Brilliant ways to generate Ideas

I got this graphic from Futurethink and find their suggestions are great, practical, and very doable.

Click on the graphic to enlarge it.

Seven Chronic Innovation Problems

Bill Poston is the founder of Kalypso, a global innovation consulting firm. His experience has taught him that every company has its own set of challenges since they have their own history and culture, and operate in a certain way. He, therefore, came to the conclusion that while the above factors made each organisation unique, there were seven key chronic problems that ailed all of them, across the board.

He leads us through them in a webinar called: ‘Seven Chronic Problems for Innovation Officers to Address’. He has helped guide companies to generate return on innovation investment, and so here is what the expert has to say:

1.      Organisations lack an innovation strategy:  While the word innovation gets thrown around liberally in ‘strategy’ discussions, they don’t have a set of clear, growth goals that have to come out of innovation.  This starts with setting growth targets from innovation. It should answer questions as to what “we expect in terms of revenue and margin” and to have a clear idea of “how you are going to be able to deliver those returns and create linkages between investments you are making and those expected results.”  So asking questions like ‘what are your goals’ and ‘what risks are you prepared to take’ and if you are ‘going to use internal resources or leverage others outside the organisation’ are extremely vital.

2.      Lack of alignment: Since innovation is inherently cross-functional, there has to be buy-in from all business units and functions involved. Poston suggests it’s important to ‘understand the plan and communicate intent’. He has seen this lacking across R&D budget allocation, technical and commercial functions, marketing. He says all teams tend to undervalue the contribution of each other. A successful manager has to be able to get everyone on the same page and make sure the strategy gets implemented.

3.      Overloaded pipeline: He has seen budgets go up but the headcount has remained stagnant. So while there is money and hence, the expectations go up for what more can be done, but the ability to deliver hasn’t improved. He feels this “problem is so pervasive that it has become a normal mode of operation.” Research shows that pipelines should be loaded at 80% of the capacity, to give people breathing room to innovate and understand new concepts that may not have been given official sanction. He has seen companies that function well at a 110% level too. But at 200%-300%, it’s just too overloaded. 

4.      Rampant incrementalism: The willingness to assume higher levels of risk for higher levels of growth is very rare. Product portfolios are filled with small, low risk initiatives that have low returns waiting at the end. He said most product innovations are “minor packaging and labelling tweaks that don’t really affect the substance of the product. They may be line extensions which while being nice, are probably unlikely to move the needle on margins, sale or share.”

This problem has got worse in the last 10 years as a result of the financial crises and the short-term nature of the investment horizon.  Poston said, “The irony is that a low-risk portfolio is actually a giant risk to the viability of an organisation.” Such organisations are going to be overtaken by an upstart who disrupts the market.  So allocation of budgets over a mix of high and low risk projects in a portfolio, is a wise move to make.

5.      Unclear accountability: Have a chief innovation officer on board to manage things. He’s got to handle things that need to be done as a team. If accountability lies with the CEO or the chairman of the board, which is normally the case with many organisations, then these men/women are not going to be able to dedicate time from their busy schedules to look into details of every innovation project happening around their company. So the ideal person is one who is comfortable with both the commercial and technical aspects of the innovation business.

6.      Short-term orientation:  If an organisation’s horizon is short term, then it’s very difficult to look at long term initiatives. So an organisation needs to have executives who “elongate the planning horizon and develop a long-term investment view of the innovation priorities.”

7.      Lack of skills:  This is sort of like the overloaded pipeline situation.  There is a lack of key, technical and commercial skills, and people have not been hired who could do more high-end jobs for a while, at most organisations. This downsizing is affecting innovation because critical skills were not developed and in many cases, were not even identified.

These problems are equally present in both – small and large companies, and across industries. So everyone is equally laidback or confused about their approach to innovation.  Finally, Poston believes that revenue projections for a big idea need not be looked into in the early stages of the product cycle. He said, “Any revenue projections that are far out (in terms of time horizon) needs to be discounted by the potential of the organisation to actually deliver them.”

Graphic is from the webinar. This was written for Beyond Jugaad.

Digital Ethics: How Not to Mess Up with Technology

With innovation getting so much airtime in recent years, what is the consensus on how all that innovative technology is being used? To get some perspective, Gartner (a consultancy) hosted a webinar put together by their VP of Research, Frank Buytendijk, which debated Digital Ethics. What is Digital Ethics anyway? Buytendijk defines it as “A system of values and moral principles for the conduct of digital interactions among business, people, and things.”

He realises that most people go along with the ‘guns don’t kill, but people do’ school of thought. Similarly with technologies, it is people who are putting it to wrong use, so the responsibility should lie with them.  He, however, stated that technology has a “moral imprint”, even though it may have been created to solve a certain and usually common-place problem. So he feels that the innovator/s should be responsible for the unintended use that his/her invention is put to.

He used the example of TomTom, which is a bi-directional navigation software that people use in their vehicles. It gives data about traffic conditions as well as where the driver is at any given moment (in relation to the traffic congestion). It does aggregate and share its subscribers data with whoever pays for it. But the data shared is anonymous. The buyer of the data doesn’t know who was driving where, at a particular time of the day.

Even such ‘cleaned up’ data has its uses. It is being used by the Ministry of Infrastructure to map out where its own road-repair works are ongoing, and whether this is further causing traffic snarls. This turns out to be further value addition for TomTom users – even if indirectly. Another user of this data is the traffic police. They analyse the data to monitor speeds on various stretches of road. In doing this, they can plan speed traps to make drivers slow down and drive carefully.

So he asked, is this a good or a bad thing? Actually, both customers of the service and the media made a hue and cry, along the lines of ‘big brother is watching’ scenario, when it came to cops being given access to the data. TomTom’s share price fell and they had to rewrite their terms and conditions – to analyse their data for traffic jam patterns…and nothing more.

The reality is that ultimately, one cannot undo knowledge and pretend ignorance of the unexpected consequences of technology. Buytendijk suggests that monitoring is required. Here’s a framework to help you decide whether you are going to be indifferent or take a stand:       

• Black Hat: Is your main goal to make a buck. There is no place for ethics in business.
• Grey Hat: You just want to do your job and avoid an ethical discussion. If and when pushed into one, you make it up as you go along.
• White Hat: You think through the ethics of technology. Ethical responsibility outweighs business responsibility. 

Which category you want to belong to, is entirely up to you.

Buytendijk does agree that the organisation you work with has to take a stand, but since an organisation is a collection of people, it has to start with someone who has to initiate the ‘ethics’ discussion.

In a sense, just like a good idea, even taking an ethical stand does begin with an individual…and then spreads out to others.

Graphics are sourced from the webinar: Digital Ethics: How Not to Mess Up with Technology. This was written for Beyond Jugaad.

Communicate your way to Success

Do you want to know the secret sauce that can improve your career? Communication. If you do it well, you have a chance to make an impact that will help propel you to success. Feeling nervous is normal, and Kristi Hedges has shared the secret of how to deal with it. (See graphic.)

She is a Senior Leadership Coach and Author of 'The Power of Presence' and she has done extensive research to come up with these five criteria that makes for a compelling communicator.

1. Presence: She suggests this is the basis for everything. It should also come from within and not be a "superficial fix". Kristi says this quality is when a person is able to connect with others and inspire them. It's not about assertiveness or charisma. There is no point in showing up pretending to be someone else because no one can sustain that and people can see through it. So to make sure your presence is all about 'You', it has to be intentional, individual, and inspirational.
You could ask these three questions and pay attention to the answers you get:
- What do I want my presence to convey?
- How do I want people to feel?
- How do I need to show up as a messenger?

2. Buy-in: You need to work with a team/s and to do this, you'll need cooperation from everyone. The usual approach to get people on board is describe the project and demand they help. Kristi calls this the 'describe and demand' tactic. The better one is what she calls the 'Dial in' approach.

This tactic works when you take your idea out to people when it's not "fully baked". You describe it and then invite comments on it. Then acknowledge their feedback and then leverage that to fine-tune your own original idea.

3. Executive Briefing Skills: This is about presenting ideas confidently to senior management. Kristi suggests some good ways to get good at this skill. (See the graphic.) Also check out the webinar to see her suggestions on how to handle a difficult Q&A session, if they come up, at the end of a presentation.

She suggests asking the other participants if they feel the same way about a question that has been asked. So throw the question open to the audience. Another way to handle this, is to ask for time and people usually give it to you, when you are discussing new ideas/proposals anyway.

4. Virtual Presence: There are a lot of teams that now work virtually. And this is where issues pertaining to working 'virtually' becomes important. So to get people moving and pumped about what is expected from them, on those boring conference calls, (where most people are likely to be napping rather than engaging with others), you need to bring in energy, humour, and some improvisation to this. Also, keeping a lone ranger handy, to ask all the unwanted or unasked questions will help.


5. Feedback: You need to ask for it and give it. Though many companies are moving to asking for this "in-the-moment" and in a "proactive" manner, rather than a hindsight version of it.

So if you want to give and/or get good, workable feedback, Kristi suggests that you can go with giving constructive feedback. Or don't give any at all. It should also be given with positive intent. She emphasized that the quality of the feedback (whether receiving or giving it) depends on a person's presence.

Yes..it truly begins and ends with You.

Graphics are from the webinar. Click here to watch it: Communicate your Way to Success

Trust: Missing in action where it counts

Whom do you trust? That's a big, loaded question. And at least one organisation has been putting out a Trust Barometer for 14 years now. Edelman has looked at 27 markets globally and checked for 16 attributes. While the report is spread over a few links that I think you should look at - the findings are disheartening, and not surprising.

- CEOs and government leaders were at the bottom of the 'Trust' list. Academics and experts got far better ratings than them. Obviously, those fat salaries aren't fooling anyone.

- BRIC countries suffered from a trust deficit. India, China and Russia came out even worse than Brazil. Countries like Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and Canada were rated highly.

- Small and medium enterprises won over government ones all over the world. In Asia, big, publicly traded companies scored higher over state enterprises.

- The technology sector was most highly trusted. Followed by automotive, food and beverage, and consumer packaged goods. Media and banking didn't make it highly on this list.

- Businesses were considered to be under-performing on high priority attributes like engagement and integrity, and performing well on low priority things like operations.

Well, this is some sort of guide for businesses to look at and correct their actions as they go along, if they want to. I'm hoping they add information about trust issues in the workplace in future studies. Along the lines of how to spot untrustworthy people? Or how to deal with untrustworthy people (the top 5 successful strategies) etc. After all, these things matter to me on a daily basis, at any place of work and in life, than the macro issues.

If you are like me, and know more untrustworthy people than you would like to know, then you'll look forward to such an index too.

Read more from the report here: http://www.edelman.com/insights/intellectual-property/2014-edelman-trust-barometer/trust-around-the-world/

Will Big Data solve your business problems?

I saw a webinar on Big Data and it was certainly educational and informative. The words 'Big Data' is meant to emphasize the sheer volume, variety and velocity of the data now available to businesses. But one particular slide stood out, while the presentation was being made. Here it is..

1. The table shows what each industry's big problem areas are, and how Big Data will, hopefully, help address them. So media and communications firms (37%) want to use it to enhance customer experience, 41% of the insurance sector wants to do the same and 40% of the retail industry has the same plan.

2. A fairly huge 42% of the education sector wants to use all that data to improve process efficiency. Healthcare (40%) and transportation (38%) are the next two sectors which wants to do the same thing.

3. Surprisingly, when it comes to using data for introducing new services or business models, the transportation (31%) and education sectors (25%) beat even the services sector (24%) and retail sector (8%) hands down.

4. All that data should help with better and more targeted marketing, and that's just the expectation of the media (21%), retail (31%), and banking sectors (21%).

5. How about cost reduction? The top three sectors are education (17%), government (15%) and banking (13%). Well, the latter two sectors can start by trimming salaries and keeping them at a more realistic level!

6. Predictably, the banking sector (11%) wants to look into improving risk management and so does healthcare (10%). But again surprisingly, the insurance and transportation sectors seemingly don't want to do anything about it. Even manufacturing is at a low 5%.

7. On regulatory compliance, the banking (18%), healthcare (10%), and government (8%) sectors want to get proactive.

8. Monetising information is something that is a top priority for the government (8%), services (8%), and the media (5%) sectors. Banking is at 3% and for retail, it isn't an issue. (Really? Then what's all that tracking with cameras and apps all about??).

9. Enhanced security capabilities is an issue for the government sector (12%) and both banking and media sectors tie at 5% each. It doesn't seem to worry the retail and manufacturing sectors at all.

Let's hope all this Big Data usage makes businesses more efficient and profitable, and it isn't a one-time fad that everyone is latching on to, in a half-hearted way. I don't feel just having all this data on your hands will help solve a problem. You need to be able to make sense of it too, and then use it to put together a coherent, workable strategy. The webinar states this too.

To see the webinar, click: http://www.gartner.com/technology/topics/big-data.jsp and here's another one that you should see too: 'Making Big Data Actionable: How Data Visualization and Other Tools Change the Game': http://stream1.krm.com/Mediasite5/Play/31ea89ff1cff47bc9271f4e6d2b33f801d Reading this whitepaper might also help: 'Product Development in the Age of Big Data: What you Need to Know' or watch the webcast here: http://innovationexcellence.hs-sites.com/big-data-new-product-development

How some pros get their marketing right

I get mailers and newsletters, and pamphlets in the snail mail..and just about every attention - seeking communication (and downright annoying ways to get me good and mad), about so many services and products. I do want to know about all the fascinating things, every business has lined up for me to spend my money on, but I'm usually not excited about the way it's presented. Also often, I'm not sure what value they add to my life.

Now what do I consider great advertising? Here are three that I know make the cut with me, and I'll tell you why.

Perfect match of Disney princesses with gorgeous engagement rings, which would sentimentally turn on many women.

BodyShop's mailer has this in it, which appealed to my 'conscientious consumer' core. (Click on image.)

A Pepsi commercial that rocked because it showed empowerment, even if it is selling something as lightweight as a soft drink.

So if you marketing types want to impress me, then get some things right. Make the message your sending across to me, resonate with me. Let it be about my personality and aspirations, and not just about my wallet. I must say that Flipkart and CaratLane do this well. The former will actually see the things I browse and suggest others that I might like. So, when it comes to books, I end up picking titles I would never have noticed otherwise.

CaratLane has mastered the art of wooing customers really well, and I've said this in two other posts too. (Read them here: Eternal words that make you feel cherished! Words that could be great pick-up lines! and CaratLane: A shiny, classy online beacon). Take a look at their latest e-mailer.

The rare great exception in the financial services sector, has been the Professor Simply Simple series which is the brainchild of Tata Mutual Fund. They make boring financial and economic facts come alive.

May be, these examples will make you sit up and take note of what you are doing wrong, at such great expense!

Indian & US startups: Not an even playing-field

There are startups popping up almost every day, and of every kind. But we are nowhere near to being as fertile as the US ecosystem. I found an interesting graphic showing the huge gap in population numbers-to-startups ratio.

So yes, the US beats us hands down but it's pertinent to point out that:

1. Their manufacturing sector is almost non-existent and startups are filling in the gap of providing employment to people and revenues (taxes) to their government. Therefore, they are encouraged and things like rules and regulations are made as butter smooth as possible. In India, it's the other way around at the moment.

2. Quantity doesn't equate with quality. So having large numbers breathing in India doesn't mean all of them will have brilliant ideas. Not because they can't think. But because they are all not educated enough to execute ideas. With a majority of India's population living in villages on meagre farming incomes or daily wages, education isn't considered a priority...surviving is.

If we switched populations around, I think you'd see the same disparity. At the end of the day, everything is about being given the opportunity to flourish and do your best. And if your denied that, then it's not an even playing-field at all.

Anyway, for people who are going down the startup route in India, here is a tool that you can use to validate your idea "without wasting time or money": http://www.javelin.com/experiment-board.html

Eternal words that make you feel cherished!

I got a card from CaratLane with these lines...they were lovely enough to share.

"I'm gonna tell God everything"

Lately, I've chanted this line to a lot of my male friends, that "their gender has made this world an unsafe and unfair place for everyone else but themselves." Except when they are at the receiving end of such behaviour from other men, or through their own sheer stupidity, I don't think many of them even notice or care because normally status quo suits them just fine. Usually when others are getting hurt or being trampled over, or killed, it doesn't pinch them.

But I suggest, they take a look at this picture. Some of that smug nonchalance might get wiped off because this innocent little boy is just the perfect example of what I have been saying all along. And look what he has threatened to do!

A lot of you men (and any women who happen to be like you) deserve to get some special attention from God, for this kind of atrocity, and a lot else.

- For the everyday kind of 'emotional atyachaar' that you put people through, when you live or work with others.
- For the 'chuna lagaoing' that you do in the name of dating (and marriage). When you don't and won't conduct an honest relationship. How you expect your hollow relationships to work is anyone's guess.
- For the ass-licking (and the cheap office politics) that you indulge in, to climb up the corporate ladder, when you have neither the abilities or the intelligence to become successful on your own merit.

I'm only sorry that a little kid had to die to take these overdue messages to God.

(Here's a video dedicated to the child that Sunny sent me) 

                                                         
I also found this graphic that lists monetary compensation, country-wise, for victims of armed conflict. Hope this helps someone.

India's real estate developers have got it badly wrong

I've always wanted a home of my own. Not my parents' place...but my own pad. As things go, the home I was born and brought up in reflects my parents taste and restrictions. It's in a very convenient location though, and where now flats are priced in crores as a matter of routine. Even my parents were surprised at this development a few years ago..but then after Nariman Point, this area is the newly minted business district of Mumbai. If gossip among shopkeepers is true (and all of them here are part-time real estate brokers when they are not being fruit/veggie vendors, grocers, tailors etc!), then atleast three 5-star hotels are also likely to come up in Prabhadevi.

So keeping all of this in mind, homes are, ironically, not as comfortably priced within the reach of upper middle class Indians anymore. They are outrageously priced and a lot of people I grew up with who are married, are living with in-laws. Where there is an only son/daughter, then ofcourse there is no need to buy a home of your own. These lucky people can just wait to inherit, which is exactly what many are doing. Meanwhile, they camp out of rented homes within India or abroad. This comfort zone is just not available to someone like me with two younger siblings.

Knowing this, I've always been monitoring real estate prices (and news) and have noticed not only how they have skyrocketed, but also how skewed the demographics have become in the city. People who came to Mumbai and squatted all over the place on pavements in upscale areas, are now being given homes by MHADA because developers can claim extra floor space index (FSI) when redeveloping surrounding properties that they have acquired. This takes care of the eyesore that these slums had become..but it also makes flat owners of people who were, until yesterday, stealing electricity from the public light poles. And everyone knows, that these people have figured out how to earn money from their flats while they go back to living in slums somewhere else.

I can't believe real estate developers in India are this foolish - to keep giving flats to the same people in different parts of Mumbai..but then what if they choose to ignore doing this? If they are watching out for scamsters, then good for them because they want people like us to pay through our teeth, for their expensive apartments, when our 'poorer' next-door neighbours are getting it free of cost. Have they realised how stupid this sounds? Why would I even want my driver/peon/servant as a neighbour in the first place? All egalitarian big talk aside, even Shabana Azmi wouldn't want slum-dwellers as her neighbours. She just wants them to be taken off pavements and given proper homes.

                                                             Types of Fraud

I don't believe these crazy prices are justified. The infrastructure in Mumbai takes two steps forward and four steps behind, and no one is fooled about this being progress. I agree that cost of land has gone up but then builders pad up everything else. When they can form a legal cartel (like OPEC) and negotiate better steel, cement, glass (i.e. raw material) prices, they work in competition with each other. Then they construct ever taller buildings with exorbitant price tags to it, and expect all of us to come running to them with cash in our hands.

I recently came across a report called 'Fighting Fraud in Construction', which talks about this in detail. And the report very clearly states that real estate developing firms are the ones who should be taking the initiative to curb fraud, bring down their cost of doing business and pass on these benefits to us. How many of them in India will do it, is anybody's guess.

The report states steps that employees of real estate development firms need to do to watch out for bribery, fake billing, corruption etc, and also how senior management needs to back them up. Whistleblowing should be encouraged and also done discreetly.

But we can vote with our wallets too. We can refuse to buy their overpriced apartments and look out for resale homes. Or stay in rented ones. After all, if you customise a place enough, it could pass for your home. Just don't stoop to renting from a slum dweller. Those homes were given to these people to live in and not to make money out of, so go ahead and report such people to the police.

Graphic is from the report. Read the report here and pass it on: http://www.grantthornton.co.uk/globalassets/1.-member-firms/united-kingdom/pdf/publication/2013/time-for-a-new-direction.pdf

'Committed': All things Marriage in a nutshell

I've just finished reading an Elizabeth Gilbert book, and it's not 'Eat, Pray Love' but the sequel 'Committed'. While the first book didn't interest me because I didn't want to know how she overcame her depression (a result of her horrible divorce). While it's fine to share your coping mechanisms with the world, I know from experience that you have to come up with your own strategies in the first place. What works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another.

But what caught my eye about 'Committed' was the tag line beneath the title: 'A Skeptic makes peace with Marriage'. Well, that certainly got my attention because I'm a huge skeptic and truly think marriage is overrated. And so did this author who was prepared to just live-in with her lover (Felipe) forever. But that's before the Department of Homeland Security decided that they should get married if they ever wanted to live in America together. It was either that or living abroad. So she's forced to contemplate marrying this man, and the book is a result of a fair amount of research done on the subject.

I liked the research because it was well written and confirmed my fears. Women indeed, don't get the best deal out of a marriage. Their life span shortens and if they are working, they then tend to lose 7% off their payscale. The last fact itself seemed unfair to me, considering that we don't get paid well to begin with, compared to men. So, to know that after marrying one of them, I'm likely to suffer in this way, has certainly not made marriage any more tempting in my eyes.

But the book was written so the author could work out her kinks about this issue..just like 'Eat Pray Love'. And towards the end, she does get married. What works for her is that she does know Felipe when she's put to the test. She traipses through South-east Asia for around a year with him, while immigration lawyers sorted out the mess. They lived out of dinky hotel rooms while she wrote this book and read up on the research. And the result is a must-read. I won't say I'm less skeptical now about marriage than I was last week (when I hadn't read the book) but then she does make a fairly compelling case for why it endures, in every society and culture in the world.

At the moment, I don't have her kind of border-security problems but neither do I know a Felipe. This man is 17 years older than her, divorced, with two grown-up kids (Zo and Erica who live in Australia) and she meets him in a romantic place like Bali. And he does make statements like: "A woman's place is in the kitchen. She's supposed to sit there with her feet up, enjoying a glass of wine, while watching her husband cook." And he's the one who cooks their wedding lunch, across two days of love and labouring over it. So he isn't just a glib talker but actually does know (and do) what he's talking about. Tell me, who wouldn't like this man?

He's also Brazilian, so may be I was born in the wrong country to begin with!

Sexing up Women - Part 2

I wrote an earlier post about men sexing women up for selling everything - from cars, shaving creams to coffee. Read it here Can men do anything without sexing us up? So when I saw this ad, I just had to put it up and see if people could spot what these gorgeous people are selling. And the fact is, they are selling something as mundane as forks and spoons! Yes, this is true and I haven't made it up. Just look at the ridiculous way the woman is holding up a spoon, so she can wear lipstick while looking at her reflection in it.

And just a few months back, people were making such a ruckus about mannequins displaying lingerie. Seriously, people were writing editorials and articles for and against a topic which was a no-brainer. Victoria's Secret positions live models displaying lingerie in their New York storefront windows. And while we don't do anything like that in India, we have enough celebs showing off so much skin anyway, that almost nothing is left to the imagination.

One of the more intelligent ones, Gul Panag, wrote a column in Indian Express and she retweeted every bit of praise about it, sent to her by her fans and hangers-on. I read her column and she sides with her maid and her Bihari Man-Friday in disapproving this kind of lingerie display. I was surprised to read her point of view and I said so to her. After all, everyone has the option of looking away, if they don't like to see something..don't they? I told her that male specimens especially would do the exact opposite. They will ogle even though they can't afford the stuff, and then ofcourse pretend to frown at all of this. Ms Panag never retweeted my opinion.

Then a few days later, I happened to be at Oxford bookstore and was browsing through the magazine racks. And there was Ms Panag on the cover of a magazine in bridal wear. The choli of her outfit was so low- cut that she was literally popping out of it. I don't know many brides outside of a Hindi movie who would dress like this. And certainly didn't expect it from a person who was against plastic mannequins from displaying lingerie. But money is money..and we all know that celebs like her make tonnes of it just doing these kind of photo shoots, especially when movie roles are few and far between. I've posted that magazine cover picture from her Twitter profile itself, so take a look. 

And yes, I made a point of asking her about this on Twitter too. I asked her how is it okay to write that kind of article and then pose for this kind of picture? Well..no answer was forthcoming. I guess skin shows by live models are fine but mannequins are objectionable! 

For that matter, Indian women as a rule, don't go around with their cleavages hanging out of even a sari blouse. Only these showbiz-Page 3 types do it. They help men sexualise us, as if they ever needed help with this to begin with! Well to each his/her own, but preaching one thing and practicing another is not on.

Holistic healing for the mind, body & soul

In today’s ambitious target and deadline driven work scenario people have little time for dealing with disease and health related needs. Modern medical practices combined with allopathy certainly are a boon to harried patients, but more and more people are looking at alternative therapies for healing everything from the common cold to cancer to failed relationships. Holistic healing is the new buzzword among health tourists – a term used to describe avid searchers for wellness.

“Chronic lifestyle diseases, the non-infectious ones, are on the rise, and mainstream allopathy has diminishing returns,” says holistic health coach and yoga-meditation teacher Nilima Bhat, explaining the demand for alternative therapies today. Illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, migraines and blood pressure point to the devastating damage stress can wreak upon the body’s immune system which leads to a breakdown of the mind-body-spirit. There are many full-scale medical systems around the world that offer alternative therapies to rejuvenate mind-body-spirit. 

Nilima for instance draws on therapies as diverse as ayurveda, Chinese and Tibetan medicine, hypnotherapy, EFT, Hawaiian Ho’oponopono, family constellation, and her signature cellular healing meditation. These therapies can help relieve chronic conditions like allergies, body ache, joint pains etc which can affect the quality of a person’s life, her ability to hold a job, and her financial and emotional well-being. “Most holistic healing therapies deal with the imbalances in our life-force energy, also known as prana or chi. When there is well-being there is a balance in our energy body. A lack of energy - due to emotional/mental stress or other factors - leads to illness. This shows up first in our energy body or aura, and ultimately manifests itself in our physical body as illness,” says Kapila Ramakrishnan, holistic healer and sound therapist.

Here’s a bird’s eye view at some alternative healing therapies:

Pranic Healing

Prana is a Sanskrit word that means life-force. This invisible bio-energy or vital energy keeps the body alive and maintains a state of good health. Pranic healing was developed by Grandmaster Choa Kok Sui. This technique utilizes prana to balance, harmonize and transform the body's energy processes. It is based on the fundamental principle that the body is a self-repairing living entity that possesses the ability to heal itself. The healing process is accelerated by increasing this life-force that is readily available from the sun, air and ground to address physical and emotional imbalances. Healers use their hands or sometimes a quartz crystal to scan the energy body, and a saltwater bowl to dispose of the diseased energy. Since pranic healing does not require touching the physical body it can be done across cities and countries if required.

Reiki

The word ‘reiki’ is composed of two Japanese words - rei which means "God's Wisdom or the Higher Power" and ki which is "life-force energy". So Reiki is actually "spiritually guided life-force energy." This energy is channeled through the entire body and works on the mind, spirit and emotions of the afflicted person. The treatment, administered by placing the hands on the affected part, feels like a wonderful glowing radiance and has many beneficial effects which include a feeling of peace, security and wellbeing. 

Reiki can help alleviate the side effects of drugs and helps the body to recover from medication after surgery and chemotherapy. It boosts the immune system, increases vitality and slows down the aging process.

Colour Therapy

This aids healing by directing the recommended color’s wavelength and energy at the affected area of the body. The energy relating to each of the seven colors of the spectrum - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet - resonates with the energy of each of the seven main chakras/energy centers of the body. Red relates to the base chakra, orange to the sacral chakra, yellow to the solar plexus chakra, green to the heart chakra, blue to the throat chakra, indigo to the brow chakra (sometimes referred to as the third eye) and violet to the crown chakra. 

This therapy works when a colour is absorbed by the eyes, skin and our ‘magnetic energy field’ or aura; the energy of every colour affects us on a physical, spiritual and emotional level. Every cell in the body needs light energy - thus colour energy has widespread effects on the whole body. There are many different ways of applying this therapy including solarized water, light boxes/lamps with colour filters, colour silks and hands-on healing.

Sound Therapy 

This uses sound vibration to help correct an energy imbalance and create a deep sense of peace and well being. Research shows that sound waves can produce changes in the autonomic, immune and endocrine systems of the physical body. Says practitioner Kapila, who uses sound therapy as part of other wellness therapies like past life regression, “Like pranic healing or reiki, sound therapy lets sound energy blend with your energy body through harmonic vibration/sound, and helps harmonize the imbalance in the energy levels. It helps remove energy blockages, enhances areas where there is low energy and generally helps achieve a fine balance of chi.” 

Patients have to lie down, eyes closed, on a hollow wooden bed fitted below with 50 finely tuned strings. As the therapist skillfully plays on these, patients are imbued with the deep vibration of pure, tuneless sound. The net result is a state of deep relaxation which removes blockages, promotes healing and finally wellness.

Yet, as Nilima points out, it’s important to consult a holistic health coach to pick the right bouquet of therapies. No one system may be the answer to your problems – whether it’s broken bones or hearts, you may get lost in the healing alternatives!

Written for Vaahini, Accenture's microsite for women

Can men do anything without sexing us up?

Watching ads and promos on television can be even more entertaining than actually viewing the shows being aired. So that's what I do...between wandering around the house, doing chores, reading, and doing assignments, while my sister and mom are plopped in front of the television, watching those 'rona-dhona' (weepy-washed out) serials (as I call them).

One promo really caught my eye. It is for a new serial on Life Ok (I didn't catch the name of the serial because they tend to be like long sentences!). Anyway, it shows a woman who is trying to park her car and not able to do it, so she's holding up traffic. Then a guy sitting in his SUV whose been watching this for a while, gets out of his vehicle and offers to park it for her.

He does it and she thanks him. He turns around and taunts her by saying 'You women can't even park cars and you are looking to run this country'. And while she's still recovering from her shock, the sexist jerk walks back to his car. The bimbo who is with him is impressed with his caring attitude because she hasn't heard what he's told the other woman, but only watched him help her out. So she simpers and says 'Shlok, I like it that your so caring'. And he gives her a cheesy grin and says 'Yes, I'm always ready to help women.'

Does this kind of man sound familiar to anyone? A sexist, chauvinist hidden behind a conveniently caring and politely condescending veneer?

Honestly, I loved the way the promo concept was shot and scripted. But I definitely would have given that woman car driver an interesting line to say too. And that would be: 'You men are better drivers than us. But that doesn't mean you know how to run a country any better than us. You've already proved it by running this country, and many others, so badly!'

And besides, when men need us to sell everything - from cars to shaving cream - we can't be totally dispensable, can we? I'll let you ogle at the images in this post...and I took them at Barista.

So yes, apparently even coffee can't be sold without sexing us up. The day you figure out how to do this guys, then come and talk down to us.

Why are Indian women avoiding the Internet?

I've just finished reading a report called 'Women and the Web' done by Intel. For this report, 2,200 women in developing countries (termed as low and middle income like Uganda, Mexico, Egypt and India) were interviewed.

The report reveals that 23% fewer women than men are online, which works out to 200 million women who are not online. In some regions, this gap exceeds 40%. Surprisingly, India can have its own version of Silicon Valley in Bangalore but that doesn't seem to have made a difference to millions of women here (both in rural and urban areas).

In rural India, the problems are lack of infrastructure, education and encouragement. With urban women, it's the latter two reasons but sometimes only the last one. Many women complained of their Internet usage being monitored or just denied to them. And yes, men in their family go online. Their objections to women using the Internet are: It isn't required or safe for them. So they are protecting their women from porn sites (and the good stuff!), which they ironically, surf quite avidly themselves.

What these figures tell us is simply that women are being left behind by the technological/economical/political impact that the internet has on our lives. We are not allowed to be online for reasons ranging from family disapproval to not having an interest in learning about the possibilities of the internet. This means we are not using a fairly freely available tool to enhance our education, our career or our lives. See the graphics from the report that sum it up really well.

What these graphics show are pure numbers but don't really tell the stories behind the numbers. I wasn't surprised by the fact that women in Egypt don't use the Internet as much as the men do, but surprisingly, they were doing it more than women in India do!

So may be those protests that have happened in Tahir Square have given Egyptian women the freedom and the guts to step out of their homes and step into cyber cafes. Meanwhile, women in India are still thinking about doing it....if at all! And while cultural stereotypes are at work everywhere, it was disheartening to note that women in a Muslim country who are supposed to live behind their veil and just look after their home and kids, are more interested in what the world has to offer, than Indian women. The truth is worse.

Egyptian women have 'realised' what they were missing out on, and are making the move to be included in political and economic discussions in their country. While Indian women continue to remain blissfully unaware, of the huge potential being online can have on their lives. (See the graphic Fig 10.)

Anyway, this report was done with the support of a United Nations body called UN Women, and it suggests a number of steps that needs to be taken by both the private and public sectors to ensure that women don't get left out in even larger numbers. Closing this gap soon is imperative because a lot of the world's developing economies are going to benefit from it - by an estimated USD 13-18 billion annually to their GDP.

So if people can't see the fairness involved in doing this, atleast the profit motive should ring a bell. Money always talks in ways that a social conscience does not.

Download the full report from here: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/technology-in-education/women-in-the-web.html  (Click on graphics to enlarge them.)

An old home restored as a doll house

Ever wondered what to do with an old house? Well, you could restore it and live in it. But here's something that is even better. How about making a life-size dollhouse out of it?

This is exactly what artist Heather Benning did when she found an abandoned house. With the permission of the landowner, she transformed the decrepit structure into a work of art, that is now being enjoyed by anyone who shows up to take a look.

This is creativity at its best. And making use of old things to give it a new lease of life, is what people should think of doing, with more of their possessions.

Read more on this wonderful restoration project here: http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2012/06/15/artist-transforms-abandoned-building-into-life-size-dollhouse/

Am I protected by the Cyber law in India?

I once attended an interesting talk that a lawyer had given on Cyber law in India and how it's implemented..and sometimes even misused. He went to on tell us the way that people get caught by cops and booked under the IT Act 2000. He told us that some of his clients had actually been arrested for things like drunk driving, but when their mobiles were confiscated and with what was found on it, allowed the cops to book them under the IT Act as well.

Here's a list of things he warned us about, that we should never have on our cellphones.

1. Porn and downloaded dirty jokes.
2. Pirated movies and MP3 music that has been illegally downloaded.
3. Pictures of children in a nude or semi-nude state. (This is even if your the parents/relatives of the child.)
4. Office work files, if downloaded on to a smartphone for any reason. If these files are copied onto a USB and taken out of the premises, then it is also a problem. (He actually said that even looking over a colleague's shoulder while he/she works, might be considered an infringement of the Act!)
5. Misusing free tools like Google Maps to pinpoint locations of people, which may look like stalking to cops (and to a lot of us sane people as well).

And this is before we even get to how social media sites may be allowing a lot of the above behaviour to be broadcasted anyway. So, all countries around the world have to deal with this new form of disseminating information, and to protect people who may become victims of it too. In fact, people are acting like vigilantes already. Just the other day, someone tweeted a picture of a man saying that if he was spotted anywhere, then the cops should be called immediately. This was in Delhi.

I felt good that finally mobile phones are being put to good use! I mean, for all the things that people can get arrested for having on their phone, what about men taking pictures of women whom they photograph surreptitiously in public, without our knowledge and certainly without our permission? Is this also a crime? I wish I had remembered to ask this vital question...

In my opinion, it obviously should be. If every creepy male gets away with taking such pictures, then we'll be in all their family albums..at least the ones they maintain on their phones! And the chances of them misusing the photos is practically a moot point. Now imagine Google Glass hitting the market in India..

Street smart tip for globe-trotters

 

Travelling is a fun way to get to know geography, history, civics – subjects that are not all that popular (when in school) with most people – but also one can study art, architecture, dance and music – all the cooler stuff as well.

Everyone knows that booking well in advance for a trip results in one getting cheaper fares. But most people discount this fact when they sign up for travel packages with big tour and travel agencies like Kesari, Raj Travels, SOTC, Kuoni, Cox & Kings and Thomas Cook.

The reason being that, they are most likely to be too excited thinking about their holiday and all the shopping they are going to be doing there and besides once the trip has been paid for, the airfare bookings are left to these agencies to take care of.

Here is a smart spending tip: Make your own airline bookings, even when you travel with a tour group. Now, I believe, travel operators also prefer it if you did it yourself. A source at Kesari told me that, “We tell customers to make their own airline bookings through the travel sites.”

Ironically, the offline agencies and their online rivals may have made this pact as a truce of some kind, so that all people don’t just simply migrate to portals and stop using travel operators. Therefore, travel agencies channel some business their way but obviously, not all of it. They keep hotel bookings to themselves, which is where the meat really is.

A garbage bag that says good stuff within!

 

What does it take to manage your life better?

I once had a conversation with a friend of mine, who was telling me how I was so lucky to stay with my family and not have any financial responsibilities, and to not know what it was like to live alone etc.

I agreed with him, and I told him this was a decision that can be taken by everyone and anyone if they chose to. Unless you are forced to emigrate for a job as a refugee or something!

So, why wasn't he living with his family in Kerala? Well, here were the reasons (all of one!) why he came over to Mumbai: His dad didn't approve too much of his choice of career and he didn't want to put up with the constant nagging. So, I told him I put up with nagging and much worse at home. Therefore, I do pay a price for staying in my own home, which he and others like him, would rather not put up with. Therefore, they foot the cost of their independence. I choose to stay at home to save money to get a place of my own someday. If that is not a priority for people, then how they spend their money is not my problem, and I said so to this guy.

Well, he gave me a lecture on how pampered I was (which is not remotely true) and I finally got him to take it easy by asking him two questions: If you are living an independent life, then have you made anyone happy? Are you even caring for a pet or an adopted child? And his answer to me was no. So, I told him that I was supporting children in an orphanage since I was 23 with cash, clothes, toys and sometimes food. So I wasn't living only for myself unlike so-called independent people like him. Any money that I managed to save forking over for some dingy apartment somewhere, was being put into good use. Meanwhile, he was living from paycheque to paycheque. If one has to live on their own out of absolute necessity or their own desire, then do so.  But don't make it sound more virtuous than it is.

And anyway, for men like my friend who can't stretch their salaries, there is a website that I worked for, that claims to help them manage their finances better. Ironically, this site is targeted at men just like him (between ages 28-44) and not women. So does this mean that women are anyway better at handling money, and we don't need a website to show us how to do it? I think the answer is: Yes.

Even a maid who earns under Rs 10,000 a month, will somehow manage to send her kids to school and put food on her table thrice a day, in a city like Mumbai. (And most of the time, maids are married to drunk and abusive men who don't work, so they have this specimen as a burden on their shoulders as well.) Meanwhile, educated working men, (who trample over each other and their women colleagues to get to the money), will whine about how they can't manage! Well boys, don't check out faddy websites so much, ask your maids to help you out with their commonsense.  (Websites don't dish that out, if you don't have it!) In fact, they come with disclaimers stating that you need to go to a financial advisor for any actionable advice, so why not listen to your maids anyway?

Even stay-at-home moms are good at this. They run their homes on a budget and again don't check out a website to make sure their doing a good job of it. Really, more of you men should stay home and learn money management, since you can't seem to get the hang of it.

Besides malls are filled with stores aimed at women, to get them to splurge on more handbags, cosmetics, clothes, shoes, jewellery etc. And yes, we could go for cars and gadgets too. So where are men's salaries disappearing? Can't be on more cosmetics and lingerie..so probably on cars and gadgets. Well, if you can spare the cash, then cool. But like my friend, if you spend your initial, debt-free years buying frivolous stuff and then you complain that you can't make ends meet, then who is to blame? Too much peer pressure? Too much bravado? Too much showoff-iness?

Here's an open secret: Women can live without all the frills, especially when you can't provide us with the essentials to begin with. It's like stocking your kitchen with all the best spices in the world to cook a delicious biryani, but then you forget to keep salt. In such circumstances, I'd rather eat dal-khichdi with some pepper, ghee and curd, than that bland biryani any day.

Like food, so with money. If you men don't know how to get the essentials first, and run to get your thrills, frills and chills right away, then like I suggested earlier, let your maids or moms handle your money. They are unlikely to be stupid and casual about it, because handling money is a skill borne of necessity. When you don't have too much of it in your hands, then you figure out ways to stretch it. This is something men will never know because for them enough is never good enough. So, rather than make the money they earn matter, they will go out with their begging bowl and ask for a fatter paycheque. They usually get their way, as they know they will. Only some women in their organisations won't get that much of  a raise or a bonus. Yet, they will be able to manage their money matters better than men.

Touche..my friend. You needed to learn better finance management at home, from an early age, while you had the chance. Don't envy me for getting it, along with a cosy home. 

The Athena Doctrine

I'm going to get my hands on this book, not the least because it has got a title like 'The Athena Doctrine: How Women (and the Men who Think Like Them) Will Rule the World'. Here's a little teaser...

Graphic sourced from the book. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Relationships: Are they one of life's jokes?

Relationships are funny things - you can't live without them and sometimes, you can't live in some of them either. When relationships are ascribed ones and not acquired ones - like the one we share with our parents or siblings - then if your not happy with any one of these people for any reason, it's difficult to deal with. You know you'll never be able to get out of being around them, and everyone will want you to keep making an effort till the end of time, to sort things out.

Acquired relationships are more transient and flexible. You don't like someone, then you don't have to put up with that person. Since marriage is an acquired relationship, you should be able to walk away if you don't want to be with a person anymore. Not because I think marriage is a cheap institution, which in a way it is! It's really about two people exchanging vows to provide services to each other free of cost. (I have coined a nice term for marriage that I use around some friends: Socially sanctioned sex.) But if both parties agree to it (and keep their end of the deal faithfully), then it works. I think marriage is an expensive proposition - especially for women, and ironically, they are the ones who hanker for it, almost as badly as men.

Until things are too late, and so many of them end up with regrets. I should know because any number of women in my family are unhappily married to men who totally didn't deserve them. Whenever I bring this up, in context to the question of when am I getting married, then people joke it off by saying "You were not there to give us advice." or "We should have consulted you, even though you were just a child then." Actually, I wish they had! I was a worldly-wise child before my time, and I was anyway living in my parents bad marriage for years, while my aunts were just getting into their marriages with stars in their eyes.

And more than consulting me, they should just have been more observant and see what married life entails for women because there is always plenty of evidence around. I know a friend of mine who is 9 years younger than me, and she's feeling the pressure from her family to get married. I told her to wait till she was 30 and enjoy her freedom because married people never talk about how much they envy that about us. They only look at us with pity, like we don't understand how suffocated they may be in their relationships, but they have to put a nice face to it! She laughed and didn't feel weird for wanting to delay marriage by a few years.

I think any relationship works if both parties know they haven't been exploited. It's not the case though. A lot of women have ended up feeling trapped and exploited. Here's an example. If you asked my mum, which religion she belongs to now, she won't have a proper answer to give. That's because having been born a Catholic, she married a Hindu. My Hindu father went about changing her identity so completely (and she allowed it), that not many people know she was born Joyce Margaret Serrao, but everyone knows she's Jayshree now. So having made compromises of such huge proportions, mum regrets it now and therefore, doesn't know which religion she belongs to. Dad did it all his way, including getting her to sign a stamp paper renouncing her religion (which she conveniently doesn't recall doing), but I've seen that document.

So you see what happens when women act starry eyed and dumb (or is it too trusting?) when getting married - you get taken advantage of big time. Marriage is supposed to be sacred but that hasn't stopped people from treating it like a joke. And treating women's identities, dreams and hopes like disposable commodities. And obviously, such men only end up in bad marriages. A sad farce. A socially acceptable flop drama...until the woman wants a divorce. I'm glad women are asking for divorce. After all, there is more to life than the idiots they ended up marrying! Besides, I feel it's better to be happily single than unhappily married.

I've not seen trust, fidelity and a lifetime's service being repaid with anything but ingratitude and a sense of entitlement. So, men feel they are entitled to all of our good behaviour and good natures, and we don't get any of that in return. Not as if we are entitled to it. We get it, only if we are lucky to be married to men, who give it to us as our right, out of their own free will. They give off their best to their significant other, whom they want to keep happy. My dream man falls in this category obviously. But how many of them are out there anyway? 

And while I don't condone married people having affairs, this kind of thinking has not bothered married people at all. I get leched at more by husbands, often when they are with their wives. Some of my married male friends tell me, they still have feelings for me. (And I never dated any of them, we were just friends.) I'm so happy to know this because it just shows what I anyway think, that people marry for the wrong reasons..and often the wrong people. If you are going to do more research over which car brand you want to buy, than what kind of person you are marrying, then you deserve the mess you get into. 

And anyway, I prefer to keep men pining. Not out of cruelty and selfishness. More out of a sense of self preservation. I know just how sweetly men can talk to you and make you feel like you are the only one for them, when all the time, they are scanning other women and thinking of keeping their options open. Women are now doing it too...and why shouldn't we? Men should be repaid in their own coin. Besides, if it keeps me safe from alligators masquerading as men, then I'd stick with this strategy.

So, if there are any male delinquents reading this, and looking to convince a particular woman that she's the one they truly want, then first take a look at your own motives carefully and completely honestly. And tell the woman upfront what you want out of her, and let her decide if she wants to meet you halfway, and on what terms. Don't con her into marrying you, and then become great white sharks overnight. (And no, the sex you offer isn't all that great. So, don't hold that out as a promise. Since a lot of my married friends are not happy with their sex lives, and they have told me so. Two of them, in fact, told me not to get married for sex because it was overrated! So, unless you know for sure, from a woman, that you are so wonderful in this department, don't assume you are.)

Which is why I had decided as a 13 year old (when most other teens were still dealing with their hormones and crushes), that any long term relationship I acquire or get into, will be on fair, generous and equal terms for me. And not, what the world thinks is right for me. I let other people make relationship mistakes, while I watch and learn....and have a good laugh at their expense. After all, someone has to applaud at the drama.