IN for innovation

I am very proud, but not surprised, to see Tata Group and Reliance Industries listed as 6th and 19th respectively in the list of world's 50 most innovative companies, compiled by BusinessWeek(BW) ( April, 28 '08 issue). Both the companies have one thing in common, their aggressive and innovative strategies; no brownies to guess the contribution of NANO to boost up Tata conglomerate's ranking. Not only the technological innovation but also the innovation in assembly and distribution keeps the cost of this 623 cc car as low as $ 2,500 - making it world's least expensive car. Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries, India's largest conglomerate, got listed due to its overwhelming growth - that's what BW stated in its magazine, seems very vague but it's true.

As the famous saying goes "Necessity is the mother of invention", one ponders what statement would go for the term innovation; which soundex invention. As per my experience, innovation seems to be the most iterated but not that fruitful jargon, in today's IT world. The first time I heard this word buzzing around was the summer of 2006, when my employer, launched a contest to kindle the mind of thousands of its employees in order to think in an innovative manner. I gave my shot and surprisingly got selected for the two day-one night residential program in a cool resort, in the outskirts of Bangalore. After the completion of the supposedly innovative, not to mention the fact that it was full of fun, food and booze, program I resumed the mundane work without much innovation. So the million dollar, probably billion, question is - how to make someone think innovative? Well my attempt in this blog is not to answer this question because I know it would be too early even to attempt one, may be I will try once I tackle my own mid-life crisis; I hope I will deal it innovatively ( pun intended). Many a times, in an attempt to fire the i-neuron in its employee's mind, companies overdo; they publish many banners, send loads of e-mails trying to invigorate its employees mind, organize more innovative sessions, and even more frequent usage of the elusive word - innovation. How frequent? well, it's so frequent that it will definitely make you feel pissed-off and one will try to avoid it as much as possible. One will not only get irritated to see this word in a newspaper article but also try not to think in anyway which might remotely or unknowingly create something innovative.

Well, I do not see any exaggeration in the words of amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos- "frugality drives innovation"; that's true, I believe. Frugality encourages one to take the best course; one will find and take the most efficient path, use least possible resources and ultimately one will end up being innovative. I guess, Indians are pretty much good in utilizing limited resources, there is hardly any abundance of resource, to its maximum capacity and in being frugal. It won't be surprising to see more Indians or Indian led companies in the forth-coming compilations of innovative companies. This year its three, third one being Arun Sarin led Vodafone Group, who knows by 2020 ( well 20-20 cricket is quite hot now, hence picked out this year) we will see 50% of the slots being captured by an Indian name. Amen!

Re-Genesis

Year 2002: Two agonising semesters had gone by, my college-mates would understand why I used the word agonising, and suddenly my college was looking different from what it used to look earlier, just few months back. I was feeling proud to be senior to a whole batch of new comers, being Knighthood-ed, err but suffixed with 'Sir'. Now instead of using library as my hideout, of-course to avoid my seniors, I was actually trying to use it in a manner it should be. I was browsing through a stack of old issues of magazines, there was no fresh issue so I had no choice but to read those almost stale articles, the cover page of TIME caught my attention; the main article was about the advent of a new chic stuff called BLOGGING. What is it? After going through the article I was elated to learn about this cool stuff. I was happy, when I left the library, to learn something very esoteric. That evening I was bragging in front of my friends about what I learnt, "Have you ever heard of blogging?" I said. I knew that answer will be no but one of my friend gave me a strange look which I intelligently equated to a big question mark. Then I started giving him my own half baked fundaz of blogging; how simple it is yet how powerful and handy it can prove. We can share any piece of information by just penning down in a website and broadcasting the same. The topic can encompass anything under the sun, be it travel, tech, politics, society, sports, music any damn thing! Not only we can share information but also it can be used as a mass awareness media. It can be used as a political force, blah blah blah. What rubbish is he talking about? --- grimaced one of my friend, I could read this line written in fluorescent color on my friend's forehead. Soon we had other topics to discuss and the word blog was no where in our conversation. Why the hell it should be, when we have so many things to do to keep ourselves happy. We had newcomers, always available to give us their introductions, you know what I mean, don't you? (grin) After having a few spells of entertainment laced introduction we retired for the day.

The next day, I don't know why I felt vindicated to learn more about this stuff called blogging. I surfed the Internet for few days and finally decided to have my own blog. To be first among the few people to have his own blog, though I didn't knew how many in my college had any clue about blogging. Internet was mostly used to chat and surf, mostly unnecessary stuffs, and most of the guys would be hooked to yahoo messenger's private chat rooms, even I used to do the same. Finally I created my blog page, now I had my own blog, but I had a big question in my mind. What to write about? Actually I never gave a thought about this question before creating my own blog. For few days I kept on thinking and reflecting on this question but fortunately or unfortunately I never got the answer. Days passed like anything and the word blogging passed away from my mind. That was the end of my first attempt to be among the elite class of blogger.....Probably, ragging was better than blogging, I thought.

Mar, 18th '08: Here I am sitting in my office cubicle ,composing my first blog, having the same question and this time I found another one 'What not to write?'. Having said that, this new question is not an easy one but not that difficult too, and now I feel four and half year old burden almost coming off my shoulder. Many thanks to my namesake Shanu. Hope to continue this .... Sayonara for now.