In my last post on March 11 I had mentioned that I will continue to blog on www.thebizofcoding.com. I will sometimes post on this blog to keep it alive as well as bring updates to my blogging on TheBizofCoding.
If you havent checked out Blogebrity.com — its a directory and website that ranks blogs in A,B and C lists. TheBizOfCoding made it to the C-List. Blogebrity = Blog Celebrity! 
To understand how Blogebrity ranks blogs, check out my post Listed! How Blogebrity Blog Ranking Works.
I recently started blogging at KnowMoreMedia .
Quite like John Battelle’s Federated Media Publishing Know More Media allows experienced authors or authorities in specific fields to focus on what they do best — blog without editorial interference. KMM builds advertising related revenue models around the content created by bloggers on its site.
Blogging is thus maturing into a serious source of business building and money making on the web; rather than playing a younger brother to the traditional large-media-company owned web sites like Businessweek and Wall Street Journal.
Coinciding with President Bush’s visit to India, Fareed Zakaria has authored a well-researched and, at first, a balanced article “India Rising” on Newsweek. However, Mr. Zakaria’s US-centric-prejudice fails to hide behind the objective-view façade built cleverly throughout the article. It props up squarely into view in the concluding two paragraphs of his write-up when he abruptly places the entire responsibility for a successful US-India partnership — on India! His conclusion reflects the awkward big-brother attitude that many Indians have confronted time and again: “You are doing well now. You weren’t so well-off earlier, but you have improved considerably. You are expected to do exceedingly well in future. Therefore you should feel honored that I let you be publicly acknowledged as a close friend. Further, you should unquestionably accept all my terms of friendship!”
What else is meant when he says:
…the real stumbling block to a deep Indo-U.S. relationship will come not from Washington but New Delhi. While Singh and some others at the top of the Indian government see the world clearly, and see the immense opportunities it opens up for India, many others are blinded by their prejudices. For many Indian elites, it has been comfortable and comforting to look at the world from the prism of a poor, Third World country, whose foreign policy was neutral, detached (and, one might add, unsuccessful). They understand how to operate in that world, whom to bargain with, whom to beg from and whom to be belligerent with. But a world in which India is a great power, in which it moves confidently across the global stage, and in which it is a friend and partner of the most powerful country in history—that is an altogether new and unsettling proposition. “Why is the United States being nice to us?” several such doubters have asked me repeatedly. Even now, in 2003, they were searching for the hidden hand. China’s Mandarin class has been able to rethink its country’s new role as a world power with skill and effectiveness. So far, India’s Brahmins have not shown themselves the equals of their neighbor.
The danger for India is that this moment might not last forever. The world turns and India will have its ups and downs. But today it is India’s moment. It can grasp it and forge a new path for itself. Along that road lies a genuine and deep relationship between the planet’s largest democracy and its wealthiest democracy.
India-US Business ties and the Terror Threat
For starters, India’s economic and intellectual capital growth is constantly threatened by terrorists trained (across its borders) by a well-known, often-hugged US ally — Pakistan. I shake my head in disbelief when I hear sentiments such as those stated above.
Mr. Zakaria is dead-accurate when he calls India “prickly and proud” in his write-up. The fact is that for decades before the tragedy of September 11, India has borne the brunt of terrorism. And a country that has actively supported the “cause” of terrorists in India – financially, materially or morally continues to be a close-ally of the US administration. What if the Indian PM, Manmohan Singh, asked “You are with us or you are with the terrorists that attack India”?
A common Indian’s experiences of US administration’s policies
I grew up in the grim 1980s. During my teenage, every morning would come with shocking news-reports of terrorists shooting down innocent people in Punjab. Several terrorist groups that operated in Punjab had hideouts or training camps or capital raising infrastructure in Pakistan.
I am a Kashmiri. (But before that, I am a proud Indian and an equally proud world-citizen.) I have personally witnessed the dark despair and extreme shock of my helpless relatives, their helpless friends, and thousands of their helpless relatives who had to flee their homes and overnight become refugees in their own country – due to Pakistan abetted terrorism.
A few nights before a terrorist shot dead an Indian academician on the IISc campus in Bangalore; I had driven my visiting relatives past the serene campus of the well-respected institution. At that moment, I was welling with pride reflecting on how Information Technology and Science had put India squarely on the world leadership map. That pride in my tech-management career’s small contribution to my country was hurt when terrorists supported by Pakistan (a close US ally in the “war over terror”!) sprayed bullets on Indian scientists and academicians. How shocking is the evident relationship between a US-administration ally and terrorism in India? How easily can a man-on-streets in India overlook this fact? Is that part of a prickly relationship the responsibility of India?
As you can see I am neither an “Indian Elite” nor one of “India’s Brahmin’s” who wonder why the US administration appears to be overly nice to India. Stephen Covey says What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say, I guess that wise statement explains much of the distrust.
Mr. Zakaria, the India-US relationship equation is not as simplistic as you have tried to express in your conclusion. It is true, that the American spirit of innovation, excellence, and entrepreneurship is deeply respected in India. It is also true, that most Indians would love to see stronger US-India ties on every front from business to research, culture to national security. But the responsibility for deeper ties rests equally on both countries, perhaps much more on the US administration.
What I hope will eventually change the approach of the US administration, towards India’s security concerns, is the sustained pressure of several influential American Businesses that have found in India a new home for immense growth and intellectual power.
Newsweek is carrying a special issue on India to coincide with the visit of US President George Bush from March 1, 2006.
The article again covers the limited issues of:
1) Fears of American workers on outsourcing
2) Corrections made by several consulting firms about their previous job-creation and related projections in India.
The article barely covers the issues I covered in my previous post. These issues are what people face as a “result” of global companies setting up offices in India (or other geographies that are away from “the Headquarters”). I think this reflects the lack of sensitivity to difficulties that an “outsourced” destination faces. Not quite the attitude that will help outsourcing and/or globalization (in India) succeed for all stakeholders.
It is impressive to see companies proclaim grandiosely that they run offices in US, India, France, UK, Germany, China, Japan, and Canada. Even small tech startups claim at least two offices one in the US and the other in either Bangalore or Hyderabad in India.
The Dream
To someone who is yet to graduate from college or B-school or an advanced degree program it is a dream to work at a global company. Why? Because every individual wants to participate in the Global game, learn how economies and markets are connected, learn how different cultures work, and most interestingly travel to different parts of the world and gain that valuable international perspective and exposure.
Selling the Dream Well
I think web sites and glossy advertisements of MNCs sell this dream well to prospective employees. MNCs want to employ talent wherever it is — after all it is a war of talents. They call you to work in a global environment and then jolt you out of that that dream slowly and certainly.
Stories of Indian BPO employees dealing with racial slur are well documented. Each time they appear in papers people take note, talk, express hurt/insult/anger — then go about with their daily grind. Perhaps resigned to the thought that nothing much will change and they need to earn money to pay their bills rather than spend time angering their employers.
What is not well documented and reported yet in the media is the pent up frustration of several hundreds (perhaps thousands) of non-BPO top-IT pros working in India, especially in large multi-million/billion dollar companies. From my discussions with several execs working in Europe and US (in satellite* offices) I know that working in an office far-away from company headquarters is a tough experience. Taking current examples from India I will list issues that several tech workers in satellite offices would be familiar with. (*Satellite office = away from head quarters in a different country, or a different time zone).
Commonly faced problems at satellite offices
One common thing is work “dumping”. What is not-interesting, not-challenging gets pushed to folks working in satellite offices.
The second common observation is the sad “prove yourself to me before I give you a challenging assignment” call — even for experienced folks with several successful years in the industry either in home country or abroad.
The third common problem is the dreaded “conference calls daily in the dead of night” according to headquarter time-zone schedules. For Indians it is a full 8-12 hour difference! What happens to your health, family, personal time is not that important for several folks working in a different time zone.
The fourth common problem is “my VP/SVP boss abroad” does not offer quality time to me because all his 9-6 time is taken-up by immediate and urgent issues in his day-time schedule.
The fifth sad problem, especially for Indian workers, is going to an international office and being the recipient of anti-outsourcing anger of their colleagues – ”We are afraid to losing our jobs to Indians.”
The sixth painful problem is credit stealing. Make a different time-zone employee work day and night. Then put your name across the final report, product to the sales and executive team (who either don’t care or don’t know enough) and walk-away with the credit. It is easy because out of sight is out of mind anyway.
Globalization in the DNA?
I seriously believe that any company whether in India or US or UK should not venture to hire large number of employees in a different country without realizing that the “sexiness” of “looking” global comes with a huge responsibility to fulfill its promise. This means cultural training, setting rules of engagament across offices, setting metrics for failure of losing or low-morale employees in a distant office, basic training like time zones and credit-sharing, and essential communication that ”this is not about outsourcing” but “about hiring diverse and high-quality talent for world-wide growth”.
Is Globalization a shattered dream? Right now, I would say yes with the hope that the future will force me to say – a glad - No.
My earlier post is on eBlogger. I am yet to post part two of this write-up. Stay tuned…:)
http://brandrecall.blogspot.com/2004/11/origin-of-brand.html
A recent article in McKinsey Quarterly reads “Few CEOs claim to be happy with the way their companies come up with strategy. Most say that the annual strategy-planning process yields few good ideas and is often fraught with politics.”
Visions of a Grand Old Strategy Wizard
When I was new to the corporate world and even later when I went to study management — Strategy was my favorite subject. A colleague in office saying “strategic implications of the latest competitive move” would light up my eyes. I had visions of becoming a grand strategy wizard one day…Now that I often work on “strategy” rather than “implementation” I have found that life is not only not rosy…it is frustrating also. Why exactly is strategy building so painful? The obvious reason is politics inherent in a large corporate. Then there are several reasons that a “great” strategy — as it appears to you — may appear “crap” to someone else…It shouldn’t come as a surprise that SAP was a software developed by engineers at IBM — who decided to go their own rather than build SAP as a new multi-billion BU at IBM. AltaVista went from DEC to several acquiring companies until it just lost direction…
Its all Fuzzy
(1) Actually, it is all fuzzy. Every manager and top Mgmt guy has “his” own view on what the strategy should be. It is as much a political process as an intellectual process. So, if your view does not agree with the view of someone influential — then your nice Power Point presentation will be ignored after a polite hearing.
The grand BU fight and Metrics for Managing Ambiguity
2) Each Business Unit has an agenda in the organization. Some obvious ones are “greatest revenue earner”, “most profitable”, “most innovative”…If your strategy cuts across Bus, you may have had it! Get ready for sudden appearances of acidity, sleeplessness, or body ache for months, quarters, or even a full year. Then get ready to change your job because your annual review may not be to your liking. Why? Management includes managing a lot of ambiguity. Suddenly from doing product releases you get involved in strategic issues — what will the company do 18 months later. This is uneasy territory. Several incremental steps are involved in strategy formulation — often over several quarters and there are few metrics for measuring that you are superb at managing ambiguity and therefore deserve a great raise!
What happens finally?
3) So how does top management come up with that great strategy that shows up on the industry event? My guess is that top management patiently waits for senior managers to deliver something. When senior managers cannot offer anything cohesive, top management goes into panic mode. They call aside their trusted lieutenants and ask them to assemble the presentation for their upcoming industry event in two nights and report directly to them. Finally, this is the presentation that the CEO would show. It is all my guess, but I have seen enough in several large companies to disbelieve myself.
So the next time your carefully prepared strategy presentation bombs — try to not take it too harsh on yourself. Someone’s management speak of “yes but your suggested product does not align well with the long term growth agenda” may just mean that your ideas are bright but “I don’t like them” or “I am too brain dead to grasp the next big thing that will hit the industry” or that your ideas are good but you haven’t presented them in a “way that I like to see presentations.” So go back and redo the whole thing. Period.
Surviving it all
If you can survive all this, you will learn that your thoughts will appear somewhere else in a different presentation with different graphics. Your brilliant ideas would eventually shape a large part of the final strategy that the company eventually decides to adopt (if it finally does!)! That maybe your only solace! J
What is it with Web or Desktop Search that is drawing three tech giants Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo into serious combat? John Battelle in his book The Search states “Windows interface defined our interactions with the personal computer, search defines our interactions with the Internet.”
The battle of the tech troika is perhaps more than just becoming the standard user-interface for interacting with the connected network of personal computers, web servers, and devices. I believe, it is about becoming the functional equivalent of what human memory is to the human brain.
Internet is like a Virtual Brain
It is quite easy to conceptualize the Internet as the equivalent of a Virtual Brain of millions of connected individuals, corporations, and devices (Example: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/SUPBRAIN.html
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/20064.html). Some in the academia research refer to it (with more attributes than covered in my blog) as the Overbrain or the Superbrain. This Virtual brain provides access to the collective data, applications and intelligence of all connected individuals, corporations, and devices through the function of Search!
Search is like Memory
Without the support of memory it would be impossible for us to recall and hence use that which we have already seen, known, learnt or discovered. Quite similarly without Search it would be impossible to find out that which is already seen, known, learnt, and discovered by the Virtual Brain – the combined brain of all connected individuals, corporations, and devices. Web Search thus serves the same function that Memory serves in our brains.
Clearly, a company that fulfills the memory function of the Virtual Brain will become fundamental to its use. Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! sense this quite well.
What have Google and Yahoo! done well
Google has for over several years tried to become the Memory gateway to the Virtual Brain. The simplicity of a search box surrounded by white space on its home page make for the sense of “clarity” that is important for memory. This has gone down well with users.
Yahoo! has gone a step different. It has not only provided the ability to Search the Virtual Brain on its home page, but also provided easy access to “memory links” i.e. directories for common areas of interest like finance, shopping, movies, games and more. No wonder over 450 million people connect to Yahoo! daily and tap into the Virtual Brain.
The Future of the Battle
It is difficult to divine the final result of the battle between these three able combatants. Each brings a unique perspective and a distinctive method to tap into the Virtual Brain. However, it is easy to reflect on exciting possibilities. One simple example would be search results served not just in textual formats. People who are visual thinkers would love to see search results as visual maps (www.thinkmap.com). May the battle rage on and consumers win!
