Monday, December 13, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
Service Innovation or Innovation Service?
Service Innovation or Innovation Service- What do you want to choose from. Well, of you are thinking that these two are same and there isn't any difference between the two, give it a second thought. Many of us would be aware that innovation is the most important thing in today’s world. Not just business, innovation is much beyond it now. Few years back, innovation was considered as a major competency of the company but now it doesn't remain a competency. It has to be transformed into a core competency to stay in business. Trust me; it is not as easy as it sounds. Creating a core competency can take companies years and even decades at times. So, what should we do? We can’t lose out to our competitors just because we are not able to put in many efforts for innovation in the company.
Now, go back to the first line and read it again. ‘Innovation Service’, does this click something in your mind. Well, let me put some light on it. We all agree that adopting and sustaining innovation is a tough process with many obstacles like lack of resources, manpower, motivation etc. Big companies have been somehow little successful in adopting innovation in their service delivery systems. Service innovation refers to any new practice which an organization adopts which creates a better impact on overall service chain of the company for its stakeholders and not just consumers. However, this alone doesn’t make them win the battle to stay in market. Interacting with various managers and other senior officials make me realize they can never allocate resources towards innovation properly and other things take priority. Saying this, they also want to ensure that innovation doesn’t take a back seat in any case in their company.
Innovation service is the concept, which is actually not very new as it started off many years back but was not recognized until lately. There are few companies in the world which are working constantly and with full dedication towards creating innovation. Now, they don’t do this for themselves. They all do this for their clients. One of them is Imagintik, which is one of the biggest companies providing innovative solutions to the companies. Imagintik was started by two Doctorates and later developed it as a business house just to provide new and innovative ideas to their clients. It has big clientele now ranging from GE, HP, IBM to Kraft, Whirlpool and UCB. It caters to almost all kinds of industries in the world.
To conclude, I am more positive about innovation service in today’s scenario. If you are aware of tale of Winklevoss Brothers, who filed a lawsuit on Mark Zuckerberg, initially went to their President at Harvard, to seek some justice, believing Mark had used their idea. However, president just ignored this quoting that it wasn't a big deal and such ideas are not powerful. The President was wrong. That idea has become a daily addiction for me and almost all of us. We call it Facebook. If you have an idea, make sure you don’t just give it for free. But be sure that it is a idea worth something. Companies need innovation, it’s just that you need to realize and make sure you sell something which is really innovative and adoptable for the company. This doesn't need you be very intellectual and have excellent grades. Fresh ideas come in fresh brains and I believe people of my age have the best fresh brains around. Don’t save your ideas for future or lock them in some treasury. Use them and do that smartly. Keep going and innovating!
Now, go back to the first line and read it again. ‘Innovation Service’, does this click something in your mind. Well, let me put some light on it. We all agree that adopting and sustaining innovation is a tough process with many obstacles like lack of resources, manpower, motivation etc. Big companies have been somehow little successful in adopting innovation in their service delivery systems. Service innovation refers to any new practice which an organization adopts which creates a better impact on overall service chain of the company for its stakeholders and not just consumers. However, this alone doesn’t make them win the battle to stay in market. Interacting with various managers and other senior officials make me realize they can never allocate resources towards innovation properly and other things take priority. Saying this, they also want to ensure that innovation doesn’t take a back seat in any case in their company.
Innovation service is the concept, which is actually not very new as it started off many years back but was not recognized until lately. There are few companies in the world which are working constantly and with full dedication towards creating innovation. Now, they don’t do this for themselves. They all do this for their clients. One of them is Imagintik, which is one of the biggest companies providing innovative solutions to the companies. Imagintik was started by two Doctorates and later developed it as a business house just to provide new and innovative ideas to their clients. It has big clientele now ranging from GE, HP, IBM to Kraft, Whirlpool and UCB. It caters to almost all kinds of industries in the world.
To conclude, I am more positive about innovation service in today’s scenario. If you are aware of tale of Winklevoss Brothers, who filed a lawsuit on Mark Zuckerberg, initially went to their President at Harvard, to seek some justice, believing Mark had used their idea. However, president just ignored this quoting that it wasn't a big deal and such ideas are not powerful. The President was wrong. That idea has become a daily addiction for me and almost all of us. We call it Facebook. If you have an idea, make sure you don’t just give it for free. But be sure that it is a idea worth something. Companies need innovation, it’s just that you need to realize and make sure you sell something which is really innovative and adoptable for the company. This doesn't need you be very intellectual and have excellent grades. Fresh ideas come in fresh brains and I believe people of my age have the best fresh brains around. Don’t save your ideas for future or lock them in some treasury. Use them and do that smartly. Keep going and innovating!
Consumers or Sellsumers
Sellsumers is one of the terms that has been existent from a long time but has suddenly gained popularity across various channels in marketing. It has created an immense influence in Online marketing in affecting the mind of prospect market for a business. Sellsumers is a term originated by combination of two basic marketing terms: Selling + Consumers. Sellsumers refers to the category of consumers who would promote the brands and products of the company they like and buy from and in return they receive benefits and discounts for their future purchase orders.
Feedback has always been a very crucial source of information for the marketers ever since.The feedback of the consumers have helped the marketers to come up with new products, improved service and strong customer retention strategies. After the revolution in online media, the visibility of customer feedback increased much more. People starting posting reviews on online websites, blogs, forums etc. In today’s time, online reviews are a major consideration during the purchase process of any product. Whenever a consumer wants to make a purchase, he would check out all the reviews available online and would even interact with the people who already own that product. This communication between the existing buyers and new prospects can be a game changer for many companies. In order to keep up with this marketing practice, companies have started rewarding their buyers. The more they promote, the more benefits they receive. Heavy shopping discounts, free gifts, tickets to entertainment shows, loyalty cards etc., marketer are trying to give the best deals to their buyers which bring in more and more buyers. Going through the web, I came across a tagline about Sellsumers, which is, ‘ If saving is the new spending, then selling is the new saving’.
Sellsumers perform these things not just for the purpose of income. This is not their primary source of income.
It is just an extra add on to their income which most of us would welcome. Sellsumers continue their spending and they always remain consumers as well. This way, a marketer can gain more insights about the experience of his consumers. Whether it’s selling their insights to corporations, hawking their creative output to fellow consumers, or renting out unused assets, consumers will increasingly become Sellsumers, too. Made possible by the online revolution’s great democratization of demand and supply, and further fueled by a global recession that leaves consumers strapped for cash, the Sellsumers phenomenon is yet another manifestation of the mega-trend that is 'consumer participation'.
Google Chrome OS
Google first announced its own operating system Chrome OS on July 7, 2009, with an intention to open more fronts against the rivals, Microsoft and Apple. We all have been using Windows since ages now. We have seen different versions of it coming over the years. In school days, we used to talk about DOS and Win 93 or 95 and today we see a new type of Windows all together. Google has become the god in web world. Google has helped us in finding almost all the answers we wanted. Now, the time has come when Google has made a major move and revealed a operating system, which has been designed exclusively to work with web applications.
The Chrome project coding was started n 2009 with a motive to cater to the needs of the people who are more into netbooks and mainly manage all their work online on their pockets laptops. Realizing this, Google wanted to create an OS which makes web activities, applications smoother than ever before. Design goals for Google Chrome OS's user interface include using minimal screen space by combining applications and standard Web pages into a single tab strip, rather than separating the two. Designers are considering a reduced window management scheme that would operate only in full-screen mode making it much easier to use. Till date, Microsoft dominates the usage share of desktop operating systems and the software market in word processing and spreadsheet applications. The operating system dominance may be challenged directly by Google Chrome OS, and the application dominance indirectly through a shift to cloud computing. According to an analysis by PC World, Google Chrome OS represents the next step in this battle. But Chrome OS engineering director Matthew Papakipos has noted that the two operating systems will not fully overlap in functionality. Users should be aware that Chrome OS hosted on a netbook is not intended as a substitute for Microsoft Windows running on a conventional laptop, which has the computational power to run a resource-intensive program like Photoshop.
Some critics have predicted the market failure of Chrome OS. Tony Bradley writing for PC World in November 2009 said: "We can already do most, if not all, of what Chrome OS promises to deliver. Using a Windows 7 or Linux-based netbook, users can simply not install anything but a web browser and connect to the vast array of Google products and other web-based services and applications. Netbooks have been successful at capturing the low-end PC market, and they provide a web-centric computing experience today. I am not sure why we should get excited that a year from now we'll be able to do the same thing, but locked into doing it from the fourth-place web browser.
Google launched its first Chrome OS Laptop, Cr-48 on Dec 7, 2010. Fresh out of the box, a Chrome notebook boots up in a few seconds. After connecting it to the Internet, you log in with a Google account and are pitched into the Chrome browser. At that point, the setup is over. Chrome OS is little more than Chrome the browser. Ultimately, though the core promise of Chrome OS is familiar: it's an attempt to deliver on a suite of ideas and concepts about cloud computing and the Web that have been circling for years. Schmidt in particular has been here before. In the late 90s, in a previous life as CTO of Sun Microsystems, he pushed the "Network Computer," a diskless notebook that relied on the cloud for everything. "Our instincts were right 20 years ago but our technology wasn't mature," he said today. "This time it does in fact work."
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
China rejects India's emission monitoring plan
Cancun: Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh's proposal for a new verification regime of emissions has been rejected by China and the other BASIC group (India, China, South Africa and Brazil) countries at Cancun Climate Change Summit 2010."The sticky issue here is not so much the Monitoring Reporting and Verification (MRV). I see issue here is the Kyoto protocol issue. So if there is no second commitment period of the Kyoto protocol, there is no consensus on anything else at Cancun," said Ramesh.It effectively means that Jairam Ramesh's proposal of bringing the G-77 countries and the BASIC nations on board with the idea of having international scrutiny for countries with more than 1 per cent carbon emission has been rejected.
Many in Cancun are calling Jairam Ramesh's proposal for MRV a possible bridge between the US and China. Ramesh suggested that the solution is for countries emitting over 1 per cent of the global amount of greenhouse gas emissions to report emissions to the UN every two to three years.
The Centre for Science and Environment Director Chandra Bhushan, meanwhile, has slammed the Union Minister's proposal of international reporting and verification on domestic actions.
"I think the minister is going to far to please US," said Chandra Bhushan.
Terrorists to now carry bombs in their bellies
New Delhi: With an increase in surveillance technologies, terrorists are devising new ways to execute their plans.
Strapping bombs around the body, like a suicide bomber, has become a difficult proposition now. To get their way around heightened security, terrorists are now planning to store bombs in their bodies through surgeries.
According to a discussion on the online forum of al-Qaeda, a doctor associated with the terrorist organisation said he is working on planting bombs inside the bodies of suicide bombers. He said the method is risky at the moment, but soon they will be able to do so on a regular basis.
New York Daily Times says a terrorist can ensure the safety of a bomb planted in his body by wrapping the bomb in plastic and storing it in its liquid form.
Though the US has started rigorous body scanning on its airports, experts say bombs planted inside the body of a terrorist can pose a new challenge to any security system in the world.
WikiLeaks chief Assange arrested in London
London: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested on Tuesday in London on a Swedish warrant, London's Metropolitan Police said.
Assange was arrested at a London police station at 9:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m. ET) and will appear at the City of Westminster Magistrate's Court later in the day, police said.
Swedish authorities had issued the warrant for Assange so they can talk to him about sex-crime allegations unrelated to WikiLeaks' recent disclosure of secret US documents.
Assange's British lawyer, Mark Stephens, said his client would fight extradition to Sweden, according to Britain's Press Association.
Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, has said he has long feared retribution for his website's disclosures and has called the rape allegations against him a smear campaign.
Sweden first issued the arrest warrant for Assange in November, saying he is suspected of one count of rape, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of unlawful coercion -- or illegal use of force -- allegedly committed in August.
Last week, at the request of Sweden's Stockholm Criminal Court, Interpol issued a "red notice" placing Assange on a list of wanted suspects.
British police then asked Swedish authorities for additional details not specified in the initial arrest warrant, a possible indication that the location of the elusive Assange is known. CNN has not confirmed that Assange is in the United Kingdom.
Swedish prosecutors said Monday that they had sent additional information the British requested and that the case was being handled in accordance with European laws.
WikiLeaks, which facilitates the anonymous leaking of secret information, has been under intense pressure from the United States and its allies since it began posting the first of more than 250,000 U.S. State Department documents on November 28.
Since then, the site has been hit with denial-of-service attacks, been kicked off servers in the United States and France, and found itself cut off from funds in the United States and Switzerland.
In response, the site has rallied supporters to mirror its content "in order to make it impossible to ever fully remove WikiLeaks from the internet," with more than 500 sites responding to the appeal by Monday evening, it said.
Monday, December 06, 2010
Exercise rules to lose winter weight
They are not exercises in the meaning of hard workout, just additional things to do to speed up your metabolism:
- 5 times per week do additional 20 minutes workout. If you usually go to fitness, than add 20 minutes more cardio/aerobics exercises. If you don’t do any workout, than start 20 minutes per day. Download my free exercise videos – they are only 20 minutes of length.
- Add some walking – even 15 minutes per day can make the difference.
Latest 'Dalal Street' News
Sensex up 145 points in morning trade
A benchmark index of Indian equities Monday was ruling 145 points higher in early trade.
The 30-share sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 20,038.25 points, was ruling at 20,112.48 points, up 145.55 points or 0.73 percent from its previous close at 19,966.93 points.
At the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the 50-share S&P CNX Nifty was trading at 6,036.7 points, up 0.73 percent.
Broader markets were also in the green with the BSE midcap index ruling 0.89 percent up and the BSE smallcap index trading 0.84 percent higher.
A benchmark index of Indian equities Monday was ruling 145 points higher in early trade.
The 30-share sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 20,038.25 points, was ruling at 20,112.48 points, up 145.55 points or 0.73 percent from its previous close at 19,966.93 points.
At the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the 50-share S&P CNX Nifty was trading at 6,036.7 points, up 0.73 percent.
Broader markets were also in the green with the BSE midcap index ruling 0.89 percent up and the BSE smallcap index trading 0.84 percent higher.
Word of the Day
hyaline
HAHY-uh-lahyn \ , adjective;1. Glassy or transparent.
1. In biochemistry, a horny substance found in hydatid cysts, closely resembling chitin.
1. Of or pertaining to hyaline.
1.In biochemistry, a transparent substance found in cartilage, the eye, etc., resulting from the pathological degeneration of tissue.
AOL plots breakup, then merger with Yahoo: sources
(Reuters) - AOL Inc, undergoing a radical transformation into the king of content on the Internet, is actively exploring a breakup of the company involving a complicated series of transactions that may lead to a merger with Yahoo Inc, sources close to the plans said.
The plans are still in the exploratory stage and Yahoo has not been contacted, the sources said. The plans are also fraught with complications involving myriad moving pieces but would entail breaking apart AOL's two main business: its legacy dial-up Internet service and display advertising business.
In many respects, the latest discussions are derivative of plans contemplated back in 2008 and 2009 before Time Warner spun off AOL to Time Warner shareholders. AOL has continued to explore a break up option since the December 2009 spin off.
"You can drive the pieces into people's hands that could pay top dollar for them and create value, or spin them off," said one of the sources.
This type of structure would also be contingent on the buyers for the parts, including Yahoo and EarthLink, whose strategies have changed since Time Warner had considered these plans, said the sources.
These plans come amid a painful turn-around strategy led by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, who has quickly divested weak properties such as social networking website Bebo, and buying high profile blogging network site TechCrunch
China to have 1.2 mn HIV-affected people by 2015
China will have about 1.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS by 2015, says a government report.
China has over 740,000 HIV/AIDS patients in the mainland and sex is one of the major means of transmission of the disease.
The report, titled “Action Plan to Prevent and Control HIV/AIDS (2011-15)” and scheduledfor formal release in the first half of 2011, says that despite a low prevalence nationwide, the epidemic is rising sharply among high-risk groups like gay men and sex workers.
“Given that reality, limiting new HIV infections in the next five years to no more than 500,000 is an arduous taskand requires highly effective interventions,” Wang Ning, deputy director of the National Centre for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention, was quoted as saying by China Daily Saturday.
“We can’t prohibit the sufferers from having sex,” he said, adding that it was “pretty hard” for vulnerable groups like sex workers who on an average meet thousands of clients a year.
The action plan said during the coming five years, more targeted intervention programmes will be carried out among the risk group to increase their use of condoms to more than 90 percent.
At present, unprotected sex is “rampant” and even among those covered by intervention programmes only about 72 percent use protective measures, it said.
Efforts to educate the public should also be intensified, it said.
About 70,000 of the 130,000 full-blown AIDS patients are receiving anti-retroviral treatment provided free by the government, according to the ministry of health.
Food inflation dips to four-month low at 8.6 percent
India’s annual food inflation fell to a four-month low of 8.6 percent for the week ended Nov 20 as fresh kharif crop arrivals had a dampening effect of prices of food grain and vegetables, according to official data released Thursday.
The annual inflation rate for the primary articles group slipped at 12.72 percent during the week under review compared to 13.38 percent in the week ended Nov 13, according to data released by the commerce and industry ministry.
Food inflation as well as the inflation based on wholesale prices have moderated in the past few weeks due to aggressive monetary tightening policy adopted by the country’s central bank and robust supply of essential food items.
The overall inflation based on wholesale prices fell to 8.58 percent in October from 8.62 in the month before.
Fuels and power inflation dipped to 9.99 percent, compared to 10.57 percent in the previous week.
The following are the rise and fall in prices of some of the main commodities that form the sub-index for food articles over the past 52 weeks:
Cereals: 0.66 percent
Rice: 1.84 percent
Wheat: (-) 3.16 percent
Pulses: (-) 10 percent
Vegetables: (-) 3 percent
Fruits: 19.27 percent
Milk: 17.76 percent
Potatoes: (-) 42.99 percent
Onions: 16.86 percent
BlackBerry to provide India access to messenger services
Research in Motion (RIM), the Canadian company that makes BlackBerry mobile devices, Saturday said it is working to provide the Indian government lawful access to BlackBerry Messenger Services (BBM).
“RIM confirms that it is fully cooperating with the government of India and is enabling carriers in India to be able to provide the same degree of lawful access to consumer data services, including BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), that occurs with respect to other consumer products and services offered by other companies, including RIM’s competitors,” the company said in a statement.
Minister of State for Communication Sachin Pilot Friday said that the security agencies are unable to intercept and monitor the communication made through BlackBerry Messenger Service and enterprise services in readable format. The government is engaged with RIM to find out a solution for the interception and monitoring of messenger chat and enterprise email using BlackBerry phone.
“Voice, SMS and individual email communication can be intercepted and monitored by security agencies in readable format. However, security agencies are not able to intercept and monitor the communication made through BlackBerry messenger and enterprise services in readable format,” Pilot said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.
Earlier, the negotiations between the government and RIM were deadlocked on the issue as RIM said it does not have a master key in the system that would allow it or any third party to gain access to encrypted corporate information.
The government has given BlackBerry time till January 2011 to create lawful interception facilities with all operators offering the service.
Sunday, December 05, 2010
tree swing (or tyre/tire swing) discussion points
Normally no pointers are needed - people very readily interpret the pictures into their own organisational situation. Here are a few typical 'them and us' reactions just in case:
of marketing - add unnecessary value, add complexity, bells and whistles, embellish, put their own mark onto things, fanciful, impractical, untested, untried, creativity for creativity's sake, subjective not objective, theoretical not practical, clever ideas, think they know what's best for the customers even if the survey feedback is utterly clear, fail to consult with engineering, production and anyone else in the organisation.
of management - cost-conscious, process-led rather than output-aware, failure to understand and interpret real issues and implications, failure to ask questions, committee decisions produce impractical solutions, removed from reality, detached from customers and front-line staff, failure to consult with users and functional departments.
of engineering - technical interpretation rather than practical, unconcerned with aesthetics and ergonomics, consideration stops after the 'can we build it?' stage, lack of consultation with specifiers and user representatives, meets specification but doesn't work properly, inappropriate materials and absence of styling.
of manufacturing - production specification over-rides design considerations, a law unto themselves, you get what you're given, any colour you like as long as it's black, detached from users, specifiers, designers, and everyone else except other manufacturing staff, unconcerned with usability or functionality, certainly unconcerned with bells and whistles and added value, totally focused on production efficiency, cost and time, lack of liaison with all other departments.
of maintenance - necessity is the mother of invention, very big tool-boxes, huge stocks of parts and ancillaries, materials, nuts, bolts and all other fixings known to man, happy to work all hours, especially evenings, weekends and public holidays at treble-time-and-a-half with days off in lieu, never consult with specifiers or customer specifications, enjoy quick-fixes, sticky-tape, mastic, bending bracketry, planks of wood and extended tea-breaks, never liaise with any other departments and think management are all useless idiots who can't even change a plug.
of customers - if only we'd listened, understood, and checked with them once in a while......
the tree swing
acronyms and abbreviations main listing
A3
Any time, Any place, Anywhere. Popular texting abbreviation (ack J Lewis). The expression actually originated from a 1960s/70s Martini TV advert in which the song went: Any time, any place, anywhere, There's a magical world we can share (??), It's the right one, it's the bright one, It's (Thats ?) Martini... Other variations of lyrics following the opening line were used in more recent years (It's a new world, Me and you girl..). Suggestions on a postcard please as to the original words (and ad agency, composer, etc), and later versions. The word Martini in the context of media has now assumed an amusing additional modern meaning, referring to mobile and on-demand communications and media, and is also used as an ironic reference to someone exhibiting particularly flexible or pragmatic tendencies, especially politicians who pander to views and support for personal advantage above ethical considerations.
A2O
Apples To Oranges. Acronym to highlight any inappropriate comparison; a modern shorthand for 'chalk and cheese'.
A2HS
Age, Build, Clothes, Distinguishing marks, Elevation, Face, Gait, Hair, Sex. Acronym used by UK armed forces and services staff for identifying people involved in incidents or crime.
AAA
Alive, Alert, Aggressive. One of very many triple-A acronyms. Somewhat macho but catchy nevertheless, and not a bad rallying call for self or team in a variety of situations (visit to the dentist, disaster de-debriefing with scary CEO, public speaking pep-talk, etc.) Apparently originated in the Seal Cove fishing community on Grand Manan Island in the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick... (Ack G Myers) And by way of extending the theme:
AAAA
Association Against Acronym Abuse. (Ack P Vallee).
ABC
Always Be Closing. Traditional selling process acronym which emphasises the need to be continually moving the customer towards action and agreement within sales discussions (ack T Rowe). ABC (along with ABC1) also refers to the JICNARS demographics system of social grades classifications, and to the Airway, Breathing, Circulation first-aid reminder of what to check first in a casualty.
ABCD
Above and Beyond the Call of Duty. Whether this acronym originated in the armed services is not clear. These days it is just as applicable to the civilian work environment, and particularly the need to ensure a healthy work-life-balance. A reminder also for all managers and corporations that people who go the extra mile, beyond normal expectations, are to be treasured and suitably rewarded, not exploited. (ack T Rowe)
ANSWERS to PUZZLES
Answer - see picture right. You obvously need to hold the pencils in place, but the puzzle does not forbid this. Very rarely will anyone consider building four triangles in 3D (three-dimensional) as a pyramid. People's brains tend to stay fixed on a flat two-dimensional puzzle. | |||
Answer: slide the middle stick a half-stick-length right (or left), then move the top now unconnected stick to the opposite downward corner to make the new shovel. The puzzle is difficult because most people naturally imagine moving sticks to entirely different positions, and rarely consider shifting a stick only half of its length. | |||
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PUZZLES
TRIANGLE PUZZLE Equipment: Six pencils/pens (or six matchsticks or cocktail sticks) of equal length. Arrange the pencils/sticks as in the picture right. Now make four equilateral triangles (same length sides) using the pencils/sticks. Each triangle must be the same size, and every side of each triangle must be the same length as the sticks provided. No breaking sticks/pencils allowed. shovel puzzle
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