Who could not move my cheese?

 The corporate system we have created is too intricate and entrenched to simply press a 'refresh' button. From the earliest days of schooling, we instill in children a predisposition to conform to the corporate paradigm of teamwork over individual initiative. This often rewards the most assertive voices, rather than the most insightful thinkers. Remote working challenges this norm, allowing a more meritocratic and inclusive environment.

Similarly, the financial investment in Commercial Real Estate (CRE) by major financial institutes is so substantial that it has become a barrier to even considering a work-from-home culture. But we must pause to ask ourselves, 'Who will pay for the default loans of vacant office spaces?' Moreover, 'At what cost?'

Are we mortgaging the future of our children? We are consuming vast quantities of fossil fuel and precious time commuting to places of work for tasks that could just as effectively be performed from home. All this, in the name of collaboration, which, with the advent of modern digital technology, is becoming increasingly accessible and efficient remotely.

Imagine a future where people travel for hours, only to log into a metaverse and meet colleagues from around the world. It's a future tinged with irony, but one that also hints at the potential absurdity of our current path. A path that, if continued, threatens to consume resources needlessly, contributing to the significant climate challenges we face.

The madness of unnecessary travel and over-reliance on physical office space must be examined in the context of a changing world. A world where digital collaboration is not only possible but often preferable. A world where the environmental implications of our choices today will shape the lives of future generations.

It's time for a critical reassessment of our corporate culture, a culture that should evolve to reflect our technological capabilities and our moral responsibilities. The stakes are high, but the rewards are equally significant. Embracing remote work, rethinking our investments, and fostering a system that values the quality of ideas over the volume of voices can not only enhance our present work culture but also protect the world our children will inherit. It's a future worth fighting for, and the time to act is now."

The next chapter

If you get a seat on a rocket ship, don't bother about which seat is it, but just grab it! I read this long back, but applied it some time back when I got an opportunity to be part of the market entry team of IKEA, as they were stepping foot in India. And boy, what a learning it was! Never a dull day and the sweat, tears, blood which are seen culminating on the final D Day as the 1st store in Hyderabad was opened to the customers was all worth it. Things moved on in my career as I got a chance to then work with some really amazing retail brands across both Indian and the North American markets and apply my retail expertise. Well this journey in retail was never planned but it was worth taking. 

I also progressed personally, as I was fortunate to experience the beginning of parenthood along the way. Juggling work and being a mommy made me realise that this is what I ever wanted, my ideal adult life always visioned. But then came a catch! It started becoming comfortable :) And some where deep down I knew I need to look for next challenge and wriggle out of that comfort zone. 

I found a 2 months long course to do that and crazy it was. It however taught me how i could get further out of the 24 hours of time and still stimulate myself both intellectually as well as make the most of the growing moments of my little one. I experimented too. And then was the time to bid a good bye to retail and operations. And today, here I am looking ahead towards this new journey which I look forward to, starting the next week!

Motherhood

Flashback: Seems like it was only a few days back, when blogs were a newbies. In a world sans the social network, or mobile apps, i would happily spend hours, sitting in the middle of no where (aka my engineering days) browsing through the then old internet and going through blogs. And i had some favorites which i resonated with and some which i looked upto. One of them blogged about their kid (aka some form of the present day social media :P) And i always imagined to blog till then (the closest i ever had imagining of an offspring, till i actually had one!)

So here I am. New wine, in a new bottle and not just the galaxian i started with but parent to this adorable baby, and now toddler, who helped me discover this me. This new person who had rediscovered her long lost singing voice back, from lullaby to limericks, for this little human. This new me has also discovered tons of love, energy, patience, resilience, multitasking, and what not, every single day, and moment. To live life as one moment at a time, to plan it to the seconds (yes the seconds ticker in my watch is now super useful), to hack like never before. To the whole new world!

Personal leadership brand

Whether it is Elon Musk launching his new rocket, Baba Ramdev giving a stiff competition to FMCG majors of the country, or an Indian GenZ social media influencer, Ankita Chawla landing a coveted consultancy job purely through her Instagram resume; personal branding is more relevant now than ever in this flood of digital information, remote connections, and hyper competitiveness. 

Every individual brings in her own unique experiences and skills from different walks of life which shape them throughout - be it their personality, their leadership style, or the way to tackle a difficult situation. It is said that your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room. How you use this personal branding to create and deliver a unique value to an organization, goes a long way in your digital footprint and inspiring others as well as your own self!
Being an ambivert, I have thought many a times about brand building and how its innate nature seems to be self-advertising. However, on deeper introspection, I have found that it is not about being narcissistic but rather bringing a high level of self-awareness, about what defines you. 
The differentiation that you bring to the table, when channeled to achieve a defined purpose is the foremost founding pillar to building your brand identity. The way you present your niche, personalize it and present it to your audience, then builds your own brand (refer infographic)

For instance, being a creative thinker can be your core strength. When you share your ideas with others, through your chosen medium of narration like a LinkedIn article, a Youtube channel, or a blog, that can become the first moment of truth for others to discover you, even before they meet you in person. This is just an example, and your own introspection can help you find a similar unique combination towards developing and representing your personal style.

It has also become very important to build your personal brand at work and distinguish your unique identity from the others to enable yourself in helping the organization. In the current climate where we are in a level playing field working across geographies yet equally connected over digital channels, it has become paramount to drive towards our common goals in a more synergistic fashion

The trick being, staying true to it and eventually influencing others. This form of an alignment leads to a strong sense of collective vision, thereby driving efficiency as well as productivity in the work that we do. Thus, I feel that each of us need to define our personal brands and go through the transformation cycle that follows.

New year in the old blog

Unknowingly, I have got myself into the custom of starting the new year with a quick trek, thanks to the beautiful city Bangalore, or rather the beautiful outskirts of Bangalore. Unknowingly, I have also come to realize that there is a small push which makes me get outside the comfort of my soft blanket on a lovely weekend for a quick hike.

The push of trying to get a gasp of fresh air in the midst of this concrete jungle around, surrounded by the maddening and ever increasing honking of city traffic, while eyes glued to the greens of work namely Excel and Whatsapp. Unfortunately, the husband and friends were unavailable on the upcoming weekend, thanks to my spontenaiety, fuelled by the aforementioned push and hence this was to be my 1st solo trek. Hence, i log into the BMC website (as usual) and book for the easiest trek called Rayakottai.

I don't think i woke up this happy in the morning to start, that too on a weekend at 5:00 am. The moment you cross the obvious traffic hurdles aka toll gate / RTO check point, the quintessential beautiful countryside makes it all worth it :)

                 

The scenery was totally instagram-worthy and the climb up was smoother than I anticipated. This maybe due to the fact that Rayakottai was once a fortess of Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan (whom I grew up watching on a TV series, courtesy papa). Hence, we were hiking on the ruins of the fortess, another first of the kind.

                

The old structures in between the trees and bushes had a charm of its own. We rather climbed it pretty quickly in around 2 hours, while the hike down was even quicker.

                

                

Overall, a perfect getaway to increase the step counts and get a fresh breather from just another day. Looking forward to more such and bigger getaways and treks in this Year and wish the same to you :) 

Consumer view of Digital Retail in India

Consumer view of Digital Retail in India

My digital marketing professor once told us – If you want to see response of an idea, just ask a person around you. That would be the smallest possible set to base your observations on, but is somehow a good common average for a feedback. When I watch standup comics perform (another rising segment!), I actually believe this to be true, as they make jokes on common situations around, and everyone relates to it. Usually what we experience and observe is something the majority around us is experiencing as well.

So taking a bottom up approach, here is my consumer view of the evolving Indian Retail Landscape.

The Why - First the context

India is at the intersection of highest growth of – 1. Total personal disposable income and 2. Smartphone users. It is estimated by IBEF that there will be 829 million smartphone users in India by 2022. Do you know that this is twice the estimated population of the 3rd most populated country (read the US)

Total personal disposable income (https://tradingeconomics.com)

 The What - What a consumer wants

It is to be spoilt, and where he/she is readily happy to open the wallet (umm.. the digital one if I may add)

• Convenience - If I get my keto wrap and calorie specified cold coffee, delivered at home, within 20 minutes of ordering, the consumer has been pampered (Thanks @Swiggy). Also if calculations about time v/s money are done right, then paying a little premium for the quick food delivery is something eventually luring us. No doubt @Zomato claims its revenue to grow 3X in FY19 at 206Mn USD

• Personalization - I have never owned a @NIKE pair but it still managed to reach me (and many other growing tribe of runners). It brings in one of the best personalized workout routine through the Nike run club app. That was how the brand struck it right over other local players, and even competing with the smart monitoring devices

• Discounts – Taking a stroll in a book shop, picking up one and just before the checkout counter checking it on @Amazon/@Flipkart and ordering on a discount – Yep, guilty of that. Thanks to the growing VC money flowing in, discounts turned out to be the norm. Businesses scaled while waiting for consumers to develop a habit. Apps have made their way into our smartphones through cashbacks while we have uninstalled quite a few, as the offers dried up as well. But the winner will be the one which stays on, as a balance between habits and relying on cashback reaches a level of maturity for an industry. Back to focusing on unit economics and commercial viability, which adds to the longevity of the company, thereby to the macro-economics of the country!

• Quality with affordability – Spotify, a late entrant in the music streaming industry in India, already claims over 2Mn users since Feb. With a right mix of hyper localization – content and cost, freemium package model, social media sharing, digital home compatibility, and its brand presence it has created exactly this.

The How (behind a future cash cow)

Starting with the most important – Technology (fueled by data). From hyper localization and personalization, augmented reality shopping, automated last mile delivery, checkouts and payment tech, smart dressing room and shopping carts, shelf monitoring, in-store analytics, and what not, it is everywhere. We are interacting more with technology than anything else. And so are the Brands!

Organizations are trying not to be left behind in the digitalization race. Remember the last time you visited a physical bank branch? The best mobile banking app is already taking in the most business, if they still exist in a far-fetched (yet) crypto future.

Open/Social Business – While marketplaces have connected the local community with a global audience, it’s an established and a continued story.

Completing the loop is another aspect of the 360 degrees connected world. @Xiaomi’s “Fan-based innovation” has positioned it as an internet platform provider and not just a leading smartphone maker. Crowdsourced development with fans pitching in for improvements and development, can be a good reason behind its 129% growth in a crowded market.

X-aaS, the subscription model – Flexibility and access over ownership can be the biggest ‘asset’ (ironically) for a huge consumer base like that of India. Entertainment, beauty and wellness, apparels (even socks @mojaclub!), storage, security, etc. are fast moving into a recurring revenue stream business and well received by consumers. What may start now as a small subscription to something as basic as monthly groceries may always have an added possibility to enhance the offering along with building a loyalty base.

It is this constant endeavor which makes interaction between consumers and brands frictionless, sustainable and transformational. A change, which will bring Nirvana to the fast growing lazy millennials.

Not just any new year post

First things first, welcome 2019!

We are now just an year away from the Cliched "2020", the year which used to be such a content driver to make all sort of predictions and future world fantasies. And no we are not yet run by the machines but they do increasingly occupy our lives. The data-driven machines or as the buzz word terms it around something 'artificial' :P

The 'data-is-the-new-oil' can't just be termed as a fad but it's a reality of everyday life. The Instagram picture which you clicked of your morning brunch, being liked and viewed by your social-media circle, provides a platform for sponsored advertisements following it, which again is based on your Facebook data or maybe something which you google or even talked about (scary but true!).

Source: The Economist

And this is not just limited to your online activities. Cross a retail outlet on your way back home and an ad for the same might just appear in your FB feed by the time you reach home, thanks to the real-time location based data which you unknowingly have provided and now you wonder, who reads your mind! Literally one thing leading to another and you are already being served a highly personalized content everywhere. This may lead you to think that life is good that way and you are the boss, but are you?

With data comes the power, to rate, rank, compare, judge, and what not! After all the better you extract this new oil, the more worth it gives. But more of that in the coming posts, as i resolve this year to blog a lot more and keep generating more of data which anyway machines can keep judging crunching about.

Before and After

B-School changed me. But it changed me for good and my blog for bad. Or so as I like to believe. I no longer write about what's on my mind, FB has started taking a major chunk of it. I no longer write about travels, too busy Instagram'ming them. A person of few words, as I would like to call myself, with some rare exceptions who could disagree on, I became a person of fewer words, never mind the lots of hashtags though.

A few hours in a workshop today with lots of marketing and designing folks from the company and around, I had three realizations:

• I was the diversity today and it didn't had to do anything with my gender, with less than 1% of Engineer-MBA in the room. A self achievement unlocked

• Business Feasibility, is a concept I now understand way too well (not in a very usual modest mode today) and hence that spoiled my day with some really stupid marketing ideas around me! 

• I just needed to scribble here 

Phew! :)

The other view

So after 10 years of regular blogging, 2017 clearly marked itself as the year when I officially stopped being a regular. However, I do wish to begin 2018 with a Happy New Year note to all :) and with it comes my 2 cents on the changing, or rather not changing trends on the technology driven offline vs online, in an emerging economy like India, which quite reflected my thoughts here as well. As a millennial Indian consumer i pen down what i personally observe.

       Offline shopping still gives a very good competition to offline and is here to stay for a while – Why I say so? Well, it definitely takes a bigger share of my wallet and the people around. Even the most important moment of truths as a consumer be it apparels, books, or electronics still happen around offline. Thanks to the not such a developed technology infrastructure even in tier 1 cities like Hyderabad/bangalore (where the quality of mobile internet has its own regular doubtful moments). Add to it the backend infrastructure and challenges in logistics, the reduced trust on the reverse logistics and so on! It might still take some time before the complete life cycle of E Commerce develops, for it to overtake the regular brick and mortar.

Having seen my husband try his hands on subscription model (in furniture), I personally think it still seems to be more of a fashionable thing to do rather than a financial decision. Thanks but no thanks Amazon, I do not wish to subscribe to the grocery items which you give an option to, I would rather like to keep my options open when it comes to choosing the purchase the next month and these also include the offline deals which I pass by along with the dozen of mobile notifications I get from the ever upcoming local online competitors which just can’t seem to stop mushrooming even after a perceived investment slowdown in online retail. So, though subscription is an interesting option when it comes to models like netflix but yet to take over the mainstream business!
    
     Now local transport is an interesting area where my wallet share has completely skewed (and wallet blown over quite literally). From what used to be a once in a while indulgence in ride hailing apps, it is now becoming a regular habit, thanks to the convenience offered. It comes with its own disadvantage, the discounts seem to have finished from the cab rental market, and the supply demand totally owns the quality as well as price of the service. But irrespective of that wait, did I hear Uber buying a fleet of cars from Volvo?

So when we think the technology is changing the business (which it definitely is), a check on when and how far can bring some interesting insights as well!

Leveraging IoT for Smarter Buildings

Imagine if one of your EOD (End of the day) task at work is collecting the ingredients of a pre-decided dinner recipe just outside your work place. Or picture coffee machines at work which remember your preferences and tell users when they need to be refilled. Too smart, too soon? Not exactly! These are the features of, what has been claimed and awarded as, the world’s most sustainable and smart office building called The Edge, with an “outstanding” rating and highest ever BREEAM (short for Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology) score of 98.36%.

The way, ride sharing apps have connected our smartphones with a more convenient transportation (while simultaneously occupying a bigger wallet share!) similarly, buildings are one of the basic components which are swarming with opportunities. A staggering 40% of the world’s electricity is consumed by the 1-billion buildings on the earth’s surface, and they are responsible for 33% of the globe’s greenhouse gas emissions. This leads to the need for greener, smarter, and more intelligent solutions — The Smart Buildings.

Smart Buildings are said to be among the fastest growing commercial market under Internet of Things, along with Smart Home and Transport. According to Gartner estimates, by 2017, use cases in smart commercial buildings and transportation will be the main contributors, representing 58% of all IoT installed base in a Smart City. This article covers the business use cases and areas which show the impact of IoT technology in the Real Estate sector, or the Smart Buildings.

Buildings have evolved from simple to automated and now pave a way to smart connected buildings along with technology progression. IoT, by its basic definition, implies connected physical objects communicating data about their condition, position, or any other attributes over internet. For any business to derive value while leveraging IoT, it needs to focus on reducing the major cost forms to generate viable returns. Improvisation and reduction of the operational and maintenance costs, which form a huge portion of the Life-cycle cost of a building, are key attributes impacting the smart index of a building. Following details the important characteristics of a Smart Building:

1. Optimization of the Building resources — As sensors track different building functions like motion, pressure, light, temperature, etc. an integrated platform can intelligently monitor and control them accordingly. This has led to a growing number of technology providers in the energy efficiency space like lighting, energy usage monitoring, smart plugs, occupant detection, HVAC monitoring and control, access control, water management, and others. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) about 35% of the total building operation costs is spent on energy, while a little over a third, is spent on lighting. An interesting example in this area being View Dynamic Glass, a Smart Glass player, whose tint can be modified automatically based on weather outside (solar heat coefficient) or through smartphones based on a user preference. The company has seen over 300 completed commercial installations and another 150 in progress of an extensive client portfolio since last 12 months and boasts of investors like GE, Khosla Ventures, DBL, etc.
2. Automation — Reduced manual human intervention across various dimensions like building security, environment risk detection, structural health sensors, etc. not only aims to improve the user experience but can also identify grey spaces in savings through features like fault detection, proactive maintenance, energy savings, or interfacing with various applications in general. For instance PointGrab claims to use embedded edge analytics on a low-cost ARM-based processor for image sensors to identify and process occupant details while protecting privacy. Such technology can lay foundation to numerous upcoming use cases like staff planning, space utilization, etc. in a Smart Office or advanced analytics in retail chains.
3. Personalization — A normal automated building might have a centralized feedback, however an interactive control flow makes a building smarter. Dynamic and self-learning control systems, preference-based operability providing occupants with smartphone based control over the end-user energy flow in workplaces, or personalized retail experiences like automatic check-in, marketing, payment, etc. are some opportunities which can be harnesses through Smart Buildings.

Hence, the real-time visibility of building operations and energy responsiveness are clearly the game changing way forward towards a smarter home, office, hospitals, and an overall smarter infrastructure in a Smart City ecosystem. However, there are few challenges which still need to be addressed before the wide-spread implementation of the technology to provide the desired commercial returns. These include:

• Smart Building capabilities should match with the needs of existing facilities like existing legacy system controls or proprietary technology
• Upfront cost needs to match with the life-cycle savings of the simple sub-systems like efficient light control. While implementing the smart solutions at The Edge in Amsterdam, Deloitte considered implementing the smart solutions with a return on ­investment of less than 10 years. Moreover, the recurring costs of a traditional and smart building might vary a lot for an end-user
• The security issues associated with Smart Buildings — A simple break-in to the Building Automation System (BAS) can lead to not only software but physical vulnerabilities as well, as exposed by the IBM X-Force Ethical Hacking Team
• Privacy concerns of an end user — The data being collected by continuous monitoring of a building brings out certain privacy concerns by the users. Hence smarter buildings need to come up with smarter regulations to address the same.

Real-time monitoring, sustainability analysis, energy consumption, and innumerable similar scenarios can further create multitude of business opportunities bringing forth a new disruptive frontier in both B2B and B2C space through real estate sector. Established players like Cisco, Intel, Honeywell, Huawei, Philips Electronics, and others have already realized the commercial importance this segment can bring with their own Smart Buildings solutions. Future lies in implementing the same to address the right problems, keep evolving the solution with enhanced underlying technology, and get back the expected overall returns in a long term.

Views expressed here are my own and do not represent that of my employer (Current or Previous)

Deriving business value from the intersection of Edge IoT with Artificial Intelligence

According to The Economist Intelligence Unit IoT Business Index 2017 (Link), though 90% of business owners accept the evolving convergence of IoT in business, there are 2 major deterrents of wide-spread business implementation of IoT Technology:

1. High cost of required investment in IoT Infrastructure,

2. Security and privacy challenges

In order for a business to reap value from connected devices over internet, the crucial missing piece which needs to be harnessed is the right utilization of the humongous data from the ever increasing number of connected devices in terms of time sensitivity as well as bandwidth of the data being transferred. This is most likely to be possible when the following basic conditions, which reduces the cost and increases the return from an IoT implementation, are met:

  > Limited human intervention

  > Limited hardware

This is when the concept of Edge processing comes into picture. Edge processing (or Fog Computing, as Cisco originally coined the term) is the concept which in simple terms uses data from unlimited sources before it looses significance as it brings processing at the edge of the network or ‘on-the-device’. It is not a new idea as reducing the dependency over the cloud and internet has been understood since the importance of cloud infrastructure was understood in real scenarios and would be an important piece in commercializing the connected devices in the future. Example: India’s leading ride sharing operator Ola launched its Ola Offline App in the late 2016. With consistently increasing number of connected devices, one can only think of the ease edge processing can bring to an IoT solution both it terms of the RoI of an IoT investment as well as Security. This means devices to turn and act ‘intelligent’ on their own and hence the intersection of artificial intelligence.

USE CASES which see a huge amount of data generated by IoT / mobile devices can definitely use the high precision machine learning / deep learning (ML/DL) platform as it can tackle some of the major issues related to data like: Latency, Bandwidth, Security of the data, as well as the Cost incurred in transmitting it, apart from several others. Some of the use cases which can be thought of are:

1. Time sensitive decision making in connected devices — Decision making in autonomous vehicles where information processing needs to be done in micro/milli seconds and it can’t afford the transmission lag and latency issues

2. When enormous data should be processed before being transmitted like monitoring plants in a vast farmland, where only the information about withering or infected plants needs to be transmitted based on certain sensor parameters

3. Security is of concern in automated industrial plants or surveillance cameras where local processing and intelligence of huge amount of recorded data is of high priority

4. Smart Home applications which need reduced human intervention like (taking inspiration of Amazon Echo here) replenishing the empty food bottles and cans, or switching between devices might also use edge analytics use case

A CHALLENGE seen in the intersection IoT with AI can be the fact that high precision ML/DL platform usually require higher processing and costlier hardware. The use cases listed above and similar upcoming use cases might depend more on how the technology solves the the size and cost of processing in the edge devices.

RECENT EXAMPLES: NVIDIA’s Jetson TX2 launched in March 2017 claims to be the 1st supercomputer on a module, a processor to bring AI to the Edge. Another example being that of Qualcomm’s deep learning SDK for devices called Zeroth Machine Intelligence Engine SDK which enables running of independent OEM’s neural network models on its Snapdragon 820 devices such as smart phones, security cameras, automobiles and drones, without any dependency to the cloud.

This post is inspired from my quora answer which first appeared here

The Indian On-Demand Economy

In last 2 years, as an independent earning millennial with hardly any financial liabilities, there has been a major shift in my spending patterns. Having succumbed to what once started as discounts, and majorly to convenience, on-demand services occupy a major share of my wallet. It's not just me, ride-sharing apps have seen an enormous 290% growth in 2016 (mobile downloads) which is driven by the rapid rate this trend has been adapted by Indian millennials and reflects in their spending patterns. However, as this growth matures, and discounts start to slow down, now comes the real test for the shared service providers on the sustainability of their model.

Renting is not a new concept and at a local scale, it has always been there for students or the young working on-the-move population's convenience. However, to actually make it a habit which makes people spend which leads to 'money-making disruption' is a major challenge.

Logic seldom supports trends and this has been true for some time in a family-oriented culture of ours. This very fact can actually be a bad news for businesses in India trying to make moolah based on the instant gratification spending of this generation. The fixed asset ownership model still gets a preference over renting it out, even though the overall cost for the both comes to be the same, as per a recent UBS analysis. However, even keeping the costs same as the ownership model is a challenge of its own and needs to be tackled without the mere cash-burning model, as can be learnt from the e-commerce market in India

What did you learn from failure?

I have shifted job since I last posted here, in the blog. Instead, I have been posting a lot on Instagram, tweeting a lot, retweeting a lot. I have even been writing on Medium now! I have been doing many things lately, instead of writing here :| This post is to put an end to this "jinx", though it was first published here.

Disclaimer: Theory ahead!

A teacher is of no use if you are not ready to inculcate the lessons being taught.

If taken in the right spirit, it is a blessing which lets you know “timely” that this is not for you and you should - move on. Channelize your efforts in the right direction. This applies to any kind of failure, be it in a career, in an exam, in a relationship, even in your own long worshiped thoughts or in whatever area you face the failure. For instance, a failure in an exam took me closer to a career more suitable to me. What looked like a disaster a few years back took me to something, which at present, I enjoy more at this moment. Something similar can be said for say, failure in a relationship which makes you realize your self-worth and takes you in a direction of what really suits you the best.

Mind you, I am not talking about giving up here, which is an easier option. This is when you give your heart and soul to your aim but all you get back in return is a door slammed in your face. It is then, that this failure redirects you to a path more suited to you. It reinforces the law of averages. In a way, it gives you time to re-evaluate and reboot yourself. Kind of, the market correction in the stock markets :) Looks bad at first but if the fundamentals are correct it helps you in the long run. The difficult part here, of course, is to take the lesson from this difficult teacher in the right spirit.

Keynes quotes that “In the long run we are all dead”. Similarly, history has proved time and again that on a time scale, failure is a very relative term. If Soichiro Honda wasn’t turned down for a job at Toyota, there wouldn’t have been the Honda we know. From J K Rowling to Charlie Chaplin. More google search can add to this list.

Life’s too short and there are too many beautiful things around, which you can ever know / visit / do in your life. Let the failure re-direct you to a better path awaiting you :)

How happy are you?

Newspapers, WhatsApp Groups, FB Newsfeed had all been flashing Anant Ambani last week. The third generation of India's richest family had turned heads around as he lost a whopping 70 kgs in 18 months! While we sit and wonder how the kids of the richest families in India have everything in their life and nothing to worry on, little did we know that he was putting in efforts in terms of - walking 21 kms each day, doing yoga, weight training, functional training and high-intensity cardio exercises to reach his goal; not to forget along with his zero-sugar, low-carb diet. He worked hard for the choice he made of being healthier because he had an option! And boy, the whole nation congratulated him (even if in terms of trolls) when he trended on twitter for this.

This brings me to what I really want to convey in this post - Being Happy.  We all work towards being happy in life. Like how getting into a premiere B School made me very happy, because that meant I could plan and lead my life the way I wanted to, which I then believed would make me happy. Was my formula correct? Is that all I needed? Yes and No. As Will Smith's character, Chris, clearly points out in his masterpiece, we are always chasing it and hence it's called "The PURSUIT of Happiness." Chris places emphasis on "pursuit." Jefferson, when he penned the Declaration of Independence, did not promise Americans happiness, but only the right to pursue it. Chris says, at one point in the movie, paraphrase, "I am happy right now. It is a fleeting moment." We experience happiness in eyeblinks. The rest of the time we, like Chris, are chasing it." That's what a good opportunity gives you. The right to pursue it and not happiness itself. If you are paying taxes (post March effect!), you are very lucky to be among the top 3% of Indians who are paying it right now. It makes you very lucky to be at this position, and it started right from the time you were born to your parents, who provided for your education and raised you to pursue opportunities which brought you where you are at this moment. 

What I mean is that a domino’s pizza delivery guy might be better than me in inherent skills, like a better IQ/EQ but he didn't have the opportunities I came across just because I was born at the right place and time to my parents. That's what Prof. Deepak Malhotra in his famous Tragedy and Genius speech (or Quit Early, Quit Often Speech as I like to call it) brings on to the table:

 

 (At least, the 1st 15 minutes are worth the listen for the topic)

In short, he conveys that it really is a tragedy if even after being given all the opportunities you are not Happy, because tragedy is the difference (delta) between how happy you could be (Circumstances) and how happy you are (Choices), that's how you quantify it. If you don't have many opportunities, the circumstances were not right and the how-happy-you-could-be itself has lower bars and that's a real situation. However, if the Circumstances bar is high enough and you are still not happy, it is mainly the choices you have to blame because sitting in your comfortable home, without worrying about your basic needs, educated enough to be among the top 3% of people around you who pay taxes, you just can't blame the circumstances. It has to be the Choices. That's what Anant Ambani made and worked on in last 18 months! Prof. Malhotra, termed that as opposite of Tragedy, called Genius - not the essential of something but essence of.

I have interacted with many MBAs around me for both professional and personal purposes. I found many of them to be complaining about their work. Trolls being exchanged in WhatsApp groups about how a person finishes his engineering, does his IT job, gets into MBA and after that he realizes he doesn't like even his post MBA job eitther. I could relate to it, we all can because after all we are pursuing happiness. One of the most profound indication of that would be to waste 71.4% of our lives (Weekdays) just waiting for the Weekends to get away from work. That would be hardly the pursuing I am talking about here. However, once you understand the missing gap and where exactly you are going wrong, you can definitely reduce the delta which takes you towards being the happy genius.

The opportunities which you have around should be leveraged upon to make the right choices and to convert the tragedy to genius. That's when he talks about (@10:20 in video) cultivating the habit of 'quitting' - quit early, quit often - something usually associated with a negative reference. And that's where you leverage your opportunities (like your MBA, in the example i take) to quit, experiment and get early to a field where you are actually adding value as an MBA or whatever field you are into. Spending years to justify, why you are doing it makes no sense as the Prof. says. We don't have a ready reference script in our hands as Will Smith had but we need to have that strength to pursue what really makes sense of our abilities and skills, if not what we really want to do. And that I believe is the perfect recipe of being the genius, pursuing happiness and reducing the delta, the way you want it to, in your own customizable way.

Simple Rules - Complex Blabberings

A disclaimer first. I am making an assumption. It says that there is a creator and not just some random chemistry and physics involved. So when GOD created universe and started increasing the complexity of the organisms he created, he did apply some basic rules. Atoms follow a certain rule and so do the huge gravitational forces (which our Science teachers made sure we understood well, or at least pretended to in our exams) These were just the basic building blocks. The devil called details then started appearing. Things got more complex. Atoms aligned and the simple microbe we were introduced to in class 5th, developed. From ants, insects of various colors, shapes and sizes it developed to varied species of animals. And that's when an ecosystem called Jungle was created with numerous species in it. And then there were rules. Rule of the Jungle, which caused the jungle to survive. Survive, it had to in order to evolve more and bring in more complex organisms called human being. The most complex of the creations which evolved into what we call it us and that's when science started to make more sense as Darwin spoke. The rules changed but they didn't disappear. They existed. They do so even now, even if we may ignore them. They exist in our basic biology. And I am not talking about the rules created during the development of societies or the one in which you might find yourself living it. But the basic rules which helped the Jungle evolve and which will eventually enable us evolve as well.

Fight or Flight

So when in our real world around , we see people talking about choosing your battles wisely, it's the same fight and flight rule they are talking about. Wherever you are, or whatever situation it might be, things narrow down to pretty basic things - you either fight it or flight from it. What I mean is that we might be living in a corporate and society jungle now but the basic rules remain. It creates all the difference, coz' you never want to waste your time in fighting for something not worth it and you never want to flight when it's time to really give it a fight. 

I am not among the wise ones to know and understand these rules completely. No one is. However, we do are (at some point atleast) fortunate enough to understand and acknowledge the existence of basic rules which are shaping us and the ecosystem around. Saves a lot of time (to pen down posts like these?!) Akin to the force of gravity which is making Earth orbit the Sun. These rules have been misused when the Pigs from George Orwell's Animal Farm, start making the rules of their own like in a typical case of a socialist society. I am not talking about those. I am just restating that getting back to the basic helps to understand the rules of the jungle and navigate even in the present day. The analogy might totally surprise you, if you observe it on a day to day basis in your own life!

That was just too much of Gyan (unnecessary knowledge session) for a weekday

On a Charged Up Future Ride

Success is how you keep increasing the level of your playground and keep winning the game. Elon Musk today perfectly defines that in a beautiful way. Having founded companies that have steer headed some interesting innovations which have been changing the way things function and directly impacting the face of different industries since over 20 years now, from Zip2, PayPal, the ambitious SpaceX, Solar City to name a few and the one I am going to talk about here today that is the Tesla Motors.

Auto is one of the most traditional and core industry around us today. With huge entry barriers and highly dependent on the supplier networks of auto part manufacturer, it sees established brands which we usually see around. What Tesla Motors is trying to do with its idea of manufacturing Electric Vehicles beautifully drives us to the future disruption the industry might see. The Electric vehicle as a category has been tested and fiddled upon not just by the biggies of the industry like the Daimler and Volkswagens of the world but also by tech giants like Apple and Google (Smartphone with wheels) 

With an estimated 20Mn Electric Vehicles on road by 2020, and as Tesla after successfully venturing into the premium electric category, ventures to release its low cost Model 3 in the next coming few weeks, it definitely has all eyeballs on it.

The are many factors which can make us so optimistic and bullish about it. Like, its charging stations are already outnumbering the usual Gas stations in the US. Moreover, rather than opting for the usual order the auto parts manufacturers and suppliers Musk thinks out of the box, as economist puts it below, just to name a few:

Tesla has also rewritten the economics of making electric cars. It tackled high costs by stringing together hundreds of small, mass-produced laptop batteries. Tesla claims that its power-packs cost half what big carmakers pay their suppliers for custom-designed large-format batteries, and that its Gigafactory, a huge battery plant close to completion in the Nevada desert, will cut costs by 30%.

 
It would be definitely an interesting industry to watch out for and see how smooth is the ride of Tesla from being premium to the common as the auto makers react to it with their own new products. As always, Consumer stands to be the winner in this charged up future ride driven by Tesla. However, the immense environmental benefits due to Co2 emission reduction, which is also the need of the hour is something which makes this a very lucrative area to watch out for!