Sunday Posts

Geoff Colvin's Humans Are Underrated is set to come out in the UK in September and I would look forward to read the book. From the snippet published in Fortune magazine ( Read here ), Colvin seems to make an interesting argument. That it is time to rethink what it means to be human. In the race against the machine, it is futile to try to figure out what the machines can not do. Very smart people have tried and failed before, as the logic of Moores Law caught up with their prediction. With the Arrive-By date of Singularity set in 2029 ( by Ray Kurzweil ), even the tasks we think are beyond technologies, will soon not be. So, the point is not to try to outsmart technologies, but to figure out what really matters. The answers he provides are not dissimilar to the ones we already have had. His list of five big 21st century skills include empathising, collaborating, creating, leading and building relationships. These are similar to what we hear from other people trying to think ab...

We live in an exceptional time. Though this isn't a quote from the excellent Foreign Affairs essay written by Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee and Michael Spence ( read it here ) but somewhat its central message: That automation is now reaching a certain tipping point in capability, and with it, it is changing the dynamic of globalisation, ending the party for low cost labour and instead creating a Power Law economy, where a creative elite reap most of the rewards and most other lose out even more completely. Indeed, the authors argue that this is already happening: They report that China may have lost over 30 million manufacturing jobs, 25% of the total, since 1996 (though, the authors note, the data is unreliable because of a change in the way it was gathered) , though at the same time, manufacturing output has expanded at an exponential rate. Foxconn's (and of others) automation projects appear to be the obvious reason. This also bears out on anecdotal observation: Joshua ...

Joshua Cooper Ramo somewhat spills the beans in his latest article in Fortune ( read here ) and says a thing that everyone knew but was afraid of saying: That, to quote Ramo, "globalisation has a reverse gear". Citing arguments that would be familiar to those who followed Pankaj Ghemawat's work ( see his TED presentation here ), Ramo makes the case for the "inside economy", one made of local consumers and producers, that is fast filling the gap left by the receding global trade. The point is - we know this already. India, as I have argued before, rode through the tides of global recession looking inward: While its outwardly-orientated industries, IT and Aviation for example, took a beating, the ones serving domestic demand, manufacturing, retail and financial services delivered steady growth and jobs. China turned its economy slowly from an export-driven one to one aligned to local consumption - the slowing of Chinese growth, in my view, is an indicator of ...

An Ernst & Young report looks at the Australian universities and come to interesting conclusions. The British universities, which look at their Australian counterparts with envy these days, may take note of this: The report offers some insights which may have universal significance, and universities all over the world, barring the few at the top of the pyramid, may have to reassess their strategies in the rapidly changing context of today's Higher Education. In summary, the report points to five disruptive forces that confront what it calls a 'thousand year old industry' (though many in Britain will be affronted by the 'i' word): First, 'democratization of knowledge and access' , which means not just the MOOCs, but more fundamentally, Google, and YouTube, and the like; as well as the expansion of Higher Education systems in the developing world, based on the emerging consensus on Higher Education as the key to good life. Second, 'contes...

I went to watch Priyanka Chopra in FASHION, but was impressed by the movie itself instead. It's a Madhur Bhandarkar movie, and I learnt [I am not exactly top of things bollywood ] that he made his name making movies depicting real life situations. I have seen PAGE 3 in bits and pieces, and it was okay - it was a bit simplistic but had a message. FASHION too was a bit simplistic on that scale, but impressive in its execution. Like so many other bollywood movies, FASHION really does not have a story. The young Meghna Mathur of Chandigarh defies her parents and comes to Mumbai to be 'a supermodel'. After lots of catchy lines, a sequence of improbable good luck and a string of impressive costumes, Meghna falls a victim of her own success, steps over the line when she makes public her affairs with her married benefactor, and is soon dumped, back to Chandigarh. There is a follow-up story, indeed, of her second coming and struggles, where her parents now support her and...