Posted by Sunil Malhotra in Business, social media, Web 2.0.
Tags: Add new tag, Advocacy, open source, social media, social technology, Society and Culture, Web 2.0

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A few months ago, a journalist friend asked for my view on “What would motivate technopreneurs to consider building businesses around social technologies?”
My answer …
Building businesses around social technologies is like attempting to achieve the ideals of Communism using the methods of Capitalism. Look at the open source movement. It is not hard to guess why it has gained the status of a movement. The clues to countering the monolithic tendencies of technology builders are evidenced by the success of the open source philosophy. What it clearly shows is that power centres can and will be dismantled, it will be
less by the hunger for the power to own and more by the willingness to belong;
less by the striving for independence and more for the mutual value of interdependence;
less by the aggression of competition and more by the power of collaboration.
Golaiths beware the Davids are here to stay. The proof is Web 2.0. Here’s to the new wine and to the new bottle as well.
There’s little value in prefixing the word ‘Social’ to media, networking, technologies, welfare or any other word. Wordplay sounds nice, looks good in a presentation and creates great news hooks. ‘Social’ has to do with society – a particular society. And society is shaped by people that have passion, conviction and a sense of urgency.
Technology is merely a toolbox for social change and technopreneurs must take it as their duty to identify the value that their ‘products’ will provide to those who will use them to positively transform and sustainably impact society as a whole.
Posted by Sunil Malhotra in Corruption, General, Global Economy, Politics, Thought leadership.
Tags: Capitalism, Global financial crisis, global meltdown, gold standard, Marketeering, Materialism, monopoly, Political leadership, reserves, Society and Culture, World War II
First we go throw money at the financial crisis and then when we run out of it, we print some more. Great idea but who’re we trying to fool? We don’t need Nostradamus to tell us that, do we?
Orrin Woodward (celebrated Author of Launching a Leadership Revolution) wrote this on his blog yesterday …
Today, with a heavy heart, I will share breaking news on the immoral monetary activity of the Federal Reserve. Money supply must be tied to economic output of a country or the printed money is merely paper only good for starting fires. …
… I am an American patriot and very proud to be called an American. Today is the saddest day for me as an American. The following graph clearly displays that America has chosen to inflate its money supply without real wealth to back the paper money and money credits. This is immoral in the highest degree. This is no different than if I owed someone a million dollars and I only had one hundred dollars so I handed him Monopoly money and told him that it was legal tender. Money should be like a promissory note and that is the true origin of paper money – a promised note to redeem the above legal tender with gold at the owner’s discretion. This is no longer the case and has proven to be to great a temptation in the hands of our quick fix political leadership. (more…)
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
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.
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- 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…)
Posted by Sunil Malhotra in Corporate terrorism, Corruption, Global Economy, Illusions, Innovation 101, Leadership, Wisdom of the leaders.
Tags: bailout packages, Benjamin Franklin, global meltdown, Globalization, Innovation 101, Mark Twain, ostrich syndrome, Slumdog Millionaire, Society and Culture, Thought leadership, Western Thought

Get your heads out of the sand
I’m pushing 50 and I always thought my general knowledge was passable. Until I watched Slumdog Millionaire and found out that it wasn’t George Washington’s mug on a $100 bill but Benjamin Franklin’s. Strange coincidence and somewhat evangelistic that he was the one who said
He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money. - Benjamin Franklin
So what’s America trying to do to quell the current storm that doesn’t want to go away. Allegation or not, the only course that seemed to come to you was to throw money at the crisis. How smart is that? Doesn’t surprise anyone outside the US but you are taken by surprise when the bailout money gets generously distributed against ‘bonuses payable’ among the very people that caused the crisis to happen. (more…)
Posted by Sunil Malhotra in Companies of the future, Culture, Entrepreneurship, Heart Capital©, Innovation, Leadership, Sustainable Innovation, Thought leadership, Wisdom of the leaders.
Tags: Corporate social responsibility, Culture, heart capital, Human resources, Ideafarms, Innovation, KM, Knowledge Management, Passion, Society and Culture, wisdom
When I coined the phrase “Heart Capital” a few years ago, I didn’t recognise it’s prophetic undertones. Here’s a link to the stimulating discussion we had half a decade ago. And for those who might want to read my article, here’s the pdf.
The ideas and views regain relevance with today’s ‘communities’ on the collaborative web. (2.0)
Here’s John Moore’s comment on the article I wrote in 2003.
“I love these lines in particular :
To humanise is to recognise that technology cannot replace the charm of personal contact. To humanise is to disrupt current business thinking and methods. To humanise is to add emotion. To humanise is to add fun to work and work systems.
I think the discussion about emotional environment is important; a lot of money goes into trying to create great physical spaces for work (and that’s no bad thing) but the manners and subleties of human contact deserve equal attention.
I would add that as well as being fun, the creation of real “heart capital” requires taking risks and being vulnerable. Acknowledging our true feelings feels risky in many enviroments; yet in my experience it is often a touchstone for deeper and more satisfying human engagement.”
via Creating Heart Capital – KnowledgeBoard.
Thanks John!
Here’s another excerpt from the article. :-
It is time now, to create heart capital. An exchange of feelings, emotions and culture to foster knowledge creation and sharing.
- An asset for individual growth and organizational excellence.
- A tool for sharpening the competitive edge.
- A culture for human enrichment.
- A plan to protect and propagate our common heritage.
Let’s ask ourselves some questions.
Is it [not] necessary [for us] to create a new lexicon of corporate nomenclature if we want to change
traditional thinking?
For example, HR is traditionally responsible for all people issues in an organization. Does this mean that other departments do not need to care about people? Is there something about the nomenclature “HR” that needs repairing? When dealing with materials, the word “resource” is probably appropriate. But Human Resource?? I thought resources were for people to use, so how appropriate is it to think of human beings as resources?
The entire business terminology needs a revamp. Human Resources should become Corporate Citizenship, Research & Development should become Knowledge Innovation, and so on. The focus is clearly shifting from efficiency to effectiveness, from sentiment to passion, from profit to value and from performance to the emotional well being of the user.
Comments and critiques welcome.