Thoughts on technology, design, marketing, philosophy, and human potential.
Is AI going to replace all of us? No, I don’t think so. Is AI going to equip all of us? Yes, If we ask for help. In this walkthrough, you can see the usage of AI in creating Atal Tinkering Lab sessions. This could be anything: a science class,...
Shipping work is hard. Making it public is even harder. For past few months, I have been tinkering with something. And if you remember, a few weeks back, I shared an essay “To AI or Not To AI” too.[1] How to make the best of the technology without making it...
That’s no longer the question now. The real question is… Actually, it is not a single question. There are questions: – What to AI? – When to AI? – Where to AI? – Who will AI? – How much to AI? These are reasonable questions, but we are not there...
I have been tinkering with microcontrollers since childhood and I can see the gap in the communication here. Between Rajeev and Musk. This is a huge sweeping generalization statement that implies no one can build secure digital hardware. Wrong. @elonmusk ‘s view may apply to US n other places –...
I love LLMs (Large Language Models) tools aka AI tools, they’ve changed the way I work, what I work and how I envisage my future. If you’ve been using it, you know what I mean. And so, it is natural for companies to ride the AI wave. “We are the...
I woke up to some irritating news today. I felt the urge to rage-write about the death of democracy, the EU’s climate madness, so-and-so forth. But then, what’s the point? Cognitive dissonance is such a powerful mechanism, that nothing can go through zealots. So instead, I thought to talk about...
Last week was the 52nd week of me sending Friday letters to the readers. One of the beauty of email newsletters is: it is not social media. It is not noisy. There are no likes, comments, shares. The reader can read on their own फुर्सत. If the reader didn’t have...
Have you noticed there is a birth of a whole new job role? It is called Dashboard Managers. The old school managers used to know what they’re talking about. With whom they’re dealing. All with little help from dashboards. But this new variety is different. And what do they do?...
The gimmick of “we are a flat organization” got perpetuated when Facebook in 2015 began its operations with probably the largest open office floor plan in the world. Many of the tech-giants followed the suite. It’s not that open offices didn’t exist before 21st century. But I’m more interested in...
What they say, even the atheists also believe in something. And they make that a religion. Because it is in the human nature to believe in something. We simply can’t help it. Belief maketh bread. This NEED to believe in something doesn’t have to be animalistic. We, the modern human...
Decision Frameworks Overload I’m tired of hearing about “decision models”, “frameworks”, “matrix” etc etc etc. “Charlie Munger’s secret. Do this. And boooom!” It doesn’t work. Because we’re being lazy. Mental models and frameworks don’t work on their own. The practitioner has to practice them. The way doctors have to “practice”...
Imagine. There’s a gun on your head. You have to make a choice. “Time-travel to 26th April, 1984. Visit Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. And stare at its exploded core.” OR “Type out 5 pages on the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster. In 5 days.” What’s your choice? My choice? Chernobyl. I’d die...
“The dollar value of my time.” I don’t remember exactly when I came across this thinking pattern. And somewhere I adopted it. Initially, not in my day-to-day life. But mostly on the work front. It helped me in setting my priorities. It still does. But something unexpected began to take...
It is funny how certain we feel when we promote a product on Facebook, Instagram, or Google. We think “hmmm, I have checked all the boxes and now the technology will do the work.” And indeed, technology does its work. Our expectation is met. Our love for certainty increases with...
A year back, I wasn’t aware of this tendency of mine. But as we learn new terms, they give us ideas. So what’s a euphemism? It is a mild or pleasant word or phrase that we use instead of one that is unpleasant or offensive. Kind of a sugar-coated thing....
How many times do we feel our efforts were not effective enough? For example, you conducted some activities with your students, employees, or the management team. People loved it. Or at least, that is what they said. And yet, you see the same patterns in their behaviour. No change. In...
In my previous piece, I talked about why I stopped presenting and started conversing. But what kind of conversation? Chit-chat? Small talk? Philosophical drag? NO. A diagnostic one. Unassuming. Bias-free conversation. A good medical practitioner doesn’t cut open a patient based on his instinct. Instead, the first step is talking...
Not because I got bored of presenting or because it was time-consuming. Like every other public speaker, I love presentations. Pitching a new idea. New solution. Getting the “Aha!” moment from the audience. It makes me feel accomplished. The growing anticipation, the next visual on the screen. The first look,...
“I know that I’m a bad person. I lie, cheat, and hurt people. I’m an absolute monster!” No, not that monster. In fact, that’s not even a monster. That’s a normal human being. I want to talk about the monster that feels cute when he presents himself. He flatters us....
No, we’re not talking about artificial ear creation from stem cells. But a metaphorical one. The thing is, communication platforms have made it easy to voice out your mind. But every progress asks for something in return. In this case, we have given up our ears. Our eyes. Our observation...
It is a disservice to the client to say YES. For their every whim and wants. A client may come up with impromptu plans for a design change, a marketing tactic or the school administration comes up with a new student competition idea. As a designer, a marketer or a...
But these people will have different reasons. Mainly two groups: A. Disappointed because you have changed. B. Disappointed because you have not changed. We have a choice to make here. Which group to disappoint is up to us.
Did you know that every time we narrate an experience, it changes a little bit? Over the years, the story changes completely. “So what?” you may ask. Think about this. You are investing your hard-earned money in a small amount every month. The moment you decide to invest is a...
That’s the moment all of us come across. Every day. No matter what kind of knowledge work we might be engaged in. You enrolled a student in your after-school classes, but you know it won’t work out. You agreed to run a social media campaign for a new client, but...
When in 2011, Yuval Noah Harari published his bestseller ‘The Sapiens’, along with many concepts, it reintroduced the importance of gossip in the human social circle. Its primary purpose: survival. Gossip is an intimate act among a close circle of individuals. It serves as the reservoir of knowledge. Whatever idea,...
If you force yourself to complete every book, two things will happen: 1. Soon, you will give up reading 2. It will take a long time to figure out what is your type That’s also true for work.
Every one of us needs to build the capacity to say NO. Not for ourselves. But to serve better. A bit paradoxical, huh? See, you might be a teacher, a marketer, an investment banker or a CEO. No matter what, you want to serve your customer, and your organization better....
When startup/tech enthusiasts use the term ‘disruptive’, what they mean is a 10X better solution. Refined over a period of a few years. Earlier, a 10X better solution used to take a couple of decades to develop and refine. Even a millennium. When we develop a solution keeping ‘disruption’ in...
When a bookworm walks into your small book cafe. When a patient enters your operation theatre. When a tired parent knocks on the headmaster’s door. When a new fearful child enters your classroom. When a farmer visits your organic startup webpage. When a veteran reads your company and job description....
And still, we think the table is of the wrong size. How many times do we find our values appreciated or depreciated by someone? Sometimes during a simple presentation or sometimes during a job interview. If you’re a software developer candidate, how do you know the interviewer knows more than...
When did we decide we are not? Facilitator. Teacher. Guide. I’m using the word facilitator. Someone who facilitates an interaction. Actively or passively. It is possible to self-limit with job titles such as “Vice President”, “CEO”, and “Junior clerk”. They’re useful codes to estimate where someone is placed in a...
It takes a village to raise a child. And what about a business, a project or a service? It is good to assume that success is dependent on the village and villagers. The thing is, in the case of raising a child, the village plays a passive role and parents...
Technology is not here to replace us. (Read Rule no.3 in my New World Rules here) It is here to liberate us. Liberate our time. Liberate our mind space. Why to liberate us? That’s a million-dollar question. *Liberate us to fill with entertainment? *Liberate us to fill with 10-second TikTok?...
Whether we identify ourselves as an introvert or an extrovert, we have this inherent need to be connected with other beings. Not all beings, just the right ones. In fact, we can see first-hand that we get bored with typical MOOC courses. Because in the end, the best interaction we...
Last night, I attended Y Combinator’s session on Boom Supersonic jet startup. (Boom is building a commercial Supersonic jet that will travel two times faster than today’s commercial jets. You can read more about it here.) Boom’s founder Blake was showing around their testing prototype XB-1 Baby Boom at their...
I know you have walked the extra mile for someone and so has someone for you. That extra mile would have strengthened your relationship, developed trust and set your intentions in order. What if someone can only afford to walk an extra step? Not a mile. See, the thing with...
Most of us tend to believe what we see. For us, being is believing. The problem occurs when we start working on large projects. We have to believe in the project, its outcomes and its eventual being. We cannot wait for the being, the existence to manifest to make us...
That’s an illusion. You may succeed in making a fortune in the short-term by gatekeeping, but not in the long term. One may argue it is their business model. But hey, isn’t that counterintuitive? The whole idea of commerce is to provide value in exchange for money. When did we...
All of us feel lost at some point in our lives and career. “Why did I choose this work?” “Why did I choose this partner?” “Why did I choose this product rollout strategy?” And so on… One thing that works for me is noting my WHY early on. Writing on...
The idea is simple: learn to see reality as it is. Were you expecting a different behaviour to happen? Did it happen? Why did or didn’t it happen? What part of your thesis was correct or incorrect? This may seem like a no-brainer, but how many of us deal with...
No matter what story you tell yourself about your work, it is always an almost a good idea to go slow. Deliberately. Unless you’re working on an assembly line, thoughtful action will always outperform an expedited one. It doesn’t have a philosophical basis, but a mathematical one. The probability of...
I’m eagerly waiting for the first full-colour images from JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) scheduled to be publicized on July 12th. If you’re unaware of it, read the Wiki article here. But I’m not talking about JWST, nor about The Hubble Telescope. I’m talking about monumental projects. Upon its launch...
Of course, not EVERYTHING. But important enough to talk about. Perception gets your cold call answered. Perception wins you a job. Perception begets you public’s vote. Check out two different versions of the cover image of the book ‘Seven Years in Tibet’. Which of the cover images make you think...
It was probably an accounting problem. If you thought you had worked hard, put in your best effort, and still the output was disappointing. If you’re a music composer who composed melodious music that was only tested on a limited set of output settings, no wonder the music didn’t sound...
Threshold is not a good measure. Probably not the right one too. If you decide ‘we will act if the problem crosses so and so threshold’, you are more likely to cross that threshold. Waiting until the system no longer works. Waiting until the addiction reaches a point of no...
If you stamp your logo everywhere, you’re setting yourself to become invisible. Invisible to the eye. Effective marketing effort doesn’t overwhelm their audience. They do not pop in front of the audience when they least expect them. Instead, the effective ones present themselves in an anticipated manner. With permission. Effective...
A year back, I had written about the volatility of our decisions. I came across an even more interesting read sometime back. It showcases how our patience is decreasing. In fact, it is also volatile, with a downward trend. Look at the attached graph of the shrinking period of US...
I love using software products. They make life so easy. Normally, my software exploration goes like this: *I come across a situation. Mostly problems. *I know the manual way is lengthy. That’s the last option. *I explore the internet. Deep dive. And..mostly I get what I look for. I’m convinced...
The best Edtech we had for a hundred years was a blackboard and chalk. Then, we thought “alright, let’s scale the same experience using digital tools.” We failed. Many organizations tried to position themselves as the substitute for the traditional classroom. While the better idea was to be an augmentation...
If you’re selling fruits and vegetables in a thriving city market, you will hear and see your customers directly. This is not true for most businesses though. The people you seek to serve are not in physical proximity. But we have to keep our eyes and ears open. Physical distance...
This is my favourite bunch. Poetic, confident, incisive. We know them as “experts”. The problem crops up when you put them to the real-life test. Most of them underperform. Or better: they’re good theorists. Universities are producing a huge number of jargon-filled experts nowadays. So, how do you identify a...
You’re set for a disappointment if you seriously thought Steve Jobs conducted any team-building activity. So what he did? Made an offer that a handful of crazy ones couldn’t resist. The non-believers didn’t believe and he didn’t care. Have you listened to Sir Jonathan Ive’s interview? He is the former...
How tall can your child grow? On average, a healthy child grows at 2.5 inches per year. By this logic, the child would grow into a 10 feet tall adult. Isn’t that insane? We know it’s not true. Our body doesn’t work that way. But we forget that organizations are...
And the ideas that we don’t own. Will you hit the kill switch on your idea, if it doesn’t work? It is important to differentiate between which are ours and which are borrowed. There are multiple reasons why it is important to differentiate: To control our attachment to the idea...
It is strange to think of ourselves as robbers. I mean most of my readers are intelligent, hardworking folks. Not robbers. I’m not talking about the robbing of attention. Your attention is a gift and I cherish it. I’m referring to the robbery of experience. Not deprivation. Robbery. When a...
According to www.deathclock.com, I have 60 more years to live. To breathe. To enjoy the human experience. You can check yours. But the deathclock is not going to show infinity. Neither it is going to show 200 years. We have a choice to make here. Either to live as if...
Have you heard of such a physician? Me neither. Because the physician knows the importance of analyzing the X-ray report and prescribing medicine. When it comes to data, most organizations suffer from two ailments: Lack of data Lack of dissemination of data due to data hoarding Data, like grains, is...
Probably the ATM machines taught people the possibility of an unsupervised queue. All engineering projects affect a lasting change. On the society. Of course, most of them are unintentional. Sometimes it takes us decades to realize this. Few examples: Telecom projects: changed the society’s communication pattern Infrastructure projects: changed the...
Did Pandit Ravishankar have a resume? What about Richard Branson or Carl Sagan or Steven Spielberg? Could they make a large impact because they didn’t have a resume? Or was it a conscious choice? We don’t know the answer. But we do know these great personalities produced a body of...
While some of us torment ourselves on the eve of world environment day, a little bit of fact-check is in order. As an individual, what should be our share of the blame for greenhouse gas emissions? : 100%, 80%, 60%, 40%, 20%, 5%? In 2020, when the world was at...
Can I convince you to give up smoking by telling you every year eight million deaths are related to smoking-related diseases? If you’re hard-headed like me, you’d think “sorry, I won’t be among the next 8 million, the statistics don’t work out”. This is not a space to run an...
Yes, mercy killing. We should think about many jobs that need euthanasia. While chatting with my friend the other day, we stumbled upon the situation of 10-minute delivery agents. A lot has been written, discussed and criticized about this pervasive practice by wanna-be Unicorns. I have been guilty of being...
I came across the term ‘useful education’. So does useless education exist in the world? Not exactly, but there is a range. Range of intangibles on offer. Useful education lives on the sidelines. It is not glamorous. You cannot grab it or seek it. It is invisible. Intangible. Useful education...
Recently, I visited a handicrafts market. Classic jute items, ceramics, soaps, embroidery. You get the idea. I felt as if I was underpaying for a ceramic mug. The price was too less for so much of their efforts. If I had crafted such a mug, I wouldn’t sell it at...
Whenever there is a hit and run case, our blood boils. That is the right thing to feel. But I’m not talking about the hit and run drivers. I’m talking about the hit and run stars. These are a special bunch of people. They’re celebrated to have started many projects,...
And that’s a maritime tradition. What about the ships in the form of organizations? It is a huge risk to board a ship. Especially, without knowing the ship’s health, the crew’s culture or the ship’s direction. And still, on a regular basis, new sailors, may I call freshers, are coerced...
That was the response from Bob Marley. The interviewer had asked him “have you made a lot of money?” The question is timeless. Whether we question anyone on their face about their bank balance or not, we ask it in our heads. Constantly. We need a new question though. “Do...
This is the most discouraging question I ask at the end of every project planning session. “What can go wrong with this plan?” Asking “what went wrong?” is always an option. Most organizations do it. That’s post-mortem. It doesn’t compensate for the lost time and resources. Instead, pre-mortem helps us...
Appraisal season is here. The best time to publish this article was a year back. The second-best time is today. (I would rate myself 0 on a scale of 0-10 about the timeliness of this article. Poor time management.) Organizations are trying their best to catch up with the needs...
The economic machine thrives upon consumption. The more we consume, the more we push the piston. Living in the most materially comfortable times, we’re getting rid of as many hassles as possible. Most of us are hooked on an increasingly hassle-free lifestyle. The question is “what degree of hassle-free lifestyle...
Of course, the question in the title is absurd. A more appropriate question will seek to answer a combination of inquiries: are you looking for someone who will follow your instructions? Are you looking for someone who will correct you when you’re mistaken? Are you looking for someone who will...
When you get on a stage? Or while walking on the road on a random Sunday afternoon? The successful showman in any show business starts his act as soon as he gets on a stage. But a legendary showman/woman does not need to start their act when they get on...
Not among people. But between the interaction of people and organizations. I’m not talking about the employer-employee relationship here. That’s secondary. The trust between a brand and people. Thanks to the past 30 years of cultural conditioning, we know there is going to be some caveat during our interaction with...
Most of us fear both. And these are not the only fears that we harbor. Consider a few examples: The fear of a cold shower vs the fear of presenting a ppt deck The fear of a knife cut vs the fear of your ideas being rejected The fear of...
I dislike pre-installed applications on smartphones or computers. You can’t even remove some of them. The majority of them are ineffective at what they do. The fact that some of the third-party apps come pre-installed as a part of the deal is a signal that there are not many takers....
At any stage of your work, do you design surveys? The ones with endless questions and options? Then we’re the same type. Or almost the same type. Working in the non-profit sector, we need to conduct surveys. The word need is both significant and deadly here. Many times when we...
Recently, some realization dawned upon me and here I am. Could you imagine an organization without any managerial roles? Me neither. At least not until a few years back. For the past year, we have been working on a manager-less project. It is interesting that our colleagues haven’t noticed it...
Yes, there is more than one. But there is a specific one, which is not only the fastest, but it also ensures the loss of the audience’s trust. Feeling of being deceived. I’m still not over one product pitch that I had recently attended. The product seemed straightforward, it was...
All we want to do is to be remembered, to leave a legacy. If not in the form of a celebrity, then in the form of a celebrated family member or in a social circle. The attraction for being remembered is real and humane. The same need to be remembered,...
Well, it might have. But the fact is, it has been like that since the time I have been around. I can’t say the same for the people who have been in my place before me. When we place too much reliability on our experience alone, we give rise to...
Especially, if you’re narrowly focused on meeting your end goal. The customer, the user the donor sense it. They see through you. You have to work on what’s there for others. Not a made-up one, a genuine offer. Of course, there is never a win-win situation in business or life,...
When Albert Camu had said “Life is the sum of all our choices”, his proclamation was more right than wrong. The decisions that we make, shape our life, our society’s culture, and our relationships. The variables of different probabilities that we collectively refer to as ‘luck’ play their own role....
This week, I came across a remarkable 4-minute long YouTube video, perhaps one of the best entertaining short videos that have provided food for thought. If you haven’t already watched the video, I strongly encourage you that you do before reading further as the article dives deeper into what happens...
“Customer is the god.” “Whatever you do, never lose money.” And there are more monotheistic ideas. They’re popular. It is a commonly observed trait that the ideas that preach power, seem to gain traction. But that’s just for popular media and op-eds. The reality is more convoluted. There are stakeholders....
Any organization stands on its own with the help of a visible or invisible hierarchy. It matters little if someone accepts the existence of hierarchy or rejects it because its existence is versatile. Hierarchy assigns value to the nodes in the web of the organization. We have to understand that,...
We need to ask that question every time we come across a new idea, a product pitch, or just about anything that is creating some sort of wave among our peers. It is easy to take someone’s “so what?” as a sign of arrogance, but if we look deeper, they’re...
The world has changed due to several technological advances, especially the communication technologies. The way interfaces are designed, it is easy for the boundaries between the different types of media to get blurred. If we categorize all possible media that intends to deliver a message to the recipient, they can...
There are several projects in the world aiming to spread a million or a billion smiles. Not metaphorical smiles, but real ones. The exact number of smiles is not important but the spirit is. The underlying assumption behind such projects is simple: by spreading smiles on the faces of a...
We make this choice every day, every moment. In our daily conversations, which side of the table do we choose to sit? I attended one webinar recently. The organizers expected to sell their products and services through the demonstration. One thing that awkwardly stood out was the host’s usage of...
A spark is an absolute prerequisite for an engine to start, but this post is not about a car engine. We’re talking about engines that drive our life, work and culture. When we sign up for a course, a degree, a discussion, or an uncomfortable routine, we inherently hope to...
It is a trap. It is tempting to think that what worked for 10 people might work for 100 or vice versa. It is equally tempting to think what worked for 10 people in one city may work for 10 people in another city. Great designers know this well. The...
“Let’s put this into a framework, it may work”, and the meaning is lost. We live in a complex world. In business and life, we constantly encounter problems. Some types of problems bother us frequently. As a result, we develop a tried and tested series of steps to encounter them....
Organizations want to make an impact over a period of time. It is achieved by implementing different models. Experimenting with different parts of the entire change-making process: from ideation, recruitment, training, execution to feedback. They’re not wrong when they try to do that. In a world full of uncertainty, there...
And that’s remarkable. I recently switched to Bluehost’s one of the products and needed to call them multiple times for initial setup. No customer-care call queues, no excuse about covid-crisis. The customer representatives were patient, unassuming and solved every problem that I could throw at them. To the uninitiated, Bluehost...
But we want to begin with digital sketch on a high-end iPad Pro device, and call it a day. The attachment to traditional pencil and paper as tools is not romantic or nostalgic one. It is about understanding all the different nuances of the sketch, the friction of the lead...
Gmail offers upto thirty seconds of ‘Undo send’ and WhatsApp offers upto one hour to ‘Delete for everyone’. Why do they provide this feature? A mistaken text/email to the wrong person at the wrong time? Probably yes. But that is narrow. The function of communication technologies is to change the...
Most of the virtual meets are boring. Sustained boredom breeds entertainment. This entertainment can lead to insights. One of the most widely adopted zoom etiquette is to stay on mute until absolutely necessary. When you have a sufficiently large number of group size, this etiquette provides some entertainment with insights....
This is important. The conventional wisdom stresses on not giving up on people. It talks about giving chance after chance. If one way doesn’t work, offer another. Course correct. When it comes to managing people, there is a limit to the trial and error process. If the manager is clear...
I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them. George Bernard Shaw The internet has increased the social media reach. Especially to market the products...
We are all trying to do it. More often than not, we fail at it. Repeatedly. We throw our hands in air, concluding not everyone has a talent of sleight of hand. The truth is, sleight of hand is a skill. Learnable and transferable. Of course, the wallet in the...
More and more organizations are rushing towards upskilling their employees. While the intention is good, the expectations are misplaced. It is fair to expect the individuals to gain skills at the end of the campaign, but in many cases, it is unrealistic. This is where we get it wrong. Generally,...
Organizations like to know where they stand. How far they have come. How fast they’re going. Where they’re lagging and where they can improve. The goal is to get better results. Then we introduce Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Then we chase KPIs. Our target changes from getting actual results to...
“Please treat this space as a safe space, you can be vulnerable here”, said the facilitator of the online workshop. Though well-intentioned, it doesn’t inspire action. Despite knowing it doesn’t work that way, we resort to it. We repeatedly say it and make it uninspiring. Stating a fact is not...
Trigger Warning:** Mental health first. If you are feeling slightest of mental health related turbulence due to extended lockdown such as: anxiety, phobia, anger, melancholy or OCD, please do not proceed further. It is likely that it will aggravate your emotions and prove to be counter-productive. You can always come...
Let’ get this clear: this is not one of those articles targeted to ride on the coronavirus outbreak wave. This post is a reflection on my two weeks of dedicated WFH (Work From Home) experience. I am confident that it will help you. An experience lived without processing is just...