The Power of Visual Communication

Have you ever had to sit through a boring presentation at your job or community meetings? well, who has not? Are you bored of and lately have become completely disinterested in threat of global warming? If answer to both of these question is yes, then take a look on this site -

http://www.storyofstuff.com/ And play the video on the home page.

See the power of visuals, see the impact of statistics if related well to the audience. Its simply amazing. Basically its one more desperate plea to all of us to start behaving responsibly towards our planet. Though the message will hit you hard seeing the video, here are some startling numbers:
1. Out of the world's top 100 economies, 51 are corporate houses. So we live in a world of consumers and not responsible citizens and governments are not really governing, they are being driven by the corporate world.

2. The US, consumes 30% of the world's resources with 4% population of the world. If this is how everyone in the world consumes, we will need 4 or 5 planets !!

3. Whatever US consumer buys, do you know how much of that is trashed with in 6 months ? 99% !! ( The data is available for US only, that doesn't mean rest of us are not culprits)

4. Amazon is loosing 2000 trees per minute !!

5. Corporates are driving our consumption behaviour using 2 types of obsolescence:

Planned Obsolescence - So that your existing product can not be upgraded to match with the enhanced product. e.g. a computer might have only handful of better components, but there is not just any way to replace those components in your existing computer and you are forced to buy a new one.

Perceived Obsolescence - Using adverts and other marketing hype, your existing products is made to look so out of time or fashion, that you are forced to buy another one which is 'in fashion'. e.g. would you still like to keep a Walkman instead of sleek ipod. I know you would say its so easy to carry one, but would you even like to carry a MP3 player which is smaller than ipod.? Or are you still using those bulky monitor on your desk? No? What was wrong with that?

Do watch the video on the link given above, probably your thinking would change for ever. I know its a tall claim, but please believe me.

This video also explains what visuals can do to your communication.

Networking sites as knowledge tool

Like so many others, I also have an account on linkedin but so far was wondering if its really worth spending time on. After all, adding countless people into your network is not going to do a great deal of good to you personally or professionally unless a networking site enables and even encourages frequent interaction with each other. e.g. I have few contacts in my list to whom I have not interacted ever since I added them into my network.

However, recently I have started using questions and answer sections a lot. For a professional site like Linkedin, I think this is the biggest USP. Have a look on the range of questions asked and answers given by people coming from different industry, culture, geographies. This is pure practical knowledge available at will to EACH member.
e.g. being someone from outsourcing industry, I had a look on the questions asked for this industry and I am amazed by not only the questions, which of course prompt you to think differently and widen your horizon, but also by the answers from a variety of people. And as you start participating in discussions, you will invariably have more people in your network and I think that's real power of networking sites like linkedin - not merely to add people to your network, but to encourage them interact on common issues.
So for me, the power of linkedin is not only networking possibilities, but its use as a knowledge tool or even a innovation tool due to shear range of thought process you get access to through it.

Why IT makes people stressful

Just been reading about a study conducted by skillsoft that 97% of the IT workers say their job is stressful on daily basis. That's a staggering figure and makes one think why is it so. Having spent time first in technical selling and then in IT support and IT service delivery, I think one of the major reasons could be the nature of job which allows little 'personal' interaction as some of the non IT professions do.

When I first shifted from Sales to IT consulting/support, I was amazed to notice people using chat applications even for talking to person sitting next to them!! Such things do make the whole work a bit too mechanical and one gets little opportunity to emotionally connect with his peers.

Even several managers tend to ignore value of personal touch and one to one conversations or what author Susan Scott called Fierce Conversations. Having and fostering these fierce conversations requires one to be a leader in true sense and show lots of willingness and courage.

A lot is desired and can be done by people in the leadership roles in IT. I found this very interesting article on IT leadership which gives 8 traits of effective IT leaders. Go read it, but here is summary:
- Leadership means focusing on the needs of others, not yourself
- Leadership comes from your actions, not your title
- Leadership makes you accountable, even if it’s not your fault
- Leadership is not a 9-to-5 activity
- Leadership takes trust from your followers
- Leaders get their best ideas from their team
- Leadership thrives on diversity
- Leadership comes from continuous communication

So with effective leadership and communication, IT profession CAN BE made less stressful and more ‘personal’ in nature. Leadership will foster and encourage fierce conversations.

I really liked what Susan says in this book quoted above:
"Our careers, and our companies and our relationships and indeed our lives succeed or fail gradually than suddenly – ONE CONVERSATION AT A TIME."

So its high time that not only the leadership in IT but everyone involved paid attention to how are we conversing with each other, with our peers, suppliers, customers, subordinates to make each other's lives a lot less stressful.

Power Shift - From Products to Brands and Services

Continuing my read of 'No Logo' and it rues the fact about how the business has changed over the years and how it is changing in the new economy. After the manufacturing age, where product was everything, the new business mantra is 'we are in the business of building brands'.

However, for some industries, there is another angle, which I want to explain here.
Emphasis on branding might look overkill and a misplaced business strategy and against the consumer's interests, but for software companies and many other businesses and their customers, this philosophy has done more good than harm. Branding has prompted organizations to think beyond selling the product and emphasise on the post sales relationship with their customers. A satisfied customer is pre-requisite to their branding efforts.

Think about the time when 'churn baby churn' was the only business strategy in software sector where the only aim was to release next version with more features ASAP, no matter how much testing has been done, no matter how much supportability has been built into the organization.

After the bubble burst in year 2000, things have changed. And the power has shifted from product to service. Because in their quest to build a better brand, companies are investing heavily in the service side of their business. So much so that product has been almost made redundant. Popularity of Linux and other open source as well as SaaS (Software as a Service)indicates a clear shift taking place from product to services. In fact SaaS makes the product irrelevant and the only thing a customer expects is service. And some business pundits are even forecasting that in few years time, software will be free of cost, it will only be the service that will earn revenue.

So it is not surprising that companies are aware of increasing importance of service in building their brands and hence branding is not that bad for either business or customers.

Social Impact of Superstore Economy

Just started reading this interesting book named 'No Logo' by Naomi Klein wherein she has written about how branding has become almost everything in today's corporate world and how these super brands are intruding into every aspects of our lives in order to sell more, at any cost.

While one may not agree with all what she has against branding, there are some compelling arguments which makes it a good read.
Out of I have read so far, one thing which has strike most to me is her argument about how the invent of superstores has changed the social fabric in every country. Now as the UK, where I am currently living, already had an established superstore culture when I came here, I cannot see what impact it has brought socially. However, being from India, where superstore culture has just caught up (in fact right now there all only malls which are not superstores in real sense, as their merchandise range is smaller to superstores and generally excludes grocery) I can see this happening, and there is a perceptible change in buying habits of people already.
People are buying more and impulsively, the buying decision making has shifted from only men to whole family including kids, and branding has become more important.

However, these are also a sign of rising income levels (though mall culture has a lot to take credit for all the changes in buying habits of people). But what can only be attributed to superstores (or malls in case of India, so far) is the changing patterns of social interactions.

Parks have been replaced by malls for whatever purpose there were used earlier - dating or for family outing on Sundays. The whole idea of weekend entertainment, which earlier meant visiting friends and relatives or fairs or watching a movie with whole family has been overturned and weekend has now come with in confines of malls.

There used to be a lot more time which could be spent on the shop on street corner, gossiping about and analysing every news broadcast on the radio. Now people prefer to spend their time on branded stores in these malls and finding out what's Britney Spears latest problem.
Time is always short on these malls.

This might be the phenomenon in metros as of now, but once these markets are saturated with enough malls and superstores, will it not be turn of smaller town and take this social shift to the next level?

Beware, virtual is getting real

One friend recently told me about second life, which is an amazing concept. It’s a 3-D virtual world whose usage is limited only to your imagination. You need a downloadable program, which enables its members to first attain an avatar of their own liking and then interact with almost 10 million other members in various ways. If this is not impressive enough, then let me tell you this - you can even buy land on their planet. People are building hotels, houses and living a virtual life. This virtual world has its own economy with its own currency, its own land that you have to buy.
People create their own goods and services and trade them. e.g. you can buy some land, create a building, landscape and trade like real economy. You can build a machine or a vehicle and sell it. Your creation can be protected by copyright!!

Life is not boring at all in this world. You can even create, display, buy or sell art- from oil painting to music. There are live concert taking place.

And take this - countries are opening their embassies there. Maldives has done already and so have Sweden, Malta, and Philippines. Of course they would not issuing visa, but they will be promoting their countries culture.

This makes one think and wonder how technology is shortening the gap between real and virtual. And there are so many ways such virtual world could be used to our real virtual world and its inhabitants.
Consider these innovative ways this virtual world is being used:

virtual classroom for colleges like Harvard, INSEAD and many universities. lectures and projects are being hosted in this world for the real world.

IBM is using it for corporate meetings. Just have a look on one of such corporate gathering.

Armani has a virtual store too, so unless you want to shell out real dollars, and enjoy your virtual fashion accessories, though it still costs you in their own currency - Linden Dollars.

Companies are even thinking of test market their products in such virtual worlds.

Who knows, tomorrow, if you are looking for a job, your first interview would be in a virtual office. Teleworkers, word hard, otherwise your boss can call you instantly in his virtual office and give his peace of mind or a virtual pink slip, which will have real impact !

If you want more details about this virtual world, see here.

Time to go beyond outsourcing - Crowdsourcing anyone?

We have had heard a lot, first about outsourcing, then insourcing and now there is another concept coming up - Crowdsourcing.

Outsourcing was about delegating the non-core operations of a business to external entity for whom that operation is CORE.

Insourcing is about bringing particular operations to a internal entity for whom the activity is CORE. Basically it followed the outsourcing when employees started aggressively defending their jobs and insourcing was popularised to convince employees that though some work may be going outside, other is coming back in house.

And if you thought this would make the full circle, we now have crowdsourcing !!
i.e. instead of outsourcing a particular task/operation to a single entity, its outsourced to a large, undefined group of people.

Now this is creativity at its best. its admirable to see someone just showing one more of extracting the maximum out of available technology, be it internet, open source or call to find out missing Steve Fossett.

Clearly we haven't seen the last of various form of ..........sourcing.