From an earlier post Business Incubation 101 that forms the preamble of my incubation idea. Thanks for all the offers of support – shows me that the idea resonates with many.

1. First bring the academia out of the safety of the cocoons we’ve woven around them. Have them check out what the world looks like. Today’s world. Today’s India.

2. Next, focus towards incubating ‘people’. They should be the real focus. Find real mentors. People that have been in the entrepreneurial world even if they have failed. They are the best teachers. Not professors of colleges. Don’t talk about incubating business. Leave that to the Western world.

3. Next, teach people to fish. No point in teaching fishing in your living room aquarium. At least walk them out to a brook. Pick up all the university incubation centres and physically put them off campus. That’s where the world exists. Not in the time warped government funded institutes.

Entrepreneur-ism is not socialistic. And capitalism doesn’t necessarily mean greedy or mercenary - especially in the context of India’s ethos. Make entrepreneurship an attractive lifestyle and stop being condescending irrespective of the preamble of our constitution. That goes for all those holier-than-thou bankers and VC’s.

If there’s something India needs it is theez. Indiapreneurs!

I think we’ve waited long enough. I was at an event organised by the students of NIT Trichy early September and was pleasantly surprised to see how clued in this generation is. The problem is that our academia is still stuck in a time-warp. These kids need active mentoring and incubation support from professionals who have been there, done that. We need to move incubation facilities out of educational campuses and transplant them firmly into the ‘real’ world of business. A few friends and I are working on providing space and infrastructure as well as functional support (HR, Admin, IT etc.) and plan to pilot this in Delhi, Coimbatore and Hyderabad, starting 2010.

Ideas, suggestions, support and comments please.

1. Customers are human beings, not statistical aberrations.

2. Always remember you’re a marketer, not a marketeer.

3. If the client is God, worship him. Don’t work for him.

© Sunil Malhotra. 2009

Whatever one may try in building relationships with customers, it always comes back to negotiating prices the way it was done in the industrial (material) age. This hilarious, in-your-face video says it all. Is our client listening?? Can they laugh as loudly as we at this beautifully captured absurdity

Read Ann All’s post “Squeezing Vendors Isn’t a Good Idea“ 

1. God gives and forgives. Man gets and forgets.

2. The ‘I’ causes the effect.

3. Mantra=Om, Womantra=More.

©Sunil Malhotra. 2009.

Starting today ‘BlogQuotes’:

1. The only difference between ‘Leadership’ and ‘Management’ is that one creates a spark, and the other fights the fire.

2. The only mantra to learn – “Get out of your way”.

3. Be slow and steady in life yet hasten to fail.

© Sunil Malhotra 2009.

Two of my favourite subjects here – the fascinating global warming debate and India’s bollywood style negotiation script. Hopenhagen is around the corner and will make Kyoto passe. We love being underdogs because like our movies, the hero comes from behind in a good-over-evil victory lap while the crowd applauds his heroic antics.

Two wrongs don’t make a right, and I fully intend the pun.
US spews Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere when India sleeps. [Pat on back .. I'm getting good at puns]Now India wants America to pay for their long and sinful polluting behaviour. And guess what, if they don’t, we’ll have an equal right to kill the planet first so we’re even. That’s the craziest example of serving our self interests I’ve come across. It’s almost like saying that since I just found out that my neighbour has been raping my mother for 20 years, the way to punish him is by killing my own mother.

So what was Jairam Ramesh, India’s Minister of State for Environment suggesting to Manmohan Singh?

[India must] delink itself from G77 — the 131-member bloc of developing nations — and take on greenhouse gas emission reduction commitments under a new deal without any counter guarantee of finances and technology.

Read the whole story here.

To further quote from India Insights [India's principled stance on the environment misses the point] 

Industrialised nations exported pollution to under developed countries, a luxury that India does not have, if pollution is to be caused it will be at home.In addition, given India’s important but unpredictable monsoons, shifts to the world’s climate will be felt directly, India’s crucial Himalayan glaciers are already under threat. India is more vulnerable than other countries, and remember climate change has been a catalyst for political unrest, and in cases war, consider Darfur.

So while developed nations need to act responsibly, India needs to engage with the process. Stability and long term economic development may depend on it.

Silo-based + self-serving + political narrowmindedness … you have the surest formula for creating an earth after humans. Add to that the mathematical models that led us to believe Nobel economists which led to the current financial black hole.

1. With just over 300 million people US continues to lead the charge in polluting the earth’s air and water. If India were to expect negotiation leverage based on per capita quota for pollution, we’d have a right to do a minimum of 3 times the damage the US has already caused. Let’s go for it guys!

2. Granted India to balance its spending between development and environment protection, but shouldn’t the development agenda include a prerequisite – sustainability?

The call I make is for a holistic and non-confrontational approach to negotiations. This is NOT a bid winning a contract. It must be our collective bid to SAVE OUR PLANET. [See what I meant by getting good at puns?]

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World Trade Centre, Rotterdam, 25th September 2009. Indo-Dutch collaboration summit focused on Industrial Design. Hmmm … (Design Crossover).

Why they invited me to speak is still somewhat of a mystery considering I dropped off the Industrial Design radar towards the end of the last millennium. I guess it could’ve been because my company, Ideafarms, has been able to maintain a growing relationship between India and Europe over the last 8 years through projects and partnerships with Dutch and German corporations.

I’ve never been a champion of networking – I’ve actually often criticised some of my friends for using networking to get ahead – but am quite overwhelmed having been in the midst of some of the most ‘conscious’ designers of today. Jeroen Raijmakers of Philips and Jos Oberdorf of NPK Design are inspiring to say the least. I’m grateful to Ruchita Puri for the opportunity to meet them at the event.

From whatever was presented, it looks like good design can be really good business. There’s a case to be made out for a design collaboration without borders. Couple of good reasons here …

1. European design reflects high quality, the idiom being minimalistic and functional. Whereas India’s design sensibilities are more embellished. Their combination will raise the aesthetic appeal without compromising design values.

2. Pure economic tenets come into play when we see the sheer number of people both on the supply side (design talent is plenty in India) and the demand side (India is emerging as one of the largest markets). Leveraging the ‘great Indian talent pool’ is an opportunity.

3. The life sensibilities of India’s cultural make-up have always been in the mould of sustainability, something the world has woken up to only recently. Add to this the rich craft-based traditions and you have a universal design paradigm that’s as powerful as Buddhism.

Jump into this conversation folks. You don’t want to be left out. Really!

 This post is India centric.

Thinking lag is a serious condition. I remember how the older folks used to tell us ‘in our times things were so much cheaper’. Look at how the Government patronises unsuspecting academia and students by announcing Goals 2020 and supports it with Funding 1920. It’s not even smart political thinking. Call it Politicalaggard thinking.

Mayawati will spend Rs. 2000 crores (USD 400 million) dotting the UP countryside with ego-stroking statues of herelf and her mock leather handbags while the Government announces 1 crore for business incubation. Here …

The government has now formulated a scheme to set up around 100 incubators in the country to encourage the development of new businesses. It has earmarked a budget of Rs 1.13 crore for 2007-08 for providing grants to 50 universities and training institutes for setting up these incubators!

[read the original evangelising here]. And don’t miss ‘proud’ exclamation mark. 

(W)hen we hear of government funding numbers hovering around 1 crore ($200,000) for 50-100 incubators - in today’s world – (gimme a break) we are forced to be mildly suspicious of the political intent (or lack of it) and the seriousness of such initiatives. It is one thing to give a grant to a professor for a research project and quite another in the context of serious entrepreneurship in the real world. What could a graduating engineer contemplate creating with such a paltry sum which includes his livelihood as well. Let’s get real guys!

So here’s the deal.

1. First bring the academia out of the safety of the cocoons we’ve woven around them. Have them check out what the world looks like. Today’s world. Today’s India.

2. Next, focus towards incubating ‘people’. They should be the real focus. Find real mentors. People that have been in the entrepreneurial world even if they have failed. They are the best teachers. Not professors of colleges. Don’t talk about incubating business. Leave that to the Western world. Yes America’s a part of that set whether they accept or not.

3. Next, teach people to fish. No point in teaching fishing in your living room aquarium. At least walk them out to a brook. Pick up all the university incubation centres and physically put them off campus. That’s where the world exists. Not in the time warped government funded institutes.

Entrepreneur-ism is not socialistic. And capitalism doesn’t necessarily mean greedy or mercenary - especially in the context of India’s ethos. Make entrepreneurship an attractive lifestyle and stop being condescending irrespective of the preamble of our constitution. That goes for all those holier-than-thou bankers and VC’s.

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Now this is innovation,

- disrputive, passion driven and socially responsible, sustainable & non-capitalistic - not what management gurus are touting.

Chewang Norphel, Director of the Leh Nutrition Project.

Glaciers are the sole source of fresh water for the Buddhist farmers who make up more than 70% of the population in this rugged range between Pakistan and China. But rising temperatures have seen the icy snow retreat by dozens of feet each year — to find evidence of global warming, the farmers simply have to glance up from their fields and see the rising patches of brown where, once, all was white. Knowing no alternative, they pray harder for rain and snow.

But Chewang Norphel has gone beyond prayer. The 73-year-old civil engineer has come up with a solution that won’t exactly save the ancient glaciers, but it could stave off a looming irrigation crisis.

Norphel has created artificial glaciers, frozen pools of glacier run-off perched above the farmers’ fields … [read the full article here].

Highlights:

I’m so inspired …

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