Holy mother of innovation

'Cutting Edge' is a word used a bit too often nowadays . The frequency of it's usage has virtually turned the term 'cutting edge' into blasphemy. 

Let's take innovation into picture. Yes, agreed that the processing power we have at hand is quadrupling every 2 years, as predicted somewhere back in the last decade of the 20th century. Science is progressing at a phenomenal rate, as it has been for quite a while. But we as a society are only looking at the aspects of progress that we consider progress. What might not be apparent is the fact that even today, there are simple solutions to many of our problems that make use of nothing but pretty much forgotten tools, namely necessity and .....the brain. 

As most of us are drowning our time in applications, or rather 'apps', what we are forgetting is the application of our mental faculties in making the world that one bit better. 

There is also another mistaken notion surrounding innovation. Very often, what is advertised as 'All New' is probably just a re-branding/face-lift/fancy sticker job or just a few minor tweaks thrown into a pre-existing product/service. The mobile and (strangely enough) auto-mobile industry have been thriving on such gimmicks for a long time.

Now,look at the earth from space considering two parameters, 

(a) In terms of the areas where maximum innovation(real innovation, not the next iteration of an old cell-phone) is taking place

(b) In terms of areas where there is a regular availability of electricity and other conveniences.

Look closely enough and compare (a) and (b) and something very astounding might turn up. What one might observe is that if (a) and (b) were sets, they would share very less area in common. 

A common, but misleading notion is that we need more technology to take innovation further and further. In the process, we are developing technology to an extent that it allows us to walk upside down, The point being that we, at least as of now, have no requirement of walking upside down, but we are over-preparing ourselves for a condition where we might be required to move around upside down, purely for provisional sake.

In the process, we forget to optimally make use of our currently available capacities to solve immediate issues. Another thing is that we take this so called progress of ours so much for granted that not only do we cease to think, but we also have the audacity to consider our ability to stop thinking as a source of our vanity. 

Coming back to the earlier mentioned point (a), i.e. regions on earth most dense in terms of innovations, it surprisingly is places where people encounter lack of basic necessities that maximum amount of tangible innovation takes place. Be it an Energy problem, be it a Water problem, be it problems concerning basic infrastructure, health or anything from the long list of things that a developed place will not suffer from, a solution comes out. And it comes not from non-profit organisations that take pity on people facing adversities, not from countries trying to gain leverage through people who 'apparently' are weak, but the solution comes from the people facing the adversity. Obvious, isn't it?

Some really wise fellow said "Adversity/necessity is the mother of innovation.", just that we have mostly forgotten the phrase.

Another thing being that we don't need innovation to be rocket science all the time. There will always be more of innovation in simple solutions that stem from simple thinking, coming from simple yet extraordinary people. There will always be Sense in Simplicity...

Here's a short TED talk on the power of simple innovations.

http://www.ted.com/talks/toby_shapshak_you_don_t_need_an_app_for_that

Elusively Beautiful

Beauty, needless to say, has a way of escaping the eye. Specially the eye that isn't hunting for beauty. There definitely are things that are strikingly beautiful, and without objectifying anything or anyone, there are too many a people who, in public opinion, are unanimously considered beautiful. But what to do with all the things that everyone agrees on? It is in looking for diamonds in places no one thinks of, and more so finding a diamond in such a place, that makes one realize the real charm of life.

Coming back to beauty, it obviously, more than anything else, lies in the eye of the beholder.

And I was fortunate enough to call myself the beholder, albeit for a very short span of time.

If you look at her on an average day, for all you know, you wouldn't notice her, until you talk to her, feel the enthusiasm in her eyes..

I call her 'the Mirror'. Why? Talk to her for a while. Just pay her a bit of your attention, and you will notice your own emotions being reflected back at you. While the previous line may not make much sense, one surely needs to witness her eyes to understand what I just said. I just happen to have had the opportunity to witness her enthusiastic eyes, not once, but many times.

As far a appearance went, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary that she wore on the day, that would come across as 'striking'.

I came across a saying somewhere... It goes like this.. “If a lady is poorly dressed, you'll notice the dress. If she is impeccably dressed, you'll notice the lady”. Although the saying is slightly out of place, what I want to say here is about the way she carried herself, more so, how beautifully she did so in the simple attire that she was wearing. Nothing overstated. More than anything, what added to her beauty was the smile she wore, which she actually always does, if you notice carefully.

It all happened about a week before. I was slightly skeptical about asking her out for a dance during my college festival, mostly out of a fear of getting slapped. But we were good friends, and thankfully, we had been that way for a while now. So, for all it was worth, I took the risk of getting slapped and asked her out anyway. Thankfully, she turned out to be the forgiving type. So I (narrowly) escaped getting slapped. Fortunately, I also realized that I live in a world where people seldom look beyond ostensible details, which turned out to be good for me. So now, I had a gorgeous lady by my side, whom no one would noticed until it was too late... for the world to see what they had missed out on. And for the sake of heavens, I couldn't hide my excitement, which I apparently managed to hide very well, for she probably still doesn't know how madly my chest was thumping when she came along with her friend to meet me..

I was standing with a friend of mine, waiting for her to arrive at the venue. My friend was asking me about my plans for the afternoon. All he knew was that there was a dance workshop being conducted near to where we were standing. I was just telling him how I was planning to pick up the first single lady around to accompany me to the dance workshop. He looked at me mockingly. Even I just laughed it off as a joke. At this point, I was almost nervous that 'she' would skip out on me. That sure a hell was a stupid thought, but it was a thought nevertheless...

I was just about to turn around when she and her friend came along to the venue. Just to play along with my friend, who, I suppose was still unaware about my devious 'pre-arrangements', I pretended as though I didn't know the two ladies who had suddenly turned up.

I just told my friend to wait and watch my magical charm, as I would try to ask one of the two ladies out for a dance..

So I turned to one of the two beautiful ladies,(to My lady, of course.... ) and asked her, in my most gentle-manly manner “Would you like to go to dance with me?”...

What I was most afraid of was that she would say a “No”, maybe just for the fun of it. Goodness!! That would have been an absolute disaster!!

But what came as a response to my question made me feel like the king of the world for that moment, and for many more to follow...

For starters, she smiled, displaying all her 32, and said what sounded like a resounding “Yes!”. Man!! If life were a cassette, I would just like it to get stuck on that stretch of time between her smiling and the 'yes' coming out of her. Okay, NO! NO! NO! NO! In that case, I wouldn't have been able to dance with her.. So chuck the idea of the cassette getting stuck anywhere.

There is something so overwhelming about a lady willingly submitting herself to your touch. The very thought that your lady trusts you, makes you want to treat her to the best of your abilities. And secretly, it makes you feel so much stronger, not because of your inherent advantage in terms of pure strength, but for the sole reason that you now want to do everything in your power to keep her out of harm's way at any cost. Just like how a woman primes her senses the moment she feels a threat for her off-springs or her dear ones, there surely is a male analogy to the same process.

There were a bunch of couples who had turned up to attend the workshop. We were all made to stand in a huge circle, and exchange partners, moving all around, until we completed an entire circle to come back to our original partners. And each time I completed the circle, I was the most happiest person alive! I sure as hell hope she shared my feelings... If not that, the very least I hope is that she didn't utter something under her breath like “Oh shit! The arsehole's back!!”... which I am sure she didn't... well, almost sure...... Okay, she probably did mutter “Oh shit! The arsehole's back!!” under her breath....

So after a lot of lifting, laughing, turning, twisting and also a little what we considered to be dancing, the evening came to an end..... Happyz endingz...

I was glad for the way it went.. Now, for what I am about to say next, imagine me jumping like a nine year old girl when she gets her first Barbie doll/doll house or something. “I TOOK A LADY TO A DANCE!!! YAY!! YAY!!”...or rather “A LADY ACTUALLY AGREED TO ACCOMPANY ME TO A DANCE!!! YAY!! YAY!! YAY!!”.

Among my folks, I am considered a real brute when it comes to mannerisms. So when I told my fellows about I taking a lady to a dance, they all(okay, just my three fellows), each one of them (rascals), individually told me “Dude, please, for the love of humanity, behave well, PLEASE!”.

I always responded with a “Yeah...OKAY...”. Guess it went fine.

As for the beautiful lady repeatedly mentioned above, if anyone's wondering who it was, for the love of myself, I wouldn't tell a soul. If you ask “why so?”, I'd say “Hard luck, buddy...”.

Someone has to do it

It was kind of an epiphany that hit me in the middle of a conversation I was having with a close friend of mine. And to be true, it wasn't an epiphany, as much as I would like to call it one. What it was, was something my that friend just said while we were talking.  We both are running our own little marathons, behind our dream-trains, he behind his, I behind mine.. It's probably why we get along well. Anyway, Here's how this post started...

My friend recently started a band of his own with two more blokes, which makes them a 3 piece band, in case no one's keeping a head count. From whatever little I know of the way the band functions, from what my friend tells me, it looks like this friend of mine seems to be the most enthusiastic of the lot to go ahead with what these folks started off with, which is another way of saying that he does all the running around. Now that is a good thing. Why it is so, I know not. 

So we were chatting about the band's latest performance, and how he was happy about how things were working out. I asked him, if he minds doing all the donkey-work. As a response, he said "Someone has to do it...".

The line hit me like a wave. There's no arguing the fact that what he said had nothing profound in it.

But what hit me was the simplicity, rather the truth in what he said. 

I have a story of my own, my dream-train I am running after... I have my own team of blokes who is into doing 'stuff', which involves wading through a lot of red-tapism to get things done. Now that has it's own set of perks and quirks. But sometimes, the perks and quirks get all mixed up and I get really shit-pissed... Okay, that came out wrong.

Basically, I feel I am the only one running around to get things done, or the only one who wants to do 'stuff' in the first place. A strange sense of despondence surrounds me sometimes, to see the absolute lack of enthusiasm in my folks, who are supposed to come along and conspire along with the universe to make my dream come true. Surely it is a dream that all my folks and I share, and wish it be fulfilled someday in the near future, but these things don't strike you when you are at a low point of your day.

But someone, I don't know who, throws a stone at my head, and then this thought hits my head that "Whatever it is I am doing, I am doing it for my own satisfaction more than anyone else". And just just to prevent getting beaten up the next time I see my blokes, in case any of them happens to read this, I must also mention that, its not like they are not there at all. They do manage to cover my backside when needed. Phew!! 

As a matter of fact, the very fact that I have the liberty to call my blokes 'my blokes', itself is a constant reminder of how things eventually work out between us, somehow... Anyhow..

There is a thing about the fancy term called 'organisational behaviour', from the little I  do/don't understand about the terminology. No matter how much psychology we put into the working of an organisation, irrespective of it's size, no one can circumvent donkey-work.

As far as individual roles in an organisation are concerned, there is an article I had read a while ago. It's called 'I, pencil' written by this fellow called Leonard Read, somewhere in 1958. It is a biography of a pencil.

Now, how a pencil's biography can have anything related to the behavior of an organisation is anyone's guess. To begin with, why would anyone write a biography for a pencil??

Actually, the article could have been about anything. For all we know, it could have been called 'I, pod'. But Steve Jobs was about 6, so it surely couldn't have been 'I,pod'...

What this article describes is how a pencil comes into the form we recognize a pencil in. It all starts in graphite quarries, where all the graphite gets mined, which then goes into the core of a pencil. The quarry workers haven't a clue where the graphite will go. It is sad, although safe to say that they might not even know what a pencil is. They get payed their daily wages, go home to make ends meet, give their children a better future, which may involve buying pencils for them, some of which might have the same graphite in their cores, which might be coming out of the quarry the worker gets his daily pay from. 

The article then talks about all the subsequent procuring and processing steps that go into giving a pencil it's shape. What the article focuses on is that no single one in the 'Pencil-making' industry knows how to make a pencil from scratch. Few may know the entire chain of processes involved in making a pencil. But here's the deal. Knowing about a step, and successfully executing that step are two things, a world apart. You and I may have learnt about the equipment used for mining graphite(for instance). That knowledge, in no way, necessarily translates into out ability to execute the mining process, given that we have all the requisite equipment at our disposal. Mind you, the key word here is 'necessarily'. Of course, there are those of us who love DIY(do-it-yourself) kits!

But point here being that we need professionals at some, if not all steps of making anything.

Just to oversimplify things, the bet footballer may have no idea of how to make the best shoe for playing football. That involves sports scientists working nights off to study and understand the anatomy and bio-mechanics of the human foot. These scientists may know about the working of the human foot, but in most cases, they'll suck at playing football, because these folks had buried themselves in books when the football players were out playing.

What it all boils down to is that at the end of the day, to accomplish a task, we do not need everyone on the team to have the knowledge about everything that there is to pulling off the task. Each one standing up to what they are good at, at the right time is more than enough to deliver a happy ending. More importantly, we need to have faith that somehow, anyhow... each one of our blokes will stand up to the occasion when needed of them....

 Below is the link to the article 'I, Pencil' for anyone interested in checking it out..

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/I,_Pencil

wondering wanderer

The world seems to be moving past, as it usually does. Actually, it has been a while since the world has started moving a lot faster than it usually does. The mind  has been moving along too, albeit at a pace of it's own. It feels like moving in free space, whatever that may feel like. No pull from gravity, no push from the crowd desperately trying to get to their destination. It's hard to explain what one's feeling.. Probably there is no feeling at all. 

Or there is so much of a sensory overload that everything feels like white noise, like the sound that you hear when you plug both your ears. It's that sound, that lets you know that you exist. You know that you exist when you have a skull piercing head-ache, the head-ache, obviously a result of the white noise. the Head-ache/White-noise combo goes hand in hand. 

For some reason, you look around. Nothing really moves around in free space, you know? It feels like an endless walk, specially when no one gets tired walking, like moving through a tunnel with a visible white dot you can see at the other end. But you have been walking long enough to have covered four times the length of the tunnel in your mind, but the white dot hasn't grown one bit bigger. It's probably because you have been walking only in your mind all along. So no matter how long you walk inside your head, sorry, no progress! Or maybe you have been walking on a treadmill. Seen those folks in the gym?? Little dumb folks huffing and puffing on the same spot for hours on end, moving not an inch forward from the place from where they began. 

Never mind, thankfully, you are in free space. So until someone else too is on acid, you..... are highly unlikely to see anyone waving at you, which, maybe for now, is a good thing.. maybe not. But who gives a shit??

Watch little pieces of rock float around. If you have lost enough neurons, you will start to think you are Saturn. By the way, even though everything might sound 'Greek' right now, you imagining yourself as Saturn has no connection with the Saturn, the Greek god. Yeah, so just in case you can look into some mirror and see a big ball with a belt tied around it, specially a belt without a buckle, congratulations! You now officially have your own asteroid belt!! Wow! You must look beautiful. 

And for all I know, I must look drunk. But then, I don't really see a mirror floating nearby, so no way I could say what I look like.

By the way, talking about little rocks floating around, watch out for the ones that are really hurtling at you faster than you can move around, specially if they have a long white tail. Just in case they are hurtling straight at you, don't worry, you won't see the tail, which is probably not a good thing. And by the way, if you are wondering how to save yourself from these things, please stay on hold... Your time is valuable, not necessarily to anyone you are having an imaginary conversation with. Although it is a comforting thought that your time is indeed important to someone on the other end of the line, you know exactly how phony the sentence is, to begin with. 

If things still seem to be making sense, WOW!! you're really high on good shit! Given your level of consciousness, you might just be one of the hurtling rocks I might be trying to escape!

Okay, now imagine yourself really flying across space at whatever speed you please. And in case you happen to be travelling anywhere close to Mr. Light's speed, I sure as hell would like to time the two of you over a 100 meters. Oh! Mr. Light already has a challenger! The guy's called Mr. Bolt. Damn, isn't he good or what! Mr. Bolt has taken the world by Storm! Wow! Bolts and storms! Why didn't the Weather Forecast fellows predict any of this stuff in the news?

Oi!! We were talking about you hurtling across space really fast. Things might be a blur. But now somehow imagine yourself on a collision course with the most biggest, the most static thing in all the multiverses put together! It'll be like the proverbial 'unstoppable versus immovable' event witnessed by time itself!! Or, more so, it would make you feel good to think about it that way, Either way, you are headed for this huge black screen like thing in the middle of nowhere at full speed.... And with all your impulse, momentum speed, velocity and ferocity, you bloody well hit it... HARRRD!! Really hard!! and felt nothing...

Whatever happened to your momentum, all you can hear, rather surprisingly is still that white noise you could very well hear at the beginning of it all.

It seems the screen-like thing we saw earlier is made out of Gorilla glass 10. So no scratches anywhere, what so ever. You know why?? There is no screen!! It is just a 1mm 'thin' rectangular wire frame through which you can poke your finger through and through!! As for the screen, it turns on....

It turns grey...

Then a silver apple  appears. Observe carefully enough and you'll notice that the apple is bitten, annnd!!!! annnd!! the bitten part is placed over the apple, made to look like a leaf of the apple. 

Suddenly, a holographic Steve Jobs appears on the screen. He looks like Big Brother straight out of George Orwell's 1984, the same Big Brother, whom he wanted to defy in his legendary ad while launching his Apple Mac. He pops up to announce that what you apparently seem to be looking at is the Iphone 10.