THE Y-AXIS by Rajesh Kumar

Friends, I started blogging, I chose a slightly irreverent URL of masoomjanwar.blogspot.com in 2005, When Blogger allowed domain integration, I bought a domain and linked my blog to work on www.yaxis.in . My intention in selecting this location was to have a very simple URL. It served its purpose a great deal, but of late, I have noticed that Google directs lot of traffic from India, but does not do so from other geographies, atleast in the same measure. I also noticed that Google sitemap hints that my blog, because of the .in at the end, is seen by Google to be targeting traffic from India. I felt that this was not what I was attempting to do.  I just want my blog to be location agnostic. I have moved my blog to a more universal domain which is www.yaxislive.com . This is the new home of my blog. I hope you would continue to follow my blog. Folks who follow this site through feed should not be feeling any difference. I have also opted for Wordpress and I hope you would like the br

..Except the fact that when I as looking at these two trade magazines published from two different parts of the world (Auto Monitor - India & Automotive News - US), they looked like lost cousins!

When I run a search on the word ' innovation' in the books section at Amazon, it returned over two hundred and forty seven thousand records. Don't believe this? Try clicking here or see the imagelet below. What I am trying to highlight is that innovation is probably the most written about subject in last few years. To the point that at one point I sincerely believed the word has become cliched - till I became a believer in this word again. Dr C.K.Prahalad and M.S.Krishnan have published a recent bestseller on "The New Age of Innovation: Driving Co Created Value Through Global Networks" ( It came in a shrink wrap and hence the title of this post). Frankly, the last time I read Dr Prahalad was BOP and came back with what I can call as subterranean dissonance. With the expectation that beneath the shrink wrap would be a new idea, a new thought argument, I look forward to reading ( and subsequently joining the debate on this subject by kicking off a post)

It might appear surprising that I have tried to create a debate around an argument that appears settled - I mean why would you not want to pay income taxes online, when you do not have to write a piece of paper form or a cheque, you do not have to run to the bank, you do not have to stand in a queue, and you can do it with the comfort of your home or work, you can do it last minute and so on. The advantages appear so obvious. Almost so, till you try it out, something I did last week. The process is simple. You go to this site , locate the form and get going. So far so good. It even matches your PAN number with the Income Tax Department database to see if you have typed the correct PAN Account number, so that typos do not result in disasters of wrong credit. The form has no computational intelligence, which means it will only take values of the tax, surcharge and education cess etc. The portal also appears to offer direct transfer from several banks which is a great help. All went w

I noticed a TV ad of a 'snack' featuring Juhi Chawla. This fairly long ad ends with the punchline ' Tedha hai par mera hai' . True, creative ads need not always come from big agencies. or vice versa as in this case. Someone was kind enough to put the ad on YouTube. Yes, deep pocket clients demand,"Give me something out of the world" and advertising agencies oblige. Yes, this ad is quite out-of-the-world as far as I am concerned. Mindblowing (!) too. And quite jarring too. Tedha Hai Par Mera Hai Ad via YouTube I am not buying Kurkure anytime, no I would not. And I would even not take an Airtel connection even if they run the Maddy & Vidya Balan ad five hundred times in three hours.   The creativity of the ad has been killed by the big media budget. They need to pull out some money from the incessant carpet bombing of this ad to creating meaningful ads- more ads with less number of rotations on the TV screen .

Over the last few years, I have read several books around some of the great corporations of the world. Some of them have been written by people who have led those companies. Jack Welch ( Straight from the Gut ) and Carlos Ghosn ( Shift ) have written books which essentially talk about business transformation of the companies they have led, or continue to lead. I have also come across books such as those by Madan Birla (I have attended a webinar he gave in my company, not read his book titled Fedex Delivers ) who have been senior leaders of some of world's great companies.I have also come across books on a theme where the reflection of a corporation keeps coming back again and again - such as Tom Friendman's The World is Flat (Sorry, but I remain a dissenter when it comes to The World is Flat as a book.) I have almost finished reading Cold Steel by Bouquet & Byron . The books I have read in the past have traced the history of corporations over decades. This one actua

Cellphones are unarguably wireless devices, and therefore work on waves to route communication but the below video showing showing cellphones working as kitchen microwave is too much. See corn popping up on a flat table surrounded by four ringing mobile phones. Not sure which company makes those phones, but they sure have an unexplored line of business ready- Portable Microwave Oven or Rechargeable Pop Corn maker.   If they are just another phone handsets, well, I suddenly feel quite convinced the good old wireline phone is such  a great idea. Meanwhile, bhejafry , anyone?

We were at Mysore last Sunday and among other places, we visited the Mysore Royal Palace too. There were three types of tickets available : Adults Rs 20/- Children Free Entry Foreigners Rs 100/-   So, it has been publicly firmanned that foreigners visiting the palace are neither adults not children. (Somewhat reminded me of my OB teacher Raji Philip who described the boardroom of a company  as having three types of toilets, one each of the ladies and gents, and one for the Directors!!) The Mysore Palace is grand, and the only downer is that you are not allowed to take your camera inside the palace. The palace looked absolutely dazzling during the evening lighting though (thankfully, nobody- adults, children, or foreigners needs to buy any tickets to see the lighting), take a look at the picture taken from my phone(the picture hardly does any justice to the real thing but nevertheless). The sheer