Sujavna 2:9

It is 8pm on 26^th February 2012

I have just returned back to Mumbai from an interesting visit to Nashik where I had the opportunity to meet during the day, with many of that city’s businessmen at a business event. And while I am enthused with the positive growth plans that formed a common denominator in most discussions, I was also appalled at the fact that most industries in Nashik are still discussing decades-old concepts and approaches to improving energy-efficiencies . Not a whiff of an innovative approach from consultants, government agencies or the industries themselves.

As I travelled back to Mumbai from Nashik, I was thinking furiously about why Indian businesses need to look at resource conservation and waste-reduction, as obligations that they are mandated to perform by regulatory agencies, rather than productivity improvements that will make them globally competitive and profitable. And why they cannot make it sexy for their employees  to take these initiatives on without any directives!

I have no found any quick answer, but I do realize that unless there are good answers, these issues will remain to haunt the global competitiveness agenda for Indian businesses.

I hope that you are having a great weekend.

Sujavna 2:8

It is 1030am on 19^th February 2012

Why should Barrack Obama’s speeches that suggest withdrawal of tax subsidies to American companies that offshore work, find an opposition in those countries that benefit from offshoring (say India)? After all, he is not suggesting that companies should not offshore – all that he is attempting is to direct tax incentives to those that bring back jobs to America. Now what is wrong with that? And what moral or ethical arguments do countries like India (that have more restrictive regimes for their home-grown businesses to freely offshore their businesses or for investors to smoothly invest and repatriate incomes in their countries) have?

This and other similar debates seem to be increasingly happening in the corridors of global business conferences. As is usual, there is truth and logic in each side of the debate, but as is usual again, there seems to be a lack of lateral thinking amongst the debaters to find a win-win situation. For instance, why can’t the American’s evolve a system by which for every dollar of net profits that US companies gain by offshoring, they contribute 10 cents to a national manufacturing fund that is then used to manufacture (within the USA) all or part of USAID’s current and future hardware and software as well as equipment requirements for its global AID programme across multiple sectors? Add to this, that existing tax subsidies could be made effective on a post-facto basis.

Hope you are having a great day and an exciting start of a great week.

Sujavna 2:7

It is 9am on 13^th February 2012

Firstly, I must apologise for this delay in publishing this issue of my weekly blogs. There was technical problem with getting connected on the internet, which has now been resolved.

Today the world (at least most parts of the commercially-driven world) celebrates Valentine’s Day and I am sure there will be many millions of dollars spent on chocolates, flowers, wine and other gifts that lovers feel compelled to gift to each other; as much as I am sure that there will be fewer examples of innovative ways by which lovers cement their relationships. I wonder if there is any research that has been attempted to record truly-inspiring innovative instances of Valentine’s Day celebrations.

But can we indeed let our imaginations wander for a moment and think laterally about what this Day can be like? I have the following ideas, and I am sure you do have even better ones to share.

·         How about leading confectionery-makers offering to take in sponsorships for as little as Rs. 500/= from newly-married couples in exchange for a factory visit to street-children  and other socio-economically-disadvantaged on 14^th February and an advertisement in a local newspaper announcing the names of the sponsors and wishing them a happy year ahead.

·         Will the Day’s celebrations become even more memorable if there is a mini-marathon organised in every major city and town in the world and participants agree to either run or walk hand-in-hand with their loved ones. Every mile that they run, their loved ones contribute $1 and the day’s collections worldwide are contributed to worldwide UNESCO funds.

Hope you are having a great day and an exciting start of a great week

Sujavna 2:6

It is 12 noon on 5^th February 2012

The week that went by kept switching my mental radar on various  news items about Burma, the US Presidential elections, the God-particle investigations at CERN, protest by activists at the WTO in Davos and anthropological findings at Denisova caves in Asian Siberia.

Now you may ask - what connects all of these, that they should find me commenting in my blog? The simple answer is that I continue to see the role that lateral thinking and innovative approaches will play (or their absence!) as these world events unfold.

The EU, US and China seem to be opening up to the commercial potential of Burma and are quickly adopting openness in engaging with Burmese government and civil society. The drivers seem to be the energy resources and market potential. But it will be the innovative approaches to these geo-political and socio-economic engagements will decide on how quickly and efficiently Burma can integrate into the world economy.

The US Presidential elections, on the other hand, do not show any evidence of innovative approaches in either the nominations or the way the debates are conducted. And this is bound to have tragic consequence both for America as well as the world. Unless the electorate as well as the lawmakers in the US agree to re-engineer and refocus their Presidential debates on strategic priorities that move away from maintaining the US global supremacy within the power and financial blocs to ensuring more equitable distribution of wealth and high standards of living, the great American model stands to implode. The time to innovate with its political and governance structures for the USA has indeed arrived, though not many Americans seem to acknowledge its arrival.

The investigations for the God-particle at CERN, continues to traumatise world scientists, who now have to come to terms on the particle’s speed. New sets of experiments will be conducted in a years’ time to re-establish and conclusively certify the results. And, if this is true, a whole lot of new approaches to explaining this and other Universes can be expected. Indeed an exciting year for particle physicists and others interested in the origins and destinies of Universes.

And when one watched topless women activists on television, protesting in a cage in freezing climates at Davos, one wonders if there could be more innovative and effective ways to protest! Would Davos’ tourist economy benefit if it also encouraged a world-class event at a different venue around the same time, but where the focus is for viewpoints of the “counter-economy school”?

And lastly, there is great excitement at the genetic mapping of the remains of the pinky finger and molar of a tiny girl who may have been a resident of this part of the world about 40000 years ago. This is making anthropologists and other scientists re-evaluate and come up with innovative explanations on the evolution, inter-breeding and migration of the current species of homosapiens.

So as you can see there has been such a roller-coaster ride in the past week on analysing how we are adopting new and fresh ideas in our march forward. Did you have as much of a roller-coaster ride as I did, or was yours smoother? Please share with me your experiences.