Room 67: Let us go to Canteen and have some quick snacks?
Room 68: Oh, I just went and come back. BTW you planning to go out for dinner, today mess food is bad :(
Room 67: Let me chk and I will confirm in about an hour.
Thomas L. Friedman has written “the world is flat” where he has mentioned how beautifully the emergence of internet as a means of communication and information exchange has facilitated the birth of Indian IT industry where the projects are executed offshore without jeopardising on the quality but with reducing the costs. I was having this discussion with my friend yesterday about the evolution of Web 2.0 and user forums like mouthshut.com etc. The common starting point is that internet is so easily available that it is the first choice if you want to communicate to your friends, peers forget the unknown people.
The starting of the post is common form of communication between two rooms physically 5 ft away. I was wondering that whether the internet has increased or decreased the distances between individuals. If at one side it has made possible the interaction between two unknown individuals in different continents but at the other side it is replacing the personal communication between other two individuals would have met in person had internet not been in the existence. How do you evaluate the impact of this on human behaviour?
Man is a social animal, a lot is happening on the basis of personal rapport and relations that an individual develops over time, the relationship builds on trust and confidence when you physically meet and talk to someone. Verbal communication is just 1 criteria, you judge an individual by his body language, facial expressions, appearance and related physical surroundings etc. What implications will the internet have on the personal communications with the ‘known’ and ‘near’ people?
Let’s say 5 years down the line I want to watch a movie with my friend and he lives nearby but we do not want to take the trouble of physically going to a cinema hall and stand in a queue, take tickets and then watch the movie with 100 other people. Instead both of us log on to a movie streaming site on internet, enter into the same screen room, connect to the some personal instant message (or voice) window and start seeing the same film at real time and discuss it over the chat/voice window. But what do we do at intermission, I can't tell him that lets go and try some ‘crisy corn sandwich’? Or can I? Well I am talking 5 years down the line and surely we dial the same fast food chain, order what we want to order and it will be delivered over to our doorstep. “Hey do you think that guy has put a little extra cheese in the sandwich today?”
Room 68: Arey, wake me up for 3 pm wala class?
Room 67: Abe kya…. Put an alarm instead na?
Room 68: No bhai, I never know when I will put it off and sleep again, look you don’t have to take any additional trouble, I am leaving my chat window open and speaker on full volume, just ping me until I ping you back saying “yes, I am awake and ALIVE” !!!!
Wait a sec, did you say alive? I mean ALIVE !!
Sunday, 25 October 2009
Thursday, 22 October 2009
Politics and MR
Three of the Indian states have just gone through the assembly elections and I was reading an article which was discussing how the perception of voters is about the different political parties in that states. The article talked about what people expect from the political parties when they are in power, which issue favours which political parties etc. Wait a sec; did I just say perception of political parties amongst voters!
So here comes the question; is there an opportunity to apply the concepts learn in MR to position 1 political party amongst each other on the perceptual space of the voters? Well there is but whether it can be applied in Indian scenario I am not sure. We have national brands and regional brands here (read national parties and regional parties).
The need satisfied is favourable economic environment, job opportunities, social security and availability of products and services at affordable rates. The need manifest into wants and here comes the problem, our votes want the candidate of their caste/religion. I do not think there is any confusion over the needs, they are universal but whereas those needs manifest into a want of suitable, educated, and eligible candidate in a developed world, in India those needs manifest into a want of candidate of own caste/religion irrespective of his professional and personal records at the nearest police station.
If I talk about getting a survey done to identify the current positioning gap in the voters perceptual space and then positioning a political party appropriately depending on which social or political issue is most able differentiate amongst all the parties. However, the question that should be answered first is whether there is a need to differentiate the political parties by using perceptual maps. In India the political parties are not competing on functional aspects but on trivial issues. The consumers (voters) are not evolved enough to evaluate the promise offered by these parties rationally and take a sound decision. Rather the political parties have made sure that the voters who vote remain in the lowest level of their maslows hierarchy of needs and do not look beyond the religion and poverty.
I feel that these politicos understand the management more than us, i.e. we always talk of moving the customers up the value ladder but the politico has rightly identified that the best way for their survival is customer remain in the most basic level of their needs and only look for the core product offering. So I think MR has its application in Politics but we do not require it in Indian scenario.
So here comes the question; is there an opportunity to apply the concepts learn in MR to position 1 political party amongst each other on the perceptual space of the voters? Well there is but whether it can be applied in Indian scenario I am not sure. We have national brands and regional brands here (read national parties and regional parties).
The need satisfied is favourable economic environment, job opportunities, social security and availability of products and services at affordable rates. The need manifest into wants and here comes the problem, our votes want the candidate of their caste/religion. I do not think there is any confusion over the needs, they are universal but whereas those needs manifest into a want of suitable, educated, and eligible candidate in a developed world, in India those needs manifest into a want of candidate of own caste/religion irrespective of his professional and personal records at the nearest police station.
If I talk about getting a survey done to identify the current positioning gap in the voters perceptual space and then positioning a political party appropriately depending on which social or political issue is most able differentiate amongst all the parties. However, the question that should be answered first is whether there is a need to differentiate the political parties by using perceptual maps. In India the political parties are not competing on functional aspects but on trivial issues. The consumers (voters) are not evolved enough to evaluate the promise offered by these parties rationally and take a sound decision. Rather the political parties have made sure that the voters who vote remain in the lowest level of their maslows hierarchy of needs and do not look beyond the religion and poverty.
I feel that these politicos understand the management more than us, i.e. we always talk of moving the customers up the value ladder but the politico has rightly identified that the best way for their survival is customer remain in the most basic level of their needs and only look for the core product offering. So I think MR has its application in Politics but we do not require it in Indian scenario.
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Social Loafing and Diminishing rate of return
A very strange title, it may not make someone read the whole post; or will it? Well, to make people read it, I am keeping it short. Without referring to anything specific I want to tell you that I encountered the two concepts recently. Let’s say you are required to do a job for a social cause and you want to do it (so you had committed yourself to it) but then you know there are many who are volunteering to do the same job, your effectiveness decreases. OB guys will say social loafing and economist will say the marginal production (incremental job done) curve follows a diminishing rate of return. Do you know Tragedy of the Commons?
Take another example, Mr K usually gets numerous opportunities to attend conferences and he may substitute the next opportunity of attending a conference with a weekend retreat. Mr Y who usually does not get a chance to attend any conferences may compromise on his regular business and even willing to travel moderate distance to attend the same conferences. The utilities of both the events are different to both the individuals. Sometimes I feel (privileged) people have a tendency of discounting the true value of the most basic things in our life. Or continued success may give someone a false impression that one is fully equipped to overcome any sudden changes in the environment. No wonder strategist’s have modified five forces of Porter to include ‘Complacency’.
Take another example, Mr K usually gets numerous opportunities to attend conferences and he may substitute the next opportunity of attending a conference with a weekend retreat. Mr Y who usually does not get a chance to attend any conferences may compromise on his regular business and even willing to travel moderate distance to attend the same conferences. The utilities of both the events are different to both the individuals. Sometimes I feel (privileged) people have a tendency of discounting the true value of the most basic things in our life. Or continued success may give someone a false impression that one is fully equipped to overcome any sudden changes in the environment. No wonder strategist’s have modified five forces of Porter to include ‘Complacency’.
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