Sujavna 2:40

The clock on my wall approaches the 4pm mark on this Sunday the 30th of October 2012.

And my thoughts linger upon human attributes such as animosity and friendship, strangeness and familiarity. Is there a case for innovations in the art and science of managing these attributes? If so how far have we gone down these roads?

When and how do our enemies turn into our well-wishers? Are our friends usually our hidden liabilities; if so, how do we minimise the impact without losing on the friendship? How does one endear oneself to strangers and also make them “walk your talk”?

Does the art and science of diplomacy have fail-proof approaches for all of the above? If history teaches us something, the answer is that diplomacy gives us some tools but does not always succeed – so what alternatives do we have? Is there a lesson that we can imbibe from circus-animal training?

I think individuals and business entities, alike, need more innovative approaches to make more friends and influence them to buy into their vision; and certainly more efforts are needed by one and all to experiment for success.

Hope you are having a great weekend and wishing you a great first week of October.

Sujavna 2:39

It is 630pm on the 23^rd of September 2012.

How does a teacher effectively engage the attention of, and excite the interest levels of those students who are “back-benchers” (I was recently advised that the politically-correct terms that we use for such students is to call them “pupils with low learning behavioural patterns”)?

I am glad to know that technology does provide solutions, and was recently fortunate enough to get a demonstration of one such solution from a start-up Anglo-American joint venture called 3DHub. (Check out on YouTube for over 57 videos of how this technology helps learn and teach).

What I am now keen to know is how such technologies and solutions can be extended on a commercial (yet affordable) basis to leapfrog the primary and secondary school education systems in Asian and African countries and benefit teachers and pupils in these countries. What innovations in delivery models need to be piloted? Will the Microsoft model of bundling operating software do the trick, as governments work with makers of tablets to deliver affordable systems to millions of schools?

Hope you are having a great weekend.

Sujavna 2:38

As the clock strikes 8am on the 16^th of September

And as I prepare myself to take a flight out of Mumbai to London, I am reminded about all of those small and daily things in human life that still need improvement, and where lateral thinking can really work wonders.

For instance what new ways of securing overseas travel insurance will result in retrieving the insurance information easy for both the insured as well as his nominee? And how can one get a fail-proof method of checking that one’s luggage is well-within the airline’s restrictions on weight and dimensions?

Perhaps these will occupy my thoughts as I undertake the nine hour flight – unless the cabin entertainment is really exciting!

Have a great weekend and a greater wee ahead!

Sujavna 2:37

It is 7am on 8^th September 2012

Two interesting sets of advice on fostering a culture of innovation (that I learnt during the week that went by) have great relevance for the governance challenge that the Indian political establishment seems to be going through.

I located the first set of advice in a book on Frugal Innovation (the book is titled Jugaad Innovation and is authored by Navi Rajdou, Jaideep Parbhu and Simone Ahuja). While discussing how the principle of thinking and acting flexibly has been a core characteristic of jugaad innovators, the authors advocate strongly on why organisations and entrepreneurs need to FAIL CHEAP, FAIL FAST and FAIL OFTEN to succeed.

The second set of advice can be found in a 2010 HBR blog by Tony Schwartz, who was then commenting on six secrets to creating a culture of innovation. I refer to the second secret that Tony has encapsulated wonderfully as “CREATIVITY CAN BE SYSTEMATIC”, wherein he delineates on how the well-defined stages of “first-insight”, “saturation”, “incubation”, “illumination” and “verification” do not always unfold predictably, but do certainly provide the most-effective roadmap for creativity.

Now why do I think both these sets of advice are relevant for the Indian political establishment? When you see that politics (as is currently practiced by all major parties) is entrenched in a very inflexible approach of “my way or the highway”, when you realize that political leaders do not want to be seen as failing and when you feel a vacuum in direct communications from political parties, which leads you to believe that there is no effort at incubating and verifying their ideologies and political stands, it is then you realize that there is a huge effort required by the political establishment in India to innovate.

Hope you are having a great weekend.

Sujavna 2:36

As the clock strikes 6am on 2^nd September 2012

And as I prepare myself to attend the celebrations of the marriage engagement of a nephew (Indian marriages are celebrated right from the time they are arranged by their parents right through the actual marriage and many many times afterwards!), my thoughts linger on the myriads of innovations that have been made in the treatment and cure of human ailments. While being eternally grateful for these, I also wonder why there the same levels of ingenuity and resourcefulness have not been applied to the problems of the families and friends of patients who need to manage the situations that they find themselves in due to the illnesses of the patients? How do we incentivise innovators of medical-care systems to include such aspects?

And oh, thanks for those of you who have responded to my last post on what innovations have taken place in the fields of the science and art of interpreting and capitalising on human emotions and psychology. I will follow up on the suggested readings.

Wishing you a great week ahead.