Sunday Posts

From experience, I know the effects of space on learning is under-appreciated. Particularly so in most parts of the independent higher education sector in Britain, mostly owned and run by owner-operators for students coming from overseas. Somehow, there is an implicit assumption that students really don't care about the learning environment as long as they are in London, and given a good tutor and a course that meets their requirement. There is also a heavy focus on productive space, as in classrooms, as opposed to support spaces, like Library and Student Social Areas, and a tight control over overhead spending and space usage lies at the heart of the economics of independent higher education. As most of these colleges operate at the cost-conscious demand-absorption end of the sector, such 'savings' is often projected as critical to competitiveness and ongoing survival of the institutions. Coming at it from this perspective of functional space, it is interesting for me t...

Start up or acquisition? This is one discussion that features prominently in my daily routine.  It isn't just a theoretical question, but one that I regularly face. As I am trying to work towards setting up a new generation Business School, and navigate my way through various options of raising money, I am told this again and again, that investors love something which is already set up rather than risking their money to a start-up. Indeed, this had made me think and change our strategy considerably, and I have tried to put an acquisition at the core of our strategy and lost some time pursuing one or other businesses to create a platform. After a few false starts, I am at a point of rethink now: I am increasingly concerned the baggage an acquisition will put on our idea that should ideally be constructed as a nimble start-up business, and I am wondering how to get around the challenges of raising money that I am facing now. I indeed understand where the investors are coming fro...

I am not the kind of person who keeps track of all the special days, except the birthdays I must remember and do something about (or else face serious consequences). The only other kind of days I care about are bank holidays. So, the various UN mandated special days is indeed beyond my cognitive capacity. Add to that various media and special interest defined 'days', and I am sure there are more than 365 of these, and I bet this would go to anyone's mental capacity except those very special people who keep their special diaries which note every such days and who can tell you exactly which day they first had ice-cream. So, I conveniently depend on them, now that there is facebook and a reminder is always handy, to flag up special days, and then generally ignore them. Friendship Day could have been one such day, but the intensity and enthusiasm on Facebook caught up with me. Yes, this was to be expected - Facebook is one giant 'friending' system and if nothing, i...

Let's call it the Employability headwind, which is causing trouble in education. There are people who say it should be obvious: A person goes to college to get a job! But, really, is that it? Do you think someone really toils through all those deadlines, disappointments, vexing moments so that they can get a job? To toil through again, under someone else's wishes, carrying out rather unimportant tasks through a lifetime perhaps? Even if we are talking about graduate jobs here (if we accept there is such a thing, they must be fast disappearing), it is likely to be short term. There is no more lifelong employment, it has already been told, only lifelong learning. So, what is this big noise that college must be solely for employment? Okay, I accept there is a difference between 'for employment' and 'for employability', and we should go for the latter. However, the former is the only indicator of the latter - we can't prove employability if the student does...

I can never get used to the concept of wasted time. I know the common way of thinking that one has a sort of fixed lifetime, and if a period, however brief, was spent not pursuing something meaningful, it is a waste. However, if one looks beyond the obvious, there are couple of questions to ask: How do you know how much time you have to live? And, how do you know you have not pursued a meaningful goal unless you tried? If these questions sounded silly, let me try harder. I spent a few minutes this afternoon sitting in Tavistock Square. I did nothing: It was a beautiful afternoon, warm and sunny, the very best British summer could be. Olympics have scared away the tourists, in fact pretty much everyone, from London, so it was quieter and emptier than usual. I did not read, or think of anything. There was the statue of Gandhi, sitting as if in meditation, to look at, but I did not particularly notice him today. I was waiting, indeed, for a phone call, which was to tell me what to do...

This reflection relates to my own experiences, and various conversations I have had with Indian executives, particularly from the training industry, regarding the Joint Ventures or licensing arrangements, which seem to be popular and growing, between Indian and Western training outfits in the training space. The questions - the value of partnership, who should one partner with, what to expect - come up again and again, and indeed, my advice was sought, as recently as last week, for a similar project.  There is a consensus among the Indian executives that such partnerships/ licensing add value. Of particular interest to Indian companies are packaged concepts and ideas, models and certifications that such partnerships bring. Consider the recent outpouring of emotions on Facebook and other similar platforms on the demise of Steven Covey, though the mainstream media largely ignored it, which came primarily from the training business community in India. I am sure similar friendly f...

Training in India has come of age: The choices, range of courses, price points, geographical spread, availability of trainers, have emerged, carrying the industry a long way off from the duopoly of NIIT-Aptech days. However, despite the progress, two problems seem to afflict the industry still: One, most companies are still trying to be like NIIT or Aptech, and talking about fast, franchise-led growth; and, two, the training is still dominated by derived content from one Western fad or the other, and very little research and development is actually being done in India.  Training in India is an exciting industry. It sits right in the middle of growing population, rising industry demand and a sub-par education system. The opportunity in the sector is, therefore, exciting: It can, and should, play an important catalytic role in helping the Indian industry move to the next level. This role, which will indeed come with increased profitability, demands new thinking, which is in ...

We live in an age of market fundamentalism. That is, live by an assumption that the markets are cure all, and as long as we free everyone's hand to buy and sell at whatever price one chooses, everyone will get the best deal by the magical work of the invisible hand. This doctrine is being pushed everywhere: In an age where the sovereign states live in mortal fear that George Soros may pull their money and bankrupt them overnight if they don't toe the line, markets are made to penetrate every sphere of our life, in education, health care, environment, relationships and even births and deaths. The idea of the markets has become hegemonic, so widespread that one can not see its edges and question its limits; indeed, questioning the merits of the markets is seen as blasphemous and unusual. However, still the criticisms of markets are emerging. First, that this represents a fairly narrow view of human race, that it is driven by self interest, despite many evidence on the contra...

This is the 1001th post on this blog, done over almost six years. Not that I have written it all, some are videos and snippets, and a few are guest contributions. However, it is still a large number: I am amazed myself that I managed to find time to write all of that, amid everything else that happened in my life during the period (which, to sum up, amounts to five deaths, four marriages, two divorces, three births in my close family, alongside four job changes for me!). However, as I mentioned earlier, this is precisely the reason I write - for me, writing is somewhat therapeutic - a few minutes of space to indulge and dream, much needed amid all the chaos and confusion of everyday life. This writing was what some of the French philosophers will call my strategies of living, my window of sanity and escape from the framework of compliance, my moments of being myself rather than a cog on bigger wheels. But these 1000 posts lie in the past now: The sheer volume of the posts, and I am a...