Finding Blue Oceans

Today I had lunch with a dashing young Can-Indian IT entrepreneur.  He picked my colleague and me up in his white Range Rover and talked about upgrading to a Karma Fisker to leave less of a carbon footprint and leave more in his pocketbook from the gas savings.  We talked business over lunch and planned tech projects to stabilize our company's manage and store IT services.  I anxiously peeked into my phone to find out if we had a response to a quote for a contract renewal I was expecting, apologizing for my rudeness and stating the reason for my anxiety.  Alex understood.  He talked about lost bids to cut throat margins, diminishing returns on existing contracts and companies waiting to snatch away his flagship customers.  I felt oddly comforted to hear him echo my sentiments.  This was the worst of times.  However, we both talked about moving out of bloody waters where we compete with sharks in gory price wars and finding blue oceans.  I reflected on that age old adage of adversity being the mother of invention and how with every setback has emerged the need to innovate.  So at our little firm we have moved from in-person training to online, from translation to transcription and trans-creation (creating ad copy from Enlish into Spanglish, for eg). Soon we  may launch our online language schools offering tutoring in all languages through our five thousand strong language professionals.  But these will bring in revenues in the future.  What about now?  To which the fortune cookie at the end of the meal said "hope is the stimulant of life".  Also smart companies like Qualcomm and IBM invested in new product and leadership development, and customer centric programs through their most difficult times rather than cut back.  When the going got better, they reaped in spades.  Sigh - we just need to stick with the program and keep looking for those blue oceans.  Oh through all the commiserating I also knew that in facing the pitfalls that I do every day, I can legimately call myself an entrepreneur now.  

Guilty pleasures

I thought that the romance in my mundane life was over when suddenly I stumbled upon this mushy Hindi soap that I can’t seem to get enough of. YouTube be cursed, since I can watch the episodes on it over and over and vicariously experience its thrills. It’s not all bad news. Surely the spring in my step and the smile on my face as I listen to its evocative musical score, set to urdu poetry, is worth something? Other than a short phase, ten years ago, when I drove around town with my rooftop open listening to A.R. Rahman’s songs, rivalling my young Sri Lankan compatriots, I don’t remember being so enthralled over the portrayal of romantic love, where the protagonists pine and unite only to be ripped apart again. Needless to say, I am mystified by this soap’s profound impact on my state of being. I get transported to an era when life was simple and a look meant everything. Is this just a heaping dose of nostalgia with memories of juvenile crushes on boys whose names I did not even know and unrequited longing for life as portrayed in movies where the girl was wooed and courted? Or is it something much more primordial, as has been unleashed by “Fifty Shades of Grey”, whose 100 million strong readership has unabashedly admitted to their craving for the romantic and erotic? Whatever it is I will be glad when this phase is over so I can once again retreat into the comfort of familiar and (pseudo) intellectual pursuits. On that note – here’s a link to something unabashedly romantic for you… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96GVlVD_m78

Market values and moral values

Today I heard this great interview of Harvard Professor Michael Sandel where he explained how market values are replacing moral values in those parts of our lives we considered sacred. In other words, we are moving from being market economies to market societies. How so? In extreme cases, our societies outsource wars to mercenaries, we have companies that provide line standers for lobbyists who do not want to line up to get airtime before congressional committees and we have people who use body tattoos to advertise products and make a quick buck of it. The darker side is in the illegal organ trade or in people paying for prison cell upgrades (where prisons are privately run – really!). The process is insidious and is slowly eroding all our domains. We do not think twice about the commodification of water for example, a natural resource we thought should be readily available to all. Our wars started with one such natural resource oil. The next era of wars would be over water. In short, there were parts of our lives which we did not reduce to dollars and cents. It turns out now that nothing is so sacred. In my business which involves providing language services we experience the pressure of markets every day. We speak about quality and yet we know that price trumps everything, even for governments that purchase service. This is a disheartening trend especially in the delivery of human services. This is not to say we should not be efficient. We should be and lower our costs using technology as much as we are able. However, we need to stand for some breakthrough values such as building local community capacity and providing employment within our communities, measuring a service’s value based on the human rights it protects not the dollars it costs and looking at social impact in the long term of all the decisions we make for short term gains. Can we all make a decision today to stand for something other than market value? Harvard professor on American society: Everything is up for sale | The Raw Story www.rawstory.com Harvard University professor Michael Sandel on Monday lamented that almost every aspect of life in the United

Daughters and Rituals

As daughters grow older and move away they become adults whom you have to get reacquainted with.  Their tastes in music evolve, their friends change, they have travelled and have developed likes and values you did not see in them.  When they visit it is for a short while, a week or two maybe.  A few years ago when things got a little awkward between my daughter and me, we developed rituals.  Things we would do together when she visited.  Now we start her visit with a trip to the grocery store to buy healthy foods we both enjoy together.  I love to surprise her with new and tasty salads and healthy snacks.  This trip I introduced her to quinoa, a new brand of veggie burger and a delicious new salad.  We do early morning treks when we ask each other questions and get caught up with each others lives.  We always end up at Tim Hortons for coffee and Timbits.  There is always one trip to our favorite Indian Chinese restaurant as a family.   I drive her downtown to her friend Laura's for a night out and pick her up the next morning.  I do it because I love the time we spend together during those drives, even though she does most of the driving around town.  We shop at Joe's and Yorkdale, watch Survivor, the Biggest Loser or sitcoms.   She likes to visit the temple once and eat the prasadam.   We order her favorite whole wheat crust broccoli pizza from Pizza Pizza one evening and go out another for beer and snacks at a pub.  If time permits she and I  go to King West and look at consignment and antique shops for quaint stuff.  There is usually one community or social event where she meets up with aunties and uncles she grew up knowing.  Other than that she plays me her favourite music,  gives me clothes that she does not plan to use anymore and gives me advise on how to tackle work problems.  I offer my thoughts on her aspirations.  We have fallen into such a pattern that if i try to introduce something new, she will weigh in on whether or not it should be part of our rotation.   These rituals enable us to just be, rather than think about how to make "quality time".  I help her with her final packing, sending her off with nuts and cheeses she likes and eagerly await her next visit.