Open Thoughts

Through The Looking Glass

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He drove by with a wave, rolled down the window and asked,”Kavi?” In an inchoate two minutes, I was seated settled in the comfortable car with his words “I’ll get you to the airport. Nice and safe” to soothe me.

#SHRM18 had just wound down to a close and I was tearing myself away from the comfortable confines of McCormick Place in Chicago.  Salim (name changed ) was my Uber driver.

Uber drivers who indulge my need for conversations are special.  Speak to a few of them in a city, and you can map whats on the city’s mind. The chat reduces the distance and as a bonus, I get to know another human being. What is a platform transaction morphs into a human interaction. A connection established by stories and sharing.  The interaction with Salim was one such.

We chatted about the economy, immigration, life in the USA and India. And this elusive thing called ‘home’. And much else.

He told me about his home in Palestine and of his long trek to Jordan where his parents stay.  And the longer trek to the US more than two decades ago.  His voice swinging from excitement to despair with seamless ease. Like shifting lanes on an empty road.

The man had studied law in Jordan, ran a restaurant for fifteen years in the US before taking to be an Uber driver. He loved law. But couldn’t practice law in the US. To be able to do so would require his going back to law school. Which would set him back by several thousand dollars.  He had made his peace and he saw his future in driving trucks. He had applied for a license and he was due to get it shortly.

For a while, he spoke of the opportunity in truck driving. The lucrative nature of it all and the lifestyle he would be able to afford his kids. Plus the effort and investment required to get there. He sounded like a monarch who awaited coronation the next day.

After a while, in a manner of conversation, I asked him if he had heard of unmanned trucks. His face donned a dismissive hat.   As I explained to him all that I knew of the experiments with self-driving trucks, the dismissive smile morphed to have a ring of disbelief and distress.

An uncomfortable silence filled the air and as a red light stopped the car in front of us, he turned around, faced me and asked, “What will happen to all the jobs?” His hurting tone and halting words were making me guilty. I realised. Before I could say anything else, the man held the steering with one hand, looked ahead and spoke into the windscreen.

“Technology is good. But it can hurt and the people who make the technology must also be aware that it can hurt. Even as we make technology to take us forward we must build boundaries for it. We have to be aware of the not so obvious consequences also. We have to make wise choices”

“Someone must speak and think for the countless who don’t have a choice or an option. The rich and the privileged cannot be the sole inheritors of the future. Every generation must have an opportunity to compete and create a new future.”

I wished I could have recorded all that he said, even as I scribbled notes on a random piece of paper.  I wished the ride was longer as my glass window showed the busy environs of O Hare beyond it.

He parked got out of the car, opened the trunk, took the suitcases out and said, “thank you for listening”. For a brief moment, our eyes met, as I nodded and wished him well. His Uber app announced a new passenger and took with it a few things he had to say. I will never know what his closing comments were! The ‘here and now’ urgency of the platform economy will keep him going for a while, I thought, as I saw the car disappear amidst other arrivals and departures.

A while later, I sat at the boarding gate mulling over our conversation. Just that morning Sheryl Sandberg had given a tip about asking “What are you not working on”. It was a powerful idea, which leads me to think the awareness we have about what we don’t discuss enough about.

Disruption and innovation, lead only from a ‘profit’ / ‘valuation’ centric mindset are half-baked. Unless growth is inclusive all disruptions will eventually be disrupted.

As I awaited boarding, I realised, these conversations are not fool’s errands. We need to ply our minds better. Again and again. And again.

 

Blockchain Possibilities

Blockchain Basics, Open Thoughts,

A permanent secure digital distributed ledger was the simplest definition of Blockchain that emerged in the previous post from this series. A long conversation on the possibilities with blockchain resulted. As the ideas were wrestled with, the contours for further conversation needed to be sealed. And this post is just that. The contours for further conversation.

Truth be told, none of these above terms are missing in the world of technology today. We have secure databases, digital databases, distributed ledgers even. Why then, is Blockchain considered as the messiah of the internet? Why is it said that the ‘world wide web’ is about the exchange of information and Blockchain will be about an exchange of value?

The industry is expecting Blockchain to be able to resolve world hunger, serious! Proponents claim Blockchain will make it easier to trace ‘blood diamonds’, something that has plagued us for decades. Be able to reduce and even eliminate accounting fraud. Think Enron! Voting in the elections. Moscow and NASDAQ are in the process of deploying Blockchain for electoral and shareholder voting to prevent fraud.

Now take a giant leap across and Blockchain supporters believe that it will make it possible for you and me to borrow from peers and not just depend on a bank. A completely new fundraising mechanism. The currency exchange guys believe that Blockchain will reduce their transfer transaction times from days to seconds. Tough to imagine that level of improvement in productivity and efficiency. Days to seconds! Wow. Artists are singing praises because they believe Blockchain will deliver them from the clutches of record labels who corner more profits than the artists for their work.

Look around you, intermediaries in every industry sector and transaction garner far more value than the buyers and sellers. Think of the farmer getting a pittance for his produce while you pay escalating prices for greens.  With intermediaries a.k.a traders/middlemen earning a significant chunk.

A world without intermediaries. Really?

Summarising the possibilities gets this list below to emerge. A broad cull from all the herd of hype about Blockchain.

• Transparency and Privacy (yup together!)
• Improved Traceability
• Immutability
• Enhanced Security
• Decentralized
• Faster Transactions with reduced costs
• Trust or rather Trustless

The above possibilities emerge in the way many of these existing technologies of Digital databases, distributed ledgers have been intertwined with newer concepts such as Consensus Protocol, Smart contracts, Proof of Work, cryptography to create the Blockchain framework. Thereby unleashing immense possibilities and benefits.

Each of these sits well for deeper conversation and exploration. And will soon come here too.

There are much jargon and ‘big’ words in the post. Thereby straying a distance from a key objective of keeping it simple. That is part of the challenge that is being wrestled with.  With time, practice and deeper conversation and real work, this space will read better.

Jump in. Let’s keep the conversation going. In our own small pockets and larger forums. We’ll get somewhere.

 

Blockchain Basics

Blockchain Basics, Open Thoughts, ,

Well if you are like me, you have heard this word ‘Blockchain’ bandied about. You have read and heard so much about it in the news yet you wonder if you really do understand it. It can seem that everyone is talking about blockchain and ledger technologies, but the truth is most of us are not yet up to speed, just like me! What Blockchain is and ‘could be’ is fuelling industries the world over. Everyone seems to be seeking possibilities. So, what are some ‘Blockchain Basics’? 

In this space, I along with a colleague, will try and explore an understanding of the technology and possibility called Blockchain. We invite you to join us. We will attempt to understand Blockchain and it’s many terms in as simple a manner as possible, through this series. 

‘What is Blockchain’, is a good place to start.

In a nutshell, Blockchain is; A permanent secure digital distributed ledger.

Am sure that meant nothing! It didn’t when we read it the first time and was trying to understand what Blockchain was about.

Let’s see if an example makes it any better. Something we can relate to, an excel sheet?

Think of Blockchain as an excel sheet which is open on all computers in the network. Any changes being made to the excel will be visible to all in the network as it is being made. It hence always is transparent and in a state of consensus. To be clear, it is not one excel in a central location shared by hundreds of computers. It is hundreds of copies of the same excel stored on hundreds of different computers across the world.

It also makes the data secure. Think of a hacker who has to erase the data from hundreds of systems to alter anything; earlier all he had to do was change it on ‘one’ master system.

Let’s try another example exploring why the world is falling over itself imagining the immense possibilities Blockchain holds.

Blockchain Basics with an example

Let’s assume that ‘you’ have a file of financial transactions on your computer. Three accountants have the same file stored on their computers. As you make another transaction buying something, your computer sends an email to each of them informing them of the transaction.

All three accountants rush to be the first one who will verify if the transaction is correct and you can afford the ‘buy’. The first one who verifies the transaction shares the logic with all the other accountants and gets paid a salary. If the other accountants agree that the transaction is correct and you can afford it, then everyone updates their excel sheet automatically.

This whole concept is nothing but Blockchain Technology.

If you wanted to indulge in tech-geek speak, here is your way to do it. 

And voila you got geeky! Next time let’s explore some of these terms Proof of Work, Distributed ledger, Consensus Protocol, Smart contracts and see what we see…

 

Until then here are some links for you to explore what Blockchain is, one is a video featured on OWL (Our Work is Learning) Newsletter which explains Blockchain to a toddler and professional.

Another one I found useful which explained Blockchain in simple English is here

What do you think? Your comments would be great to help evolve an understanding. Thanks much. 

 

 

Four awesome habits of connectors

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Connecting the dots brings new meaning and great value. Value that far supersedes what the dots by themselves bring. When applied to people, there are lessons to learn about these ‘connectors’. These are people who have the knack for building relationships and connections that go beyond natural boundaries. They are so much in demand.  Be it the employee who has relationships (or just plain knows a lot of people) across organisations or the friend who will connect you with someone to solve a problem.

Mark Granovetter‘s most referenced paper in Social Sciences, “The Strength of Weak Ties” holds vital clues.  Several years ago when I first landed the paper, I became present to the need for weak ties. The realisation that ‘weak ties’ were not really ‘weak’ but a great value-add for progress and change, was powerful.  Therein started an active cultivation of an existing interest in others, the humanness in them and their contexts. It has lead to few deep friendships and innumerable conversations, discoveries and a way of life that is powerful.

Yet at times when I come across people for whom this comes naturally, I am awestruck by their way of life. This is not a ‘put on’. This is a way of living and working. Last week, after spending time with a few such, here are a few things that I jotted down reflecting on what these folks do.

Heres some additional context. I am making my preparations to attend SHRM 18 that will have over 20000 participants. It sure promises to be a great place to find such connectors. Writing out my own learnings from the ‘naturals’, I reckon, will both help me find more connectors and reenergise the connector within me!

So, who are these connectors? How do you identify them?

1. Connectors offer to help as a default.

The first thing that you notice is the willingness to help. In fact, ‘how can I help’ is a question that comes up many a time. They offer their perspectives. Bring people together. They put in a word. Point in a direction. In the modern day world, these are precious.

This offer is genuine and often goes into areas that are obvious.  Truthful and well within means.

 

2. Connectors are interested more than merely interesting.

Not that they aren’t any interesting. With all their stories and connections, they are extremely interesting!  Just that they don’t have any compelling need to talk about themselves and their achievements. The keenness to offer their ear and soak up your story trumps any sharing of their own story, unless you ask for it. They ask questions, more to get more details. The best ones, don’t offer any advice until specifically asked for. That to me is a marker for an awesome ‘connector’.

 

3. Connectors are a carrier of stories.

Connectors are natural carriers of stories. Natural because they are privy to so many of them. And when they share the story forward, it is the ease at which they mask the details of the person whilst sharing the essence of the event or the intended lesson. It is such mastery that elicits further sharing that is a great foundation for a trust laden conversation.

Connectors are sought out for the stories they carry.  These stories can alter thought and help make new connections and possibilities in the mind.

4. Connectors don’t look at immediate RoI.

Connectors are not the quintessential ‘networkers’ you see at parties. People whose intent seems to be in having your business card and ensuring that you have theirs.  After few pleasantries and the business card exchange, off they go to the next conversation. Connectors are interested in conversation. They are invested in people who are willing to invest the time and energy in a conversation for the joy of conversation. I have had amazing conversations with no agenda in mind. Just sitting down and getting to know and talking. Sometimes, it has had tangible immediate benefits. Many times none at all. But that’s beside the point. The point of sitting down and talking is the sitting down and talking. The benefits that come impact in ways that are beyond the obvious.

And those are my top four. We are a product of our experiences and each of our experiences shapes our thought. The list is a product of my experiences and I look forward to hearing from you to hear your experiences as well.

If you are coming to SHRM 2018, please do give me a shout. Would be lovely to exchange notes and make a new connection. If not, the big wide networked world offers us limitless possibilities. We are limited only by the intensity of our intent!

Margins To The Middle #SHRMTech18

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It was around 6.30 AM at Hyderabad’s HITECH City. Tall buildings with glass facades dot the scant skyline. Just across the road, even as young people streamed in and out with nonchalance, she sat. She sold to the young people short eats, cigarettes, hot tea and the like. Each of her categories on sale was stacked in a sack. Each sack sitting on the road, just as she was. Sitting pretty in one of the stacks was a credit card Point of Sale, swipe machine. Another held a QR code for cashless transactions. That I was spotting this after hearing a day full of praise for technology at SHRMTech’18 ( SHRM India’s annual Tech conference) was not lost on me. The knocks on traditional boundaries accentuated by education and access were loud. This was technology moving from the margins to the middle!

More about that later.

For now, SHRM Tech 18. The conference has grown from where it started four years ago. This time too, it ticked all the right boxes. It had HR leaders and tech folks hold court, talk neat and walk tall. It had a dazzling array of exhibitors. From a Tata Car to plain old (or was it new) tea, to tech solutions to every conceivable HR Challenge. It had its share of arc lights, awards, survey results, music, debate and the like. Perhaps to accentuate the accent on tech, it even had a robot, inviting a speaker on stage. All in all, it was pretty neat.

If you missed it this time, please do look up #SHRMTech18 on twitter and you will get most of what happened on the stage. You are pretty much sorted if you seek to pick up that kind of action.
I go to such conferences for another reason. And that is to catch the moments in-between the stage shows and indulge in conversation. To listen in and hear more. To absorb the questions that are being asked and the live experiences that are shared. Away from the arc lights naked truth often makes a shy appearance. Often in the form of a sigh or a silence. Sometimes in a steady argument and expert deflection of an uncomfortable question. At other times, providing facts, data, stories, and interpretation of how things are working.

All of these are fascinating for several reasons. They reveal what’s on the horizon. What’s dying. What’s real and what is being dealt with. What opportunities are surfacing in the future and the dilemmas that are alive. They also bring alive, what’s being missed. Whilst a lot of what I have taken home stays with my notes and requires conversation and processing there were moments that held my attention. Here are my top three from a longer list.

Vineet Nayar kicked off the conference talking about the need to put the human being at the centre of the employee experience. That made a heap of sense. Even as technology is ‘Moving from the margins to the Middle’, replacing the human experience with technology needs to guarded against. Technology for technology’s sake is going to lead us up a garden path with no garden in tow. In a world replete with tech solutions, discovering our ‘human’ element is getting to be a taller ask. Not because of limitations with technology! To me, that message had the potency of setting a kitten amongst several pigeons.

Jayesh Ranjan, Secretary, Information Technology (IT); Government of Telangana, made a strong and persuasive pitch for Telangana. He courted the right audience with necessary facts and presented them in easy consumable chunks. Stories of state governments getting competitive and seeking investments are the new norm. That norm was taken a few notches higher by the articulate IAS officer.

On a different panel on Women in Tech. Dr.Ritu Anand from TCS spoke from personal experience about what it takes to lead (& that had nothing to do with gender) and that was lovely. Lost amongst the discussion was the fact that much of what was discussed alluded to programmes aimed at (& done ‘to’ ) women employees. It is both a familiar and a line of thought that falls woefully inadequate. The debate needs to continue.

Of course, there was Sunita Bhuyan and her music in full flow. Her piece titled ‘Conversations’ was more than mere music to the ear. On the sidelines, the catch up with a number of friends and colleagues was well worth the effort to get there. Some of them are doing some stellar stuff and am so looking forward to seeing it all come alive.

The new middle:

Back to the lady who sold me two full plastic cups of tea for Rs.15. Sitting on the pavement with the Credit Card machine carelessly tossed on a stack of goodies. She to me exemplifies someone who has kept her ear close to the ground. The changing tone of currency in her customer’s wallet has necessitated her adopting new ways of seeking a share. An innate understanding of ground realities of business helps choose, design and work with technology.

Technology is an enabler. Technology is not the reason for us to get to work. Whilst discussing technology we have to bear in mind that work needs reshaping. Slapping layers of cutting edge technology on fossilised ways of thinking is not going to get anyone anywhere. Unless you are talking about taking a few steps back!

Of these, we need to have more conversations on. The changing societal contexts. The need for finding meaning in work. Changing work in itself. What needs rewiring and rewriting are not the wires that connect our computers or the codes that run in them, as much as our own minds. It was Sherry Turkle who said something about our tools.

Even as we continue to ride on our high horses of tech progress with pounding hoofs and half breaths, we must pause to examine what it’s doing to the fabric of our workplaces. Change is multi-dimensional. HR leaders must pause, converse, examine, reflect on all the nodes each tech change is touching off.
One more thing. Change is tough. Change in the tech space is not linear but occurs in seismic shifts.

That necessitates change being held together with care. It is those that experiment with these changes that will get somewhere. Experiments, by definition, don’t have assured successes. We need to keep working with our head as close to the ground as possible. And that is not easy. But it is possible. And change happens in the moment with bold leaps and application of mind. We have never been limited by technology as much as we have been by our imagination.

Moving from the margin to the middle is often facilitated by leaps of faith and experiments. Experiments that seek both courage and investments. The lady who sold me two cups of tea and three different ways of concluding the deal taught me a thing or two about courage. The courage to move beyond algorithmic responses and robotic monotony in decision making is much needed. We could all learn a thing or two from her.

Disclosure: SHRM facilitated my participation in the conference as a member of the ‘blog squad’

Awareness of Privilege

Open Thoughts, , ,

It was a straight long road to run on. It was Sunday, the day of my ‘long run’. I had to go down the stretch turn at a particular point and come back where I started. Cruising along until the time that I had to turn. I quite didn’t realise that the return stretch was quite a lesson on ‘awareness of privilege’!

For it was when I turned, I realised that I had the wind backing me all the while I was cruising. I wasn’t seeing any of it, leave alone acknowledging that it was making a difference to my ease of cruise. But after making the turn, I was expending the same amount of effort and having far little to show compared to my run in the other direction. I cursed the wind.

As my body stabilised and as my muscles started working harder, I realised there was no point in cursing the wind. The support that the tailwind had offered me I had appropriated to myself and my capabilities. The wind had remained the same all through!

Headwind and tailwinds are invisible. The headwinds are felt more because we are up against it. As I finished the run I realised that this applies to life as well. We are hardly aware of several of the privileges that we are bestowed with, let alone crediting it with playing a part in success.

Earlier this week, a video on youtube held my attention. Take a minute to go over it. It is a simple yet powerful demonstration of what ‘privilege’ can mean and the material difference it can make.

To be aware of this privilege can be a great start.  I was shooting the breeze with someone who requests anonymity. After three hours and two brimfuls of coffee, we agreed on few foundations.

Some foundations emerged as the coffee coursed our veins. Being born into privilege didn’t mean we didn’t earn our spurs. Or that we were bad people. We were clear that we couldn’t undo our childhoods or born the way we were born. Not that we intended to. Nor did we want to dismiss our achievements or the hard work that contributed to getting us where we are now.  We were proud of what we had accomplished and were energised by what we wanted to do in the future. We still wanted to shoot for the moon and perhaps change the world too.

Accepting that privilege that the system bestowed on us, also contributed to where we are was a good start, we concluded. A modest start. But an important one at that.  What does an ” ‘accusation’ of being privileged do to you?”, was a question we asked each other and examined for a long time.  We had to examine the discomfort with examining the question too.

What more could we do? It was a long conversation and these were our top three conclusions. A call to action for ourselves, so to speak.

a. Examine the day

Between the two of us, we decided to examine our days and weeks. Deciding to sift through random events and uncover each other’s mental models was a natural consequence.   We sought to examine the context of the content of what others spoke or acted and how it impacted us.     Between the two of us, we decided that we would poke each other with questions that are curiosity laden.  We must get somewhere with that.

b. Examine the voices within

Like the wind behind my back that I perhaps would have known better if I had been present to it. There I was coasting in the success that was coming my way. An examination of the ‘why’ is useful.  Reflection and journaling can be a super place to start. “Once in a while is ok”, I proposed. And the gingerly proposal was met with a violent head nod in agreement.

c. A change of context

Privilege and the lack of it become apparent in different contexts. To change contexts, to travel, to work with people of different classes, to sit down and shoot the breeze with someone we usually will not, and several other things of the same ilk were going to be useful. That is one more area we will choose to examine.

We need to understand each other better for us to live rich meaning-laden lives. How better than understanding our contexts and our views of the world to get started. How better than counting our blessings and crediting that wind behind our backs as well.

One more thing we decided on: Share our resolve. Talk about it. Blog about it. Whatever. And this is the first step towards building awareness of my privilege!

SHRM India Annual Conference 2016 ( Part 2) #SHRMI16

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This post is a summary of DAY Two of SHRM India’s Annual Conference 2016 ( #SHRM16 ). Day One is here.

If Day One set the bar high, Day two surpassed it with ease . Day Two was an expansive play of ideas, debates and some olympian stretches of the imagination. Overall set the agenda for a longer conversation thereafter.

If Amitabh Kant held the audience together with statistics from the Indian growth story, the big debate and product pitches provided fuel to the story. That the future is indeed filled with possibilities. And with the launch of Abhijit Bhadhuri‘s Digital Tsunami, there is a narrative to read about it all too.

Catch a glimpse of Day II of #SHRMI16 below

 

SHRM India- Annual Conference & Expo (Part 1) #SHRMI16

Open Thoughts, , ,

It was two days of intense conversation, content and of course a whole lot of fun. SHRM India‘s Annual Conference and Exposition ( #SHRM16 ) was filled with it all.

While going to the conference I had written about what I sought to get from a conference. I did get far more than that.

To storify the tweets from the conference has meant going over thousands of tweets and curate what I experienced struck my eye and triggered a memory or arrested a thought. So, what you would find here are just a sliver of the overall experience. Do look up the hashtag, and explore even further. Am sure there is much more than what I put across here in two parts.

Day One was an arresting diversity. From Pramod Bhasin to Vicky Roy to the awards ceremony and a scintillating performance.

You will find Day Two as a separate post here. 

Day Two was an expansive play of ideas, debates and some olympian stretches of the imagination. Overall set the agenda for a longer conversation thereafter.

Making the most of conferences. #SHRMI16

Open Thoughts, , ,

The printed out boarding passes to Delhi flutter from the corner of the table. What is the point, they seem to ask. They seem to tease me to think. You see, I will be at SHRM India‘s Annual Conference ( #SHRMI16) on 29th and 30th September in Delhi.  While I will be tweeting, talking and crossing other T’s, the boarding passes seem to ask a deeper question :  “Another conference?”

Having attended innumerable conferences, I look at the Boarding Passes with a smile.

Of course, there will be good old friends and stories to catch up.  Of course, there will be interesting topics, the hashtag will trend and the content will be awesome.  If you aren’t going to be there in person, the mosaic above is the list of folks that will be curating stuff for you.  The hashtag is #SHRMI16, if you are into following the conversation online.

Even as I write this, I am reminded of a good read that classified conference participants in four different buckets. ( I wish I had known the authors to give them credit ).

Here they are.

1. The Vacationers : These are the folks that utilise the conference for a well-deserved break. They are lost in their thoughts and are least interested in whats happening in the conference. Except of course, the good food, the grand ambience. ‘A paid vacation’, as someone once told me.

2. The Prisoners : You know these people. They are the least interested in the conference. They are there because they haven’t had a choice. They are, to put in another way, ‘sentenced to attend the conference by the organisation’.  Sure they are there, taking notes and talking. But given a choice, they would much rather be someplace else.

3. The Experts : You cannot miss these folks. They pontificate on every topic. They have been there, done that & that too. ‘Even if you don’t have a problem, well, this is my solution for it’. They will drop names, spew jargon and sneak in an attempt to steal credit for the Sun showing up in the East. You get the drift, don’t you?

4.  The Explorers : These are the folks who are keen to figure things out. ‘ I know a few aspects about whats getting discussed here. There is a whole heap that I don’t know. From the whole lot that is getting said here, let me make sense of what will work for me and what I will let go of consciously‘. Thats the kind of disposition an ‘explorer’ brings to an event.

I have been a sundry vacationer, a dull prisoner, a bombastic expert and a curious explorer in different conferences. These perhaps are frequencies  that we tune into, depending on the content of the conference and what our context and disposition is at that point in time.

The truth remains that the opportunity to be a true explorer is ever present to each one of us, at every conference.  The choices are ours to make.

The SHRM India conference seems to pack a punch with an array of eclectic topics and speakers.  With an exploratory mindset, we ( you and me) can take our takeaways to a new height altogether.That brings me to another question. So what is exploration all about? How does one do that in a conference? Exploration is as personal as it can get. Here are a few things that I try and keep in mind. Stuff that I have learnt from many humble leaders and learners.

 

Explorers and pathways

Exploration is as personal as it can get. Here are a few things that I try and keep in mind. Stuff that I have learnt from many humble leaders and learners from conferences around the world. 

a. Listen. Listen. Listen : Listen to what comes from the stage and the responses it triggers. What is twitter abuzz with? What are the reactions to the content during the coffee break. For me, the responses that the content from the stage triggers, offers a far more compelling picture than the content by itself. ( Twitter, Facebook and other social streams will help you listen in). They give you a far more holistic picture that has rich context. So, dive into both conversations. They are precious. 

b. Explore the extremes : To suspend judgement, disbelief and staying alert to seek something of value, is important. Extreme views bring awareness of what lies at the far end. To seek these extremes and entertaining them without necessarily accepting them, lends power to exploration.

c. Ask your questions:  Share your thoughts : Finding a way to share your thoughts and asking your questions gives you clarity. Sometimes we may not be comfortable asking the question in public.  Find your nooks. Your friends groups. Your online community. Or even those WhatsApp groups. Whatever works for you. ( I would recommend twitter with the hashtag : #SHRMI2016, of course! ).

By doing that you are not only helping a larger understanding of the topic permeate, you are helping the community get stronger. That is a responsibility we carry.

What about success measure? How would you precisely know if attending a conference was worth your while? What goes on between our ears, for all the advancements in science doesn’t lend itself well for precision. Or so I think. So, precision is out.

I remember Lakshmi Pratury giving a formula in an INK Conference that has stayed with me ever since. She said something to the effect of “If you walk out of the conference with ‘one moment, one memory, one friend‘ the conference is a success”. Going by all the people that are going to be there and the interest that the conference is already generating, I am sure I will be many times more successful over the next couple of days. 

One more thing. For a true blue explorer, a conference does not end when it ends. In fact, it is when the event ends, that the explorer’s journey begins. 

New realities for the future

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Some spring cleaning lead to this post. Yes. Out stumbled an old Nokia E 61i. It was a prized possession a few years ago. It was in colour and had a fantastic QWERTY keyboard. Those were the pre-iPhone days. There were no apps nor was there Whatsapp. Life was good! Frankly, the dead device rekindled memories of a rather lively time!

This prompted a wonder about our commentary in the future of the times that we live in now. How will the future look like? I didn’t have to go far for pointers.

For Robert Scoble & Shel Isreal are at it again.  A book is in the works. Their earlier books had held my attention and I was rather taken by their commentary. Naked Conversations especially was of great interest. Remember, this was 2006!

In a series of blogposts, Shel Israel has been publishing excerpts from the book that is in the works. The book is called ‘Beyond Mobile : Life after smartphones’

It is a startling picture of the future. Of what it will be without smartphones. They write “It will become less important to life and business and we will start using it less and less. We see a future for it similar to the landline phone of yore. Someday a decade more into the future, you will wonder why you need the device and be locked into a carrier contract for something you don’t really much use anymore”

This is tough to imagine. Sitting where we are, where the growth and dominance of mobile phones and how they have become an extended arm of sorts to our lives is daily lore. But given the early signs, this clearly is possible.

“In fact, it is moving more and more faster : more and more is happening and fewer and fewer things will not be affected”. They speak of four engines that will drive this.

a. Mixed Reality : ‘What is now VR and AR will converge into one technology, MR…By 2025 MR glasses will replace todays smartphone”

b. Digital Genies :  A new term coined by these folks to describe devices and software that use AI.

c. Autonomous Cars

d. Robots

These are in their early stages now, used by gamers and the like. There is a line in the post that caught my attention like none else. “The products that start revolutions aren’t the ones that finish them”

The earliest versions of each of these technologies are well in place. Used by gamers and other niche players. Mainstream product based application and use is a good distance away, from what the authors imagine. Yet, possibilities of what can get built ON TOP OF these baby steps is astounding. To say the least!

They proceed to talk of how the young will lead a cultural chasm of sorts. The millennials and their coming of age is but a predictable road. I sincerely hope they will go beyond this popular commentary. The idea that a classificiation based on ‘age’ alone has validity that goes the full distance is beyond real. ’Millenials’ to me is not as much age, as much as it is a ‘state of mind’. By the way, the authors have coined a new demographic called ‘minecrafters’ who follow the ‘millenials’.  I have a few of those folks in the family too!

A world where the collective imagination of every generation that walks and survives is important for our future. Not just the young by age!

I hope the authors will explore other areas. Like how the leapfrogging of technology platforms in developing economies will cause even wider chasms in society. Or for that matter, how the ever widening gulf between between aspirations and opportunities can wreck our collective future. Perhaps, how the circular economy will be of greater relevance given the finite supply of rare earth. All of these affect mobile phones and will have a bearing on the post mobile scenario as well.

Even as we await the book, these are times for us to pause and ponder on the dynamics of our lives and their interplay with technology. A future without the ubiquitous mobile phone seems round the corner. While it provides for great progress it also sets amidst us a degree of imbalance. How much more will we have to bend at the altar of invasive technology driven lives, what all components of our lives will it touch, time will tell.

All this translates to new ways of doing business as well. That it will change is sure. To what degree, however, remains a question reserved for the rookie swimmer at the deep end of the pool. Gasping for fresh air every time he comes to the surface.

Perhaps the deepest of our troubles lie in being able to navigate some of the legacy systems and mental models that we have inherited AND fly the plane in new directions.  Often times, a mere imagination of the scale of required change causes organisations and leaders to freeze where they are.

Experiments may fail, can cause much derision and not take off as envisaged. Yet, it is important to place bets, take calls and move on.  Bets that seem rather outlandish in the current context may well be what pays off in the long run.

There are several organisations that are placing big bets and making smart moves. One such that I saw and experienced first hand is TATA Tiscon. TATA Tiscon is in the business of making steel rebars. A few months ago, I was exposed to some new thinking thats on at TATA Tiscon’s marketing team.  What caught my eye was the  investment that company was making, in helping customers make informed choices about buying rebars. Retail stores fully equipped with Virtual Reality based technologies to help consumers imagine the quality of construction and choose between the various rebars was a pleasant surprise.

VR TATA Tiscon Exp

I am not privy to  its impact on sales /  purchase decision / brand mindshare owing to this technology.  What warmed the cockles was the fact that the organisation is bold enough to experiment. Especially so, given the category and the general assumption that  immediate customers may not be the ones articulating the need for such a technology.

There are several organisations that that are making this move. Most of it is a bit of a struggle and wonder.  Making these moves is a bit of walking in the dark.  But it is important to keep moving and leverage its effects over time. The value of such experiments is more in the lessons they teach than in the immediate numbers they bring.  This is hustling. The opposite of this hustling is to stay still. That stasis is death.

People like Shel Isreal and Robert Scoble can get on the roof top and holler about things that they see. It requires gumption and an energy to start thinking and acting on these as individuals and communities. We all need to do so. We have never been limited by technologies but only by our imagination.

There is a different effect of not imagining with courage and hustling. You know what that is. The Nokia device reminds me of that.

Disclaimer : The TATA Tiscon experience was part of a blogger program put together by Blogadda.com. A different blogpost had resulted then