A 30% drop for Dell, 17% for HP but 7-8% drop for Acer during the last few quarters shows how Acer is taking marketshare away from DELL in the recent past. Amazingly they are only focused on one of the many markets - Notebooks and Netbooks.

Shows how transitions in product cycles can create opportunities for new entrants.

        

The WSJ reports:

When companies try to come up with new ideas, they too often look only where they always look. That won’t get them anywhere.

The ideas are typically at the edge of a company’s radar screen, and sometimes a bit beyond: trends in peripheral industries, unserved needs in foreign markets, activities that aren’t part of the company’s core business. To be truly innovative, companies sometimes have to change their frames of reference, extend their search space. New ways of thinking and organization can be required as well.


InnoCentive.com is a site where people and companies look for help in solving scientific and business challenges. Posters of challenges sometimes offer cash rewards for solutions: Amounts have ranged from $5,000 to $1 million. The site began as an in-house tool for research scientists at Eli Lilly & Co. to help one another. Now it is independent, with Indianapolis-based Lilly as a founding shareholder.

Sometimes innovations arise when different departments talk to each other. But what’s the best way to start the conversation?

Many companies set up so-called communities of practice, which are typically internal Web sites where employees are encouraged to share knowledge and skills important to the company.

        

Nielsen released the "How teens use media" report.


Its a fascinating read overall.

1. They are more focused - they view one media type at a time.
2. They have better recall - they tend to remember ads and consider ads as content (if good)
3. They read newspapers - really? No really!
4. Television is still the most dominant form of media for teenagers.
5. The most popular genres for U.S. teens are Evening Animation, Participation/ Variety and General Drama.
6. In South Africa, teens averaged more than five hours per day of TV viewing. In Taiwan, teens averaged just two hours and 47 minutes.
7. Beyond the first (TV) and second screens (Computer/Internet) , teens are increasingly watching video on their phones.
8. Teens browse less than half as much as the typical user
9. Sixty-seven percent of teen social networkers say they update their page at least once a week
10. More than half of all U.S. teen mobile  subscribers (66%) say they actually prefer text-messaging to calling. Thirty-four percent say it’s the reason they got their phone.

        

I was at the Buzz140 conference yesterday, in Chennai, organized by the effervescent Kiruba Shankar, Photon (Vasanth and others) and the knowledge conference. It was a one day Twitter conference attended by about 150 folks, many of whom were learning about twitter for the first time.

It was actually a trending topic on twitter for a brief few minutes. (Photos on Flickr) and some by tag.

There was event coverage in the local media - both the Hindu and Deccan Chronicle covered it briefly today.

There was a very interesting topic on Real time search and its implications on Twitter and Google. Many new players have emerged in the space like Topsy, almost.at and Scoopler.

Photo thanks to Keval Prabhu.

        

From McKinsey quarterly:

Scientists, sometimes in cooperation with economists, are taking the lead in a young field that applies complexity theory to economic research, rejecting the traditional view of the economy as a fully transparent, rational system striving toward equilibrium.

Many other scientists in the field of complexity theory argue that earthquakes, forest fires, power blackouts, and the like are extremely difficult or even impossible to foresee because they are the products of many interdependent “agents” and cascades of events in inherently unstable systems that generate large variations.

See the image below for the eerie correlation between banking crisis and earthquakes in So. Cal.

These examples indicate that power law patterns, with their small, frequent outcomes mixed with rare, hard-to-predict extreme ones, exist in many aspects of the economy. This suggests that the economy, like other complex systems characterized by power law behavior, is inherently unstable and prone to occasional huge failures.

        

Sarah Blue has some recommendations on the 5 steps to be a better community manager:

It not an earth shattering revelation but a tried and tested set of known best practices.

        

I love planes. Of all kinds. There's no better sight to my eyes than a plane taking off (or landing for that matter). I was unable to attend the Paris Air show 2009, although I would have loved to go. Here are some amazing photos from the event.

Some more photos from Washington Post.
Here's the list of exhibitors.

Airbus seems to have a lot more orders booked than Boeing.

        

It’s a safe bet that consumers will eventually swap their gas-powered cars and trucks for rechargeable models. Electrified transport, in some form, would seem to be in our future. But how long will investors have to wait for the bet to pay off? Years? Decades?

From Mckinsey Quarterly

        

1. Successful folks focus in on what they love and they wait for the world to come to them.- Jeff Bezos
2. You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable - J K Rowling
3. Humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries – but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity - Bill Gates


1. Opportunity never knocks.
2. Follow your heart, but stick to what you know.
3. It’s not about the money – it’s about winning.

Read it all

        

I have an aunt & uncle who live in Chennai. After 20+ years in Singapore and the USA they are back. Always living modestly and within their means, they have 2 wonderful kids who are "well settled" - married, or engaged and doing well.  They came by last weekend to spend some time with us and the kids.

Wanting to give back they moved to India with the intention of setting up a "home away from home" for young girls from broken homes - about 50 or so kids whom they will completely pay for in terms of food, clothing, shelter and education.

Aunt's the passionate one and this has been her life project and mission for the last few years. They already support an entire school in their village (where they grew up). Its completely free for all kids and they paid for the land, construction, and pay for the teachers annually. All kids study there for free. Uncle for most parts, pays the bills and is an amazingly supportive husband. Its his way of saying thanks to her for being by his side for the last 35 years.

They came by home to see if I could take them around. Bangalore's weather is temperate and nice (like Silicon Valley) and unlike Chennai (think Dallas in Summer, 365 days of the year). They were considering opening the shelter here in Bangalore. We spoke to a few principals at local schools who each had over 20 young girls who desperately needed a safe place to stay.

They figured they'd need about 150 Sq Ft of space per kid (this is on the high end, but its worth it) so about 7500 Sq ft home, in a 10,000 sq ft of land space. They had planned on hiring help for the home - a maid, a cook and a security guard.

Here's their project costs. All numbers are REAL.

1. Cost of acquiring land in the suburbs of Bangalore (about 20 miles away from the city, think Morgan Hill or Gilroy for the suburb to a San Jose city) - $240,000
2. Cost of registering land (Taxes, government fees) - $3400
3. Cost of bribing officials to ensure their land can be used as a shelter instead of home - $10,000
4. Cost of building the home (structure) $120,000 ($16/sq ft is on the low end but its doable)
5. Cost of running home with food, maids etc. $40,000  (per child, per year is $800)
6. Cost of paying for kids education annually ($500 per child) $25,000

Total Capex cost ~ $375K
Annual expense - $65,000

The same costs were compared with doing the same project at the village that currently houses their school. The total capital expense costs were $120K and their annual expenses were about $20K for 50 girls.

They had budgeted about $250K in an evergreen fund (so it has to pay for CapEX and ongoing costs), so Bangalore priced itself out.

Trouble is urban slum dwellers need this kind of support. The average poor person in the city lives on the same daily income as the rural one.

With rapid urbanization (close to 60% expected to be in urban cities by 2020) this is the inevitable landscape change that Indian cities will go through. They are too expensive for the poor and too expensive for the rich to support the poor.

        

"I’m even more convinced that success in this lifetime comes from our ability to think positively about others or growing a bigger vision about others."

One perspective.

        

According to a 2002 U.S. Census Bureau survey representing some 16 million business owners, a whopping 55% were initially funded by personal and family capital. Just 11.4% snagged bank loans, and 8.8% got going on personal and business credit cards; much of the remainder lived on government loans and outside investors.

Which means only 25% (and less since many have government funds) are the ones that are funded by venture capitalists.

Sometimes sheer talent and persistence is enough.

As a single mother on welfare in Scotland, J.K. Rowling, 43, began writing the first Harry Potter novel in Edinburgh cafés whenever she could get her infant daughter to sleep. After being rejected by 12 publishing houses, Bloomsbury, a small publisher in London, offered an advance of 1,500 pounds (about $2,400)—even while one its editors, Barry Cunningham, advised Rowling to get a day job.

Good thing she didn't listen: The following year, U.S. publishing rights to the first Potter book sold for $105,000. Rowling, who is now worth around $1 billion, has since moved nearly 400 million copies worldwide, and is the only author on our list.

        

The world is a lot more competitive now than a few years ago, which is pretty obvious. In a recent speech president Obama asked us to buckle up as the Indians and Chinese are catching them fast, as Americans have now settled into mediocrity.

Ever since he started his presidential campaign more than two years ago, Obama has been urging people in the US to gear up to match the increasing talent of the Chinese and Indian students. "Their kids watch a lot less TV than our kids do, play a lot fewer video games, they are in the classroom a lot longer," Obama said amidst applause.

There is a piece today in the New York Times about the Chinese preparation for their gao kao, or the high test.

Some interesting quotes:

Fourteen to 16 hours a day, he studied for the college entrance examination, which this year will determine the fate of more than 10 million Chinese students. He took one day off every three weeks.

The Chinese test is in some ways like the American SAT, except that it lasts more than twice as long. The nine-hour test is offered just once a year and is the sole determinant for admission to virtually all Chinese colleges and universities. About three in five students make the cut.

There's also a piece on the Indian IIT examination process on Rediff.

Some three to four lakh (300,000 to 400,000) people apply to the IITs and only 3,000 get in. What kind of a ridiculous shortage is that?

That shortage has created a desperate thought that come what may you have to get into these institutions. So with this process taking roots the whole process of education got killed.

From Class VIII itself you send your child to a coaching class or to Kota (where coaching classes that help prepare students for competitive examinations for institutions like the IIT are located) where whether the child likes it or not s/he has to get into either engineering or medicine.

I think an average Indian parent would commit suicide than rather accept that the child is going to an arts college to learn history. Especially if a boy says so.

Finally a piece on SAT preparation in Bloomberg.

Robert Schaeffer, public education director for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, likens the situation to an arms race favoring the rich.

``Parents think, `Our child will be left in the dust unless they get even better weapons,''' he says.

Parents the world over are in the race to provide the best and most competitive education for their kids. everywhere.

The difference between the US and India and China is this - In the US, its the rich who know that the competition for your kids are not from other kids in your neighborhood, but from the world over.

        

1. Wonder why Apple is doing so well with iPhone? How come even in this down economy, smart phones are selling like hot cakes?
2. Wonder why SaaS services for the individual - Accounting, invoicing, project management are doing well?


Empowerment of the freelancer who is looking for a virtual or an automated admin is driving it apparently. In fact from 2009 to 2019 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US will have moved from 30% (43 Million workers) to 40% freelancers.

This means we have to teach our kids  "all round" skills, including how to source projects, deliver, manage and keep customers happy. No wonder business networking is expected to take off.

        

Great visual map of the top countries for each commodity and natural resource. This graphic gives you the countries that have the most of:
1. Soy
2. Silver
3. Gold
4. Corn
5. Oil
6. Uranium
7. Cotton
8. Rice
9. Natural Gas
10. Wheat
11. Diamond
12. Cotton
13. Water

        

What will a China as the leading economy in world look like?

China also has, for the fifth consecutive month, beaten the US as the world's largest automobile market. "The growth in the passenger car segment will probably continue in June to hit a new monthly record, which will boost the whole-year sales to the 11-million-unit mark," said Rao Da, secretary-general of the association.

GM, which filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this month, reported a monthly sales record in China in May. The automaker's total vehicles sales in May surged by 75 percent year-on-year to 156,000 vehicles in China.

Not very different from the United States.

        

I need one of these for my car.

        

Jim Collins author of "Built to Last" and "Good to Great" has a new book - How the mighty fall.

Money quote:
"Institutional decline like a staged disease: harder to detect but easier to cure in the early stages, easier to detect but harder to cure in the later stages".

He describes a five-stage process of how corporates rise and fall, with the following headings:

1. Hubris born of success,
2. Undisciplined pursuit of more,
3. Denial of risk and peril (this may come at the moment of greatest apparent success), followed by
4. Grasping for salvation, and
5. Capitulation to irrelevance or death.

My general take. This book is below par for a Jim Collins type pedigree. Pass.

        

Mixergy has some great suggestions on ideas for starting a new company.

Here are some other means to find ideas:

1. Keep a list of things that bother you or other people every day. This could be big or small  - your commute, the way your brush works. Try and fix that problem

2. Brainstorm with friends on things that need to be fixed.

3. Review large company balance sheets (This is the follow the money approach). Then find out where they make money the most or where the spend money the most. Keep asking questions on how you can increase their revenue or reduce their cost.

Your turn. But remember to take a break once a while.

        

Welcome recession. Thanks to you we actually have people not wanting to focus on money, instead working to do good for this world.

A record 112 teams submitted business plans for a social entrepreneurship competition, Social E-Challenge, during the spring semester.

        

Microsoft Money is dead.

Long live Intuit Quicken?

No. I disagree that Quicken beat Money.

What beat Money was not marketing from Quicken either.

People prefer automation. It takes time to fire up Quicken or Money or any other program to keep track of your expenses and log your checks. Only the geeks or ones with OCD went to get checks that could be printed from Quicken.

The rest of us wanted something or someone to automate it. This "rest of us" is a very small fraction of folks, actually. The rest (greater than 50%) dont care how much they spend since they have a good enough "feel".

What killed Money was the effort to reward ratio was too little.

You spend 4 hours a month to get a report that tells you where you spent your money. Then what?

        

If you want to live safely.

1. New Zealand
2. Denmark
3. Norway
4. Japan
5. Canada

        

The Board of Supervisors passed new recycling and mandatory composting rules on Tuesday in a 9-to-2 vote.

The city already diverts 72 percent of the 2.1 million tons of waste its residents produce each year away from landfills and into recycling and composting programs.

The new ordinance will help the city toward its goal of sending zero waste to landfills by 2020, said Jared Blumenfeld, director of the city’s Department of the Environment.

        

Anil Dash has a very funny post on the facebook vanity URL. I wish I was this accurate in my predictions.


A small number of super-geeky obsessives is abuzz over the upcoming launch of Facebook Usernames, an exciting new feature that will let you put some parts of your name into a web address.

        

8 percent returns for venture capital over the last 10 years,

compared with −27 percent for the S&P 500 and

−28 percent for the Nasdaq,

the Russell 2000, an index of small-cap stocks that returned 18 percent over the same period.

only about 0.2 percent of the estimated 600,000 new businesses created in the United States each year are financed by venture capital and about 16 percent of the fastest-growing companies are, he found.

Another problem he cited was that information technology has matured to the point that new innovations will not be hugely profitable and it costs a fraction of what it used to to start an I.T. company.

        

Leaders may know exactly what they want to see happening.

They send out messages down the management line. Employees ought to understand. But between the top table and the shop-floor something goes wrong. Leadership teams can be scarily ignorant of how badly their wishes have been distorted, and how much unhappiness there is among those on the receiving end.

There are four things in particular that managers need to provide if they want to avoid this false anxiety syndrome:

predictability (over-communicate);
understanding (keep it “Sesame Street simple”, advises Procter & Gamble’s AG Lafley);
control (break down big challenges into manageable ones); and
compassion (show that you care).

        

Rich Karlgaard : Forbes

That ability to spot insights and lessons from fields far outside your own is one hallmark of an innovative leader.

Not every leader can—or should—be an innovative leader. Full article.

        

Newsweek finds yet another person to blame for this recession - Baby Boomers. See graph below of US population by age.

"The Baby Boom lasted from 1946 to 1964, and some 78 million American children were born during that time. As this cohort ages, its sheer size overshadows the rest of society."


The worrying trend:
What happened in Japan in the 1990s was a demographic shift into retirement, where a large portion of the population went from a lifestyle of earning, saving and spending to a lifestyle of not earning, living off assets and spending less. This resulted in less demand for investments like stocks, less demand for housing, and less demand for material 'things' — and the prices of all these fell.


In one of the comments a user says "Let's see, both my husband and I started working for cash before we were even in junior high (he had a paper route, I babysat). Funny, I don't see any kids working in stores now, or many doing paper routes either."

The thing is there is no more of the paper route job. And the "working in stores" job is being done by adults out of college since there are no more jobs for them.

I dont think kids these days are slackers, or obsessed with navel gazing on twitter. They just dont have the opportunities that existed, since those jobs are gone.

        

QIP plans of the large real estate companies in India.

HDIL (about Rs 3,000 crore through QIP and Rs 850 crore through promoter warrants), Parsvnath and Akruty (Rs 2,500 crore each), Anantraj (Rs 2,000 crore), Sobha Developers (Rs 1,500 crore), Puravankara (Rs 750 crore) and Orbit Corp (Rs 500 crore through QIP and an unidentified amount through promoter warrants).

        

The Radio Audience Measurement (RAM) data for Week 21 for Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore is out. Radio Mirchi continues to lead in Delhi and Kolkata. Red FM has regained its lost stance in Mumbai, Big FM continues to rule in Bangalore.

        

        

I am going to boil down a 6 page article (its awesome) on How to grow a super-athlete to one quote. This I believe holds good for kids, adults and others.

" Deliberate practice means working on technique, seeking constant critical feedback and focusing ruthlessly on improving weaknesses".

        

The mobile phone market is going to start looking like the pharma industry is. A bunch of "generic" drug makers sold OTC at cheap prices and another set of very expensive prescription drugs. Nokia's on route to become the generic maker and Apple, RIM will compete the high end. No wonder I compare the iPhone to Pfizer's Viagra. It was not until later that Cialis (Blackberry's Bold) came out, but Viagra had won the mindshare by then.

Of course people try to convince me the Palm Pre is going to change it all.

My answer, Yeah Right. If the Palm Pre does well, then expect Nokia to buy them out quickly. Else its yet another and an also ran.

        

Rob says that the single most important question in your career should be "Are you a producer or a consumer".

"But if you realize that one of the pleasures in your life is to read about code/startups/entrepreneurs/music, then embrace that you are a consumer. Knowledge for knowledge’s sake is not bad as long as you realize that you are not working towards an end beyond your own edification, which again, is not a bad thing.

Likewise, if you’re someone who has an unquenchable desire to produce something, then stop reading about other people, and start doing it yourself. Seriously, don’t read another blog post, tweet, or issue of Fast Company until you’ve made a visible move towards that goal you so desperately want, but think that reading and dreaming about will somehow make it come true. Once you’ve made that single action towards advancing your idea, you can come back and read a few more posts."

I think its not a simple "either you are a producer or a consumer" discussion. Most people are more of one than the other, but being a producer requires more commitment to consuming for sure. Most producers cannot consume in a vacuum and the ability to consume what's relevant is important.

Personally I have reduced my consumption primarily because I have too many "useless" interests. I am thrilled I found this out and am taking a proactive step towards reducing my "junk reading" purely for the sake of spending time on reading. It makes you more "learned" but its a big time commitment.

        

From NYTimes.


1. Of the 16 best selling cars & trucks in America 10 are American vehicles. The Camry is the best selling car, but the Ford F 150 is the best selling vehicle (outselling the Camry by about 75% more)

2. GM and Ford both dropped far less than Toyota OR Honda in Dec 2008 ( I suspect its because of incentives).

3. Chevrolet is the only brand in the top 16 cars with positive change in sales year over year.

        

Paul Krugman on beating the recession:

1. Milton Friedman, in particular, persuaded many economists that the Federal Reserve could have stopped the Depression in its tracks simply by providing banks with more liquidity, which would have prevented a sharp fall in the money supply. Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, famously apologized to Friedman on his institution's behalf: "You're right. We did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again."

2. John Maynard Keynes, who argued that monetary policy is ineffective under depression conditions and that fiscal policy - large-scale deficit spending by the government - is needed to fight mass unemployment.


Strange how 2 economists have influenced the entire US thinking on macro economics, but its true.

        

In his piece End of the financial world as we know it, there's an interesting paragraph on the long and short of Wall street's interests:

"OUR financial catastrophe, like Bernard Madoff’s pyramid scheme, required all sorts of important, plugged-in people to sacrifice our collective long-term interests for short-term gain. The pressure to do this in today’s financial markets is immense. Obviously the greater the market pressure to excel in the short term, the greater the need for pressure from outside the market to consider the longer term. But that’s the problem: there is no longer any serious pressure from outside the market. The tyranny of the short term has extended itself with frightening ease into the entities that were meant to, one way or another, discipline Wall Street, and force it to consider its enlightened self-interest."

This balance of short and long term is no different from other balance that gets talked about a lot - Work/Life.

There's no easy answer to solving either balance problem and I'm not sure solving it is going to get people happy either. Trouble is that the "balance" is mostly self determined. One person's short term is another person's immediate term and so on.

        

Snow White - Apple
Sleepy - Palm
Dopey - LG
Grumpy - Sony Erricson
Happy - RIM (Blackberry)
Sneezy - Motorola
Doc - Nokia
Bashful - Samsung

        

Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) talked today about why Capitalism needs a makeover. In it he talks about what's broken (easy lending, profligate spending, unsophisticated investors and sophisticated crime) and what's still working (freedom of employment and entrepreneurship).

I dont believe this is yet another recession. Its a chance in a lifetime to reshape our approach towards economics. Its clear that capitalism provides some benefit and like all things provides some negative behavior among its participants.

What has to change in my opinion:

1. Spending: Living within your means has to become the norm. If you make $5 you have to spend less than that. I dont believe its required to force saving as much as spending less than you earn. Hence, lending practices have to factor in lot more that just your current earning. It has to discount it by several percentage points, keeping in mind the unpredictability of wage increases (giving room for inflation). I'm not articulating a non-consumer driven society, just a more sane one.

2. Enforcement of current laws: I'm not sure we need more laws. Given SOX already exists for public companies, (and its onerous) what's needed is active enforcement of it and fixing loopholes in the process.

3. Social acceptance of community good. Its no secret that there are more social entrepreneurs needed now more than ever. This is not so much an economic as a socio-economic requirement.


What do you think? What else's needed to make Capitalism 2.0 work?

        

If it takes 10,000 hours for someone to become an expert at something, then it would take you 3 years at 60 hours a week and 5 years at 40 hours / week to become an expert - which is an euphemism for "you are no longer learning".

I am not sure I believe the number 10,000, but food for thought anyway on how often you should consider doing something new.

The book itself "Outliers" is interesting but I am not convinced its in the "Blink" or "Tipping point" class.

        

WSJ has a multi-author piece on tips to leverage Web 2.0. They have interviewed about 30 executives and managers to gain the following insights:
1.  Don't just talk at consumers — work with them throughout the marketing process.
2.  Give consumers a reason to participate.
3.  Listen to — and join — the conversation outside your site.
4.  Resist the temptation to sell, sell, sell.
5.  Don't control, let it go.
6.  Find a 'marketing technopologist.'
7.  Embrace experimentation.

Interesting overall, but mostly 101 stuff for experienced folks. The trend to capitalize on is that the suits are now beginning to talk about it, so maybe we can gather that Web 2.0 is now arriving to the mainstream. Ironic that many have declared it over in the Valley.

        

Here is a link if the embed does not work.
Watch it till the end. Its awesome. I guarantee it.

        

My personal favorites:

#42: We’ve long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good. Even now, Charlie and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children.

#14: It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.

The entire list.

        

2008 Google search trends and Zeitgeist is here. Unlike what people on Yahoo searched for in 2008 (that's Britney Spears BTW), Google searchers seemed more obsessed with      and American Idol.

No points for guessing the categories that made the top 3:
1. Politics in US - Obama, Sarah Palin, Fox news etc.
2. Economic crisis
3. Beijing Olympics.

        

Regardless of all the reasons why Detroit's in trouble the main issue is still one of inferior products being built. The cars made by Detroit are no longer the best in the market. Imagine for a moment instead of the auto industry it was the technology industry asking for bailout. Lets say for example, Sun Microsystems.

The outrage would be obvious.

There are several problems that the UAW and the car companies themselves list to the problems of their industry:
1. Higher employee payroll for Detroit companies compared to Honda, Toyota and Nissan. Sure, but its not a big factor.
2. More retirees with benefits that add to their costs. Also important but not a killer.
3. More dealerships with restrictive state laws that add to their costs. Yeah right.
4. Outrageous executive pay. Sure, it can come down, but its not going to make a huge difference.

None of this can take away from the fact that Detroit makes bad products that most of their customers detest. I don't buy Sun gear now, and don't want them bailed out. If they file for bankruptcy, awesome, they can restructure and get stronger to build better products.

The pretax profitability of Detroit's cars is woeful because their products demand no better. BTW this is not yet another of those - "You are speaking of Detroit in 1980's, drive an American car today" kinda rant. I have an Audi, Ford SUV (Explorer) and have also had the Acura, Mercedes, Toyota and a BMW (all over the last 5-7 years).

The worst of the lot was the Ford Explorer.

        

Like many following the Mumbai terror attacks I went through a range of emotions.

Initially shocked, I was unable to concentrate on work the morning of the attacks. Since I called family and friends the night of the first attacks, I was relatively calm but felt the pain immensely.

Photos from Vinu brought out the anger. Stereotypically, I  associate "terrorist" with uneducated, mindless, calculating, heartless misfits. The image of young 20+ year olds with AK-47's and magazines of bullets brings out deep anger at our state.

The usual questions came to mind: 1) Why is this happening? or Why are they doing this? 2) How can we stop this or What can be done to solve this?

I dont profess to have a lot of answers, but I think we need a much better strategy than a set of talking heads claiming to annhiliate Pakistan or wipe out "Muslim terrorists".

Why is this happening?
1. The growing gap between the poor (mostly minority communities) and rich is one major cause of this. There are homegrown terrorist organizations in India. I dont think anyone would dispute this, actually. Muslims are a minority in India. So are Christians and myraid other "castes". Hindus are the majoriy. They all have either their "terrorist outfits" or "Naxalites".

We have to find more inclusive growth. This is not an easy problem to solve. In fact I cannot think of a single country including the US and China, that has solve this problem. Somehow they dont have as many homegrown terrorists. Why? I dont for a moment think its because of homogeneity.

2. The injustices and supression: It exists in many places, but is more pronounced in India. In report after report, its obvious the minorities have fewer opportunites, make less money and are a poorer lot. Yes, they have "freedom of religion" and inalienable rights but at the end of the day its the majority that calls the shots.

3. Unresolved conflict. Kashmir is a problem, we know, but somehow want it to go away - not the state mind you, just the "problem" of Kashmir. There's no easy solution to it obviously, else we I am sure we'd have tried it. But if it means sacrificing something to gain peace, we should explore that option. Trouble is I dont think anyone is convinced peace will reign without both sides being completely satisfied with the outcome - which is similar to the Israel / Palestine problem.

What can be done to start to solve this problem?
1. Acknowledge why this is happening. I'm not sure over 50% of Indians even agree that these are the cause of the problems. Most still prefer to blame Pakistan. I dont claim they are innocent, but they are not listed in the top 3 are they?

2. Shore up defences. India has over 1.2 Million policemen and over 1 million paramilitary personnel. Its the largest force in the world. But that number is dwarfed by the size of the population. I dont think adding more people is the answer. The willingness to use the masses to help and the aid of new technology is the need of the hour. I believe you can use the size of the population to an advantage.

3. Create opportunities to help clear the mistrust. India had a terrible Sikh terrorism problem, which no longer exists or is largely subdued. So how did that go away? A combination of ruthless handling of the insurgency and an inclusive approach towards the economic benefit to Punjab.

I am still searching for answers.

        

Million dollar home pages (selling each pixel for a dollar), Goggles for dogs, Antenna balls and designer diaper bags. Filed under the category "Huh. then seconds later - why didnt I think of that"?

        

Ever wonder who funds these people that do the useless reports that state the obvious?  I am wondering and the answer is we all do. Take for example:

• Sleep is good for you.
  
• People who eat more get obese
• How to make the perfect cup of tea
  

I mean really do you need research for that?

I remember the Seinfeld episode in which he makes fun of the researchers that invented seedless watermelon ( I personally am thankful for that BTW), but he asks a good question - "What kind of people work on this kind of stuff? Flunkies? Other people work on Aids, cancer research, but these guys (spits out an imaginary seed) they say this has to stop".

The other extreme is the guys that do the research on the weird. If you remember USA Today always has their little survey box on front page with obviously ridiculous items:

• When adults in America shower do they soap their left hand first or the right - with a pie chart that has to have the "refused to disclose" at a small percentage at 7. I swear I am not making this up.
  
• How many people who eat fruit in the morning prefer their watermelon cut in squares versus wedges?
• Nytimes this morning: Happy people dont watch TV.

Now to be clear, I love data as much as Flowing data and its representations fascinate me, but dont you think this goes beyond the norm?

        

Great graphic from the NYTimes on car inventory in Long Beach port (near LA). Tells you that BMW is the closest to Just in time manufacturing as claimed by them in several articles. They are best managing the current downturn (in terms of inventory on hand).

So if you are in the market to buy a car, this is a great time to get an awesome deal. Inventory of any kind in excess is not good.

        

I was talking to a friend today about the difference between the willingness for Indians in India to take risks versus the ones in US to take risk. It is well known that there are several problems with the inability for Indian investors and entrepreneurs to take significant risks (which usually results in breakthrough returns). Most Indian entrepreneurs face different challenges than Americans OR even Indian entrepreneurs in America.

He boiled it down to one specific thing: Other People's Money. Its a very powerful concept which I have not completely had the time to think through but the more that I think about it, the more it makes sense. I'd love any alternative opinions.

What does that mean?

He argues its easier to take large risks with other people's money (which is the case in US) versus your own money and assets (which is the case in India).

Its well known that entrepreneurs in US look to get funding from VC's to grow. So many entrepreneurs (who dont bootstrap) dont put their own money into their startup. They put sweat equity but not their own cash (most cases). You could argue its the same or more vaulable, but its not the same thing.

The Venture Capitalist does not put their own money in also, it comes from their Limited Partner.

The Limited partners (like pension funds, etc) dont put their own money in, its the money they are managing for retirees, investors.

So in some terms there is a fourth degree of separation between the money and its owner, who feels the pain when its "lost".

In India however its your money or your own assets on the line(though that's changing with more VC's coming in), or from friends and family. You have an obligation to return their money with "interest" - its usually debt not equity.

When its your money or your collateralized assets, you tend to take less risk.

What do you think?