I think I don't celebrate often enough. to put it differently, there are more opportunities to celebrate in my life than what I make good use of. I am a serious fun-seeker and I find the condition quite suboptimal. something in dire need for a fix.
allow me to elaborate.
when counted last, it was found that there were 33 crores (that's an astounding 330 millions) of gods and goddesses in Hindu religion. yet, I celebrate only a handful of them. some are celebrated for a few days, like Ganapati, Durga. adding these up, I celebrate for about 10 to 15 days a year. when we have about 10 gods/goddesses for every second of the year (one year == 31536000 seconds). this is a huge opportunity unexplored.
now a look at the other religions.
for some reason usually attributed to history (who is dead long ago and can't protest anyway) nobody in my family celebrates the Eid. that is, deny themselves two sumptuous feasts a year. this is clearly, insane.
of late, I've started eating cake on the Christmas day. however, haven't done anything colorful on the Easter day or numerous other feasts in the Christian calendar.
I think a revolution is needed to live the life of a true fun-seeker. however, I'll start small and vow to celebrate the Eid from the next year: smell the Biryani and chant:
to hell with the old wounds!
to hell with the leaders who don't inspire!
to hell with the businesses which squeeze life out of people!
cheers!
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
how to monetize technology
if you're looking for an answer to the question I just posed, stop reading now. by the time I finish off, I'm likely to leave you with this and a few more questions, rather than answer any.
as is the norm these days, I use the word technology to mean something really narrow.
technology == (computer software + microchips containing X-illions of transistors) and systems built with them
with this, I've thrown away fullerene, human genome, silicone, buildings, denim, coffee and pizza from the purview of technology. I'm sure most of you have no problem with this at all. so lets move on.
so why am I even asking this question and why are you still interested? a couple of weeks ago, my wife and I were discussing about running a dance school and the question "how do I monetize a school which imparts dance lessons to children" didn't occur to us. the answer is so obvious. parents who send their children to school will pay for the lessons. they'll happily do so because the school offers something that has a direct impact on things we do in our real life. so do coffee, pizza and denim.
this isn't necessarily true for the technology.
in past couple of decades, we've successfully used technology as an enabler for the goods and services we consume. for example, my wife will surely use computer software for managing the students records, billing and accounting in her dance school. she'll be happy to pay for this technology though the money will ultimately come from the parents who pay for the dance lessons. The IT services industry, busy counting their billions, will testify for this phenomenon.
we've also embedded the technology in a lot of things we use in real life. like the car, the lift, the microwave oven. here too, the role the technology plays is that of an enabler or an enhancer.
How about a technology that is directly useful?
let me make a list of mundane things I do on an average work day and see what are my direct technology touch points.
it's apparent that there's almost no direct touch point of technology in my life at all, with the few exceptions like emails, social networking, web search and surfing. these are the habits I've acquired in the last decade. I believe this is true for a large population of the planet, who live on the greener side of the technology divide. of course, there's another side of the divide, where the majority of humanity lives without even knowing what an email or the internet is.
so how does the technology penetrate real life? I can think of two fundamentally distinct ways. either the technology becomes useful in one of the things we already do, like having breakfast. or it helps us grow new habits which are impossible without the technology. emails and social networking are examples of the acquired habit model. however, acquiring a new habit isn't easy, in general, and it usually works if it is free. I remembered a story (couldn't validate it from any authentic source though) of the way the East India Company introduced tea in Calcutta. They offered tea free of cost, so that people get used to the habit. More than a century later though, everyone pays for her cup of tea in Calcutta.
in either ways, we need creative ideas of how the technology can be directly useful in the real life of a consumer. and some more creativity around the when, where and how of the way we access technology. opening a laptop and tapping the keyboard is part of the invisible wall that separates the real world and the technology. I would speculate that at some point the software technology has to blend with other old-school technologies we excluded at the start of this blog, like material science, mechanical engineering, construction, to break this invisible barrier and make technology access seem more natural. I am talking about products where the boundaries between the mechanical, electrical and software components are not yet drawn clearly (imagine a plate which tells how much calories and nutrients you're about to consume) and use-cases like being able to check the recipe of an authentic Hungarian Goulash while cooking it in the kitchen (no running to the study, open the laptop, then the browser, type URL of the search engine, type goulash and hit enter, click on a result which seems relevant).
to catch a glimpse of how the next evolution of technology may look like, check out Pranav Mistry's experiments with the Sixth Sense technology or read about the Semantic Web vision of Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler and Ora Lassila.
lastly, as a consolation, here's a nice article which talks about 5 business models for the contemporary internet: http://mashable.com/2009/07/
so long!
as is the norm these days, I use the word technology to mean something really narrow.
technology == (computer software + microchips containing X-illions of transistors) and systems built with them
with this, I've thrown away fullerene, human genome, silicone, buildings, denim, coffee and pizza from the purview of technology. I'm sure most of you have no problem with this at all. so lets move on.
so why am I even asking this question and why are you still interested? a couple of weeks ago, my wife and I were discussing about running a dance school and the question "how do I monetize a school which imparts dance lessons to children" didn't occur to us. the answer is so obvious. parents who send their children to school will pay for the lessons. they'll happily do so because the school offers something that has a direct impact on things we do in our real life. so do coffee, pizza and denim.
this isn't necessarily true for the technology.
in past couple of decades, we've successfully used technology as an enabler for the goods and services we consume. for example, my wife will surely use computer software for managing the students records, billing and accounting in her dance school. she'll be happy to pay for this technology though the money will ultimately come from the parents who pay for the dance lessons. The IT services industry, busy counting their billions, will testify for this phenomenon.
we've also embedded the technology in a lot of things we use in real life. like the car, the lift, the microwave oven. here too, the role the technology plays is that of an enabler or an enhancer.
How about a technology that is directly useful?
let me make a list of mundane things I do on an average work day and see what are my direct technology touch points.
- wake up
- turn on the geyser
- brush, shower, etc
- dress up for work
- have breakfast
- read newspaper
- open my laptop and check emails
- say "bye" to my daughter and leave home
- walk upto the bus stop
- wait for the bus
- board the bus, buy ticket, get seated
- get down from bus near my office
- walk to the security checkpoint
- swipe my badge and enter office
- since I work as a software engineer, I have several technology touch points during my work hours. in any case, IT's role as a business enabler is failry well understood now. so I'll skip the work hours.
- board the office cab on the way back home
- walk upto my apartment
- ring the door bell
- spend the evening with the family: play games with daugheter, discuss things with wife, watch TV, call people up using a phone, have tea, etc
- open the laptop, check emails, social networking, web search, surf, etc.
- dinner
- sleep
it's apparent that there's almost no direct touch point of technology in my life at all, with the few exceptions like emails, social networking, web search and surfing. these are the habits I've acquired in the last decade. I believe this is true for a large population of the planet, who live on the greener side of the technology divide. of course, there's another side of the divide, where the majority of humanity lives without even knowing what an email or the internet is.
so how does the technology penetrate real life? I can think of two fundamentally distinct ways. either the technology becomes useful in one of the things we already do, like having breakfast. or it helps us grow new habits which are impossible without the technology. emails and social networking are examples of the acquired habit model. however, acquiring a new habit isn't easy, in general, and it usually works if it is free. I remembered a story (couldn't validate it from any authentic source though) of the way the East India Company introduced tea in Calcutta. They offered tea free of cost, so that people get used to the habit. More than a century later though, everyone pays for her cup of tea in Calcutta.
in either ways, we need creative ideas of how the technology can be directly useful in the real life of a consumer. and some more creativity around the when, where and how of the way we access technology. opening a laptop and tapping the keyboard is part of the invisible wall that separates the real world and the technology. I would speculate that at some point the software technology has to blend with other old-school technologies we excluded at the start of this blog, like material science, mechanical engineering, construction, to break this invisible barrier and make technology access seem more natural. I am talking about products where the boundaries between the mechanical, electrical and software components are not yet drawn clearly (imagine a plate which tells how much calories and nutrients you're about to consume) and use-cases like being able to check the recipe of an authentic Hungarian Goulash while cooking it in the kitchen (no running to the study, open the laptop, then the browser, type URL of the search engine, type goulash and hit enter, click on a result which seems relevant).
to catch a glimpse of how the next evolution of technology may look like, check out Pranav Mistry's experiments with the Sixth Sense technology or read about the Semantic Web vision of Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler and Ora Lassila.
lastly, as a consolation, here's a nice article which talks about 5 business models for the contemporary internet: http://mashable.com/2009/07/
so long!
Friday, September 3, 2010
An explanation
I owe this to the (mostly imaginary) audience.
I think wait for a technology which transfers thoughts to digital media with a single click of a button has been long enough.
I think people who read social updates don't like it longer than 20 words. neither do the websites which host them (though they're polite enough to let me type till I'm really obnoxious).
so it's time for me to grab the old fashioned keyboard and go tap tap tap (I'm a little high on nursery rhymes these days as my daughter just joined her first school).
and what's up with this 'freemind' thing? well, in case if you aren't FSF-oriented, free-mind pairs with free-speech (no free lunch here :)).
and I stole two words from one of my favorite songs and won't bother to explain why. neither did Simon and Garfunkel.
silence please!
I think wait for a technology which transfers thoughts to digital media with a single click of a button has been long enough.
I think people who read social updates don't like it longer than 20 words. neither do the websites which host them (though they're polite enough to let me type till I'm really obnoxious).
so it's time for me to grab the old fashioned keyboard and go tap tap tap (I'm a little high on nursery rhymes these days as my daughter just joined her first school).
and what's up with this 'freemind' thing? well, in case if you aren't FSF-oriented, free-mind pairs with free-speech (no free lunch here :)).
and I stole two words from one of my favorite songs and won't bother to explain why. neither did Simon and Garfunkel.
silence please!
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