Reflections on ...

Players in Open Innovation

2011-12-20T18:16:00.000+05:30

There are many variants of Open Innovation diagrams on the net, typically originating/offshooting from Henry Chesbrough original work i.e. porous funnel rotated 90 degrees showcasing internal & external players in the game and the permeable boundaries of the new age firms. I thought of seeing it differently and hence came up with the schema below.

If Qualification Would Make A Field Mature Then There Should Have Been Colonies On The Moon By Now

2011-11-06T14:09:00.001+05:30

I read the preliminary results from KMO and this is how they conclude in theend “The KMO survey reports that 65percent of active knowledge managers do not hold a qualification related to KM.Of that 65 percent, only 18 percent claimed to be working towards a KM-relatedqualification. And of that 18 percent, 69 percent are working towards apostgraduate academic qualification, and 17 percent are working towards a KMaccreditation certificate. These findings perhaps indicate continuingimmaturity in the KM field”.

While I am eager to read the complete report which they planto release in early 2012, I feel the immaturity of the KM field is not directlyrelated to ‘KM qualified’ of ‘KM Certified’ professionals. My hypotheses are asfollows:

KM by Choice orChance?
The parts of the preliminary results may be true but I thinkthe bigger problem is that KM practitioners today, in quite some cases, areinto KM not by choice but by chance. As thisaspect has a direct impact on any profession – if you have chosen a field ofinterest or forced to choose an area – KM most likely is not where it shouldhave been today.

Evolutionary &Voluntary Nature of KM Engagements
In addition, IMHO, the immaturity is also because of 2 otherdynamic factors in which KM is: (1) the evolutionary nature of the KM field (2)the voluntary nature of KM engagements in most of the organizations. While bothare directly and primarily linked to ‘people’ this field continues to evolve(& mature) with time at its own pace, as KM practitioners continue todiscover how people (or what makes them) innovate or what makes them share whatthey know etc. And it is a proven fact that humans love to share not by forcebut when they feel like sharing, when are motivated, when they are passionateabout something and when they have the sense of self-satisfaction to give that anything else in the world.

Lack of ExecutiveBuy-in
Next comes lack of buy-in from the executives, which is alsolinked to maturity of KM. It is important to note that most of the KMconferences today are still around theories of KM. There is very little talkabout ‘how’ they have applied KM philosophies & ‘what’ made the turn around– improved productivity, greater quality, shorter learning curve etc. Aren’tbusiness leaders looking for such outcomes? Why should they adopt KM into theirstrategic functions unless they have seen their KM function directly impactingtheir bottom-line? If KM community doesn’t show the value who else will? Andhow can the value be shown if we continue to talk largely about theories?

As for the caption, it is true that we have come far interms of what we know, similarly itis also true that humans are still discovering and wondering how much they don’t know (about S&T) as they tread deeper. Themore they have explored science, no matter how much qualified they are (docs,postdocs, noble laureates etc.); multiply by 100s of them, the more humans havefelt their ignorance towards how much is yet to be discovered – so can we callother fields of study mature despite having qualifiedprofessional in each field of study?

You get back to that goddamn cubicle & start thinking outside the box

2011-08-06T16:36:00.002+05:30

Let’s face it raw - how many times do we empower (or let) our team to think creatively? Or do they get an environment at all that energizes them to think outside-the-box? When the project is in a firefighting state and firefighters are all around do we do enough to step back for a while & think afresh?

Image Source: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2005/10/CartoonCreativity

There was this manager in a company who was do-as-I-say types. He used to confront people, show them down & drive them up the wall with even the basic things that did not required deliberation. While he had smart chaps working under him they were all confined, to a box. Little did the manager realize that while his product was doing fairly good in the market, the team could have done far better by simply unleashing his team's potential by empowering them with the width the team needed. That would have kept the competition far behind & spiked the company’s profitability 3-fold. As was his typical nature, the me-myself-I attitude of this manager kept the team at their very best low. While the team was satisfied with the pay they got at the end of the day they were absolutely not contended with the spirit the team was into & more so the freedom they were deprived of, in the social age.

Few months later this manager went elsewhere. Another gentleman who took over this team quickly realized the morale & social-state in which the team was. While he saw the potential of the team during first few informal conversations he had with each of them, he also found out the rigidity of the environment (call it process) & the way this team was nurtured in the past did more damage than any good. The manager slept over this and later thought, “Hey, why not consult the guru?”

After a deep & profound conversation he was told to take his team offsite and break the ice. And it couldn’t have been better ever since then. The team found a renewed spirit and the necessary vigor in whatever they did – right from conceptualizing the go-to-market plan to interactions with customers to giving the feedback to the design/production team. The reach of their product magnified and so was the customer’s goodwill. Unlike the previous manager, this manager here intervened only when strategic visioning was required whereas he left all the tactical decisions for the team to take. He in fact even tweaked his office ergonomically and also demolished those cuboids giving a feeling of openness & transparency to his team. This changed the team morale dramatically and that led to become one of the most vibrant & go-getter team the company had ever seen.

How the Indian Economy is Catching up with G8 Nations

2011-06-05T19:41:00.009+05:30

India on a GNI scale v/s G8 nations (barring US), as on date

Almost catching up with Japan but way ahead of Germany, Russia, UK, France, Italy & Canada

India on a GDP scale v/s G8 nations (barring US), as on date
Already ahead of Canada & Russia and almost catching up with Italy, UK & France

International Literacy Day

2009-08-28T16:09:00.000+05:30

Today 1/5 adult is still not literate. 2/3 of them are women. It is said, if you teach a man you teach only one person but if you teach a woman you teach the entire family.

I think this model – of educating women – must be applied especially in developing country like India where the population is huge and the adult literacy rate is only about 65%. Now the big question is how can developing countries reach 100% figure? In think, the best & smartest way of reaching this would be to educate our villages since the foundations of any economy lies in its rural area. We generally think the economy is doing well because of its urban contribution. Well, that may be true in some parts but we shouldn’t forget that the root of the urban world originates from its villages.

Now the 2nd big question for the developing nations is: how can it get every child into the classroom within the next 5 years? If we talk about international literacy it is important to look into basic demographic problems each country face. In management terms a best practice of one country may not apply with others. Similarly a manifesto of giving a computer to every student wouldn’t work if the fundamental need of basic education is not met. What is the child going to do with the computer when she can’t even read or write? Thus it is important to work towards this goal smartly so that the vision of making the world a better place to live is well established.

Thus on International literacy day we should think ways to empower villages by educating its people (esp. the women folks) deprived of this important necessity. This has a cure for any developing economy. If our kisans or farmers are educated, it will lead to a better yield. This in turn will lead to a healthy economy. If the economy is healthy we will have a better standard of living. If we have a better standard of living we all will do a better job. And if we do better jobs the world will be a better place to live. So let us all make a conscious effort of improving the education level within the developing countries. Each one of us can make a difference - directly or indirectly – either educating 1-on-1 or by donating funds to NGOs/govts or UNESCO. However let us be conscious in educating the remotest of remote. So let the mantra be - Let each one teach one.

Lastly the other dimension of literacy is following etiquettes. For e.g. some people despite being literate do not follow traffic rules or wouldn’t want to stand in a queue or they unnecessarily littering around or ignore manners we learnt in school. What is the use of our learning if such basic manners are not followed? I think this is important to be considered as well.

A candle does not lose its light by lighting another candle. Let us light and enlighten those who are deprived and also to those who are not.

Microblogs has macro potential

2009-07-04T12:46:00.000+05:30

It is fascinating to see how people use web based short messaging service to express themselves and communicate their thoughts, opinions, interests and even frustrations to endless unknown minds in the web world. It has become natural for humans to peep (or rather 'follow') who-is-upto-what in the virtual world. One of the many Web 2.0 applications, which is on the roll today, is micro blogging.

Much like search engines analyze search patterns and spy-ware sleuth habits of the web users, micro-blogging-like services will be a powerful medium to understand the psychology, the cognition, and a person’s inclination towards particular subject(s). That is simply because this medium has the advantage of keying-in short conversations/messages making small pieces of information too powerful. Smart algorithms, in future, will unleash its full potential by segregating data from information, information from knowledge and cluster similar sets from the larger set. Thus deriving analogies/differences quickly and presenting the bigger picture of a person (i.e. +ve attitude or introvert or visionary etc.). Thus applications like Twitter - if leveraged properly - will be powerful platform to understand & graph the state of an individual's mind.

When this is achieved not just individual traits can be ascertained to more-or-less right degree but also a group behavior can be analyzed. A step further will lead to individuals crouching for similar individuals thus building a true & cohesive Community of Practice & Community of Interest. Similarly a social group would also look for other social groups giving path-breaking insights to anthropologists.

So wouldn’t it be a wonderful to know how many individuals like you have the same (or similar) traits on the web? Imagine after using such intelligent tools you face approx. 47,103 people who share exactly the same character like you! Visualization software will do the job even easier for analysts with the help of 3D models. Perhaps then humans can take informed decisions and will have the choice if they wish to connect with the unknowns of their same ‘type’ or otherwise.

Thus before going on a date, or before meeting a new business client, or interviewing a prospective candidate, or before purchasing an artifact for someone, or matchmaking, you would prefer to know the ‘nature’ of the person whom you will be engaging. Based on that you will prepare yourself or strategize how to win-over or assess the other person, proactively. That will make business and socializing much more transparent & efficient than it was ever before.

Does this sound fascinating or scary? And are you ready for the next generation (semantic) web?

Semantic Web will be more dominating than you could have ever imagined

2009-06-27T15:16:00.001+05:30

Imagine an organisation with almost no infrastructure, sufficient enough to be called as a registered office. Almost all employees of this organisation operate out of home. Their connection/interaction with peers and other co-workers happens thro a web based virtual network where they can not only interact seamlessly with each other but also if required talk & see each other over the ‘web’, effortlessly. The conference room becomes a conference desk. Your interface is only a browser. This means you don't have a Pentium/AMD processor, a hard drive and a motherboard etc. In fact you don’t buy any of them at all. You only purchase an LCD, a keyboard and perhaps a mouse (if not already built-in in a keyboard). That is what a ‘computer’ will be minus CPU. An LCD has set of USB connectors, and one of them you'd use to connect to your ISP. Thus no desktop OS and no more (re)booting time! We will have a similar model like a free web-based email service. Now the ISPs or web companies will provide the infrastructure for you (a virtual HD and required computing speed) on their servers, free of cost. All the tools required for you to work on, and be productive, will be on the web. People will connect and use on-demand software - some free, some paid – on their virtual space.

The browser will track each action done by the knowledge-worker on the web - I am assuming here you guys know what a semantic web will be. The browser relays your action and your ISP stores the data systemically into a ‘cloud’, which in turn is available on the web. Slowly the karma of a web-worker is populated. Slowly one more human capital is added to the wired-web. A glocal emerges. A glocal starts leaving her strain on the web as & when she works. Btw much of this has been happening already. Now this is exciting: The phantom, your browser, starts capturing your expression. If, in some cases, the browser cannot derive the expression directly then it will do with in-built NLP. The reporting officers, on-demand, will process their team data and examine the health of their team. The HR folks will evaluate the cognitive bandwidth of employees. By this time they map the intellects of their knowledge-worker effectively now. The CEO, with super-rich BI tool, ascertains the mood of his organisation. The stakeholders too are hooked on a similar system. The stock markets now react based on this derived social-graph. The visualization software dopes in further to the dynamics. And so on … you will be watched not by any camera or a third person but through a keyboard & a mouse. After all, your mind interfaces with these electronic systems mostly through your fingers. Isn’t it?

On the social side, much of this is happening already with sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google etc. capturing user behavior time after time. Also some search engines have already been built around semantics, viz. hakia & wolfram-alpha. Will organisations adopt this social & semantic model within their units? Will one day work and social life be all on one stage available transparently? The world is already a smaller place. How much more will it shrink?

Of course there could be downside of having such a system in place (data security, safeguarding IPs etc.) for commercial organisations. But let me tell you: if banks can go online (24x7) then everything is possible. So will companies, in future, adopt such kind of more-or-less complete virtual model? Some companies, few years ago, who didn’t entertain the idea of hosting their confidential data with a 3rd party solution provider have realized the benefits of having such a extended system. The SaaS model, the cloud computing model and others are not only being explored but also being capitalized to the fullest. The mantra now is ‘outsource the overheads but keep the intellects’.

Welcome to virtual reality. Errr ... if that makes you think about a typical gaming stuff, no I don’t mean that. It simply means living-on-the-web. Ah, again, you got it wrong! No, I don’t mean the Second Life concept either. I meant an sound enterprise ecosystem where humans will interact, meet, and ideate with humans, more often, on the web - thro a browser than thick clients or physical means. The web (companies) will adopt what organisations adopted few years ago - open door policy … thus emerging as a transparent-web. So don’t be surprised if you find out, someday, that your e-DNA already exists on the web :)

20 years and later, the web continues to evolve

2009-06-16T22:52:00.000+05:30

20 years ago, the Internet started with the objective to "share information". But unfortunately the internet workers drifted from this basic objective. Websites were:

Static, initially. One way information. Me to you. Nothing went back.
Then came Dynamic websites. The birth of E-Commerce. 2 way information. Me to you. You to me. Nothing more than that. No feedback mechanism
Then there was a birth of Interactive websites. We call the web now 'a social workplace'. Me to you. You to me. Me to them. Them to us.

Now 20 years later the social element or the so called 'sharing' aspect of websites re-appear. So does it make you think:

Why did it take so long for the internet to reach to this objective?

Why did the objective shift from information sharing to information gathering?

What will be the shape of the internet 5 - 10 years down the line?

So why is this happening now? With increasing competition & booming economy retaining knowledge in the 21st century has become critical. Many organizations are facing challenge not only of retaining knowledge but also retaining their knowledge workers. At the same time effective and fast communication has become equally important in the Knowledge Economy. Jargons like 'Business at the Speed of Thought' have been the buzz words. How can we possibly achieve this?

The emerging social internet makes it possible - The Web 2.0 - perhaps has the answers. When we go to the largest Virtual World today, the World Wide Web, we mostly find contents co-created and collaborated by many people. Therefore many questions arise:

Where are all the people in these virtual spaces? We don’t see them!
Why do we not see them who are at the same time on the Virtual Workspaces?
And why can we not meet with these people who are with us ON these websites when we are also there?

Perhaps, these questions needs a grave thought. On the other hand there are many knowledge workers shaping up what the Web was 10 years ago. Or even 5 years ago. There is a fundamental change from where websites were and what they are now. Some experts are even envisioning Web 3.0! Ever thought about how the web will be in 3.0 space? A 3 dimensional space - as an analogy? Hmmm ...