Pledge to be yourself

Many years back I bought a track suite that had "Believe in yourself" written on the track. I loved that! I thought it is a good message to myself and others. Believing in one's capability gives one confidence and motivation to go ahead. I remember that I used to jog wearing  that track. Some people, little inquisitive, some times would try to read the letters on the track  while I walk/run. I would steal a glance of pride and quickly wear an air of indifference, as if I was a celebrity and quite used to people's attention!
But following the rule of nature, those letters faded away after many washes and I lost the motivation to wear the track. Many years went by after that. I forgot that entirely. But memory works in a strange way. As soon as I typed the title section, it brought back the memory associated with "believe..yourself". In other words it hashes "be yourself" and "believe.. yourself" to the same symbol. Now, I am trapped! Every time someone tells "Be", my memory is going to jump to "Believe"! I am now wondering, since most of the time I am not as relaxed (read lazy) as I am right now, if my semantic functioning also changes. Like all my "be" function gets juxtaposed with "believe" function when I am not aware of these small hash errors in the memory retrieve faculty of my brain. Thinking of it, I realize that I must be doing it all the time. Being is as natural, as harmonious as nature is, 'being' means functioning as the nature has designed you, as a necessary part of it. ...But I am afraid, I instead, apply my beliefs and try to be what I believe I should be!
How stupid of me! It is like making a step jump in the beginning of a complex derivation and reach altogether a different solution and claim the originality of the proof! ..I was feeling sad..very sad..and in my sadness I started looking around, hoping to find at least one more person with same predicament as mine. It is painful when you suddenly become aware of your shortcomings and only thing that consoles you is when you find there are others like you!
So I looked around..Ah..I did not need to go too far. The Prime minister believes in good governance but his govt. loathes transparency. Our Finance Minister swears by India's growth story but news report tells that highest number of farmers committed suicide in 2010 due to their financial insolvency. News report also tells that manufacturing sector grew by mere 3% last year. Not to forget that latest observation tells that while India's population continues its growth, the agricultural land cover is going down drastically year after year. How will the nation feed its burgeoning population tomorrow?
Since most my readers are IT professionals, I reckon we also could talk about Indian IT. Indian IT honchos believe they are the visionaries, while most IT companies live and swear by risk-free cheap IT services: India cannot even claim ten percent of the technological asset that China has created in last fifteen years. Neither the IT luminaries have an answer on how India will compete after 10 years from now. "Believe" problem is not limited to top of the pyramid as always is the case with any system. Many IT managers swear by six sigma and quality process but very few of them can claim of delivering a project as planned. Many IT engineers lament about poor job satisfaction but never tread the path of building something on their own...Ah! I felt a sense of relief.. I am not alone, whole system got deformed by operating from "believe"!
It seems fairly logical to think that our first step should be to delink ourselves from 'what we believe' and link to 'what we are'. A journey from 'believe' to 'be' must start with acceptance of what we are, collectively and individually. A foundation of  honest and candid assessment of what we are would help us to recognize the malformations and build a healthy future for next generations. So let's pledge to 'be', simply and fearlessly! From this moment, let's start operating from 'are/am' than 'should' or 'ought'. Let's accept, rather than hide, every shortcoming in us with courage and grace. Let's build a transparent but integrated 'me' first. A transparent and healthy system can only be built by authentic and transparent individual 'me's. Let that be the pledge for this new decade!

Online Adverisement, Google Android and You!

We all know that Google and Yahoo showed us how to make money from online advertising. Just for the starter, 2010 Q1 recorded highest ever first quarter revenue from online advertising in US [read this]. In fact if you look at Google's result, Google's unaudited Q1 revenue [mostly online advertising] is shown to be $6.7 billion which is 27% higher than the Q1 revenue of last year. So, I guess it is safe to assume that online advertising has arrived and much money is to be made in the coming years. Question is what does it mean for you and me? Before we get there we need to understand how the online advertising works and what role you as individual play.
Online advertising works very differently than conventional advertising viz. advertising in print media and TV. Both print and TV media are non-interactive which means once the advertisement is in place, there is no direct feedback mechanism to assess how much additional business it generated. Of course there is mechanism such as TRP rating or customer survey to gauge how well the advertisement was received but that is far more indirect and passive approach compared what is possible with online advertisement.
Google and others are educating the general advertisers about this and brought the concept of pay per click which is automatically counted by the software and therefore, is expected be a lot more transparent to the advertisers. Fact that every user has an online profile, one can use that to customize the advertisement that would suit individual's requirement providing much better chance of the advertisement to make an impact on you as the consumer. I can go on, but I guess you got the gist. Just to understand what we are talking about, online advertising market is growing at a CAGR of 28% approximately in India. It is quite obvious that this growth is happening at the cost of conventional media. So what is so unique about this, right?
Well, the point is, advertising business is going through an inflection point now. In next five years new technology will take up a major share of advertising revenue worldwide and like every other technology inflection point, this also will change the game and top players of game i.e. advertising.
And this is what Google is looking forward to. Note that Google already has reached a run-rate of approx $23 billion / year of revenue and more than 95% of their revenue is coming only from advertisement. That means they are uniquely positioned to take advantage of large growth in online advertising.
A basic requirement for the success of online advertising is its ubiquity and reach of internet. And both requirements are best served when internet is available at mobile phone. Think how frequently you use mobile phone compared to your desktop or laptop. The cellphone is almost an extension of your existence today and what can be better than having a control of that very device of your own? Imagine if the advertiser knows everything that you like consciously, every place that you frequent, every little weakness that you identify with, what power that advertiser would wield upon you! And if somehow all those can be controlled by a single corporation, what power that corporation can have! It is evident why all market surveys project a steep growth of mobile online advertising in the next few years to come. With 3G and 4G, the wireless operators have already created the necessary infrastructure for ubiquitous, high-speed mobile internet. The mobile OS is the last frontier of the war-zone. Microsoft, Symbian have been looking at this opportunity for a very long time but as it is happens, the latest entrant, Google seem to be changing the game with Android. If you believe half of the buzz and market survey, Android is fast picking up as the preferred vendor-independent OS for smartphones, Handset players ranging from Motorola to Taiwanese HTC, all are bringing new product with Android OS. Many are predicting that Android is going to be the leader among all mobile OS in the market very soon.
So how would that help Google? Imagine Android as the Windows of the future mobile world and add to it the fact that your mobile knows a lot about you [your contacts, your calling patterns, your browsing patterns, your financial details, probably] and in fact is the constant companion of yours. Using these information on the real-time basis one can accurately predict what you need at a certain point. Imagine that you discovered that your bathroom tap is leaking and before you become frustrated your cell provides you local plumber's number and other details. Wouldn't you appreciate? Or it is Friday morning and you are thinking where to take your girlfriend this evening and you get a flash message on your cell about the events happening at places that you like to go! Is that feasible? Of course, it is! It is highly possible that all those information that your cell knows, the OS, in your cellphone, starts sending to a server continuously sometimes with your consent and may be sometimes without your consent. Good things like the instances that I described can be done using an intelligent software, running on powerful servers, that mines through your data in real-time remotely. But it also has its disadvantage. Your privacy is the first item on the block that carries the risk to be taken on hostage! If you believe I am being paranoid, do kindly read the following article on android strategy [http://paidcontent.org/article/419-androids-secret-sauce-googles-little-known-advertising-rev-share-deals-/]

It is you who is the end target for advertising and with the advanced technology of online advertising and mobile phone, you are at the most vulnerable position, especially if you are in countries like India where the protection of privacy is the most poorly understood [and therefore one of the least respected] topic. That means you alone are the sole custodian of your privacy and therefore you should choose the gadgets and technology very carefully to control your exposure.

India & China : race against or race with?

This is my second blurb on the same topic after last post on GDP comparison; hopefully we will find something different this time. Having compared the GDP as a whole, let's look at the breakdown of GDP of both countries. The figures below show that china's GDP growth engine is different than that of India. While China shows tremendous growth at the Industry sector, India's growth hero is services sector. China's industrial production saw so much rise that it is seen as the one of largest exporter in Asia today. Compared to that India's growth is propelled by internal consumption [IT services contribute merely 5-6% to India's GDP]. North American companies are the first to recognize this pattern and take advantage thereof. How? In this decade, many of the large North American equipment manufacturers have moved their manufacturing base from US to China [beside Malayasia] and equal number of them moved their Backoffice processing service to India. In short, it is amply clear that US is seeing India and China complementing each other here.

Now let's look at China and India's export scenario. Here we have a graph of relative size of bilateral trade between two countries. India's export to China has been lower-value component like mineral ores, cotton yarn and fabrics whereas China's export to India is more oriented towards finished goods, like electronic machineries, toys, etc. China is taking advantage of its mass-scale production capacity. Evidently the trade-deficit is huge from India [presently it stands at $4 billion]. Something needs to be done and both the govts are aware and working towards it as stated  by Nirupama Rao during her last diplomatic visit to China. India needs to find some niche in high-value export but it has to be something very different than what China has been building its strength on. But I bet both the Govt would be interested to find the complementing position that being in loggerhead. None would ignore the growing business volume between two countries.

Percentage of working population is another factor that is considered huge infleuncing parameter for GDP growth. Japan's one of the problem is its large aged population. Compared to that both India and China have a large working-age population [look at the figure below]. That undoubtedly is one of the great advantage for India [within next 15 years, India will cross China's population] and will continue to be so for next 2 decades.

As a corollary to that, India's credit growth is going to explode. As per the following data, India's credit ratio is much lower compared to China [Indians are known to be conservative people]. In other words, as the economy grows, as more and more people become economically 'confident', they will push the growth of the economy and fact is both China and India have lot to gain by complementing each other than fighting each other. In other words, the way to go forward is to race with as opposed to race against, however we dislike the concept. The latest WTO session showed that both the country understand that aspect very well.

As per the Goldman Sach's projection, India and China combined will become the largest economy bloc by 2050 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC]. They claim that India is going to be 40 times bigger than its present size.

But a lot of it depends on how the governance play in next twenty years but let me keep it for future deliberation.

A starter's comparison of two fastest developing economies

Of late my preoccupation about India has been more than what usually had been. It had to manifest somewhere in my numerous free-postings! So here is the first post on that, bit long but hopefully not entirely useless.
India and China, the two fastest growing economy of the world as stated in many recent studies, is the most talked about economy of late. We, Indians like to compare India more with China and less with our other's neighbour, however our neighbours feel we act bigger than we are. We even see some studies which suggest that in a decades, Indian economy will, perhaps, surpass China's economy. These are very confusing to my unscholarly mind and I am sure it is for many others. Easy way, I reckon, would be to start with where we stand presently.
I have compiled some data that are easily available in the net. I have picked three countries for comparison for the GDP comparison.

Annual GDP - US [$14.1 trillion] , presently ranked 1st.
Annual GDP - China [$4.327 trillion ], presently ranked 3rd
Annual GDP -  India [$1.254 trillion ], presently ranked 13rd

GDP per capita - US [ $ 45200 per person per year (2008) ]  world ranking: 24
GDP per capita - China [ $ 3290 per person per year (2008) ] world ranking: 142
GDP per capita - India [$ 1060  per person per year (2008) ] world ranking: 186

Economy Growth Rate: +1.12% Y-Y [US], +9.05% Y-Y [China], +7.29% Y-Y [India]
China has already seen double digit growth of late but it is very unsustainable. Economist believe that both India and China will see a growth of around 7-9% for next few years [with China keeping higher than India], however there are some study groups who believe China's economic growth will slow down faster than India. Without that debate, it is quite obvious that China will continue to maintain the present gap in GDP for reasonable time. But the question is will it increase further. In any case our data so far makes amply clear that surpassing China's GDP is more of  wishful thinking than a carefully studied projection.
However, there are other factors to consider. A country's growth depends a lot on how the system works. We know China's system moves faster since it is centralized. But there are pitfalls too. Since there are no opposition voice really erring policy decisions would incur higher cost than they would in India. I am not saying anything new here. Intuitively a Govt run by electoral system is believed to be more resilient in facing the changes. However China can prove to be exception. On the other hand an electoral system typically decimates to lowest common capability. India's weakness is myopic regional politics, a small bunch controlling the power at the helm and a sloth and colonial execution system. And they show their impact in the nation's growth. A simple comparison can be startling.
 In 2010 UN report on poverty a benchmark of poverty-line is defined as people living below $1.25 a day. It has praised both China and India that they were able to reduce the level of poverty over the last 15 years but what it does not comment is China has surpassed the projection of 2015 by a large margin in 2005 whereas India lags by large magnitidue.
See for yourself: China's percentage of poor people [meeting the above criteria] was 84% in 1981, 60% in 1990 and reduced to mere 15.9% in 2005. Their target for 2015 is 30%. Similar figure for India is 60% in 1981, 51.3% in 1990 and 41.6% in 2005. Their target is 25.7% for 2015 which they most likely will not meet unless Govt does something very drastic.
The enormity of the challenge can be further appreciated if we look at population growth of the two countries. India's present population is 1.18 billion [2008] with an growth rate 1.44%. Similar figures for China are 1.31 billion [2008] and 0.6% which is less than half of India's rate. China's inflation is way lower than India. It is accepted fact that population growth is highest at the lower income group which makes them go further down. In other words unless the poor is included in India's growth story, India will remain what it is, merely a potential that is yet to deliver, let alone being recognised as 'super-power'.

A photo released by Hubblesite on completion of 20 years of Hubble Telescope

This new Hubble photo shows "a small portion of one of the largest seen star-birth regions in the galaxy, the Carina Nebula. Towers of cool hydrogen laced with dust rise from the wall of the nebula. The scene is reminiscent of Hubble's classic "Pillars of Creation" photo from 1995, but is even more striking in appearance. The image captures the top of a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars. The pillar is also being pushed apart from within, as infant stars buried inside it fire off jets of gas that can be seen streaming from towering peaks like arrows sailing through the air."

The image: http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/images/hs-2010-13-a-web_print.jpg

The Eyjafjallajokull eruption

The Eyjafjallajokull eruption is the second in less than a month and has seen hundreds of international flights cancelled. These are few photos from various news agency on the volcano eruptions. Please notice the copyright label.

A useless observation

Every time I think of making an intelligent post, I land up creating a mediocre one. Instead of dreaming, I thought, why not drop all the pretense and accept that all that I can do is adding few bytes of useless text to the blog store? As the thought started sinking, something strange started happening. I was feeling sad [sad that my ego has one less thing to gloat about] but I also felt lighter!  My guilt evaporated, expectations vanished, I felt free; I felt free that I can type whatever I like without needing to find any more excuses! Wonderful, isnt't it?
So let me introduce you to one of my brilliant analysis that I did today!
General Electric or GE with $156 billion annual revenue was created by Thomas Alva Edison who also invented the incandescent electric bulb among other stuff. Did you know that he was a school drop-out and had only around two years of formal education?

Jamsedji Tata, the founder of the great Tata empire is called the father of Indian Industry and in case many of you do not know, he did not go beyond matriculation.

Dhirubhai Ambani the creator of modern-day rags-to-riches story and the founder of Reliance empire, was also a matriculate.

Steve Jobs, creator of Apple and Pixar, Bill Gates, creator of Microsoft, Larry Elison, founder of Oracle are all dropouts as we all know and today each of them can boast of something that most of the formally educated mass cannot even dream!

Let's look at some other folks who have flourished in areas outside building business empire.
Einstein, the person who rewrote the laws of gravitation was very average in college as per his personal record.
Rabindranath Tagore, the first Nobel laureate from Asia, never had any formal education.
We can find more examples but I suspect they will increase the risk of more people leaving this blog. Instead let me come to the point directly.
My conjecture is 'Formal Education system' always caters to the need for average. People who are exceptionally creative find any formal education system an wastage of their time. Like the folks mentioned above, these people must get out of the education system as soon as possible. Otherwise they risk falling inside the 'average bracket' over time. In other words a country's formal education system should never aspire to create Tagores, Jobs or Edisons. These folks do not need the system. However a nation will progress immensely if they focus on developing 'average' class better. With the world moving to an open and connected market, a state will make faster progress when its 'average' fares better than the average of other states. Let it also be mentioned that averages do not create extra-ordinary history but a nation can merely hope to have the likes of Jobs and Gates. It is only the culture of entrepreneurship, respect for fair competition and a transparent system of communication that cultivate these extraordinary set of talents to grow and the societies that promote those attributes are likely to see extraordinary entrepreneurs like Edison or Jobs.