Sunday Posts

It has been about 20 years since the heyday of Reaganomics, Thatcher's privatizations and Milton Friedman's great triumph. The popular media has this habit of convoluting things - but it is almost two decades since the evil Soviet regime collapsed in Russia, and also about 20 years since Tienanmen [though this must be forgotten on the year of the Olympics ]. In our minds, save that Tienanmen bit, or in fact including that Tienanmen bit, this is actually the bits of the same picture - the win of free will, capitalism, or whatever name you call this by. An ideological triumph, that is. Unquestionably, as all countries have fallen in line, there is a free market for everything including nuclear weapons, and except the poor farmers in Europe and the United States, everyone wants Doha round! However, there is this ugly spectre of credit crunch around the corner, which must be dealt with. It is not going away, though many people have predicted at different times that the worst i...

It was not long ago, experts announced the 'death' of sales function. Well, not that many businesses will buy that idea, but with the advent of Internet, consumer empowerment and abundance of information, sales seemed to be a redundant function. Or, its effectiveness was assumed to have greatly diminished. In the sales-less world, of course, Branding reigned. The trust that people endowed a salesman was supposed to have been replaced by the trust on a symbol - a brand - and this was assumed to be the 'final solution' in the cluttered marketplace. The point, of course, is that this is too good to be true. Instead of making products rise above the clutter, branding itself created the clutter, bringing to fore meaningless differentiation and assuming the know-all stance that every consumer always hated in a salesman. The other problem was that brands intended to be everything to everyone, that street-corner salesman at least had occassional anger and disappointment, but br...

I did write about this before, but newspapers everyday are sore reminders of how badly this is needed. Living in Britain of today isn't very different from the experiences of British observers in India in the late Seventeenth century - a rich society immersed in the luxuries of life, and yet oblivious of the growing threat to its prosperity. A society in denial - in short! Yes, it was not so obvious to British observers travelling to India then, but should be clear to us now with the benefits of hindsight, but hardly anyone seems to care. Today's news is that of Conservatives accusing Gordon Brown that during his Chancellorship of last eleven years, most of the newly created jobs have gone to immigrants. The British people, they say, have moved on to benefits and lived a life of 'poverty'. Well, honestly, conservatives being what they are, they don't even know the meaning of this word 'poverty'. Yes, indeed, living in municipal housing and receiving a paymen...

This is a personal note. I am now back in London and shall not travel till end of June. Wow! What a break - I say to myself. I always wanted a travelling job, but when it materialized, like many other things, it was at The Wrong Time! I quite enjoy being in different places - not the touristy bit, but the fact that I am involved in setting up real businesses in different countries is indeed exciting - but my life is in a mess right now. When I started doing this an year back, I was patiently accumulating brownie points in adjusting in a new country. I was building my career all over again, bit by bit, and I was having a good run. Then, this opportunity came - something I wanted to do for a while. I took it - not taking that would have been against my grains. Looking back, that was actually a step backward. I was leaning on my past rather than striving towards my future. I know I am good at this kind of work - when I say I am possibly one of the best in the world in selling training, I ...

Winston Churchill famously said India is no more of a country than the Equator. And, I guess many people all over the world will agree with him, including most Indians. The diversity of India is staggering. The sheer largeness of the country, the number of people, the differences - social, economic, linguistic - makes one wonder how this could remain one country for so long. As Churchill eloquently expressed - the modern European concept of a nation can not possibly explain the 'Indian- ness '. Despite this, there have been several attempts to define Indian- ness in modern terms. The nation that Nehru built, more precisely. It always appears a bit of an hotch - potch , a political rather than a natural identity, more of an ideological construction in the lines of Vincent Smith's Unity in Diversity. Or, may be more like the abstract idea contained in Nehru's Discovery of India. In this construction, average Indians spoke English, lived a liberal social life in the citie...

I am generally down. Down and out in London, though I am not even half as bad as Orwell was. I was telling my sister that I felt like Gregor Samsa when I got up this morning. No kidding! I think the world is going to dogs. I meet two kinds of people who do not believe it. One, who do not care. They want it to go to dogs. They have nothing to care about anyway. They have this belief that the crisis will sort things out actually. Possibly true, though one may not last the crisis personally. The other kind is too dumb to understand. It's the city kind. You know those - don't you - those alpha males and alpha females, those who feel that their good grades in school has given them the divine rights to run the world's affairs. No doubt they have done well so far. Earned money, fame, drove 4x4s and even ran for President, became President. All they care for is next 15 minutes [assuming they lasted 15 minutes, either in bed or in business]. Anything taking longer than the next 15 m...

I read this 300 page novel in a single day, which is remarkable and I must note this on my blog. Agreed, I took two EasyJet flights and spent an hour each way in the airports, but I was also exceedingly tired and fairly down and out on my way back home [will explain later]. This is a novel about the London office of a global advertising agency, Millar Shanks. It is hilarious, and written entirely in the sequence of office emails. The agency is pitching for the Coca Cola account and trying to put everything behind it. It is full of real-life executive characters, a CEO from Josef Stalin School of Management and whose place was rightfully in Romania, a creative director who is only creative in excuses, a self-important and pitiful Head of Client Services, a concentious Copywriter - very real and very funny. I am so impressed that I am planning to read other books by Matt Beaumont, and also looked him up on the web. I am even impressed by his little website http://www.letstalkaboutme.com ...

Some received wisdom from Sun Tzu - as translated/ presented by Donald G. Krause, in his excellent 'The Art of War for Executives': "There are five character flaws which are dangerous for a General: If he is reckless, his men can be killed; If he is cowardly, his army can be captured; If he is short-tempered, he will react in anger; If he is self-important, he can be deceived; If he is attached to his men, he will hestitate at a critical moment. These five flaws are unfortunate for the General, but they cause great destruction in war. These five flaws cause generals to fail and armies to die. Consider them well."

Gordon Brown may prove to be the most disappointing Prime Minister of Britain, ever. He came with great promise, remember. It was almost a year ago - only a year! He was the great relief from the tired, discredited leadership of Tony Blair. He was a 'conviction' politician. He represented a new new labour, one free of factionalism, yet committed to take the public service reform forward and build a new Britain. His government was to be based on realism, a less subservient approach to the irrational President of the United States. He was trusted for his competence in handling Britain's economic future - after all, he took credit, himself, for creating 'the longest continuous period of economic prosperity since the Industrial Revolution' as the Chancellor. He was almost the Hugh Grant in Love, Actually!, a highly lovable, if slightly messy Prime Minister [though married]. Alas, it never works like a movie, and how it all unfolded in a few months. First, he fudged at ...

Surely this campaign is one of bitterest fights in recent electoral history. But since last week, bitter is no longer a politically correct term. Barak Obama said it, and Hillary Clinton made an issue of it. It is clear that she isn't giving up - she will make it as bitter as she can. The problem is that she need not have seen this as a zero sum game. There is a difference between fighting for the nomination, fighting for the presidency and fighting the 'wars'. Hillary Clinton does not seem to know the difference. This does not necessarily prove her toughness; it only proves that she does not know how to give up. Barak Obama said something right, wrongly. Mrs. Clinton is doing something wrong, while pretending that she is doing the right thing. She is almost playing as the B-team for John McCain - hoping that by 2012, McCain will be too old and she will run again. But she is also proving herself to be divisive and inflexible, and the last thing that America needs now is ano...