For some reason, I had stayed away from reading Isaac Asimov. Probably because I had seen some of the poorly done movies based on his books. I finally gave in, and started reading Asimov … Foundation being one of the first novels I got my hands upon.

The story is set in the far future (as is true with most Asimov novels), where the world (or the galaxy in this case) is ruled by an uni-polar government. The human race has advanced far and wide across the galaxy, and has inhabited many planets (25 million and counting). Technology has advanced so much that it is making humans complacent, and hence the cause of its own decay.

This macro-view is held by a visionary (Hari Seldon), and he creates a mission to set two different worlds set at the ends of the galaxy to re-build the human civilization after its fall. The story takes us through the different phases any civilization will face in its rise to power. The government structures, the role of religion in controlling the masses, the role of science and trade in conquering other civilizations.

The original foundation trilogy is very well written and Isaac Asimov shows why till this date he is one of the top read authors.

Yesterday was the world premier of the movie Singham, starring Ajay Devgan. World premier is just a euphemism to say that the distributors of the movie want to extract a bit more from television advertisements. The movie is definitely a non-stop entertaining watch, with eye-candy Kajal having some idiotic scenes, great action scenes and good sound tracks. A masala flick.

The reason movies such as Singham, Wanted (Salman Khan) and Nayak (Anil Kapoor) run at the box office, and become decent sized hits is simply that the people have become tired of the degree of corruption in the Indian system. Being tired is still different from being objective, and hence as a common man, we do not do any thing, however, in the movies, the protagonist takes on the corrupt system and by sheer force of his will (and lots of brute force) make a change happen. We like to believe in such a romantique notion.

For the past three years, I have been living in Mumbai. The city never ceases to amaze me with its variety, its vibrance and the sheer number of people it feeds. One of the threads that is seen snagging almost all the political conflicts in this place is the Marathi Manus. I think the term was coined and abused by the senior Thackeray, after which it has become the Congress equivalent of the Aam Aadmi.

Ask yourself this, how many times have you seen this ubiquitous Marathi Manus in action?

• How many times, is he given an accolade for some achievement or something?
• How many times does the society celebrate him?
• How many time does he get cited in the newspaper (and not as a collective noun)

The list could go on, but I guess, if any individual does manage to do any of the above, then that person is automatically separated from the collective identity of the Marathi Manus. It’s a socialist collective noun.

And, that’s precisely where you will see him. The morchas, the ganpati mandals and the gokulashtamis, the political party rallies and the voting booth stints, the fairs and the trains. All places where there is a sea and no scope to stand out, that’s where the collective stands out the most.

That saddens me, the fact that this term requires a collective to define itself, and will always stay around a collective. A collective which is meant to be led, and to be manipulated.

It’s that part of the year again, the time when Mumbai rocks as one, and the sleeping Marathi Manus comes out of the house to celebrate with everyone.

In case you are in Mumbai, then do consider this as a personal invitation to grace my abode for Ganesh Chaturthi for darshan (and ice-cream ).

Address – 306, Akruti Nova-A, Akruti Niharika Complex, Off N. S. Phadke Marg, Saiwadi, Andheri (E)

Dates – 1st September and 2nd September

With too many blogs, media shows and news announcements on the Lok Pal Bill, I thought I would add my $0.02 on the subject.

I confess that I am no expert on this, but neither do I want to be. I do not want to add to the voice of social passivism.

It’s sad to think that the country would require one support system to keep other support systems in check which were meant to do their job. That’s it in a nut shell.

What guarantee do we have that the Lok Pal committee will not do their jobs?

Here’s my favorite quote which is so apt in this context – Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

People who are in Social Media would already know of influence monitoring tools such as Klout, Peerindex, and Rapportive.

I started using Klout the minute I discovered it using the Rapportive add-on for Firefox. Measuring and monitoring your klout score seemed cool. Soon after that I chanced on Peerindex as well.

The approaches employed by Klout and Peerindex are slightly different. Whereas Peerindex considered the reach of your tweets and conversations, Klout seemed to focus on the richness. Both the web-apps seemed cool, since both of them gave you an indication of what and how to increase your respective scores. So I managed to hike up my Klout score from the low 40s to the low 60s. I was happy with what I had achieved, until one conversation with Sushrut at a Tweet-up made me realize, that a high Klout score or a high Peerindex score is not really the outcome.

The business model that both these web-apps adopt to monetize their influence measuring algorithms is pretty much the same. Organizations that need to reach out to the influencers and decision-makers in their particular niches can now do so … at a price of course. Peerindex for example, charges 50 GBP for identifying a single influencer in the topic of your choosing. Of course there are people who are willing to pay, but the question I want to raise is till when?

I recently read this article on the openview blog, and found this great directory of twitterati – Twellow. One simple search confirmed this, the application is a directory of topic-wise experts, whereas this might seem commonplace, what this means for Klout and Peerindex is that their premium services now seem overpriced. Why would an organization pay a premium for the same information which is available for free?

Agreed, that Klout and Peerindex do provide “perks” for influencers, but at the end of the day, the deliverable for which the organization is paying up good money is to get twitter handles of influencers to start engaging with them. Perhaps, if the engagement can be somehow integrated into these perks … but till then I am firmly sticking to Twellow!

There used to be a fine oak tree, in a lovely green meadow. Over the years it had grown to be a sprawling tree with lush green foliage. Travellers would often come to that spot seeking relief under the cool shade of the tree. As time went by, the oak had an acorn, and the acorn was of age.

The acorn was enamoured of the outside world and wanted to roll along the meadow and grow into a strapping young oak. The oak loved the acorn, and told the acorn that the oak would be hurt if it were to go away from the tree. The world beckoned to the acorn … the acorn was torn between the two paths of action. The acorn finally decided to play it safe and stick with the oak tree. The oak tree was happy. The acorn was happy that the oak was happy.

As time would have it, the acorn finally fell. It rolled a few feet away from the tree (as they say … the acorn does not fall far from the oak). The acorn turned into a small plant and found happiness in the shade of the oak.

Many years passed, and the plant remained a plant … it suffered from stunted growth and did not fully grow into an oak tree. The plant was competing with the oak for water and minerals and it was not getting any sun shine due to the oak’s shade. The plant remained a withered shadow of the oak. The oak noticed this, and felt sad … the acorn should have been a full fledged oak by now, yet here it was … a sapling living on the oaks resources.

In some years, the oak tree (now old beyond its years) fell ill and began to falter. It was fast losing its leaves, and looked a shadow of its former self. Woodcutters noticed this rich source of wood and decided to bring this sick tree down. Along with the sick oak, was also a weak sapling. The woodcutters took pity on both the trees and chopped them off.

Travellers who often passed by that meadow still talk of the oak tree … but few remember the weak sapling.

How many people do we meet that fail to find a voice when the occasion demands and find their identity?

Got to see a peek at the IT Vision document of Reserve Bank of India, thanks to a tweet by a friend. Go ahead, read it, I am not going anywhere. I will save you the effort though, I can summarize it in one word.

Hogwash.

In more colloquial terms, Bullshit.

There cannot be a more generic document which meanders around superfluously. It touches upon literally all the peripheral topics which one can bring up when the words Information Technology are mentioned, but it fails to take a stand on any topic.

I gave them the benefit of doubt and went to the Contact Us section of their website. After I keyed in a longish feedback to their vision document, when I submitted the request, I got a very nice error message (shown below)

Great execution of the vision RBI! Not only have you declared that your vision for technology is a blurred mixture of all corporate jargons, but also one of the most basic functionalities on your website is not working.

Further reading on the report informed me that a committee had been setup to create the vision document. Committees are the perfect excuses for being faceless, blameless and gutless. You do not have to take any stand and you do not have to do any work.

Good job o ye Banker of Banks!

Yes, you read that correctly. Today when I was coming to office, this thought struck me. Aren’t we all nowadays working in some commercial complex or the other?

Huge concrete towers where multiple corporates have their offices, and people moving in small “colleague huddles” from one place to the other? This is especially true in the cases of SMEs (small and medium enterprises), since they do not have enough capital to invest into a full blown facility of their own. So walk into any commercial complex and you will find hundreds of such firms humming with activity. With all the employees going about their day-to-day work … 10am tea break, 1pm lunch break, 5pm tea break … and so on. Aren’t these employees akin to worker ants then?

This tea break thing is a fascinating concept. I wonder if top managers know that tea breaks are the places where dissent is majorly expressed. They are the right places to tap into the corporate grapevine. An ex-colleague of mine used to do this by walking into offices incognito (since he was the CEO of the firm) and sitting inconspicuously in the canteen. Sooner or later some employees would come gossiping by and he would get his insight into the workings of that branch.

Hmmm … I wonder when this mode of working will evolve into a more individualistic nature?

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!