some amazing companies in the world

Aakamai :  i have followed this company since its inception in 1998 , these guys  do the following "Akamai's technology – at its core, applied mathematics and algorithms - has transformed the chaos of the Internet into a predictable, scalable, and secure platform for business and entertainment. The Akamai EdgePlatform comprises 40,000 servers deployed in 70 countries that continually monitor the Internet – traffic, trouble spots and overall conditions. We use that information to intelligently optimize routes and replicate content for faster, more reliable delivery. As Akamai handles 20% of total Internet traffic today, our view of the Internet is the most comprehensive and dynamic collected anywhere" want to see live check this http://www.akamai.com/html/technology/dataviz1.html

This is a startup from MIT , Boston , Tom Leighton and his Israieli student (he unfortunately died while being in the plane that hit the WTC) have formed some coolest algorithms that enables data to travel faster and richer in the www.. amazingstuff

INtellectual Ventures : recently found about them, founded by ex CTO , Microsoft and party!!  They are an "Invention" company, they invent and patent and commericialize, check them

http://www.intellectualventures.com/default.aspx

YES WE CAN

A Great Stride in the World's Most Powerful democracy. Obama's win undoubtedly heralds a new chapter in America but is a great lesson for all of us  in two things. The first being on leadership where an unknown PERSON  purely through a rich blend of leadership & extra ordinary communication wins over  the highest office in the world through a mantra of change. secondly a whole generation of civil rights leaders who campaigned for equality in American society did not loose hope and have ultimately won the biggest trophies of having an African American to the highest post. I want to dwell on these topics individually in detail in my next posts. I like the slogan "YES WE CAN"

Obama and Change

One of the most interesting things of American politics is that the more younger you are, the better your chances for winning unlike in India where the reverse is true and more so ironical considering that more Indians are younger than their American Counterparts . In fact Bob Dole who was a great candidate lost out to Bill Clinton only because his age was against him. Change is the campaign theme of Obama but I wonder what would be his "true recipe" for change.I have a prescription for Obama.

1. First and foremost : strengthen the regulatory system of American financial system. from lot of time, its economy was in rubbish, clean up your system. Please .. fully not partially

2. don't backtrack on trade , take the Doha rounds of trade talks forward. much of the anti outsourcing move is rhetoric, your firms will be the biggest looser esp in competitiveness

3. You cant do nation building , reorient your forces for smart tactical moves esp in Iraq , Afganistan etc rather than drawing long term engagement which will yield no result.

4.You have a great opportunity to rebuild PR for  America which has been battered esp in Middle East and South Asia

5.Get rid of Washington cronies and rethink the world order, your best case scenario is in engagement with everyone not isolation

its to be seen what true change obama brings in ..

My Book of the Week:"The Wonder that is Sanskrit"

I completed "The Wonder that is Sanskrit" by Sampad and Vijay, Sri Aurbindo Press, fantastic book tells us the richness of our language and how we have lost it. A masterpiece in human lingua traces all subtle aspects in a very contemporary form which a novice can understand. Is filled with the beauty and maturity of the langauge , example

 See the following poetry which has all all the letters of Sanskrit Language which are placed in the exact order, yet provide meaning:

क: खगौघाङचिच्छौजा झाञ्ज्ञोऽटौठीडडण्ढण:
तथोदधीन् पफर्बाभीर्मयोऽरिल्वाशिषां सह: ॥

“Who is he, the lover of birds, pure in intelligence, expert in stealing the strength of others, leader among the destroyers of the enemies, the steadfast, the fearless, the one who filled the ocean? He is the king Maya, the respository of the blessings that can destroy the foes"

 

A must read who want to dwell on what Nehru said 

"The past has gone and the present is with us and we work for the future. But I have no doubt that whatever the shape the future may take, one of the biggest, the strongest, and the most powerful and the most valued of our legacies, will be the Sanskrit language."

What Makes an MBA ?

Tough question, in fact a research question. Its high time B Schools make a conscious effort in introspecting in what kinds of output they would like to produce. Leaders of tommorow or clerks of bygone era . And its high time for students to "graduate" into a truly professional leadership oriented academic program. The  syllabus is outdated and stinking with no relevance to the existing demands of the corporate world. Exposure to the realistic management world is close to nil.All we have is bundled set of subjects that make up "volume based " credits rather than value based credits. Inculcation of critical analytical and leadership skills is non-existant.By the way I seriously attribute  the present day financial turmoil to the great "MBA"s running our financial powerhouses. We always believed in the great corporate model  tweaked with human liberty and spirit, but see whats happened? we blame our political class for every problem but here is a classic example how bad leaders (majority of MBA's) have ruined the world economy through their bad judgements and decisions. Yes ethics has also played a major role .. but does anyB school bother to inculcate ethics in true sense. Its more of a ritual nothing more nothing less. We always feared how an incapable doctor could prove hazardous to patients and health care at large. The same seems to be happening in the world of management education

BSchools wake up !

as we are ushering into a liberalized, privatized and globalized world, your MBA grads are lifelines to the modern day economy. Managers of today and leaders of tomorrow. what they take in from your school will have a cascading and ripple effect on all branches of our social and economic life. Your responsibility is no less than the kind of soldiers  produced by defence colleges. Its high time that you start asking the right questions.  Firstly what  comprises a good MBA. A good management program has to be on a 60-40 ratio, 60 % expertise- experiential driven and 40 % self driven. I coined this term "expertise-experiential" form of education. This relates to the faculty who have expertise and also experience in the nuances of corporate decision making not just running it. A PhD  or a GM @ a factory alone does qualify one to be a good teacher in  BSchool its the kind of situations one has handled, experienced and created that can be transfered to students. Remember the 1st law of thermodynamics, energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It can only be transferred. Unfortunately our process of looking at teachers is clumsy and nonsensical we   poach faculty with impressive academic resumes or from those who have been part of "well known " brands.  The first class devotes to the academics which again in India is close to negligible, we still don't have a quality culture of PhD's in Management with hardly  couple of institutes offering them at large. The kind of research and problem statements that they are investigating is of prime importance and driver for hiring them. But its hardly the case : firstly we have very few academics and amongst them hardly few are researching to some of the significant problem statements that industry is facing.

A true academic oriented faculty is one who is a catalyst in resolving some serious pain points faced by the industry. Example  Professor Richard A. D'Aveni at Tuck School of Business (http://oracle-www.dartmouth.edu/dart/groucho/tuck_faculty_and_research.faculty_profile?p_id=A332QC), father of HyperCompetition is Currently working on  Strategies for dealing with rapid change and aggressive competition, value erosion, price-benefit product positioning which have such a serious impact for organizations worldwide. Remember he was the guy who told us to go "beyond Porter" and introduced hyper competition which is so relevant in the modern day context. Are Indian Academics listening ?

Then we have second category of faculty for BSchools in India, the one from Industry, we are obsessed with "brands" and all it takes is "X" no of years at a reasonable position to make him qualified for a BSChool faculty position.  We do not know what all he did there, was he a growth driver, was he a change agent, did he/she leave a lasting imprint in hos or her organization .. Not of concern, all we need is  GM/VP etc etc from a well known company. What if his company , his subordinates suffered under him in that organization ? do we bother to look at it ? and imagine what kind of knowledge such a person will transfer and what leadership principles he or she will inculcate.

and now coming to curriculum ; do we have subjects like decision modelling and sciences, optimization theory, mathematical modelling,comparative models in leadership,private equity market,Venture capital, international currency fluctuations, entrepreneurship,probability etc etc.. I can go on and. Innovation which is the buzz word in corporate world is lacking in the management education. Besides its high time that we in India also start offering Masters in financial Engineering , MS in Computational Finance . In fact I even urge MBA's ; if you can go and pursue these degrees in the finest schools go ahead even after an MBA here. There may be scholarships available for these programs provided you are the best.

A special curriculum committee must be constituted so that the subjects and broader themes can be worked out. This should be at the industry-institute partnership level , of course the faculty should have flexibility on the delivery and pedagogy but the broad contours should be well defined.

Lets get quality centric not quatity centric. Lets end this MBA tamasha

To Grow..

Om Shri Gurubhyo Namah

To Grow

 

As seasons unfold in the womb of cosmos,

I have wondered to what seasons I belong

From spring to autumn,

All seems a shade of something changeless within

Did I grow

I question within, seeking answers from eternal within

 

I saw there humans ageing..

Those buildings withering

Saplings flowering,

Thoughts maturing

And mind questioning

Yet I question within,

Did I grow

seeking answers from eternal within

 

to be known or unknown,

stagnancy keeps prevailing

all actions seem towards self preserving

sometimes darkness unfolding,

seeing my desires eclipsing

yet dreaming of “self conquering”

nothing seems to be changing

but I see now the spirit awakening

yet I question within

did I Grow

seeking answers from eternal within…

 

 

So you want to be an MBA ?

History First :The Tuck School of Business (http://www.tuck.edu/) , part of Dartmouth College, was the first graduate school of management in the United States. Founded in 1900, it was the first institution conferring advanced degrees (masters) in the commercial sciences, the fore bearer of the modern MBA even though Wharton @ University of Pennsylvania (http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/) was the first business school in the world. I guess the purpose of a scientific approach to "managing business" is best symbolized by the words written in the web site of Wharton "At Wharton, there are countless opportunities to lead, grow, and challenge yourself". A simple straight but yet such an unmet demand of a modern day MBA. Just India alone produces more than a lac odd MBA's annually as said in "commodityonline.com" a strange but interesting paradox of the commodification of a wonderful degree.

We are in the second spell of commoditization of professional education. First spell was the engineering and medical education and the second spell is that of MBA's. The second spell is more lucrative and attractive. Reason is simple, to open an engineering college is tougher (least needs to be invested in labs, technical faculty etc ) and much harder in the case of medical education. But a B-School is much much easier all you need is space -5 rooms , 3 rooms or 1 big dining hall (which i have practically seen) and you have a 5 + lac customer walking into the realms of "unknown" hoping to be a so called "manager,administrator or even a leader" with aspirations of glassy corporate office with a 6 packed (not abs) but figured remuneration. Dr Dan le Clair, VP & Chief Knowledge Officer of AACSB International (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business is an association of educational institutions, businesses, and other organizations devoted to the advancement of higher education in management education also the premier accrediting agency of collegiate business schools and accounting programs worldwide) recently said " that quality of education offered by a majority of institutes need a lot to desire".This is from the supplier side, but about the "customer" here. i mean the students of course...

The "MBA" gold rush is definitely one that was waiting to happen. Thanks to our colonial sub servant mindset prevalent in our homes we tend to push our "future" sorry our children to a the "prevailing" high paying boom. whether the kid is suited let alone is able to manage a business is definitely out of question here. Thanks to our "headline obsessed" media highlighting the 8 figured salaries @ IIM's without researching who and how factors we tend to deal with our education as one more "economic" activity where the ROI (return on investments) has to be multi fold. The blame is also on students not on parents alone. The liberalized kid who is so assertive in his personal, emotional and spiritual choices is ill-equipped majority of times to assess his personal and professional goals. Obviously he or she is made to have a "cut out " rather than if he or she is really cut out for an MBA thanks to the "Peer Pressure". I am pained at the end result of all this. An obvious consequence is the "employability factor" and also what i call as "early life crisis" which has preempted the "midlife crisis". I have interacted with so many late 20's and early 30 peers who are "lost" in the managing world. Many of them end up in what i call as "nether world".

The solution : I don't know except that i know which is to follow your heart , if you want to lead , grow and challenge, may be an MBA will shape your destiny.. sounding pessimistic.. not yet.. wait for my next post on "What Makes a MBA" , i will have some happy news to tell..

Words. Words.. Words...

Om Shri Gurubhyo Namah
Finally I have made a conscious effort to write. Been long since i have expressed my words to the outer world. The question is why now ? , majority comes from my teaching initiative.. My interaction with my students @ B schools on wide array of topics compelled me to open a new channel of communication which i hope will make it a refreshing hot spot to post wide views on "everything under the sun". I believe i am in what i call as "creative flux" both internally and externally. The only thing that's constant is "change". My personal history would tell that I am a "pen scrabbler" or a amateur writer from early school days. I was a rookie poet scribing lines in both English and Hindi. Somehow the creative juices of writing dried up and part had to do with my professional obsession of chasing my dreams. I felt impelled for writing many a times but never took over it. In fact i remember i won couple of prizes in poetry writing in my school days. Some time later to the middle of my engineering i felt to be a travel columnist but that was more of an idea which never materialized. Am I writer ? yes and no. I have graduated now to be an observer from being a opinionated person. And I wholly attribute this graduation to my spiritual master who inculcated immense tolerance to "others views and ideas" no matter how distant they were from that of mine. So I feel now i will write but as an observer and would try to end with a question rather than with an answer.Trying to embody the same spirits as expressed in our Rig Veda esp the one expressed in my favourite hymn called "Nasadiya Suktam" (Hymn of Creation) which ends by the beautiful verse "Who Really Knows (the ultimate truth of creation) Who Can Presume to Tell it... He Who Surveys the Highest Heaven Knows It.. He Surely Knows or May be he does not.. ).. Remember that beautiful opening note in the timeless classic "Bharat Ek Khoj" thats taken from this verse. Watch this