M2M Imagine

Machine to Machine communication has amazing potential of connecting the world and enabling strong decision making with the help of  collected data , imagine if my fridge can collect all the data as what all items are currently stored inside and what has been missing from regular schedule , how useful this data can be.

It may transfer this data to nearest super market who can then analyse requirement for entire area and organise the inventoy accordingly , subsequently the data will be availble to actual supplier.
In case TV can communicate with the bluetooth enabled fridge then whenever you are watching tv and there is an advertisement of a super market , a pop can appear on the side reminding you that there are certain items for which you may like to place order. If you are an airtel user , TV can remind you for recharge when you are watching air tel add , taking it one step further if same data collected across regions and sent to Airtel , then they would know what percentage of TV audience are already thier customer and what are not.

Similarly the Possibilities with healthcare and patient monitoring are unlimited and very execiting where gadgets attached to patients can communicate with central monitoring systems of health care centers and allow a proactive response.

In last decade this might  not be so realistic but in current and coming decade with bluetooth enabled deviced and sophisticated but standard operaing systems , this and much more M2M can be realised in coming future

Every One is Looking For An Idea

Its not too far when we heard idea of crowdsourcing where a task can be sourced to wisdom of crowd but  now organisations have taken it much beyond .  Instead of tasks nowThey have been doing sourcing ideas  not only inside the organisation but also from almost every one out there.

We always know that its not only our employees but also our customers and vendors who may have much better insight about our products and thier ideas can be game changers . Initially These organisations used to set up join competency and development groups with their prime customers and selected valued vendors . This alliance was managed professionaly with structured governance .

Organisation name and Symbols are only for representation purpose

Gates of their expertise are now openned to the imaginations of entire world , It started with firms like Dell inviting ideas on thier sites to help expert customer provide tips and suggestions to others for resolving issues with thier products.

Ideasourcing has taken a new shape where companies are asking how thier future product should behave , what should be key features . Technology firms like SAP have gathered thousands of ideas from SAP experts across the globe . Product like salesforce are much more Agile in implementing these new ideas to upcoming releases . even FMCG companies like P & G have come up with unique ways to collaborate with thier vendors in new areas , which can create amazing synergies , some one with good idea but no infrastructure and experience can leverage on proven expertise of P & G to materialise his ideas and it will be a win win scenario.

Today  entire world is a fertile land where every one can now plant their ideas and emerging ecosystem of Customer , producer , suppliers will ensure to nurture the best ones .

 

Facebook Friends

So now we have almost entire social circle including friends and families are available in FB . all of them see what we are updating on FB and respond to it , depending on that we have following scenarios

1. Friends who check all the updates by all people - There are very enthusiastic folks who check updates posted by everyone in their circle . Obviously they have internet connectivity across the clock from home / office , school and they are curious about whatever is going around .

2. Friends who check all the updates by selected people : - These are the users interested only in a very close circle which may mostly contain best freinds , Girl friends , boy friends and family members . They are interested in whatever their close ones doing over the net.

3. Friends who check selected the updates by all people :- These users are obviously more interested in topics of discussions than the individuals themselves , they may be interested in their alma mater , native place , a particular organisation , certain hobbies or activities .

4. Friends who check selected the updates by selected people :- These are busy set of users who have interest in limited activities from selected set of people . Such users may belong to middle to high management level or mid career executives who are just balancing the act between family and demanding work environment

Coordination - A key Skill

In some of the projects which heavily involved multiple vendors , it becomes really difficult to coordinate across teams / organisations and get the needed results . I have seen people getting frusrated and escalating things to higher ups mentioning we are not getting support / Response . As we work on these large and complex engagement models , coordination takes the front seat .


I thin it is almost an art to coordinate and get the desired response , People may have different tricks to do it . One of the tricks I have seen is aggressive attack on someone with shifting entire responsbility to him , this almost forces other person to write a fitting reply immediately . As we will agree , this is definitely not the correct way to coordinate and expect response.

I remember one of my manager used to take long time in writing mails , initially I was a bit annoyed but when I helped him in drafting some mails , I realised when he writes an email , he also takes some time thinking whether it will generate some kind of response , if yes then what and for how the discussion will look like further. In shorts he ensured his mails are meaning full with clear message and generate response.

There can not be one way to do this but we all need to find our ways to get going.

Alone but not lonely

Now a days when I step into City center U station of Munich to catch my train for office , the scene is pretty obvious , hundreds of commuters and everyone is looking down at his smart phones with intense concentration . catching up with office emails , checking profile updates , watching movies , browsing through songs , reading e books and what not.


Smartphones have not only given a new power to human fingertips but have also done this with grand style , users just love to see things happning at slightest movement of finger hence quite obsessed with these gadgets . In many cases folks who are standing alone in the platform are involved in various activtities over hand sets and very well connected with their buddies at the other side but whats more funny is even when we are in group , then also standard operating procedure is to stay busy with your phone , stay aloof to the real folks standaing beside you and submerge yourself in virtual world

It seems we have to improvise the old saying "Men is a social animal" , now its "Men is a social networking animal" . Today one wants to be left alone with his smart device and social networking sites and in those sites he is busy connecting with others ignoring real people around him

The Inheritance (Good Vs Bad)

I was wondering what happens when some leader leaves his organization for a new leader to take over , what happens when highly successful organisation like Apple , Microsoft , Infosys changed thier leadership where organisations were doing extremely well , product and service innovation was good and customer and market had lots of trust in the future of organisations .

The new leaders definitely had advantage where most of the things are running on autopilot and all they have to do is to meeti thier customers , take positive feedbacks like "Keep up the good work" and after that they can devote larger chunk of their time creating future vision and exploring new avenues for the organisations and thats exactly what market and customer (and employees) is expecting from them to take the organisation at the next level.

On the extereme opposite side there are desperate cases of leadership changes where existing leader has not been able to control the damage and the organisation is been handed over to a new leader expecting total turn around and exponential improvements.

Most of the time leadership changes will happen when organisation is in crisis , one of the example is Satyam where new leader will have a frustrated customer to face who will not listen to anything , any new plan , ideas . Over that entire market and insudtry will be looking at new leaders with an expectation of miracle . What makes it further difficult to execute plans here is highly demotivated team / employees who are no unsecured and worried about their own future .

After you ......

Buddhism deals with one of the mostcoplex topic - death , and the way of doing it is very simple imagining every day as your last day and thinking what would I do if this is my last day of life today . For an entreprenuer or an executive who is running a business succession planning should be a similar afair , specially for entrepreneur it is life changing matter to leave the organization they built from scratch , so continously they need to have succession planning in thier mind , what if I leave this company today - who will be the most suitable person to run it after me . In case of family managed businesses answer to this question is crystal clear , Children are going to take over one day and a great deal of effort is spent on grooming children on thier future role from education to th ecorrect experience and mentorship . For organizations which are professionally managed , succession planning and next line leadership is the buzz word of the day and it has been there from more than couple of decades but the success of such programs is always questionable . In very few such organization we will have a clear visibility as who will be running the show after the current leader. Consider example of GE where Jeff immelt had clear step wise vision placed for 3 prospective leaders out of which Jack welch came out as clear winner , some thing similar happened in ICICI recently where 3 strong candidates were mentored for the top post . Such succession plannings brought predictability in the business and hence no knee jerk reaction in the share market when a new leader is announced about whom stakeholders dont have any idea. However it may sound easy to say that one should always be in look out for his successor when he is in top job but thats the beauty of being in top job that you probably never want to leave it ... It is as hard as thinking about end of life ...