The world without Microsoft Office

In a discussion with a friend (and an ex-colleague), we were joking about work life in general (euphemism for mutual bitching). It seems that a lot of us are destined to work on Microsoft Office Powerpoint and Microsoft Office Excel almost all the time; be it a job in the sales team, the financial analyst team, the business analyst team … Microsoft Office never leaves us.

A shared fantasy was, what would happen to the world if Microsoft Office suddenly ceased to exist … the following are some pearls from that discussion … of course I have added some of my own, and welcome all of you to keep on adding to this list through the comments –

  1. MBAs would not have anything to do apart from sitting in meetings
  2. Corporations would realize how overly paid we all are
  3. The consulting industry would come to a virtual stand still
  4. People will actually work instead of creating documents
  5. Colleagues and teams will start talking to each other instead of exchanging documents and Track Change (Ctrl+Shift+E) reviews and Comments (Alt+R+C)
  6. Wikis and other collaborative groupware would be put to use … heck even Google Buzz might be exhumed
  7. B-schools will be forced to change their pedagogy or they will be virtually assignment-free … wheeee!!

… to be continued

GoI and Careers

When talking with some colleagues at work, I realized that they are working on a supposedly ambitious project – to categorize all the possible jobs and opportunities for people in India. It struck me that this has already been done by the U.S. Labor department; and very well executed at that. In fact that site is often cited as the basis for a lot of research that goes into the space of work and careers.

This got me thinking, if Uncle Sam can do such an awesome job of documenting all the career spaces, then why can’t Mother India do the same? A few googles and some clicks saw me come to the Directorate General of Employment & Training, Ministry of Labour & Employment, Govt. of India website. It’s in a mess … I know. A usability nightmare and it takes someone with grit and determination to make sense out of the plethora of content strewn on the website. I was suddenly appreciating content rich sites in a whole new light.

I did not start this post with the intention of bashing the government’s websites, so I will not. I urge you to go through some of the sites that I have linked in the post if you are in the IES industry. The Central Institute for Research and Training in Employment Service (CIRTES), is one such initiative that needs to be commended. It’s not in the same structure and format as the U.S. Labor department, however it’s a start. The Government of Maharashtra also has a website for employment which is a similar model to Naukri, do check Rojgarwahini out.

All in all, my view that the Government of India is not doing anything to sort out Labour problems of the country has been shattered. It feels good to be wrong :-)

Good going India!!

The Difference in Perspective

differences

I do not consider myself as a blind person.

He said this as a matter of fact.

I have seen the U.S. Open, I have seen the Wimbledon, I like to see movies … I do not know why people think that a blind person will not enjoy all these things.

The operative word is see, he uses it the same way as I do. I am talking about Ashish Goyal, who recently won the National Award for the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities 2010. He was awarded by the President of India on 3rd December.

Today, Illumine had invited him for a session and all of us got to interact with him. Hearing his story, and how down to earth the guy was touching … heck, if I had graduated from Wharton (with honors) and working in one of the sought after companies, I would’ve preened. Oh, did I forget to mention that he has lost his eyesight due to a degenerative disorder?

Yes, he lost his vision at the age of 22. But Ashish went on ahead to get into NMIMS, get a job with ING Vyasa and then get an admit into Wharton. He incidentally was invited for this session by the same professor who used to hold guest lectures for him as a visiting faculty in NMIMS.

Ashish was even witty enough to share with us some of his funny moments at Wharton. As the session was concluding, some words he said got stuck in my mind –

Sometimes it takes only a small difference from our end to make a big difference for someone.

I do not want to take the credit away from Ashish (I would have shat my pants had I been in his shoes … I almost had lost my eyesight in one eye about three years back and I had been shit scared). What he has done is really commendable. I am sure that the visiting faculty might not even have thought of this when he recommended to Ashish that he give overseas MBA a try, yet that act of providing advice and hope made such a big difference.

How many of us do such small acts of kindness without looking at the outcome?

Absolutes

When I was working as a programmer during my first job, I had a staunch position and strong opinion on certain issues, and would budge very little from my position. Even when I knew I was wrong (talk about escalation of commitment!). My family soon learnt that the best way to solve such issues was to let me on my own and let me figure out the answer.

As time went by, often I would be in a position where I was forced to re-examine the issues and take a different stance. At a philosophical level, it became easy to write-off such inconsistencies by simply saying that “there can be no absolutes” … “what is truth” … and so on of more such poppycock. In fact this was the subject of a discussion with a friend – the fact that there is no such thing as an absolute, and that the identity of a person is defined by the absolutes he chooses to stand by. These absolutes may not be universal in nature (as in, they may be subjective in nature), but they are absolutes for that person nonetheless.

A child’s mind is put in a mold through the use of such absolutes. “Don’t lie” … “Don’t cheat” … but over a course of time, the individual learns to define his own absolutes … “cheating is good as long as I am not hurting anyone” … “don’t give money to beggars” … “don’t enter the kitchen when the wife is cooking” … well not the last one (but hey, it might exist for you!!).

In short, if you want to develop your identity, develop your own opinion of things (in turn developing your own set of absolutes).

1984 to 2010

1984

We are in the process of formalizing our IT and Electronic Access Policies. In this process, often the team drafting the initial proposal finds it pretty easy to switch to the Orwellian mode of 1984, wherein Big Brother is always watching.

Although the intent of these people often stems from the fact that they desire to protect both the system and it’s users, but that sometimes requires that extra bit of control. However, it becomes extremely difficult to tell the need for control from genuine to paranoia.

Further, due to some unforeseen events happening in the recent past, these rules are doubly strict ensuring that the past mistakes of a few have to be borne by the entire team. Only to ensure that something that happens out of the blue should not happen again (and rightly so!).

The problem at hand is how to ensure that people are enabled to work and co-create with each other, but are still protected from any malicious ill will that might exist outside (and even within the system). How can Big Brother start co-operating instead of watching?

One clear method is to assume that all people are good and need to be enabled. The other is to work closely with them step-by-step and layout a simplified process and get the end-user buy-in on each of the steps. Till that happens, Big Brother will continue to exist … we are watching you!

LIONs are whores

Scratch that picture of a feline with cheap make-up and gaudy mane!!

I mean the new style of declaring yourself as a LION (Largest Internet Open Networker) on LinkedIn to say that you are open to connect with one and all. In other words, you are connecting promiscuously – a connection whore.

I am not taking a disparaging view of this, since I have on several occasions done this (for building a strong gaming network on Facebook, for checking the limit of friends you could add on Yahoo Messenger, for adding folks on Orkut left right and center, etc).

It’s just funny to note that when you say LION, it sounds like self-aggrandizing.

I am a LION!!

Instead of just saying (and people don’t do this btw) …

I am a connection whore!

Interesting to see that by a simple change in analogy (whore to LION), people are suddenly willing to declare it on their profiles. Well, for me they are still the same … LIONs are whores!