Wednesday, November 30, 2005

HBS Question: Does Your Company Belong in the Blogosphere or is it just Synthetic Transparency?

I subscribe to Harvard Business School Working Knowledge newsletter that basically gives free access to select HBS articles. This week, the first article in the weekly subscription email caught my eyes, nahin actually my eyes got glued to it. The caption of the article is “Does Your Company Belong in the Blogosphere?” Now if HBS is talking about blogging, it starts sounding pretty mainstream. The article can be read from:

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=5111&t=technology

It points out various corporate blogs like that of GM, Boeing and Sun among others. I quickly scanned these blogs and found the Sun blog a bit interesting. GM and Boeing blogs sound ‘corporatish’ at first glance, but then don’t take my words for it, scout around on your own. Though much of the article is about basic stuff like Technorati, RSS feeds and how blogs talk with each other, some sound advice given in the article (and I wish a few Indian companies will read it) is this and quoting from the article:

“A corporate blog allows a company both to keep an ear to the ground to hear what's being said about it and, if necessary, speak up with a correction.”

“Don't let the PR department write your blog. Bloggers will sniff it out, and when they do, you will lose all credibility," says Weil. She points to GM's Lutz as a senior executive whose writing style is genuine, conversational, and engaging, and whose blog—like the best executive-written blogs—eschews corporate-speak.”

Quoted from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=5111&t=technology

I doubt if many companies would be able to do anything creative with their blogs if General Motors (GM) blog is any indicator. Recently GM has been in news for all the wrong reasons. I read a BBC news article that highlighted several problems:

“US carmaker General Motors is to cut 30,000 jobs in North America, in a restructuring that aims to save $2.5bn (£1.4bn) a year and revive the company …

To add to its woes, the firm warned earlier this month that it will have to restate its 2001 accounts after they were overstated by about $300m, while its accounts are also being investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.”

Quoted from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4457038.stm

If one looks at the corporate blog, there is not even a whiff of any such event and it doesn’t sound authentic. While I agree it is never going to be easy for a corporation to write about its financial mess, in not doing so, claims to authenticity and blogging are going to take a beating till the time blogs become completely mainstream and may that time never come.

In fact the same HBS article points to the following blog:

http://www.blogwriteforceos.com/

where following discussion seems very apt for GM

“Michael Wiley, GM's Director of New Media and a member of the Fastlane blog team, left this comment on Dave Taylor's Intuitive Life blog [scroll down to the third comment]:

"You're right that blogging at GM is a balancing act of many different stories, stakeholders and approaches that constantly demands focus. We decided early on that the blog's primary focus is on product, product development, vehicle design and quality. A vehicle company's reason for existence is to sell cars, so the selling piece gets some attention, too. Corporate issues such as staffing levels [my edit: layoffs] and facility usage [er, factory shut-downs] are not the blog's focus."

Michael, I know you well. It's OK to use the word layoffs, really.

On the other hand... I just thought of this.

Michael is savvy enough to know that someone doing a fine-tooth combed search for "GM" and "lay-offs" on Google just might unearth the comment he left on Dave Taylor's blog. And I suspect he'd rather his words not come up in that search result. No dumb bunny, he.

Weird and woolly...”

Quoted from http://www.blogwriteforceos.com/blogwrite/2005/11/more_on_whether.html

To sum it up, is this synthetic transparency?

“A group of students in "Advanced Organizational Communication" at Northeastern University are penning a blog along with their professor and they've come up with a new way of describing a corporate blog:

Synthetic transparency involves using blogs to give the impression of openness, honesty, and transparency but without really doing so.”

Quoted from http://www.blogwriteforceos.com/

I agree with the students and their professor from Northeastern University.

Labels: blogging

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

India Tourism Guidelines: For Which Era?

I came to know about this new guideline for tourists in Rajasthan via India Mike discussion. The original story can be found at BBC news website at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4474528.stm

I am quoting directly from the site below and you can find many more pearls of wisdom in the piece. The emphasis on ‘moral laxity’ in the last point below is mine! I could not help it.

“Men should never touch women in public, even to help a woman out of a car, unless the lady is very elderly or infirm

In Indian culture... men socialise with men, and women with women …

Drinking alcohol or smoking in public, no matter how innocent, are interpreted as a sign of moral laxity and are not acceptable.”

Well, I do not smoke and it would be stretching it a lot if I say I take alcohol, but there have been times when I am not averse of taking a glass in some restaurant or more frequently a sip from my husband’s, and I am guilty on every other count.

I often hold hands with my husband, heck I even put my hand around the waist of my two teenage nephews (who are six foot tall) and I hold hands even with my father occasionally.

I socialize with so many men. In fact, after my college is over (where I teach) five of us play table tennis. Four of them are men and I am the only woman. And now I am morally lax too because I do drink occasionally! It is another matter that wine is so expensive in these restaurants that I prefer to spend the money on a delicious bowl of soup, and please make it mushroom.

The incidents quoted in the story in Rajasthan are a bit stark (the lady walking nude must have been shocking) but the guidelines are hilarious! And I am guilty on every count.

Lily let that story not scare you on your trip to India, when I picked up my husband (who was away for 15 days on some office work in London) from the airport this Saturday, I did put my hands around him (OK briefly), and no one there gave a damn.

I wonder if the people who wrote the guidelines ever watched MTV or Channel V recently? Or took a stroll around a college campus?

Labels: Travel

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Going Nomad in Ladakh

View From a Bridge in Spitok, Ladakh

A few days back when I posted a few pictures from my Ladakh trip, Arun asked me: “Would you be posting some kind of a travelogue on the places you visited?” Now it is a very embarrassing question on a blog named ‘Travel Tales from India.’ It is time to set the score right. I love traveling and writing about it, in that order. For quite some time (and my archives are a proof for it) I wrote only about travel on this blog. Then, IIPM and other shit happened, one after another.

Some place I once said, "I recently started blogging and like many others initially I was not quite convinced about why on earth should I blog?" Let me say I do not have any such doubts about blogging anymore and I have found my voice and I am screaming myself hoarse. I do not think it will be ever again that I write about travel only as I do not have the energy for maintaining two blogs.

But this post is about travel and not like the fillers I wrote for the past few days and ultimately resulted in that comment by Arun. No Arun, I do not blame you, I deserved that comment and I enjoyed it.

Some of you might have noticed that I keep posting tidbits about Ladakh but never a full length post. Ladakh has been a truly memorable trip for us (that is me, my husband and a friend) and I have to go back there sometime soon, as I lost some 400 pictures through a hard disk crash and only 50 or so survive that I loaded on the webshots and on my blog.

Coming back to why I never wrote about Ladakh on my blog, well, sometimes I get ambitious. I sent my Ladakh story to GoNOMAD and it is finally published.

http://gonomad.com/transports/0511/ladakh.html

So, Arun see, I do write about travel and I love writing about travel. And it is only the second time but it gives me immense pleasure when I see my story published (the same used to be the case with research papers, but it is becoming a lost art for me that I have to revive and revive quickly).

And now let me gush about GoNOMAD. Well, they gave me a chance for the second time. But more importantly they accept unsolicited material (how do you think I got my first chance?) and they pay $25 (and that is a cool 1000 bucks for me) for each contribution apart from a few exceptions. Now I have seen so many well written travelogues on blogs that I wish to share this with you, a few of you might be interested? Read their contributor’s guideline and see.

http://gonomad.com/corp/writerguidelines.htm

Need more reason to check out my story and their site? Well, below my piece, is an article on nude hiking and no I am not kidding.

http://gonomad.com/features/0511/nude_hiking.html

Don’t ask me anymore, now hop along.

Hop Along: The Bus Station in Leh, Ladakh

Labels: Gonomad, Ladakh

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

A Tribute to Courage

Before you read any further, here is the site devoted to Manju Nathan, please go and extend your support there and make it count.

http://manjunathshanmugam.blogspot.com/

I saw the 1.5 hour special coverage given to the issue on Zee News. Well, der aaye durust aaye (better late than never). My heart goes out to Manjunathan's family. And the secretrary for the ministry of petroleum sucked big time and so did the minister. Now they are linking to the story from the first page of Zee News website

http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=258321&sid=ZNS

---------------------------------------

Gaurav Sabnis pays a tribute to his senior, at Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Lucknow, 27 year old Manju Nathan.

Rest in peace, Machan. Whatever place you are at right now, I am sure you are rocking it. You staked your life on your integrity. I really doubt if I would have done the same, had I been in your shoes. Hats off, and bye, Manju.

The 27 year old was murdered for doing his work and we debate that India will become a super power by the year 2020 or some such ... (well I do not use curse words on my blog but I can think of nothing else).

He was a manager with Indian Oil Corporation (a government owned unit) and he had ordered to shut down a petrol pump because they were selling adulterated petrol.

Manju was shot dead for it. One Indian newspaper, The Indian Express has covered the story and you can see the details at:

http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=158004

http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=158210

It is so tragic to see someone, all of 27 years getting killed because he was trying to do his work. I do not think I have that kind of courage, because I would have known the odds and corrupt scenario only too well to do something like this. And he could have easily looked for another job in India or abroad. I do not think I will let my nephews to work in the government sector units ever.

In India there is a huge debate about education at IIMs and IITs (Indian Institute of Technologies) being subsidized by taxpayers and the graduates not doing much for the country (they get good offers in the private sector and abroad). Well, do they have many options? Before this, goons got down Satyendra Dubey for doing his work and now Manju. Where will it end?

And the punch line with which IOC sells its petrol? For you and me it is Xtracare!
http://www.iocl.com/images/library/xtracare-L-5.jpg

Saturday, November 19, 2005

How Exam Copies are (not) Evaluated Sometimes

Through google blogsearch I came to this post from Abyi and he seems to be mystified. Let me share it with you.

"The exams started with a bang just after 3 months, little time for us to prepare. Exams were cool, but one thing went wrong & I m glad it did. I was appearing for my QT paper, which was followed by another important paper in afternoon on the same day. My roll no in class was 02. I was sitting very near to the platform where the papers were submitted. I managed to finish my paper before time, & when I wanted to submit my paper I called the Instructor to collect the paper. He asked me to leave it at the desk near the platform. I was thinking about by next paper & so by mistake I put my answer sheet in my bag & put the question paper on the Platform, a mistake that could get me into trouble.

Later in the evening when I reached home & opened my bag I found the answer sheet in my bag, I was stunned for a minute. I just thought the worst could be that I fail in the particular paper & I could repeat it whenever next. I did not communicate this mistake to my college authorities thinking that I would be punished for my act. The fear kept my mouth shut."

Take a guess what would have happened to this student? Well, if can guess correctly, you like me know the secret. Abyi goes on to tell us:

"When the results came out later after three months, I scored 63 marks in the paper I Did NOT SUBMIT."

Now let me tell you how this could have happened because I have seen something similar in my jobs from hell.

I invigilated in an exam at one place and took the copies with me. My room was next to this person who had to grade the copies. So, he casually dropped in and asked if all the students were present. I said yes. And that was the end of the matter. Those copies remained with me forever. In fact, I had them with me for a very long time after I left that job. But the last time we moved I threw them out, now I wish I had not. And the marks were given. How? I guess the teacher gave it on the basis of the impression of the students he had.

So my guess is Abyi's case, the teacher just looked at the attendance sheet, where Abyi must have signed. Then he never bothered to open the copies and gave random marks on the basis of his/her impression. See, such an easy way to get over with grading.

Labels: IIPM

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Why I feel IIPM Case has a Major Difference or Two from the Sony Case

It seems Sony has invited the ire of bloggers these days. I became aware of it from Desipundit and then of course one has to just follow a few more links. What Sony did? Well, there a few of their CDs came with something of a spyware (and don’t ask me what they are, beyond that they are not good for your computer) and their consumers (and others) didn’t like it. They blogged about it and later the company withdrew the product. The story can be followed from Information Week. And there are already three court cases against Sony for this incident!

Now let me take you back to the IIPM story. Well, one minor difference is that a print magazine broke the story (as Srijith said on Desipundit) but the drama was enacted in the blogshpere. But to me, there are two more substantial differences.

One, there is no court case against IIPM and two, they are still coming out with full page ads instead of taking their product back. Regarding the court case, at some point in life (and I am not going to tell you when) I started looking at how to file a PIL (public interest litigation) in India. The little that I could find till date I covered at this site and I found this

http://www.corecentre.org/faq011

“Q.4. Against whom a PIL can be Filed?

A PIL can be filed against a State/ Central Govt., Municipal Authorities, and not any private party. However, “Private party” can be included in the PIL as “Respondent”, after making concerned state authority, a party. For example- if there is a Private factory in Delhi, which is causing pollution, then people living nearly, or any other person can file a PIL against the Government of Delhi, Pollution Control Board, and against the private factory. However, a PIL cannot be filed against the Private party alone.”

The way things are going in this country I wish they could include the knowledge on how to file a PIL in the school curriculum in India.

Anyway, as I was saying there are no court cases filed in IIPM vs. Bloggers case whereas there are three filed already in Sony vs. Bloggers. I know the legal system works very differently here but still.

Coming to the second difference, Sony took the product back and IIPM is coming out with full page ads, and you know what I feel? I feel that there should be statutory warning with educational institution’s ads, like the cigarette ads. They should be forced to say in clear visible way ‘This is an Advertisement Only, Students are advised to Verify the Claims before taking Admissions.’

I will just quickly point out two things in the new IIPM ads. One is repeated reference to something called ‘Business Barons’ for their rankings (Business Today and Indian Today ranking that they claim is for 2004 and not 2005). Search for Business Baron on google without IIPM (and if you do ‘business baron IIPM’ search, well you get blogs as top links) and the links take you, as usual, NOWHERE. Not even google cache has anything on this. Now the site might be down, but then let us see, if it comes up I will update these words.

Second, IIPM has started giving dates of the people who visited their campus from abroad. Quoting from their ad”

“The following shortlist of International faculty members visiting IIPM to take classes (emphasis mine), will also be taking MDPs and training programs for India Inc. as per mentioned dates.*”

One name is of Professor Jane Collier from University of Cambridge and she talks on Corporate Social Responsibility on 17^th , 20^th, 22^nd and 24^th October 2005 in various IIPM campuses. Yes, she came and took MDPs and training programs but she never took classes.

Here is a conversation that I had with her on email:

“Thank you for telling me all this. I do know that their degree courses are not validated, which means that their quality is not assured. They are quite open about the fact that they beleive they can teach what they like. Unfortunately in a non-regulated environment institutes can do what they like. Discerning parents and students should not patronise them, but maqny do because they see that their gradutes gain employment. I have spoken to them about these matters, and they know what I think. HOwever, so long as they do not actually do anything illegal there is little that can be done. When I get back to England I will follow up the blog references you have given me. I am giving seminars to people who are in business and therefore
not students of the institute. Jane Collier.

Jane Collier
Judge Business School
Trumpington St
Cambridge CB2 1AG”

Well, you can see that the professor wrote in hurry but she is clear that she is not teaching the students. And this conversation took place while she was in India.

Well, you now know why I say that there should be statutory warning with educational institution’s ads, like the cigarette ads.

Labels: IIPM

Yet More Pictures from Ladakh

It has been such a long time I have travelled anywhere. The trip to Bangalore was not so much for tourism but for visiting family. We thought of going to Bharatpur Bird Santuary but we just could not go. Now H is in London but we plan to go someplace in Chamba (Himanchal Pradesh) in December. So when I feel travel sick and cannot travel, I revisit the photographs from my previous trips. And here are a few more from my trip to Ladakh in this June.

The Spitok Monastry

I took this photo from quite some distance and could not visit the monastry, but I like this shot as it contrasts some very green trees with bleak mountains.

The Manali-Leh Highway

The journey from Manali to Leh takes 18 hours and it is very tiring but the views are stunning.

This one was taken on the way to the Pangong lake and this photograph does no justice to the actual scene.

I took a lot of pictures (that were lost in a hard disk crash) leaning out of the bus, because the driver was obviously not going to stop at every site we tourist found smashing. The above picture is one of them.

I have put this picture before on my blog but then no one said I could not put it again, right? In order to reach the Pangong lake we cross the Changla Pass at an altitude of 17800 feet. I could hardly breathe and our army folks are stationed there for months. We chatted with a few of them and one person who was just 18 , told that he found the posting difficult. Rest of them were stoic and joaked constantly with you.

I have put some other pictures too. If you wish have a look here and here

Labels: Ladakh

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

No Logo Anyone?

Please raise your hands if you own a Nike sneaker or clothes made by Gap, Diesel, Tommy Hilfiger or Sara Lee Corp? Have you been to Disney or McDonalds lately? I see a lot of hands going up.

But do you know how and where these companies make their products? Since I see only a few hesitant hands up in the air, let me discuss ‘No Logo’ by Naomi Klein with you and many things would become in the process. For more details about the book and the author one can also go to the author’s website: www.nologo.org

The book discusses some of the practices of multinational corporations and the process of our world becoming a global village. When I read the book for the first time, some of the ideas hit me really hard. The book takes up the issue of ‘Brand’ vs. Product’ war and traces its implications.

What Klein argues is that a shirt is a shirt and a shoe is a shoe, they are mundane products. But look at any of the advertisements of the ‘super brands’ and they are anything but shirts, jeans, coffee or shoes. They are lifestyle accessories and part of the good life. They are ‘brands’ not products. Worst still, they tell us what is good life all about, rather than we defining it for ourselves. After reading this book, I defined there is a lot of good for me in trekking once a year, rather than going to a fancy resort.

The question that should be asked about our ‘Brands’, not products type goods is that where are they produced, what is the cost of production and what are the wages given to the labor who produce it? Many of the ‘super brands’ have their production facilities in what many call the ‘third world’. The cost of production is a fraction of what these goods are sold at and the workers get pittance, argues Klein. So how come when the goods reach back to the ‘first world’ they become so expensive? Well because once again they are ‘brands’ and not ‘products’ and hence they have to be endorsed by celebrities who have multi-million dollar contracts with these companies, to be sold in the state of the art stores, so of course the price is going to go up. Sometimes what a celebritey earns for one endrosement, would make for wages of an entire factory for an year.

When these brands are accused of having poor production facilities they disclaim any responsibility saying they have only contractors in my part of the world and no workers. The corporations today, as the book says, are in the business of buying commodities and putting their signature on it and turning then into brands. They have no cumbersome production facilities, no employee responsibilities; they are free floating brands flying from one cheap location to another, from Mexico to Korea to Philippines and ultimately to China so that many of the goods can be produced in the export processing zones in almost military like condition.

Taking up the basic premise of ‘Brands’ not ‘Products’ Naomi Klein’s book is divided like this: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs and No Logo.

No Space: I wonder how it would be to live completely surrounded by ads. That if you stand in the balcony, some brand is screaming for your attention and money. Or to walk up a street only to notice that it has been painted pink or purple to represent the colors of some corporation! To see ads in schools, even in the washrooms, to have aggressive marketers trying to be one step ahead of the latest ‘cool’ trend. In fact large ‘brand’ not product companies are not happy unless they are seen as ‘culture’ itself. I wonder because if I stand in front of my door (in a large city in India) I see no ads anywhere around. But I understand this can change. The book argues that advertisement has become excessive today and there are hardly any messages or public spaces left that have not been taken up by ads.

No Choice: This section of the book discusses the aggressive selling techniques employed by many of the multinationals selling ‘brands’ and not ‘products’. Either they build expensive and sprawling stores that are three dimension advertisements in them (Nike, Roots, Wal-Mart, etc.) or multiply themselves and carpet an area so completely that competitors do not stand a chance (McDonalds or Starbucks) and as a consumer there is hardly any choice left.

No Jobs: The focus in this section is on the flight of manufacturing jobs from The US and Europe to countries like Korea, Philippines, Indonesia or now to China. Companies like Nike, Gap, Disney own no manufacturing facilities but have only contractors in these parts. So when they are asked about child labor or low wages, they can wash their hands off by saying they are contractor violations.

The flight of these jobs is supposed to be made good by service sector jobs, but Klein argues that many jobs that have been created are ‘permatemp’ jobs, where companies deliberately keep the working hours just below the minimum needed to be qualified for permanent jobs. It is as if providing good jobs with some amount of security has gone out of fashion.

No Logo: Ad jamming, reclaim the streets, and consumer protest against unethical practices of multinational corporations has been some of the responses of our over-branded times. In culture jamming, citizens take over the messages of firms and give them back a different one, they essentially talk back to commercials. ‘Think Different’ of Apple becomes 'Think Doomed' and ultra thin models are given ghost like looks on a billboard. The book documents the victories of activists over multinationals and the future of meaningful citizen protest.

This and That: No Logo is a book packed with powerful ideas and analysis. It beautifully argues that if these ‘brands’ not products have created a shiny, prefect image for themselves, they are most vulnerable to any information contrary to it. The general response to such books is ‘firms have to make profits!’ But does it always have to be profit before people, is the question that the book asks? Even I feel that the time has come to stop treating the profit motive as God given and start questioning it.

The book deals extensively with flight of manufacturing jobs but has not taken up the flight of service related jobs in the software sector. I wonder how would Naomi Klein view it because from my own experience I can say that the jobs created in these sectors have been well paying ones in India (by our standards). The outsourcing of call-centres had not begun at the time the book was written and though the work is mundane the pay still is decent. I also wonder how this flight is affecting the West?

Labels: blogging

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Some More Pictures From Bangalore

When I was in Bangalore in the first week of November, the weather was like what you can see above and I had a nice time going around with my camera.

Here are some more flowers from Bangalore, but don't ask me what they are called.

This, I was told are coffee beans! Had never seen it before.

This is a fruit that in my part of the globe is known as 'Chiku.'

A street side shop that caught my fancy but I was not in a mood closer and ask for permission from the lady sitting there to take the photo.

The roads of Bangalore, and this one is good, because it has no pot holes in the middle of the road.

Small coconuts kept on a windowsill and saying Bye Bye (below) this photo was clicked at the airport.

Labels: Bangalore, flowers