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Intensity of technology adoption

February 16, 2011February 10, 2017 Prasad Ajinkya4 Comments

Everybody you know, will probably agree with this, that Technology can be a great enabler.

It’s one of those motherhood statements (like “Shit happens” or “Life sucks”) that arguably can’t be denied. As someone who has often taken upon himself to forge this enablement with the demands of the business, I want to take a different stand.

Technology CAN be an enabler, only if you possess the know-how of implementation and your audience possesses the temerity to bear the brunt of teething and adoption problems, then can it be an enabler. How many cases have we seen that an organization wide technology upgrade has failed simply because the intended audience does not adopt it, but merely reverts to the easily available alternative.

My mother heads the medical department of State Bank of India, she in fact is the Chief Medical Officer. She tells me that they had tried three times to implement some form of an enterprise system for their department, Each time it had failed. Why did it fail? Not because the implementation was incorrect. We can’t say that, the moment we do – the implementation partner will pull out the requirements sheet, the scope document or some form of agreement which indicates that there was no breach of contract from their side.

And that is the problem I want to point out. Technology is not a function which can run in a silo. It permeates through the organization, from the most mundane of activities like checking email, to most complex of them like implementing a Decision Support System to help the top brass in strategic decision making.

Technology adoption therefore has to be intense. So intense that it should change the identity of the organization. If done properly, it can vault the firm into the next level.

The next time someone tells me that technology CAN be a great enabler, I will tell them that if my aunt had a moustache, then she CAN be my uncle.

Mastering a Mammoth

January 21, 2011February 4, 2017 Prasad Ajinkya3 Comments

As part of my work, I am also maintaining the corporate blog these days. Sadly, the content management system (CMS) on which the blog is based on is kinda out of date. So much so that it has become virtually impossible to recreate the same environment on my own desktop.

What this means as a software person, I have to make changes and edits on a production platform. Not only does this give me the heeby jeebies, but also it makes the task a bit too tedious. Any one who has worked on an online server knows the PITA (pain-in-the-ass) it is to edit code files online.

Over the past week, I have been trying to handle this mammoth. I so miss my own agile and flexible WP 3.04 platform!!

In fact typing this blog has made me de-stress :-)

One of the great things about working with legacy CMS is that you get to (or rather have to) understand the exact workings of the CMS, you suddenly start seeing a plethora of possibilities and that gives you a sense of fulfillment.

Brand new day

January 17, 2011May 6, 2018 Prasad Ajinkya11 Comments

I am not a job hopper (seriously, I do not switch jobs at a whim), but if you look at my resume, you will notice job hops every 2 years. First was eYantra Pvt Ltd, a start-up in Hyderabad, then Illumine Knowledge Resources Pvt Ltd and now I am joining Neev Knowledge Management as their Chief Technology Officer.

Reason for shifting

Making the decision to move on from Illumine was hard. The purpose for which the company worked was noble, and the fact that you are also working for such a cause was energizing. The pay was not bad as well (heck, it was great!!). The only difference was that there was an abject lack of achievable goals.

Yes, we did some cool stuff, but most of the times that never made it to the market. In fact there is a project that has been going for the past couple of years without seeing a long term market. Every time it goes to market, the feedback is used to change the very nature of the product itself … even the target segment. It takes a very dedicated team of individuals to sit through each cycle and look at the long term vision.

Going forward

At Neev, I hope to leverage my abilities as a techie manager to boost online sales and enable other initiatives through technology. Hoping to hone my skills as a web evangelist and to experiment some of my ideas. It’s a web firm, so I am back with unfettered net access :-), so I hope I will be able to keep a stream of posts and updates!

The Difference in Perspective

December 23, 2010February 4, 2017 Prasad Ajinkya4 Comments

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 3^rd 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?

1984 to 2010

December 6, 2010May 6, 2018 Prasad Ajinkya6 Comments

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!

Move on

September 17, 2010May 6, 2018 Prasad Ajinkya6 Comments

I still remember that day in 2007. It was the 17^th of September. It was evening and I was stuck at the airport, waiting for my delayed flight at Hyderabad; making one of the biggest decisions of my life.

I had been offered a meaty role in a start-up firm, and internally had decided to take the jump. However, the lizard brain was nagging me and urging me to not go ahead.

I made two phone calls. The first was to my parents, to let them know about the switch in my life. They accepted my decision and told me that I was going to rock :)

The second was to the only man approachable and who had operated in several organisations in that role. He was and is a role model; Thomas Sir. I had not spoken to him in the past three years, yet he immediately recognised me and asked me what he could do for me. I told him my background and told him that I was thinking about joining a start-up. Pat comes his reply, if you want to work in Cleartrip, I can see … all said and done, the amygdala was quietened.

At the end of the conversation, he told me one thing –

After this, there is no looking back

I did not fully understand the depth of this. I think after 3 years, I am getting it. After that jump from the corporate wagon, I don’t think I will be going back to a large corporate. Ever.

However I am only human and when I go through a rough patch in my life, I make the mistake of looking back to the day I made this jump. The moment I do this, I remember that one piece of advice … I move on.