Of Godmen & GUIs June 5, 2011
Posted by Sunil Malhotra in Business, Design, Politics.Tags: Brand India, Culture, Ethics, Fasting, frogdesign, Gautama Buddha, Godmen, Government, Hindustan Times, India, Leadership, Mahatma Gandhi, media responsibility, Social change, swami
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The ‘Fast-unto-death’ theatrics of the past few weeks, allegedly (sic.) in a fight against corruption in India, have urged me to finally bring this article out of my closet. I wrote it fifteen years ago, almost to the day, for frogdesign‘s rana#3, a brilliant in-house publication that they shelved inexplicably.
Godmen were around those days too, (their business model hasn’t changed) snaring people into their spiritual concoctions and exploiting India’s superstitious side. GUI was a term almost nobody had heard then. We in India still speak out the letters, not ‘gooey’ like the rest of the world does. Read it, like it, hate it, keep it, share it. Here goes …
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India, at the end of History …
… is mystical and hi-tech. Impoverished and affluent. A billion-strong society in a pulsating state of chaotic equilibrium. Cows and cars share city streets. Superstitions abound and Godmen flourish. We will show our palms to people who promise a peek at our destiny, or say they can chant away a terminal disease. We have much to learn, but the world can learn a great deal from us … (more…)
Quiet is the New Loud March 17, 2011
Posted by Sunil Malhotra in Culture, Entrepreneurship, heart capital, Heart Capital©, Social Innovation.Tags: Culture, Entrepreneuership, Entrepreneurship 2.0, Leadership, Riitta Raesmaa, Social change, Social Innovation, social media, Thought leadership
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Knowledge work is not about theory, tools, methodologies, training or any such thing. It is about attitudes of individuals forming teams. Read the post Quiet is the New Loud.
Riitta Raesmaa | Startup Entrepreneur from Helsinki, Finland | I blog about both personal and professional topics: Entrepreneurship, Technology, Social Business/Enterprise 2.0, Social Media, Cloud, SaaS, Books, Design. Or refer to what my wise friends have written.
Always in Beta. And passionately so.
Excerpts:
1/ We have unforeseen number of software tools and technologies available to support these flows. Still it is primarily not about the tools and processes. Most of all it is about an attitude – an attitude of the individuals forming a team, working group, or an organization.
2/ “Systems Intelligence (SI) involves the ability to use the human sensibilities of systems and reasoning about systems in order to adaptively carry out productive actions within and with respect to systems.”
Twitter – Wasted Time or Lost Opportunity May 8, 2010
Posted by Sunil Malhotra in Business, Companies of the future, Culture, Everything 2.0, Heart Capital©, Innovation, Management, predictions 2010, Social Entrepreneurship, social media, Web 2.0.Tags: Anand Mahindra, Barkha Dutt, Culture, Dalai Lama, Enterprise 2.0, Entrepreneurship 2.0, Iffort, Innovation, Leadership, Marketing 2.0, N Madhavan, Rajdeep Sardesai, social media, social networking, The Economist, Twitter, Vishnu Som, WoM
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Twitter is a place to tell the world something in all of 140 characters. I’m not about to explain that the underlying sms technology is what creates this limit and it is not a number based on user research or any fancy stuff of the sort. So it’s a great way to waste company time for personal gratification. After all, how can anybody say something in just 140 characters (including spaces). How’s 20-odd words going to convey anything meaningfully?
Okay, so you want to be the first to tell the world what’s happening around you. You want to get your thoughts out of your system so new ones can be born. You want to keep checking how many people are following you. And you want your employer to pay for all this. Shame on you. What a waste of time! And some of you even try to convince your marketing guys get a company account for some ‘brand building and preservation’. The world is about ‘conversations’ you say.
Sorry, but I just don’t get it. Okay, the Dalai Lama tweets his spirituality. And
Vendor-Client relationships November 14, 2009
Posted by Sunil Malhotra in Innovation.Tags: absurdity, client, conti, Cost cutting, Culture, Ideafarms, Innovation, negotiation, outsourcing, partnerships, provider, vendor
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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“
Leadership innovation – The beginning and the end of history February 16, 2009
Posted by Sunil Malhotra in Companies of the future, Culture, Entrepreneurship, Heart Capital©, Innovation, Leadership, Leadership Innovation, Thought leadership, Wisdom of the leaders.Tags: Chinmaya Mission, Culture, Ethical issues, heart capital, Innova, Innovation, Jagjit Singh, Kirloskar, Leadership Innovation, Next Practices, Society and Culture, Thought leadership, Toyota, Valentine's day, wisdom
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Wow, what an amazing Valentine’s weekend! Thankfully “The Consortium of Red-faced, Jobless and Retrograde Men of India” ( male counter to the Facebook group ”The Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women”) was kept in check to allow India’s youth to celebrate Valentine’s day.
- Vikram Kirloskar (left) – Launch of the new TOYOTA INNOVA.
But that aside, I had a blast. My friend Vikram Kirloskar, Vice Chairman of Toyota Kirloskar Motors, invited us to the most memorable evening with Jagjit Singh, the Ghazal Maestro. His satin voice had everybody spellbound for a riveting two hours. In Vikram San’s words – “It is Toyota India’s heartfelt gesture of gratitude to our customer ‘family’”. The event was fraught with simplicity and genuine warmth. I wish some people would take lessons from Toyota and especially from Vikram on humility and the natural way to live and work.
In concert with Jagjit Singh
How business can ‘flow along’ with such warmth. And to top it, to be immersed in such soul-stirring music. What more could I have asked for. My take away was that the “Toyota way” goes far beyond shopfloor efficiencies and product quality. It is a statement of life and living.
Then came Spiritual Sunday at the Chinmaya Mission precincts on Lodhi Road in New Delhi. Before you start imagining yoga mats and a saffron-robed Godman, I must tell you that the event had to do with the launching of Anil Sachdev’s SOIL – School of Inspired Leadership. (more…)
Sunil Malhotra
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