Put about 100 bricks in some particular order in a
closed room with an
open window. Then send 2-3 candidates into the room
and close it from
outside.
Leave them alone and come back after 6 hours, and then
analyze the
situation:
(a) If they are counting and recounting the number of
bricks - PUT
THEM
IN ACCOUNTS.
(b) If they have messed up the whole place with the
bricks - PUT THEM
IN
ENGINEERING.
(c) If they are arranging the bricks in some other
order - PUT THEM IN
PLANNING.
(d) If they are throwing the bricks at each other -
PUT THEM IN
OPERATIONS.
(e) If they are sleeping - PUT THEM IN SECURITY.
(f) If they have broken! the bricks into pieces - PUT
THEM IN
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY.
(g) If they are sitting idle - PUT THEM IN THE HUMAN
RESOURCE
DEPARTMENT.
(h) If they have thrown the bricks out of the window -
PUT THEM IN THE
MATERIALS DEPARTMENT.
(i) If they have already left for the day - PUT THEM
IN MARKETING.
(j) If they are talking to each other and not a single
brick has
moved -
PUT THEM IN TOP MANAGEMENT !!!!
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Define BIRTHDAY..superb
Fantastic answer by Dr Kalam to a question asked at the BBC,
Define BIRTHDAY.........
Answer = the only day in your life, when you cried and your Mother was smiling..............
Define BIRTHDAY.........
Think!!!!!!!!
Who sells the largest number of cameras in India?
Your guess is likely to be Sony, Canon or Nikon. Answer is none of the
above. The winner is Nokia whose main line of business in India is not
cameras but cell phones.
Reason being cameras bundled with cellphones are outselling stand alone
cameras. Now, what prevents the cellphone from replacing the camera
outright? Nothing at all. One can only hope the Sonys and Canons are
taking
note.
Try this. Who is the biggest in music business in India? You think it is
HMV Sa-Re-Ga-Ma? Sorry. The answer is Airtel. By selling caller tunes
(that
play for 30 seconds) Airtel makes more than what music companies make by
selling music albums (that run for hours).
Incidentally Airtel is not in music business. It is the mobile service
provider with the largest subscriber base in India. That sort of
competitor
is difficult to detect, even more difficult to beat (by the time you
have
identified him he has already gone past you). But if you imagine that
Nokia
and Bharti (Airtel's parent) are breathing easy you can't be farther
from
truth.
Nokia confessed that they all but missed the smartphone bus. They admit
that Apple's Iphone and Google's Android can make life difficult in
future.
But you never thought Google was a mobile company, did you? If these
illustrations mean anything, there is a bigger game unfolding. It is not
so
much about mobile or music or camera or emails?
The "Mahabharat" (the great Indian epic battle) is about "what is
tomorrow's personal digital device"? Will it be a souped up mobile or a
palmtop with a telephone? All these are little wars that add up to that
big
battle. Hiding behind all these wars is a gem of a question - "who is my
competitor?"
Once in a while, to intrigue my students I toss a question at them. It
says
"What Apple did to Sony, Sony did to Kodak, explain?" The smart ones get
the answer almost immediately. Sony defined its market as audio (music
from
the walkman). They never expected an IT company like Apple to encroach
into
their audio domain. Come to think of it, is it really surprising? Apple
as
a computer maker has both audio and video capabilities. So what made
Sony
think he won't compete on pure audio? "Elementary Watson". So also Kodak
defined its business as film cameras, Sony defines its businesses as
"digital."
In digital camera the two markets perfectly meshed. Kodak was torn
between
going digital and sacrificing money on camera film or staying with films
and getting left behind in digital technology. Left undecided it lost in
both. It had to. It did not ask the question "who is my competitor for
tomorrow?" The same was true for IBM whose mainframe revenue prevented
it
from seeing the PC. The same was true of Bill Gates who declared
"internet
is a fad!" and then turned around to bundle the browser with windows to
bury Netscape. The point is not who is today's competitor. Today's
competitor is obvious. Tomorrow's is not.
In 2008, who was the toughest competitor to British Airways in India?
Singapore airlines? Better still, Indian airlines? Maybe, but there are
better answers. There are competitors that can hurt all these airlines
and
others not mentioned. The answer is videoconferencing and telepresence
services of HP and Cisco. Travel dropped due to recession. Senior IT
executives in India and abroad were compelled by their head quarters to
use
videoconferencing to shrink travel budget. So much so, that the mad
scramble for American visas from Indian techies was nowhere in sight in
2008. (India has a quota of something like 65,000 visas to the U.S. They
were going a-begging. Blame it on recession!). So far so good. But to
think
that the airlines will be back in business post recession is something I
would not bet on. In short term yes. In long term a resounding no.
Remember, if there is one place where Newton's law of gravity is
applicable
besides physics it is in electronic hardware. Between 1977 and 1991 the
prices of the now dead VCR (parent of Blue-Ray disc player) crashed to
one-third of its original level in India. PC's price dropped from
hundreds
of thousands of rupees to tens of thousands. If this trend repeats then
telepresence prices will also crash. Imagine the fate of airlines then.
As
it is not many are making money. Then it will surely be RIP!
India has two passions. Films and cricket. The two markets were
distinctly
different. So were the icons. The cricket gods were Sachin and Sehwag.
The
filmi gods were the Khans (Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and the other
Khans
who followed suit). That was, when cricket was fundamentally test
cricket
or at best 50 over cricket. Then came IPL and the two markets collapsed
into one. IPL brought cricket down to 20 overs. Suddenly an IPL match
was
reduced to the length of a 3 hour movie. Cricket became film's
competitor.
On the eve of IPL matches movie halls ran empty. Desperate multiplex
owners
requisitioned the rights for screening IPL matches at movie halls to
hang
on to the audience. If IPL were to become the mainstay of cricket, as it
is
likely to be, films have to sequence their releases so as not clash with
IPL matches. As far as the audience is concerned both are what in India
are
called 3 hour "tamasha" (entertainment). Cricket season might push films
out of the market.
Look at the products that vanished from India in the last 20 years. When
did you last see a black and white movie? When did you last use a
fountain
pen? When did you last type on a typewriter? The answer for all the
above
is "I don't remember!" For some time there was a mild substitute for the
typewriter called electronic typewriter that had limited memory. Then
came
the computer and mowed them all. Today most technologically challenged
guys
like me use the computer as an upgraded typewriter. Typewriters per se
are
nowhere to be seen.
One last illustration. 20 years back what were Indians using to wake
them
up in the morning? The answer is "alarm clock." The alarm clock was a
monster made of mechanical springs. It had to be physically keyed every
day
to keep it running. It made so much noise by way of alarm, that it woke
you
up and the rest of the colony. Then came quartz clocks which were
sleeker.
They were much more gentle though still quaintly called "alarms." What
do
we use today for waking up in the morning? Cellphone! An entire industry
of
clocks disappeared without warning thanks to cell phones. Big watch
companies like Titan were the losers. You never know in which bush your
competitor is hiding!
On a lighter vein, who are the competitors for authors? Joke spewing
machines? (Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, himself a Pole,
tagged a
Polish joke telling machine to a telephone much to the mirth of Silicon
Valley). Or will the competition be story telling robots? Future is
scary!
The boss of an IT company once said something interesting about the
animal
called competition. He said "Have breakfast ...or.... be breakfast"!
That
sums it up rather neatly.
Your guess is likely to be Sony, Canon or Nikon. Answer is none of the
above. The winner is Nokia whose main line of business in India is not
cameras but cell phones.
Reason being cameras bundled with cellphones are outselling stand alone
cameras. Now, what prevents the cellphone from replacing the camera
outright? Nothing at all. One can only hope the Sonys and Canons are
taking
note.
Try this. Who is the biggest in music business in India? You think it is
HMV Sa-Re-Ga-Ma? Sorry. The answer is Airtel. By selling caller tunes
(that
play for 30 seconds) Airtel makes more than what music companies make by
selling music albums (that run for hours).
Incidentally Airtel is not in music business. It is the mobile service
provider with the largest subscriber base in India. That sort of
competitor
is difficult to detect, even more difficult to beat (by the time you
have
identified him he has already gone past you). But if you imagine that
Nokia
and Bharti (Airtel's parent) are breathing easy you can't be farther
from
truth.
Nokia confessed that they all but missed the smartphone bus. They admit
that Apple's Iphone and Google's Android can make life difficult in
future.
But you never thought Google was a mobile company, did you? If these
illustrations mean anything, there is a bigger game unfolding. It is not
so
much about mobile or music or camera or emails?
The "Mahabharat" (the great Indian epic battle) is about "what is
tomorrow's personal digital device"? Will it be a souped up mobile or a
palmtop with a telephone? All these are little wars that add up to that
big
battle. Hiding behind all these wars is a gem of a question - "who is my
competitor?"
Once in a while, to intrigue my students I toss a question at them. It
says
"What Apple did to Sony, Sony did to Kodak, explain?" The smart ones get
the answer almost immediately. Sony defined its market as audio (music
from
the walkman). They never expected an IT company like Apple to encroach
into
their audio domain. Come to think of it, is it really surprising? Apple
as
a computer maker has both audio and video capabilities. So what made
Sony
think he won't compete on pure audio? "Elementary Watson". So also Kodak
defined its business as film cameras, Sony defines its businesses as
"digital."
In digital camera the two markets perfectly meshed. Kodak was torn
between
going digital and sacrificing money on camera film or staying with films
and getting left behind in digital technology. Left undecided it lost in
both. It had to. It did not ask the question "who is my competitor for
tomorrow?" The same was true for IBM whose mainframe revenue prevented
it
from seeing the PC. The same was true of Bill Gates who declared
"internet
is a fad!" and then turned around to bundle the browser with windows to
bury Netscape. The point is not who is today's competitor. Today's
competitor is obvious. Tomorrow's is not.
In 2008, who was the toughest competitor to British Airways in India?
Singapore airlines? Better still, Indian airlines? Maybe, but there are
better answers. There are competitors that can hurt all these airlines
and
others not mentioned. The answer is videoconferencing and telepresence
services of HP and Cisco. Travel dropped due to recession. Senior IT
executives in India and abroad were compelled by their head quarters to
use
videoconferencing to shrink travel budget. So much so, that the mad
scramble for American visas from Indian techies was nowhere in sight in
2008. (India has a quota of something like 65,000 visas to the U.S. They
were going a-begging. Blame it on recession!). So far so good. But to
think
that the airlines will be back in business post recession is something I
would not bet on. In short term yes. In long term a resounding no.
Remember, if there is one place where Newton's law of gravity is
applicable
besides physics it is in electronic hardware. Between 1977 and 1991 the
prices of the now dead VCR (parent of Blue-Ray disc player) crashed to
one-third of its original level in India. PC's price dropped from
hundreds
of thousands of rupees to tens of thousands. If this trend repeats then
telepresence prices will also crash. Imagine the fate of airlines then.
As
it is not many are making money. Then it will surely be RIP!
India has two passions. Films and cricket. The two markets were
distinctly
different. So were the icons. The cricket gods were Sachin and Sehwag.
The
filmi gods were the Khans (Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and the other
Khans
who followed suit). That was, when cricket was fundamentally test
cricket
or at best 50 over cricket. Then came IPL and the two markets collapsed
into one. IPL brought cricket down to 20 overs. Suddenly an IPL match
was
reduced to the length of a 3 hour movie. Cricket became film's
competitor.
On the eve of IPL matches movie halls ran empty. Desperate multiplex
owners
requisitioned the rights for screening IPL matches at movie halls to
hang
on to the audience. If IPL were to become the mainstay of cricket, as it
is
likely to be, films have to sequence their releases so as not clash with
IPL matches. As far as the audience is concerned both are what in India
are
called 3 hour "tamasha" (entertainment). Cricket season might push films
out of the market.
Look at the products that vanished from India in the last 20 years. When
did you last see a black and white movie? When did you last use a
fountain
pen? When did you last type on a typewriter? The answer for all the
above
is "I don't remember!" For some time there was a mild substitute for the
typewriter called electronic typewriter that had limited memory. Then
came
the computer and mowed them all. Today most technologically challenged
guys
like me use the computer as an upgraded typewriter. Typewriters per se
are
nowhere to be seen.
One last illustration. 20 years back what were Indians using to wake
them
up in the morning? The answer is "alarm clock." The alarm clock was a
monster made of mechanical springs. It had to be physically keyed every
day
to keep it running. It made so much noise by way of alarm, that it woke
you
up and the rest of the colony. Then came quartz clocks which were
sleeker.
They were much more gentle though still quaintly called "alarms." What
do
we use today for waking up in the morning? Cellphone! An entire industry
of
clocks disappeared without warning thanks to cell phones. Big watch
companies like Titan were the losers. You never know in which bush your
competitor is hiding!
On a lighter vein, who are the competitors for authors? Joke spewing
machines? (Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, himself a Pole,
tagged a
Polish joke telling machine to a telephone much to the mirth of Silicon
Valley). Or will the competition be story telling robots? Future is
scary!
The boss of an IT company once said something interesting about the
animal
called competition. He said "Have breakfast ...or.... be breakfast"!
That
sums it up rather neatly.
Couldn't resist......read this interesting
Read this…and decide who is intelligent- Donkey or the DOG…
The Donkey and the Dog- Read and think-You may find one in your midst
There was once a washer man who had a donkey and a dog. One night when the whole world was sleeping, a thief broke into the house, the washer man was fast asleep too but the donkey and the dog were awake. The dog decided not to bark since the master did not take good care of him and wanted to teach him a lesson.
The donkey got worried and said to the dog that if he doesn't bark, the donkey will have to do something himself. The dog did not change his mind and the donkey started braying loudly.
Hearing the donkey bray, the thief ran away, the master woke up and started beating the donkey for braying in the middle of the night for no reason.
Moral of the story “One must not engage in duties other than his own"
Now take a new look at the same story...
The washer man was a well educated man from a premier management institute. He had the fundas of looking at the bigger picture and thinking out of the box. He was convinced that there must be some reason for the donkey to bray in the night.. He walked outside a little and did some fact finding, applied a bottom up approach, figured out from the ground realities that there was a thief who broke in and the donkey only wanted to alert him about it. Looking at the donkey's extra initiative and going beyond the call of the duty, he rewarded him with lot of hay and other perks and became his favorite pet.
The dog's life didn't change much, except that now the donkey was more motivated in doing the dog's duties as well. In the annual appraisal the dog managed "ME" (Met Expectations) .
Soon the dog realized that the donkey is taking care of his duties and he can enjoy his life sleeping and lazing around.
The donkey was rated as “star performer". The donkey had to live up to his already high performance standards.
Soon he was over burdened with work and always under pressure and now is looking for a NEW JOB ... !!!!
Disclaimer: All characters in the story are not at all imaginary. Any resemblance to person living or dying of work is purely intentional....!!
The Donkey and the Dog- Read and think-You may find one in your midst
There was once a washer man who had a donkey and a dog. One night when the whole world was sleeping, a thief broke into the house, the washer man was fast asleep too but the donkey and the dog were awake. The dog decided not to bark since the master did not take good care of him and wanted to teach him a lesson.
The donkey got worried and said to the dog that if he doesn't bark, the donkey will have to do something himself. The dog did not change his mind and the donkey started braying loudly.
Hearing the donkey bray, the thief ran away, the master woke up and started beating the donkey for braying in the middle of the night for no reason.
Moral of the story “One must not engage in duties other than his own"
Now take a new look at the same story...
The washer man was a well educated man from a premier management institute. He had the fundas of looking at the bigger picture and thinking out of the box. He was convinced that there must be some reason for the donkey to bray in the night.. He walked outside a little and did some fact finding, applied a bottom up approach, figured out from the ground realities that there was a thief who broke in and the donkey only wanted to alert him about it. Looking at the donkey's extra initiative and going beyond the call of the duty, he rewarded him with lot of hay and other perks and became his favorite pet.
The dog's life didn't change much, except that now the donkey was more motivated in doing the dog's duties as well. In the annual appraisal the dog managed "ME" (Met Expectations) .
Soon the dog realized that the donkey is taking care of his duties and he can enjoy his life sleeping and lazing around.
The donkey was rated as “star performer". The donkey had to live up to his already high performance standards.
Soon he was over burdened with work and always under pressure and now is looking for a NEW JOB ... !!!!
Disclaimer: All characters in the story are not at all imaginary. Any resemblance to person living or dying of work is purely intentional....!!
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
A Nice Lesson..!
Once a boy went to a shop with his mother. The shop keeper looked at the small cute child and showed him a bottle with sweets
And said 'Dear Child..u can take the sweets...
But the child didn't take. The shop keeper was surprised.. Such a small child he is and why is he not taking the sweets from the bottle. Again he said take the sweets....
Now the mother also heard that and said.. Take the sweets dear.. Yet he didn't take... The shopkeeper seeing the child not taking the sweets... He himself took the sweets and gave to the child. The child was happy to get two hands full of sweets.
While returning home the Mother asked the child... Why didn't you take the sweets, when the shop keeper told you to take?..
Can you guess the response: Child replies... Mom! My hands are very small and if I take the sweets I can only take few.. But now you see when uncle gave with his big hands.... How many more sweets I got!
Moral: When we take we may get little but when God gives... HE gives us more beyond our expectations. .. More than what we can hold..!!
And said 'Dear Child..u can take the sweets...
But the child didn't take. The shop keeper was surprised.. Such a small child he is and why is he not taking the sweets from the bottle. Again he said take the sweets....
Now the mother also heard that and said.. Take the sweets dear.. Yet he didn't take... The shopkeeper seeing the child not taking the sweets... He himself took the sweets and gave to the child. The child was happy to get two hands full of sweets.
While returning home the Mother asked the child... Why didn't you take the sweets, when the shop keeper told you to take?..
Can you guess the response: Child replies... Mom! My hands are very small and if I take the sweets I can only take few.. But now you see when uncle gave with his big hands.... How many more sweets I got!
Moral: When we take we may get little but when God gives... HE gives us more beyond our expectations. .. More than what we can hold..!!
Race
A pastor wanted to raise money for his church and, on being told there was a fortune in horse racing, decided to buy one and enter it in the
races. However, at the local auction, the going price for a horse was so high that he ended up buying a donkey instead. He thought that since he had
it he might as well go ahead and entered it in the race and, much to his surprise, the donkey came in third. The next day the local paper carried
this headline:
PASTOR'S ASS SHOWS
The pastor was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in the race again, and this time it won. The local paper read:
PASTOR'S ASS OUT FRONT
The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the pastor not to enter the donkey in another race. The next day, the local paper headline read:
BISHOP SCRATCHES PASTOR'S ASS
This was too much for the Bishop, so he ordered the pastor to get rid of the donkey. The pastor decided to give it to a nun in a nearby convent. The local paper, hearing of the news, posted the following headline the next day:
NUN HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN
The Bishop fainted. He informed the nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a farmer for ten dollars. The next day, the paper read:
NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10
This was too much for the Bishop, so he ordered the nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the plains where it could run wild. Headlines read:
NUN ANNOUNCES HER ASS IS WILD AND FREE
The Bishop was buried the next day.
races. However, at the local auction, the going price for a horse was so high that he ended up buying a donkey instead. He thought that since he had
it he might as well go ahead and entered it in the race and, much to his surprise, the donkey came in third. The next day the local paper carried
this headline:
PASTOR'S ASS SHOWS
The pastor was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in the race again, and this time it won. The local paper read:
PASTOR'S ASS OUT FRONT
The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the pastor not to enter the donkey in another race. The next day, the local paper headline read:
BISHOP SCRATCHES PASTOR'S ASS
This was too much for the Bishop, so he ordered the pastor to get rid of the donkey. The pastor decided to give it to a nun in a nearby convent. The local paper, hearing of the news, posted the following headline the next day:
NUN HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN
The Bishop fainted. He informed the nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a farmer for ten dollars. The next day, the paper read:
NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10
This was too much for the Bishop, so he ordered the nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the plains where it could run wild. Headlines read:
NUN ANNOUNCES HER ASS IS WILD AND FREE
The Bishop was buried the next day.
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