What Bangalore needs

I have noticed 

a lot of things going wrong in this new IT city.  One thing that requires urgent attention is what I am going to discuss in this post. In the previous times it was not so crowded and not that expensive. There were only few manufacturing companies at one end of the town. Road weren’t as congested as they are at this point of time.

Now things have changed big time, traffic has grown exponentially throughout the city. People are moving in hundreds of numbers. New shops and restaurants are being setup at each corner now. With this in mind public transport services has also increased. The need for flyovers has gone up and in some places it has been taken care of and in some places it is been carried out.

But the main problem arises on the traffic signal. Many traffic signals do not have timer indicator. With good intentions people turn off the engines on a traffic signal. When it turns green there will be atleast one vehicle which will struggle to start. The result is other vehicles getting stuck behind it and lower utilization of time allotted for the vehicles to pass.

Clearly the presence of timers at various places can reduce this from happening plus this can also help in controlling the impatient traveler who is waiting for the signal to turn green. 

Is technology making me dumber or wiser.

I sometimes wonder how long can I survive without a computer coupled with internet. Seriously think about it, do we have a body of knowledge that will stand without the gadgets. Nowadays everything we need is just a click away. And yes we are dependent on it.

I think it is basically apadting to the world around us. We have to adapt in this world to survive. It is after all it Darwin who said "Survival of the fittest." I would rephrase this sentence later in the post. Only the one who can get the information out faster and in more precise manner wins the war.

Now to emphaise on the point of technology making us dumb let me put down two points.

1) How many phone numbers you use to remember when you were a kid and used the Plain Old Telephone System? How many numbers do you remember right now after using mobile phones.

2) How many times have you finished a entire book before moving to another book.

Well I don't think we are getting any dumber but that we are able to adapt and able to relate far more easily than before. Our Human brain has more power to connect the thread now then it use to in the past.

Use of cell phone has made us dependent on the technology by now we have all number of contact numbers stored in one place. And yes we can also have backup for this numbers.

Now some of us do not read all the stuff inside the book if we don't find it interesting because we know what we are looking for will be avaliable in some other book. And the icing on the cake is that we can find information about such books using google.

Technology is advancing to help us and not to make us lazy and obselete. The ability to adapt is more important than one can think. Imagine your-self inside a place where there are lot of people using various gadgets, now if you don't take help of technology and finsih your work faster and better than them then you have lost the war. Whereas when you are inside a place where there is no chance of you using the technology then we have to adapt to the resources avaliable to complete the task.

So my agrument melts down to one thing i.e The power lies in your ability to adapt and connect. Yes we are getting dependant on the growing technology but at the same time we are growing and broadening our knowledge base. It is better to have the body of knowledge within us then to growing it on some external thing. So coming back to "Survival of the fittess" This has to change as we all know Dinosour being fit did not survive but it should be "Survival of the one who adapts." So I don't think technology is making me dumber but it is making me wiser.

Silicon Valley - The technology entrepreneur's dream land

I read some article on Silicon Valley and it facinates me by the level of enthusiasm and oppurtunity every person inside the valley possesses. To start with all, the big companies fear the small startups. As one would state the fact that at one point of time they were also small startups. So what really made them BIG, one term sticks out i.e. Radical Innovation. Come see Apple, Microsoft, HP, IBM they all started something that did not exsist before or something that was overlooked.  So whats so special about Silicon Valley. Let begin by looking at the oppurtunities people over there possess.

First of all the valley is the market for ideas, it is a place where passion matters over experience. The Valley is full of talented people, the people who think that NEW is COOL and WORTHDOING. Where Equity talks as currency and if one is not getting shares in a startup which he works in then he is considered being screwed. Something new is the way of becoming something big and if you haven't been a part of a IPO you are still considered as a virgin. It is like investing in a high risk and high return porfolio. Because of this, killer oppurtunity attracts the best talent. One thing that you would notice common inside the valley is the the culture of Job Hopping. If you spend more than 2 years in a company then your career is considered to be over. So we have a case of resource attraction in case of startups where brillant ideas and initiatives attract the best talent.

Now what does actually support this startups is the biggest question. This are people with big pockets are the risk taking ability for making BIG profits.  The key indegrident to the success of the valley goes to Venture Capitalist who invest funds in this market of ideas. The valley is flooded with loads of capital and it is believed that innovation is a way to create wealth. Afterall it is the world of Agility, Experiment and Imagination.

But presently I feel that the valley is waiting for something big. There are many startups but all catering some small ideas and if any big idea comes up it is gobbled up by the bigger firm. So as big firms continue with thier incremental innovation what the valley really needs is a DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION. This would change the entire scene at the valley and open up more flood gates for investment and entrepreneurship.

Innovation Value Chain at 3M

What better way to talk about innovation value chain than start with a company that has pioneered a century of innovation, 3M Company formerly known as Minnesota Mining Manufacturing Company. 

Before talking about their value chain I would like to see back in history as how this company started innovating and diversifying in various technologies.

They started out way back in 1902 when industrial revolution was hot in the America. They actually started out as a Mining industry to sell the mineral corundum to manufacturers to make Grinding wheels. That business did not go well for them so they decided to jump into manufacturing Sandpaper. Now here is where Richard Drew (inventor and employee in 3M) came into picture. He observed that two tone auto paint job were difficult to manage at the border of the two colours.  Drew took it up as a personal challenge and while working in 3M he started working on this pet project. His general manager William McKnight wasn’t that happy with Drew concentrating on other work which was not in 3M domain. McKnight did ask him to stop doing that and concentrate on his official work i.e. on sandpaper. But Drew carried own this work anyways. Later when he was done this product was introduced to his manager & the auto paint job firm and it turned out to be a hit. This product was none other than the Masking Tape. 

Suddenly then McKnight realized the importance of this pet project that Drew had carried out. This according to me led McKnight to promote the concept of individual innovation among employees. After this followed number of innovations including Cellophane tape. In 1948 when McKnight had became the chairman of 3M he said the following three paragraphs which would guidelines to any firm thinking about innovation. It is as follows

“As our business grows, it becomes increasingly necessary to delegate responsibility and to encourage men and women to exercise their initiative. This requires considerable tolerance. Those men and women, to whom we delegate authority and responsibility, if they are good people, are going to want to do their jobs in their own way.

Mistakes will be made. But if a person is essentially right, the mistakes he or she makes are not as serious in the long run as the mistakes management will make if it undertakes to tell those in authority exactly how they must do their jobs.

Management that is destructively critical when mistakes are made kills initiative. And it’s essential that we have many people with initiative if we are to continue to grow.”

- William L. McKnight, Chairman 3m 1948.

Here we see the bloodstream of 3M’s innovation value chain which is still followed. 

First we generate trust in employees by delegating tasks to them to perform. Secondly understand that mistakes will be done. Mistakes are part of life. An individual has to commit mistakes to learn more i.e. learn for these mistakes and try other alternatives. Thirdly is let the employees take the initiative. Don’t interrupt. Because of this we have the famous 15% time policy in 3M :)

Those who know the company best, point to four key ingredients that foster a culture of innovation at 3M: 

1. attracting and retaining imaginative and productive people; 

2. creating a challenging environment; 

3. designing an organization that doesn’t get in people’s way; 

4. offering rewards that nourish both self esteem and personal bank accounts

Idea generation in 3M

Innovation has thrived at 3M because people talk. They strike up lively conversations in hallways, cafeterias and labs. They talk across departments and divisions. They meet to share ideas in brainstorming sessions and forums. While more traditional organizations have kept researchers and engineers within their own area or divisions, where their loyalties were strongest, 3M has instead fostered a strong sense of attachment to the company as a whole.  The granddaddy of that concept was the Technical Forum which had its start in 1951. An organization in which participation was purely voluntary, its original goals were to foster idea sharing, discussion and inquiry among members of the 3M technical community, while educating technical employees.

Manley Johnston, vice president of international technical operations of 3M learned that if you have a good story to tell in this company and if you have the guts to tell it, people will listen and support you. 

Conversion in 3M

Conversion in 3M can be mentioned in following two steps.

"Take small steps." - Experiment, but on a small scale. When something looks promising, go all out and seize the opportunity. This way one can do plenty of inexpensive experiments that create a funnel of would-be innovations.

"Give people the room they need." - Without entrepreneurship, there is no experiment. Without experiment there is no success or failure. People need some time, incentives, job security and room to experiment.

Diffusion in 3M

To explain this I would like to quote Moe Nozari, executive vice president, consumer and office market who looks back at his 31 years. Early in his career, Nozari discovered a catalyst that could be used to create Utethane, a component in many 3M products, He says “I went to my boss, George Allen, who later retired as senior vice president, Research and Development and said, ‘I have finished this. What do I do now.’ His answer was, ‘No, you are not finished. Now you go to every division in this company and show them what you have done and work with them to incorporate your invention into their product lines’ That was the best professional growth opportunity for me, because I learned about the company and the wide range of skills and responsibilities that 3M people have.”

For 3M the technologies belonged to the company not the business units. So once they had innovative technology they will try to see if it incorporates in other departments and helps them make a product.

Above quotes are from "A Centruy of innovation - the 3M story", a good book giving us the story of 3M