2 Min SKSM

I lived a bucolic life thanks to my papa's job in forest department. I lived in a fairy world for today's generation watching stars and running behind helicopter damselfly. I wanted my kid to experience these but they are lost in today's concrete jungle and materialistic life. They only live in books, stories and rhymes. Why? I thought pollution, specifically air pollution, led to this problem cutting us from the universe. But no, it is a different kind of pollution that I was not aware of till yesterday - Light pollution . As we light our nights with bright lights, we lose our stars from our sights.  Lamps that throw light upward gets reflected from cloud & air making the sky brighter and so we cannot see stars. We need to use better lamps.   Light also has adverse effect on insects. Insects lose track of time (day and night). There was a study comparing caterpillars in two different areas: one lighted with street lamps and one not lighted. It was found that in the e...

Bonsai is not merely an art form – it is a way of life; a way of thinking; a way of practicing patience. When I think of culture especially "Company culture", I see a Bonsai tree, a tree cultured for many years taking shape as visualized by the artist. When it goes through many hardship and care like pruning, trimming, clamping, and wiring for years, you see beauty in it like Wabi-Sabi. What is culture? It is a set of behaviors. If the behavior is not in-line then there will be consequences which then establish the expected behavior. This defines the culture. Culture is driven by the top management and not the values/ statements written over the pillars or walls. However once culture is set, the entire organization and its components i.e. employees behave in a way to keep the culture intact like a living entity. Organization is autopoietic i.e. has capability to self-produce itself irrespective of employees coming or leaving. The company culture is maintained like body temper...

 "Loyalty" is such fuzzy word that everybody wants it but nobody knows the definition. After reading and introspection, I could conclude that when a person is presented with options, loyalty acts as a moral compass. Everyone takes decision based on logic and magic. Probably this magic is "Loyalty". This magic may come from a product, employer or your life partner! This magic is known as Brand.  In Economics, one of my favorite graph was indifference curve i.e. Consumer can select various quantity of Good A or Good B to get same level of satisfaction. Similar relationship can be explained  between level of Capital (Technology) and Labor to get constant level of output. So, I am coining a word iso-guilt curve. i.e. One balances between logic and magic to decide on options with same level of guilt.  In current capitalism era, the brand loyalty has become questionable. E.g. based on price discount (logic) one may select Flipkart or Amazon, Ola or Uber, Swiggy or Zomato....

Scope creep is seriously injurious to health of engineers, project managers and in the end customers. Apple phone is highly user friendly because the designer knew when to stop. Product exists because it does not exist outside of it. And this is the Yin-Yang moment.  You are defined by what you are not...Light exists because there is darkness...One is true because others are zeroes... Yang is there because yin exists outside of it... You have something everywhere. What defines an object is drawing a line stating outside of this is Nothing. That is why you have to reject hypothesis to prove something. As my professor once said "Strategy is the art of closing doors". He did not say opening doors but closing doors. The same philosophy applies to scope statement as well. Scope statement should clearly mention what not to do.  "We will implement mobile application to do xyz. However, iOS development is excluded in this phase." Now you decide which statement has given mor...

Once my father asked "why do we learn science?"  I said "to control Nature." He smiled and said "Don't be so arrogant. It is to understand Nature."  I under-graduated from a university which has a motto "तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय" meaning "from darkness to light". Then I joined another university for graduation which has a motto विद्या विनियोगाद्विकास! meaning "Development through the distribution or application of knowledge." These noble ideologies shaped my 'conservative' mind frame.  Then I see this advertisement which is wrong in so many ways.  Are money and social recognition new yardstick of success? Why are kids/ parents to be informed about EARLY SUCCESS of Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates in ad campaigns? Why do kid and codes have to be published on Facebook and YouTube pages? Is it to boost parent's ego, increase peer pressure or confirm social standards? Is this ethical marketing practice at all?...

When the entire India was figuring out how to fight COVID, Prime Minister mobilized mass movement appealing for light off for 9 mins at 9:00 PM on 5th April 2020. Half of junta started debating that this would collapse grid and the PM has endangered lives for sake of publicity. You could hear cacophony from "Lutyen" news channels. Another half was like this was a master stroke by PM in levitating hope and enthusiasm among people during this grim period. Post this eventful night, you could hear euphoria and "told you so" debates from "Bhakt" news channels. But none covered the topic with data and irony was that this was a complete scientific question.  After 2012 the worst blackout, Indian power utilities took many corrective measures to keep grid security intact: more flexible power plants, reserve capacities, pump storage capacities etc.   On 5th April, the max instantaneous frequency was 50.259 Hz and min was 49.708 Hz. These were well within the safe ra...

 Perhaps "Marketing" was known to human from the day 0. But the word never existed in Webster dictionary before 1910 coinciding with that time Industry Revolution 2.0. During this period production increased many fold with introduction of assembly line and so constraint shifted from supply to demand. So need of Marketing as a separate subject was heightened.  Marketing concept evolved since then  Production concept (focus on reducing cost) Product concept (focus on product quality) Selling concept (push through commercials) Marketing concept (focus on customer's need & want) Social concept (focus on social benefits) The image speaks volumes about then sentiment. Now the same Ford site allows customer to build its own car! In Industry Revolution 4.0 - Internet and IoT age, marketing has evolved to "Democratic concept" where customer regulates, executes and judges. Where everything is decided by likes, dislikes, ratings - sentiments. Today India is not the lar...

Taking clue from “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” - Mark Twain, I am trying to put my thoughts in fewer words. But actually, inspiration has come from 2 min Maggi (blockbuster instant noodle brand in India), 4 min book and Blinkist kind of sites, 30 min Domino's delivery and One day Amazon delivery. Everyone wants fast and quick experiences except in few occasions probably. So starting 2 min blog since this may not evoke experiences falling in later category. 10 (decimal) minute content squeezed into 10 (binary) minute blog. Hope this 2 minute read will give too minute details of my perspective.