well, Mr Fanoos, aka Storm number 5 to hit Chennai his season tis knocking at the doors. Fanoos is a word of Persian origin and means a lamp.Well, from the satellite images, it does not seem to be giving any indications of bringing light to Chennai. Like all other storms this seasons, Fanoos also seems bent on nearshoring itself around a weekend. Good luck Chennai. Next week will see another post on the aftermath, and hopefully, some pictures.Chennai's weather has become extremely stressful. Hopefully, when Fanoos dissappears, we will see the bright light of good weather!

THE ADYAR- AN UNFORGETTABLE SIGHT

Those of us who cross the Adyar river every day expect calm waters below. In fact we expect it to be way below the bridge. Well, that may not be the case always. These pictures were taken on Saturday last (4 Dec). There were many onlookers who wanted to see the Adyar in such mighty state. The water was not stagnant and calm, but moving very rapidly. It was just a few meters below this Thiru-Vi-Ka bridge. The Hindu published a picture on the front page of the same river but at Saidapet. That image can be seen at the Hindu site by clicking here .

TSUNAMI AFTERMATH!

Look at this picture. I did not put because I wanted to put a picture of myself. The reasons are different and beyond. After the Dec 26 , 2004 Tsunami that hit India, me and my wife put together a bundle of clothes to be sent for the needy families. The same day we put up another set of clothes, in another large shopping bag, to be sent for ironing. I mixed up the bags and ended up loosing the shirt and trousers you see me with in this picture (and few more). I had worn them only twice.

Life Cycle Management in a Democracy - Bihar as a Case Study

Life Cycle Management in a Democracy - Bihar as a Case Study When we were first exposed to the concepts of Life Cycle Management in books, we never realized that the applications could be applied to so many diverse things. Well,on anything that qualifies as a brand. The concept said, that brands have to reinvent newer benefits to the consumer, else, they would taper out in favour of others. How will that happen is just a matter of technicality. Well, Chennai rained on 22nd Nov, and the much awaited India South Africa OD cricket match was a washout, but the best scores that day emerged was from Bihar. A headline in a newspaper here in Chennai said "Lalu looses, India wins". Well, perceptions on a brand.Once again, the same principles apply to the new brand. And I hope the new leadership reads these principles from a Kotler so that they do not suffer the same fate as the previous rulers of Patliputra. For that matter, those who rule the other states as well. (Image Courtesy: w

FROM THE 'SETS' OF THE MOVIE 'GANDHI'

I took this picture from a train as it ambled its way over the bridge on the river Son near Patna (Exact location Koilwar or Koelwar as you choose to spell it) Discerning folks will recall the scene in the movie 'Gandhi' where a steam loco driven train halts on this bridge(from where this picture is taken) and passengers, including Gandhiji go down to the river. It is a very touching scene as Gandhiji notices a poor lady trying to cover her body with whatever little clothes she could afford and Gandhiji quietly letting go of a cloth that was on his shoulder so that the flow of the water leads the cloth to the lady. I have crossed this bridge so many times and it feels so serene and calm at this place. Only that this is not the movie set, but the location of one of the historical experiences of

WWW.BHOPAL.COM

A casual attempt on the web at typing www.bhopal.com in a browser reveals that the domain www.bhopal.com is being used by Union Carbide as a propaganda platform. Pray, what business has UC has with Bhopal now? Any Bhopali (govt of private) interested in taking it to ICANN? Well, should I say UCANN?!!

THE SEARCH - AN INTERESTING READ

Came across this new book called The Search authored by John Battelle. An interesting read. Beware: It is not a management classic. It is a chronicle by an award winning journalist and a good one at that. It is a very lengthy filing by a journalist. Go ahead, read it, if only because no one realized that the Google , ASK and A9 already have enough history to be written about. A bit expensive in India right now at Rs 984/-. (Well, I am coming with more on this shortly)

SO, BUSINESSWORLD PUBLISHES MY LETTER!

I found my letter to the editor carried in the Businessworld issue of 10 Oct 2005!(Click on the image to see a full view)

KATRINA, RITA AND AN INDIAN HURRICANE CALLED MALLIKA!

Mallika is a category 5 hurricane. She stuck India years back and refuses to subside.The most interesting attribute of Hurricane Mallika is that she's hit India coast-to-coast and the only property she's damaged is the male heart.Worst still, she's going stronger by the day.Initially she was designated as category 2.Nobody knows where she's heading next. Hurricane Aishwarya is now designated as category 1, which means she's really not much lethal anymore. We also had a Muskee Tornado few years back, but its effect gradually waned over time. In any case this tornado damaged the female hearts alone. Lets keep an eye as Mallika progresses towards the Hongkong coasts!

ONE MORE REASON WHY I LOVE CHENNAI!

8 PM last evening just as I reached home from work I received a call from my cousin sister in Jalgaon. Her husband landed in Chennai a few hours earlier, she said. Delighted to hear that, I said, BTW, where is he? He was on his way to Vellore to attend a relative under medical care. Unfortunately, he had left behind his mobile phone in the auto from Chennai airport to the city as he headed for Vellore. Too bad, I said, this is a bad city. Close the connection with the service provider IMMEDIATELY I said. She said I did not get her point .The autodriver had just called her and he wants to return it! Interesting, I said . My wife took the challenge of speaking to the autodriver as she speaks Tamil. He said he has a stand near the airport and if we come there, the instrument is all ours. See you in twenty minutes we told him. At plus 15 minutes we bundled into the car and headed for the airport. Everybody knows the Guindy/GST road traffic. We reached there at plus 60 mins(9 PM)

MICROSOFT - THE MIDDLEWARE IN CONSUMER EXPERIENCE!

With Google's creeping onslaught on the desktop space, Microsoft is in the danger of being reduced to middle layer of customer experience , Never mind the XP in Windows. Google is setting the standards through engineering innovation, and by keeping the customer in the center. Google has attacked Microsoft two fold - One by expanding the customer experience in a space that has hitherto been believed to be already exploited to full capacity, and second by building ab-initio innovations that have leveraged the computing power of the day, including good internet bandwidth, to give completely new experience. The first category includes chat , email and photo organising softwares, among other things. The second category includes the new products, such as blogger, Google Earth, Google Print and Google Maps. This is also an example that innovation by a challenger can drive the marketing budget of a leader hollow, if the leader's strategy is build around self and not around the environ

THE WORLD IS NOT FLAT - THE BOOK IS!

Just finished reading 'The World is Flat' by Thomas Friedman. The subtitle suggests it is the ' A brief History of the Globalized World in the 21st Century '. Once again an attempt at creating a stereotype. This book is targetted at western audiences, who have probably read about outsourcing etc through the media, but have not had the chance to read it in the form of a story, something the three times Pulitzer awardee is very good at. Mr. Friedman conjures up images of Indian IT companies as replacing the jobs in the US, but he forgets some parts of the story, viz, most of the Indian Tier 1 IT services providers have strong sales arms in the US, which have many an American employed.Outsourcing is not new at all. A famous acedemician recently commented that Americans outsourced their undergraduate education to India decades ago. That remark, made half in jest, alluded to the large number of Indian students who went to(and still go) US to after earning their basic engine