From my experience of working in the education industry, living in three different countries and meeting students from a cross-section of universities across the world, I can safely observe that the current state of education is in a deep state of disarray. I believe that richer countries like America and Australia can somehow live with this trend because they have built a certain level of efficiency and productivity into their societies and systems but countries in Asia (I will not comment on Africa as I have never been there) will pay a big price if the policy makers there keep playing deaf to the call of the day. Even in countries like the US and UK, which are so advanced in terms of human development compared to the rest of the world, it is deeply troubling to see many schools survive and prosper with sub-standard curriculum's and callous faculties. Whether private or public, these schools have survived mostly because the world economy has been growing post-WW II. Except a few hiccups in the 70s and 90s, mostly the world growth has been positive, till now. Post 2000, the world has been growing exponentially, thanks to China entering WTO in 2001 and India bidding adieu to Hindu rate of growth. This has prompted corporations (mostly based out of US/Europe) to expand and get a large share of their revenues from the growing Asian and Latin American populations, which compensated for the slow growth in their home countries. This has further led to the demand of managerial talent and hence management education. Which has in turn led to the growth of business schools across the world. Entrepreneurs in the private sector and public schools under the aegis of incompetent Government bodies, took advantage of this demand. While some of these schools, a minuscule, are truly thought-leaders, most others are just shops. Public business schools are under-funded and hence under-staffed. They make do with a nonchalance attitude to education. Living life on a quarterly basis with no focus on the longer term aspects of what they are imparting, these schools seldom try sincerely to hear what the travails of students are. Private schools are better equipped to deal with these issues because they are financially independent. But they often care only about the "success" of their alumni and how large the checks these alumni would cut in the future.
Modern education is evolving into a beast. The objective of real education is not to confer degrees with fancy titles. Education, in any discipline should be about kindling the fires of the mind and not filling it with nonsense. Curriculum's should lead students into a direction that allows them to explore the world and see things that are above and beyond the grasp of text books and case studies. It must be about teaching humility and honesty and live a life with fulfillment and contentment. It must fire the imagination and awaken the creativity that has led to so many great innovations in the past few decades. Is it pure chance that most of such innovation came from the streets and not the schools? Is it just a constant coincidence that creativity comes from areas one least expect?
But modern education instead instills either pride or self-doubts in the minds of the student. Pride comes from association and exclusivity. Self-doubts are born out of delinquent pedagogy. From the course structure, to the assessments and the mode of teaching in between, everything has gone wayward and misdirected. Business education is in a bigger state of disgrace as compared to other non-mainstream disciplines. Media is busy with ranking schools based usually on the cliched metrics of salary levels achieved and placements generated while accreditation companies are filled with people who seem disconnected from reality. It does not matter if the top management of the the Enron's, Global Crossings, Lehman Brothers and Satyams of the world were educated at the best schools in the world. Were these people not imparted with values that should have stopped them from doing what they did? Accreditation companies fail miserably in gauging the efficacy of their accreditation just like ratings companies fail to properly predict the bankruptcy of a AAA rated company. Life looks good when these people look down from their high-rise glass buildings but the reality in the schools/companies they rank, rate and accredit is different. Back in the olden days in India, apparently good kings roamed the streets at night, in disguise, so as to see how their citizens are living and what their problems are. Maybe accreditation companies and journalists should enroll as students to see what a travesty modern education has become.
In India, the emphasis in most schools is on rote learning rather than building analytical skills. It is surprising to find that a similar model is followed in most schools in the UK and the US as well. Scranton tests are the enemy of creativity while being a matter of convenience for the faculty. Such tests destroy the soul of education. One can get A's in these tests and fail in the real world. This model of education is akin to missing the forest for the trees. The point of good education is help a person do their job with diligence and propriety while staying within a framework of ethical and moral respectability. This requires analytical skills and a sense of what is right and wrong. Multiple-choice tests cant teach this, only interaction can. It is the duty of the teacher and his/her discretion to think through these issues. Its the job of the teacher to develop values and real knowledge (lets forget wisdom, it cant be learned in a school) in a student. Teachers are responsible for inspiring or destroying the students. Why don't teachers take this to heart? Why do elite schools fail to instill values in their students? Why don't lesser than elite schools focus differentiating themselves by creating such niche?
The problem is not in the schools but in the way society has come to evolve. Focus, from childhood, is put on being "successful" in life, which usually means making money. Big businessmen and successful actors are the role models these days instead of people of character, integrity and selfless leaders. Greed has come to replace altruism, which fell out of fashion decades ago. Media reflects (through movies and fiction) these trends by portraying success as the be all and end all of human life. Every person I talk to, these days reflects a sense of dissatisfaction with his/her current situation regardless of the fact that they have a job, a car and a house. They all want to be somewhere else, do something else and look like someone else. And yes, these are also men and women who come out of good schools and even elite schools. Why does this happen? While elite schools instill "bragging rights" in their students, lesser ones often are left feeling inadequate. Regardless of professional choices, both seem unhappy about their lives in general because they are not "successful" enough. Somebody else has more than you, always. This stress and the ensuing pressure cracks families, neighborhoods and finally nations. Everything begins at the schools. If teachers did their jobs well in the first place, there would have been more secure people in the society. Kids growing up in single parent homes have lesser opportunities to be nurtured compared to kids who grow up with both the parents. But fathers and mothers these days are busy earning bread and promotions so where do they have time to talk to kids? That leaves the teachers to do this job. But sadly, teaching, just like all the other professions, has become a wage job so nobody takes it passionately. If this is the bottom-up analysis for the breakdown of modern education, the top-down looks even more disturbing.
The deans and heads of private and public schools treat their schools and universities as a business. They act and behave like modern day CEOs. You could ask me what the trouble with this attitude is. Here is what is wrong. Education is NOT business, and it should never be. They are two totally separate fields. While business schools impart students with a set of heuristics on how businesses are run, education is actually about uplifting the soul and ennobling. Its another question whether business education can ever be uplifting, but it surely can be ennobling. There are capitalist philosophers and men/women of vision who made this world a better place through merchandise. Whether public or private, elite or street, its about showing such light in the darkness of daily din. If universities are run like businesses, their focus is on profits, growth and power. To obtain these ends, universities will make any compromises. Such compromises could be in quality or in morals. Complete this quarter, update the roaster and file away a few more students, irrespective of how we taught what we taught or why we taught what we taught. So from the teacher to the university, there is nobody who truly cares for the student, which they can do by taking some time out to understand what this individual actually wants. Humans are treated like sheep with no respect paid to their independence and personality.
A large part of my essay is trying to expose the current problems, hence you could ask me what the suggestions are. I do propose a few. More specifically, business schools should revamp their curriculum's to include brave courses on sociological issues and philosophical subjects, not just the usual accounting and marketing rigmarole. There has to be a cross-pollination of ideas in curriculum's. Business schools should include a few art classes to encourage the students to think out of the box for solving business problems. Inter-disciplinary studies are important for enhancing a person's critical thinking. Furthermore, universities should ONLY and STRICTLY be run on a non-profit model and any profit made should be sunk back into building libraries and sports facilities. Teachers should be regularly evaluated irrespective of whether they are tenured or not. Likewise, feedback should be 360 degrees and not just students ranking teachers. Finally, for the younger section and maybe not at the graduate level, home schooling could be an alternative and this is already becoming popular in the Western world. Children could be exposed to classical education and this will enhance their worldview in a way, current curriculum's cannot. While its true that experience is the best form of all educations, its equally important to have a basic training in the functioning of the world. "Ipsa scientia potestas est" or knowledge itself is the real power. All forms of power corrupts, but real knowledge liberates.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
The Recall Fiasco
Over the past one year, there have been so many product recalls, spanning various facets of our consumer life, its intimidating to think about the safety of anything we use in our modern lives. In the last one hundred or so years, a multitude of products have entered our daily lives to make us lead a product-centric and contemporocentric lives. But in the past two decades, the escalation has been incredible. People across the World are now regularly bombarded with products and advertisements hundreds of times, everyday. Our lives get shorter as the margins of companies get longer. And as the cycle of innovation reduces, more and more products hit the street. Subliminal and explicit messages pollute our sub-conscious minds making us gullible customers controlled by a puppet master. Someone is selling something constantly, creating an endless feed of commerce interspersed within the already chaotic daily schedules of men, women and children. Here is a fact of modern life, we live in a society which cares more about the shelf life of a product, than the shelf life of a person. Product > Person.
McDonald's, about whom investors have been salivating in the last few years, recalled glasses it started selling in conjunction with Dream Works' franchise flick, Shrek IV. While the ogre is pretty damn popular with kids, his green color has come to signify the greed of cross-product placements and movie-product tie-ins. I know how crazy kids can get about these tie-ins, as in their gullible age they associate everything sold out there with the chirpy, fun-loving nature of the ogre. My nephew used to pester me to get these toys in our visits to the not-so-friendly neighborhood McDonald's. I was amazed at how cunning these companies are in their reach-out efforts to the younger sections. Even kids are neatly market segmented and psycho-graphically profiled. The McDonald's glasses apparently (recalled in the millions, as there are 12 million glasses in the market now), have a lethal chemical cadmium (a carcinogen no less) inside them. Kids drink the already nasty colas (Coke and Pepsi found traces of pesticides in their formulas recently in India) in place of water in a glass made with cadmium and down a hamburger made from a cow that was fed some more lethal hormones. Looks like the entire value chain of our lives is polluted. Will our next generation of men and women turn to aliens in their lifetime, being fed such trash? No wonder the folks of our parent generation have more energy and mental stamina than the kids these days. Fortunately, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission found the McDonald's cadmium-tainted glasses in time to even launch a recall. What if it wast found? What about all those other products floating in the market now with some lethal ingredients in their DNA? Where are the testing standards to stop corporations putting carcinogens into our daily lives? How come investors don't cry for safety in products instead of ever-increasing returns? In their eagerness and hastiness to to get tainted products to market in time when their movies hit the screens, the DreamWorks', McDonalds' and Coke's of the world will do anything. They will even allow their manufacturing (usually China, cause its cheap, never mind the quality) facilities to get tainted with carcinogens. Just like all those crackers and peanut butters etc recalled last year as someone found salmonella in some of these products. Essentially, one of us should put ourselves in peril or even die so others will know how bad these products are. Unfortunately, modern industrial production systems are so integrated and so large scale, its impossible to test every product in time to check if everything is safe or not. Please remember the toys from China that were filled with toxic substances. These profit-seeking corporations will not stop at anything for a little extra growth and a nicer quarterly number. Not even the toys of our kids. We were not safe by what we drank or ate and now our kids are not safe by what they play with and the glasses from which they drink their colas.
Update on June 25th. Kellogg recalled some 28 million boxes of its breakfast cereal, Apple Jacks, Corn Pops, Froot Loops and Honey Smacks cereals, due to a "bad smell" coming from the package. Interestingly, the news item only reveals so much about the recall but adds "shares of Kellogg unchanged at end of trading". Look at the apathy of this situation. While we are worrying about the life/death of human beings here, the conclusion of news items talks about the frigging stock price of the company? Is that the only raison d'etre of modern existence?
Toyota, whose production systems and kanban/kaizan processes cause many managements gurus to jizz in their pants, recalled millions of its cars recently. Why? Because the floor mats were disabling drivers to hit brakes or accelerate the cars automatically. There are problems with gas pedals. Imagine sitting in a car that you cant control. Imagine trying to stop the car when you see pedestrians, but instead the car starts racing. All these decades, Toyota, an otherwise smart company because of its focus on innovation and hybrid technologies, was praised high for its ability to advance production processes through just in time (JIT) manufacturing and constant improvement yada yada yada. JIT practice is not a panacea, while it can save inventory costs, it puts a strain on human beings to do things in the last minute, it clogs traffic and finally it responds weakly to variance in demand. I see a link between these methods like JIT and other fancy Japanese words to the recent recalls. Management consultants would like you to believe otherwise, because they sell crappy ideas with fancy words and make fancy bucks doing so. In its quest to increase market share, Toyota might have sent an unfinished product to the market without proper testing. Is this the constant improvement they were doing for last two decades? Most of the major Toyota brands like Prius and others were recalled. Even Lexus, which prides itself in its quality has recalls. Please remember the ads of Lexus extolling its virtues and how cool you are as a person just because you drive a Lexus. Well, if you stay alive driving one that is. And this week Chrysler announced that it is recalling nearly 600,000 Jeep Wranglers and Chrysler/Dodge because of a possible brake fluid leak from front inner fender liners causing friction and a possible loss of brakes not to mention the fire hazard the wiring can cause. We were not safe crossing the road but now we are not safe inside the cars.
Johnson & Johnson, loved by many B school professors who constantly give the cliched example of Tylenol recall in the 70s, recalled Children's Tylenol and Other Children's Medicines in the last few weeks. batches of regular and extra-strength Tylenol, children's Tylenol, eight-hour Tylenol, Tylenol arthritis, Tylenol PM, children's Motrin, Motrin IB, Benadryl Rolaids, Simply Sleep, and St. Joseph's aspirin have been recalled. If you ate them, J&J is sorry about it. Sorry, we had some bacteria in our manufacturing plants and this bacteria (which is resistant to anti-biotic by the way) seeped into the tablets your kids take. I ask, why is there not a revolution already in the streets demanding the heads of people responsible for these things? Is it just enough to start a boycott J&J or Toyota page on FaceBook? Does J&J know about something called testing? According to FDA, problems with these drugs surfaced as early as 2008, but no one bothered to follow up. What kind of manufacturing standards do these companies use? Is it just enough to put anything out, as soon as can? It does not even matter if the consumer dies using the product? Companies don't care about this, because Wall St., does not care. All investors care is about the return on their investment, it does not matter if their kids are taking contaminated medicines of a company in which their parents are investors. Who cares if a few children get sick or even die when the company has been consistently giving returns and meeting quarterly expectations? We were not safe using these drugs in the first place, because they cure the symptoms not the disease. Now, we have to think ten times before we load our kids with Motrin and Tylenol and who knows, maybe J&J will come up with another medicine to cure those who are affected by the contaminated Tylenol. Now, that would be a great business idea, which would make those investors drop their pants and dance.
HP, another paragon of virtues as extolled by gurus, recalled thousands of laptop batteries last week cause they were a fire hazard. Simply put, you or I could be blown to bits by just using a laptop. Why do we need weapons of mass destruction, if we have batteries like that? Why not install them batteries into laptops and gift them to our enemies? Now, since I bought a HP laptop in 2007 (recall period, August of 2007 and July of 2008), my heart skipped a beat and I hastily checked my battery serial number. No, its not in the recall. But yes, the battery overheats like crazy causing either my clunky Windows OS to shutdown, or drive the fan nuts or barbecue my thighs or all. CPSC, the primary safety watchdog for technology in the United States, can be contacted if consumers have problems but what about those laptops that were sent to places like India where finding someone who cares is as hard as finding a snowball in hell? It does not matter right, because HP already booked those laptops into their sales figures, which is reflected in its share price and investors already made their returns. Why care if a few people's lives are jeopardized because their laptops have suddenly turned to landmines. We are not safe by using our "productivity" enhancing gadgets.
We might have to strip ourselves naked and go live in the jungle. Might could be right there but at least there is honesty in such a killing. The above named corporations should be ashamed of themselves for the fact that they will go to any length in their naked pursuit of profit. Investors could care less if these companies make lethal products that masquerade as kids toys or cars or laptops. I don't believe that only a few people who are exposed to these products and endanger their lives will pay the price along with their families and friends. I believe that we are all doomed as long as we think and act like sheep (read consumers). Nobody will question these companies because they are too big. A few heads could fall, business will be back to normal but processes will not change. Investors will only clamor for quarterly performance. Soul searching will not happen and our cars, glasses, laptops, burgers, medicines, and lives will keep getting contaminated until the last day. We will all eventually meet our maker, and hey, I have my defects but I don't want to be recalled just yet. But I'm sick and tired about these companies and their cadmium-tainted souls.
McDonald's, about whom investors have been salivating in the last few years, recalled glasses it started selling in conjunction with Dream Works' franchise flick, Shrek IV. While the ogre is pretty damn popular with kids, his green color has come to signify the greed of cross-product placements and movie-product tie-ins. I know how crazy kids can get about these tie-ins, as in their gullible age they associate everything sold out there with the chirpy, fun-loving nature of the ogre. My nephew used to pester me to get these toys in our visits to the not-so-friendly neighborhood McDonald's. I was amazed at how cunning these companies are in their reach-out efforts to the younger sections. Even kids are neatly market segmented and psycho-graphically profiled. The McDonald's glasses apparently (recalled in the millions, as there are 12 million glasses in the market now), have a lethal chemical cadmium (a carcinogen no less) inside them. Kids drink the already nasty colas (Coke and Pepsi found traces of pesticides in their formulas recently in India) in place of water in a glass made with cadmium and down a hamburger made from a cow that was fed some more lethal hormones. Looks like the entire value chain of our lives is polluted. Will our next generation of men and women turn to aliens in their lifetime, being fed such trash? No wonder the folks of our parent generation have more energy and mental stamina than the kids these days. Fortunately, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission found the McDonald's cadmium-tainted glasses in time to even launch a recall. What if it wast found? What about all those other products floating in the market now with some lethal ingredients in their DNA? Where are the testing standards to stop corporations putting carcinogens into our daily lives? How come investors don't cry for safety in products instead of ever-increasing returns? In their eagerness and hastiness to to get tainted products to market in time when their movies hit the screens, the DreamWorks', McDonalds' and Coke's of the world will do anything. They will even allow their manufacturing (usually China, cause its cheap, never mind the quality) facilities to get tainted with carcinogens. Just like all those crackers and peanut butters etc recalled last year as someone found salmonella in some of these products. Essentially, one of us should put ourselves in peril or even die so others will know how bad these products are. Unfortunately, modern industrial production systems are so integrated and so large scale, its impossible to test every product in time to check if everything is safe or not. Please remember the toys from China that were filled with toxic substances. These profit-seeking corporations will not stop at anything for a little extra growth and a nicer quarterly number. Not even the toys of our kids. We were not safe by what we drank or ate and now our kids are not safe by what they play with and the glasses from which they drink their colas.
Update on June 25th. Kellogg recalled some 28 million boxes of its breakfast cereal, Apple Jacks, Corn Pops, Froot Loops and Honey Smacks cereals, due to a "bad smell" coming from the package. Interestingly, the news item only reveals so much about the recall but adds "shares of Kellogg unchanged at end of trading". Look at the apathy of this situation. While we are worrying about the life/death of human beings here, the conclusion of news items talks about the frigging stock price of the company? Is that the only raison d'etre of modern existence?
Toyota, whose production systems and kanban/kaizan processes cause many managements gurus to jizz in their pants, recalled millions of its cars recently. Why? Because the floor mats were disabling drivers to hit brakes or accelerate the cars automatically. There are problems with gas pedals. Imagine sitting in a car that you cant control. Imagine trying to stop the car when you see pedestrians, but instead the car starts racing. All these decades, Toyota, an otherwise smart company because of its focus on innovation and hybrid technologies, was praised high for its ability to advance production processes through just in time (JIT) manufacturing and constant improvement yada yada yada. JIT practice is not a panacea, while it can save inventory costs, it puts a strain on human beings to do things in the last minute, it clogs traffic and finally it responds weakly to variance in demand. I see a link between these methods like JIT and other fancy Japanese words to the recent recalls. Management consultants would like you to believe otherwise, because they sell crappy ideas with fancy words and make fancy bucks doing so. In its quest to increase market share, Toyota might have sent an unfinished product to the market without proper testing. Is this the constant improvement they were doing for last two decades? Most of the major Toyota brands like Prius and others were recalled. Even Lexus, which prides itself in its quality has recalls. Please remember the ads of Lexus extolling its virtues and how cool you are as a person just because you drive a Lexus. Well, if you stay alive driving one that is. And this week Chrysler announced that it is recalling nearly 600,000 Jeep Wranglers and Chrysler/Dodge because of a possible brake fluid leak from front inner fender liners causing friction and a possible loss of brakes not to mention the fire hazard the wiring can cause. We were not safe crossing the road but now we are not safe inside the cars.
Johnson & Johnson, loved by many B school professors who constantly give the cliched example of Tylenol recall in the 70s, recalled Children's Tylenol and Other Children's Medicines in the last few weeks. batches of regular and extra-strength Tylenol, children's Tylenol, eight-hour Tylenol, Tylenol arthritis, Tylenol PM, children's Motrin, Motrin IB, Benadryl Rolaids, Simply Sleep, and St. Joseph's aspirin have been recalled. If you ate them, J&J is sorry about it. Sorry, we had some bacteria in our manufacturing plants and this bacteria (which is resistant to anti-biotic by the way) seeped into the tablets your kids take. I ask, why is there not a revolution already in the streets demanding the heads of people responsible for these things? Is it just enough to start a boycott J&J or Toyota page on FaceBook? Does J&J know about something called testing? According to FDA, problems with these drugs surfaced as early as 2008, but no one bothered to follow up. What kind of manufacturing standards do these companies use? Is it just enough to put anything out, as soon as can? It does not even matter if the consumer dies using the product? Companies don't care about this, because Wall St., does not care. All investors care is about the return on their investment, it does not matter if their kids are taking contaminated medicines of a company in which their parents are investors. Who cares if a few children get sick or even die when the company has been consistently giving returns and meeting quarterly expectations? We were not safe using these drugs in the first place, because they cure the symptoms not the disease. Now, we have to think ten times before we load our kids with Motrin and Tylenol and who knows, maybe J&J will come up with another medicine to cure those who are affected by the contaminated Tylenol. Now, that would be a great business idea, which would make those investors drop their pants and dance.
HP, another paragon of virtues as extolled by gurus, recalled thousands of laptop batteries last week cause they were a fire hazard. Simply put, you or I could be blown to bits by just using a laptop. Why do we need weapons of mass destruction, if we have batteries like that? Why not install them batteries into laptops and gift them to our enemies? Now, since I bought a HP laptop in 2007 (recall period, August of 2007 and July of 2008), my heart skipped a beat and I hastily checked my battery serial number. No, its not in the recall. But yes, the battery overheats like crazy causing either my clunky Windows OS to shutdown, or drive the fan nuts or barbecue my thighs or all. CPSC, the primary safety watchdog for technology in the United States, can be contacted if consumers have problems but what about those laptops that were sent to places like India where finding someone who cares is as hard as finding a snowball in hell? It does not matter right, because HP already booked those laptops into their sales figures, which is reflected in its share price and investors already made their returns. Why care if a few people's lives are jeopardized because their laptops have suddenly turned to landmines. We are not safe by using our "productivity" enhancing gadgets.
We might have to strip ourselves naked and go live in the jungle. Might could be right there but at least there is honesty in such a killing. The above named corporations should be ashamed of themselves for the fact that they will go to any length in their naked pursuit of profit. Investors could care less if these companies make lethal products that masquerade as kids toys or cars or laptops. I don't believe that only a few people who are exposed to these products and endanger their lives will pay the price along with their families and friends. I believe that we are all doomed as long as we think and act like sheep (read consumers). Nobody will question these companies because they are too big. A few heads could fall, business will be back to normal but processes will not change. Investors will only clamor for quarterly performance. Soul searching will not happen and our cars, glasses, laptops, burgers, medicines, and lives will keep getting contaminated until the last day. We will all eventually meet our maker, and hey, I have my defects but I don't want to be recalled just yet. But I'm sick and tired about these companies and their cadmium-tainted souls.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
The Gulf of Tragedy
The eleventh largest body of water, the Gulf of Mexico is being raped as I type. The sense of helplessness that I can do nothing about it is frustrating me as it is to many fellow kindred souls. Starting on the 20th of April, which is about a month back, 200,000 US gallons (or about 800,000 liters) of oil is gushing into the water system, EVERYDAY. Eleven workers are dead, 17 are injured and it must be costing BP, the principal developer of the project, millions of dollars in restoration. But will BP pay the real cost of this disaster or just an "economic" cost?
BP will only pay a minuscule percentage of its profits in "cleaning" this gush but we will all pay the real costs. Our future generations and all those unborn children and animals, birds, fishes, plants will pay the social, environmental costs of a spill that will soon be forgotten in the daily din of human existence. From my limited understanding of the situation, a hydraulic system leak caused the explosion, which is causing the gush of oil into the water. Petroleum companies usually use highly toxic chemicals to break up this oil, causing more problems than solutions. They will also try and salvage as much as they can from the oil, but this amount is negligible. The oil will not dissolve into the water system, neither will it sink. It will NOT go back to Earth, as easily as it came out. The molecules will stick together and ugly goblets of oil will spread across the water, some landing on beaches where children play and others entangling flora and fauna into a death grip. At the risk of being romantic, I ask, who will stand up for these animals? Since we live an anthropocentric and egocentric lives as humans, and behave as the World (and all its resources) belong to us (and not the other way, that we belong to this universe), we only think in terms of what we monetarily lose. Economists and accountants will only calculate the dollars lost in the spill and the non-renewable resource wasted. A small blip on the GDP of some country and who cares if a few ecosystems are destroyed! The animals and plants do not have representatives to argue their case. Who cares if the oil will change the sex of the fish in the next few generations, its never captured in the economic calculus.
At this point, its time to ask a few basic questions. Why wasnt more precaution taken in this deep-sea drilling? In a report filed with the US Interior Department in 2009, BP quoted that an event like this happening is unlikely and if it did, it could be contained. Now, reports are indicating that it might take a few more months until the gush is contained. Was BP not prepared adequately for such an eventuality? Was BP not focussed as much on disaster management as it is on drilling more and more oil from pristine and interior regions? A more important question to ask at this juncture would be why did BP or other oil companies have to go to the deep sea for oil? Or an even more important question to ask would be why do we depend more and more on oil to provide us with warmth, cooking, goods and transportation?
A few hundred years back people burned candles and Whale fat for light and wood for cooking while using horses for transport. Then, post industrial revolution in Europe and various technological breakthroughs in the US (Oil Creek Pennsylvania in 1859, where oil was first discovered and drilled), slowly led to an addiction to oil, which we can find in almost every aspect of our daily life. Its cheap even at about $3 a gallon because the social cost of drilling oil (which is non-renewable and would take millions of years for Earth to make it for us again using our own dead bodies) is not paid by us. If as a civilization we could put man on the moon and do all these incredible things that we do today, which were inconceivable just a few years back, why the hell cant we stop our addiction to oil? We can blame Ronald Reagan who reduced the fuel efficiency standards set by Jimmy Carter, we can blame the Big Three car makers of the US to lobby the congress/senate and reduce public transportation so people can buy more cars, we can blame the OPEC which cunningly adjusts its production as to stimulate demand (through the weapon of price), we can blame perverted business decisions that put short-term growth ahead of longer-term sustainability of this planet but ultimately we have to blame ourselves. If all of us take an oath to push hybrid technologies and divorce the inefficient internal combustion engine from gas (which wastes >90% of a gallon as heat and exhaust), if all of us start carrying bags to buy groceries instead of using cheap plastic (made from oil) bags, if all of start taking this planet and its natural resources as seriously as we take the next winner of American Idol, we will not have to go deeper and deeper into pristine ecosystems and natural habitats for oil and we will surely think twice before we drill a hole into our mother Earth and suck her blood like an avaricious leech with a ravenous greed. As demand comes so will supply be generated. Kill the demand and the supply will fall (and so with it a few totalitarian regimes).
As I was thinking of the Gulf of Mexico tragedy in the last few days, a strange thought stuck in my head. If there was a fire in our house, we would go to any length to stop it. If we there was a torrential rain and the water came gushing into our basement, we would stop watching TV and rescue our precious furniture. But if something like an oil spill occurs somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, a majority of us do not even react or think deeper as to how it could affect us or how they can contribute in lessening such damage. Its because a majority of us do not "own" anything in the Gulf of Mexico. What if you had a financial stake in this disaster and you were rewarded if this tragedy is addressed immediately? Will that call you to action? It will. Sadly, all our motives, ambitions and even social relationships revolve around the dollar (or some other currency). Wake up and smell the mint, everyday, until we die. Our perception is that whatever happens to Earth and its natural systems, is meaningless to us because it does not "affect" us nor we will incur any damage as a result of it. Likewise, if the Earth is doing well, it doesn't matter to us, because we are not "rewarded". But the butterfly effect of this tragedy will have a damaging repercussion on all of us, our children and their children. These are the events that will change the course of history and create a new dimension to the path of humanity, a dark dimension. And if we chose to do nothing about these things and alter our lifestyles so as to make some contribution to the world we live in, we will all pay a price. Life on Earth is a cobweb, its interrelated and interdependent. If the planet is healthy, we will be healthy. But the pathetic rules we created for our selves in the last hundred or so years where we wallow in our little selfish shells, dancing in the human carnival wearing different masks leads to an apathy that covers our conscience like an oil slick that covers the soft fur of a sea creature. Its up to us to decide how each of us will react to this, if we will let this be a wake-up call. But such foolish, corny hope took a hit when I read a BP senior executive saying that "I'm optimistic, I'm very optimistic that the Gulf will fully recover". Optimistic? Fully recover? Is this hope or dope speaking?
This is the real tragedy of the commons. Welcome to the suck!
BP will only pay a minuscule percentage of its profits in "cleaning" this gush but we will all pay the real costs. Our future generations and all those unborn children and animals, birds, fishes, plants will pay the social, environmental costs of a spill that will soon be forgotten in the daily din of human existence. From my limited understanding of the situation, a hydraulic system leak caused the explosion, which is causing the gush of oil into the water. Petroleum companies usually use highly toxic chemicals to break up this oil, causing more problems than solutions. They will also try and salvage as much as they can from the oil, but this amount is negligible. The oil will not dissolve into the water system, neither will it sink. It will NOT go back to Earth, as easily as it came out. The molecules will stick together and ugly goblets of oil will spread across the water, some landing on beaches where children play and others entangling flora and fauna into a death grip. At the risk of being romantic, I ask, who will stand up for these animals? Since we live an anthropocentric and egocentric lives as humans, and behave as the World (and all its resources) belong to us (and not the other way, that we belong to this universe), we only think in terms of what we monetarily lose. Economists and accountants will only calculate the dollars lost in the spill and the non-renewable resource wasted. A small blip on the GDP of some country and who cares if a few ecosystems are destroyed! The animals and plants do not have representatives to argue their case. Who cares if the oil will change the sex of the fish in the next few generations, its never captured in the economic calculus.
At this point, its time to ask a few basic questions. Why wasnt more precaution taken in this deep-sea drilling? In a report filed with the US Interior Department in 2009, BP quoted that an event like this happening is unlikely and if it did, it could be contained. Now, reports are indicating that it might take a few more months until the gush is contained. Was BP not prepared adequately for such an eventuality? Was BP not focussed as much on disaster management as it is on drilling more and more oil from pristine and interior regions? A more important question to ask at this juncture would be why did BP or other oil companies have to go to the deep sea for oil? Or an even more important question to ask would be why do we depend more and more on oil to provide us with warmth, cooking, goods and transportation?
A few hundred years back people burned candles and Whale fat for light and wood for cooking while using horses for transport. Then, post industrial revolution in Europe and various technological breakthroughs in the US (Oil Creek Pennsylvania in 1859, where oil was first discovered and drilled), slowly led to an addiction to oil, which we can find in almost every aspect of our daily life. Its cheap even at about $3 a gallon because the social cost of drilling oil (which is non-renewable and would take millions of years for Earth to make it for us again using our own dead bodies) is not paid by us. If as a civilization we could put man on the moon and do all these incredible things that we do today, which were inconceivable just a few years back, why the hell cant we stop our addiction to oil? We can blame Ronald Reagan who reduced the fuel efficiency standards set by Jimmy Carter, we can blame the Big Three car makers of the US to lobby the congress/senate and reduce public transportation so people can buy more cars, we can blame the OPEC which cunningly adjusts its production as to stimulate demand (through the weapon of price), we can blame perverted business decisions that put short-term growth ahead of longer-term sustainability of this planet but ultimately we have to blame ourselves. If all of us take an oath to push hybrid technologies and divorce the inefficient internal combustion engine from gas (which wastes >90% of a gallon as heat and exhaust), if all of us start carrying bags to buy groceries instead of using cheap plastic (made from oil) bags, if all of start taking this planet and its natural resources as seriously as we take the next winner of American Idol, we will not have to go deeper and deeper into pristine ecosystems and natural habitats for oil and we will surely think twice before we drill a hole into our mother Earth and suck her blood like an avaricious leech with a ravenous greed. As demand comes so will supply be generated. Kill the demand and the supply will fall (and so with it a few totalitarian regimes).
As I was thinking of the Gulf of Mexico tragedy in the last few days, a strange thought stuck in my head. If there was a fire in our house, we would go to any length to stop it. If we there was a torrential rain and the water came gushing into our basement, we would stop watching TV and rescue our precious furniture. But if something like an oil spill occurs somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, a majority of us do not even react or think deeper as to how it could affect us or how they can contribute in lessening such damage. Its because a majority of us do not "own" anything in the Gulf of Mexico. What if you had a financial stake in this disaster and you were rewarded if this tragedy is addressed immediately? Will that call you to action? It will. Sadly, all our motives, ambitions and even social relationships revolve around the dollar (or some other currency). Wake up and smell the mint, everyday, until we die. Our perception is that whatever happens to Earth and its natural systems, is meaningless to us because it does not "affect" us nor we will incur any damage as a result of it. Likewise, if the Earth is doing well, it doesn't matter to us, because we are not "rewarded". But the butterfly effect of this tragedy will have a damaging repercussion on all of us, our children and their children. These are the events that will change the course of history and create a new dimension to the path of humanity, a dark dimension. And if we chose to do nothing about these things and alter our lifestyles so as to make some contribution to the world we live in, we will all pay a price. Life on Earth is a cobweb, its interrelated and interdependent. If the planet is healthy, we will be healthy. But the pathetic rules we created for our selves in the last hundred or so years where we wallow in our little selfish shells, dancing in the human carnival wearing different masks leads to an apathy that covers our conscience like an oil slick that covers the soft fur of a sea creature. Its up to us to decide how each of us will react to this, if we will let this be a wake-up call. But such foolish, corny hope took a hit when I read a BP senior executive saying that "I'm optimistic, I'm very optimistic that the Gulf will fully recover". Optimistic? Fully recover? Is this hope or dope speaking?
This is the real tragedy of the commons. Welcome to the suck!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
HP's Palm Reading...
Its 2010 and HP acquires Palm. Unless you were sitting in a well for the last one year, its impossible not to see the direction computing industry is taking now. HP, which pretty much nailed Dell in the last few years is getting aggressive about the much hyped smartphones market. As we shift from laptops to smartphones, there are just a few companies that are going to take advantage of this shift, with Apple, RIM and Google being at the top. Not one to be left behind, HP wants a share of this market. With more than 200 million smartphones being forecasted for shipping in 2010, it a market hard to ignore. And HP has $12 billion cash and spending about 10% of it on Palm, isn't too bad right? Wrong.
Palm makes phones that run Palm OS, WebOS and Windows Mobile. I remember Palm very fondly from my salad days at the start of this decade. My colleagues boasted the Palm Pilots in their cool leather pouches and I was pretty envious of its sex appeal, then. But the cooler guys amongst us, wore the even sexier Treo, made by Handspring and later acquired by Palm. At around the same time, the dorks used to carry iPaqs, made by Compaq (acquired by HP, our protagonist in this story). iPaqs were pioneers, in the sense that they were some of the first smart devices (no phone though). But after HP's acquisition, iPaq instead of being promoted as a telecom smart device (What RIM did to those berries) was left to its own fate (Back then, HP had its own management problems, remember the board troubles with Carly Fiorina?) and as a result died a premature death. Also, iPaq's ran on Windows O/S and hence they were very lethargic (Guess Windows could use some Coffee). At this time, Apple and RIM were pushing the envelop. So cut to late 2006, RIM, which successfully married telecom and computing into its berries became a leader and in 2007, when iPhone was launched, for the first time people started having orgasms at phones. My question is, what was Palm doing these 4-6 years? It was launching product after product that failed to capture either the market or the consumer's imagination. So it started developing its own O/S, the Web O/S. Not to be left behind in smartphones, HP looks around and find the also-ran Palm and pays a whopping $1.2 billion of it, reflecting about 25% premium over Palm's stock price in April 2010. For what? I will tell you for what. For a few products that HP thinks can take on RIMs, Apples and hot new Androids of the world. But this observer feels that history will repeat. Because:
- Palm is an also-ran in the emerging smartphones market much behind RIM, Apple, Microsoft and now, Android. It has no momentum in sales, no single product that the consumer will salivate after, and its market share is reducing as I type (mostly at the expense of Google's Droid).
- The key word in smartphones is community. Apple has one, Google has one, RIM has one and Palm comes with a negligible community (around 2000 or so developers). The maximum impact a smartphone will have is not on the user but through the developer. With so many apps being created everyday for Apple, Droid and RIM, there are not many out there doing the same for Palm. So, HP does not even get a large installed base of developers.
- As the netbooks market is going to take off, and with the impact of the iPad, HP will want to focus more on this market than on the smartphone market. It will be confused to focus on both these market what with the O/S decisions (Palm comes with Web O/S, but HP is a big supported of Windows Mobile, and I bet you cant have these two coexisting in peace, what will developers focus on?), hardware design decisions, app decisions to be made on a daily basis.
- Finally, lets remember iPaq for a moment. I wonder if Palm would take a similar fate or baffle us all by making HP a leader in the smartphone market, which I doubt.
I am sure HP has its reasons but are they worth $1.2 billion for a company that the world has mostly forgotten?
Palm makes phones that run Palm OS, WebOS and Windows Mobile. I remember Palm very fondly from my salad days at the start of this decade. My colleagues boasted the Palm Pilots in their cool leather pouches and I was pretty envious of its sex appeal, then. But the cooler guys amongst us, wore the even sexier Treo, made by Handspring and later acquired by Palm. At around the same time, the dorks used to carry iPaqs, made by Compaq (acquired by HP, our protagonist in this story). iPaqs were pioneers, in the sense that they were some of the first smart devices (no phone though). But after HP's acquisition, iPaq instead of being promoted as a telecom smart device (What RIM did to those berries) was left to its own fate (Back then, HP had its own management problems, remember the board troubles with Carly Fiorina?) and as a result died a premature death. Also, iPaq's ran on Windows O/S and hence they were very lethargic (Guess Windows could use some Coffee). At this time, Apple and RIM were pushing the envelop. So cut to late 2006, RIM, which successfully married telecom and computing into its berries became a leader and in 2007, when iPhone was launched, for the first time people started having orgasms at phones. My question is, what was Palm doing these 4-6 years? It was launching product after product that failed to capture either the market or the consumer's imagination. So it started developing its own O/S, the Web O/S. Not to be left behind in smartphones, HP looks around and find the also-ran Palm and pays a whopping $1.2 billion of it, reflecting about 25% premium over Palm's stock price in April 2010. For what? I will tell you for what. For a few products that HP thinks can take on RIMs, Apples and hot new Androids of the world. But this observer feels that history will repeat. Because:
- Palm is an also-ran in the emerging smartphones market much behind RIM, Apple, Microsoft and now, Android. It has no momentum in sales, no single product that the consumer will salivate after, and its market share is reducing as I type (mostly at the expense of Google's Droid).
- The key word in smartphones is community. Apple has one, Google has one, RIM has one and Palm comes with a negligible community (around 2000 or so developers). The maximum impact a smartphone will have is not on the user but through the developer. With so many apps being created everyday for Apple, Droid and RIM, there are not many out there doing the same for Palm. So, HP does not even get a large installed base of developers.
- As the netbooks market is going to take off, and with the impact of the iPad, HP will want to focus more on this market than on the smartphone market. It will be confused to focus on both these market what with the O/S decisions (Palm comes with Web O/S, but HP is a big supported of Windows Mobile, and I bet you cant have these two coexisting in peace, what will developers focus on?), hardware design decisions, app decisions to be made on a daily basis.
- Finally, lets remember iPaq for a moment. I wonder if Palm would take a similar fate or baffle us all by making HP a leader in the smartphone market, which I doubt.
I am sure HP has its reasons but are they worth $1.2 billion for a company that the world has mostly forgotten?
Flash in the pan?
Jobs rips Flash apart here, interesting comments:
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/
Friday, January 29, 2010
AmazonFlix?
Heard on the tech street that Amazon is looking to gobble up Netflix. I love both the companies and use them pretty avidly. Almost daily in fact. Problem is how well can Amazon take Netflix to the next level? Few hunches:
1. Netflix is unchallenged. It single-handedly killed the Blockbuster dinosaur with innovative technology and superbly easy to use web interface. Amazon is a major retailer for DVDs and BlueRays so on the surface this is a marriage made in heaven. Marry the content of Amazon to the neat distribution of Netflix. With the streaming vidoes taking off, this is only gonna go to the next level. Neat!
2. Amazon owns IMDB, the most popular site for anything related to movies. This can be and will be well leverage by Amazon in tying up with user-ratings and related stuff for Netflix, which already developed/is developing complex matrices for understanding user patters in movie tastes and preferences. IMDB rocks, I personally go there almost daily and this should help both the parties integrate better.
3. With Comcast and ATT trying to stream movies along with gaming devices like Wii and PlayStation joining in, there is a war out there to get movies to users. This reaching out effort will be good for users, as prices get low and choices improve. I guess it wont be long before Kindle starts streaming movies and here Netflix technology will help Amazon get an edge over the iPad, if at all. This is a really interesting space to watch. Media distribution over Internet almost killer Warner with its incompatible marriage to AOL but newer channels will emerge. Set-top boxes, gaming devices, iPads will all be eager to stream movies as they become distribution channels. The key is to ink smart deals with the studios who might not be over-cautious in releasing their content. Warner already has a wait-list on Netflix for its new DVDs so sales can be as much front-loaded as possible thus shifting rentals to the backburner. Naturally, studios would want to sell DVDs than rent since margins will be greater.
I think Amazon and Netflix make a good pair. Lets see what happens!
1. Netflix is unchallenged. It single-handedly killed the Blockbuster dinosaur with innovative technology and superbly easy to use web interface. Amazon is a major retailer for DVDs and BlueRays so on the surface this is a marriage made in heaven. Marry the content of Amazon to the neat distribution of Netflix. With the streaming vidoes taking off, this is only gonna go to the next level. Neat!
2. Amazon owns IMDB, the most popular site for anything related to movies. This can be and will be well leverage by Amazon in tying up with user-ratings and related stuff for Netflix, which already developed/is developing complex matrices for understanding user patters in movie tastes and preferences. IMDB rocks, I personally go there almost daily and this should help both the parties integrate better.
3. With Comcast and ATT trying to stream movies along with gaming devices like Wii and PlayStation joining in, there is a war out there to get movies to users. This reaching out effort will be good for users, as prices get low and choices improve. I guess it wont be long before Kindle starts streaming movies and here Netflix technology will help Amazon get an edge over the iPad, if at all. This is a really interesting space to watch. Media distribution over Internet almost killer Warner with its incompatible marriage to AOL but newer channels will emerge. Set-top boxes, gaming devices, iPads will all be eager to stream movies as they become distribution channels. The key is to ink smart deals with the studios who might not be over-cautious in releasing their content. Warner already has a wait-list on Netflix for its new DVDs so sales can be as much front-loaded as possible thus shifting rentals to the backburner. Naturally, studios would want to sell DVDs than rent since margins will be greater.
I think Amazon and Netflix make a good pair. Lets see what happens!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
iPad - A Quick Review
With the fervent will of a reformed smoker, I watched in awe the live blogging of Apple's iPad launch today in San Francisco. As a preamble, I have been waiting for this day with a great anticipation of waiting for my favorite rock band's new album. It was worth the wait, as its a good album :)
The Internet has been burning with rumors, heard-on-the-street gossip and smack talk about the iPad (iSlate, iTablet, iWhatever) since more than a few weeks, with the madness reaching a crescendo today. There are reviews and 'expert' opinions for you to read just by typing A into Google (well not exactly but try App..).
Here is a quick review from an avid iPhone, iPod user and a serious Apple fan. Cutting to the chase:
1. The iPad is the most important product from Apple not after 1984 as reported but after 2007, i.e., after the iPhone. Its hype definitely should not take anything away from this cool device. Its a perfect piece for the net-savvy, Facebook generation looking for one gadget to aggregate Internet, Mail and Media. I dont believe the argument that there is no market or there is a small market for the iPad. People actually thought there was no market for music players back in 2000 and then we got hit with iPods. Well, thats an other story. Tablets are going to be big with every major tech company trying to do something concrete in this area. Even a retailer like Amazon has Kindle, which kind of competes with tablets. Intel has Moorestown and Moblin OS just for Tablets and so on.
2. I do have a few nitpicks. My three major complaints about the iPad are a) It doesn't have a camera and that hurts. Its an easy thing to do Steve, you have it in the iPhone (and even iPods though its for video), so why miss it on this? I would have loved to webcam with the iPad in my lap but I will have to wait for that. b) Its storage demands more. I mean, I understand this is not a storage device but a streaming device. But come on, media files (HD videos and all those books and songs), eat up space like a hungry wolf. 16GB can just store a few HD movies along with pix and songs, that just does not cut it. The iPad should have started at 128GB and upwards. c) Flash stupid! I mean, whats the whole deal with not playing Flash? We are not asking for Silverlight, just good old Flash from good old Adobe.
3. The pricing is not surprising. I never for a second believed the 'expert' analysts predicting that iPad was gonna be about $1000. Are you kidding me? Why the hell would Apple price iPad at $1000 and have a Mac Book at $1200? I thought it was going to have a simple pricing structure of around $700 and I was about right. I did this by taking the simple average of iPhone (about $200 with contract) and basic Mac Book (about $1200). But Apple came up with the somewhat complex matrix of two basic models -- one with WiFi 802.11n connectivity only, the other with both WiFi and 3G. The 3G models are $130 more than non-3G models, prices vary depending on memory.
Tablets have been around for a while and the last time there was so much hype on a tablet, they were commandments written on it. But seriously, remember iPaq? Even the name is eerily strange with the i in front but whatever happened to it when Compaq was gobbled by HP. There are many more tablets in the last few years but none that can offer the functionality of iPad. At least for now.
Here are some of the cool things to be done on the iPad:
- iBooks: What iTunes did to music, hopefully this will do to publishing. Read and buy books on the go. Kindle is cool, I checked it out but who wants so many devices? I cant watch videos or email on Kindle and I am not going to buy 100 devices for 100 things. Like in 2000, when you had laptops, Blackberries for email (berries could not talk then), mobiles, pagers, PDA like Palm and Trio. Hell, Dockers even made pants with 8 pockets for all these devices. Nobody bought these devices after the tech crash and last I heard, Dockers discontinued these pants.
- iWorks: Adds cool business functionality to the iPad. iWork is a neat way to create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations and its friends with MS Office.
- We have the good old iTunes, and App Store of course.
Well, 2 months to go for delivery and I am still saving up for my iPad. Lets see how many iPads will be sold in 2010. But today sir, was a good day to be alive.
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