Shut Up and Listen!

All of us have met people who already know what we are going to say before we say it. May be I should start talking by saying "Shut up and listen!". These are people who try to complete your sentences or guess what you have in mind. Some of it is to show how fast they can understand your point some of it is just this fast moving impatient new world.

The truth of the matter is there are very few people who are real geniuses who get your point in round one. I call them geniuses because they can understand even a poorly articulated point. There in lies the crux of the matter. Most of us can't articulate our point well. This makes it worse when people try to project that they have understood a badly articulated point even before it is made.

Articulation of what you want to say has 4 parts - the context, the key point, the justification or explanation, and the delivery.

• The context: This is usually required when you are changing the conversation or starting a new one. It is important to set the context before you share your key insight.
• The key point: This is your punch line. In this fast moving impatient world it is best to get to your point as soon as possible.
• The justification or explanation: This is for those who don't get your point from the punch line or there are some key insights that led you to arrive at your conclusion.
• The delivery: This is the most important aspect. You have to think how you can make your point in the least possible time using the least possible words.

Next time you are with someone who won't listen or won't let you finish, just try to tune your style and see if it gets better.

Role of Technology in Media Censorship

Have you ever seen the ads running during prime time? Watching a game or a G rated movie with your kid requires a constant run for the remote to block inappropriate ads. It is the same while watching a funny video on YouTube with unexpected and undesired content flashing all around you. Today you can block access based on channels or specific time slots but that approach is too coarse grained. We need to look at censorship differently.

There are so many ideas, already implemented elsewhere, that can be applied to this problem. Let's take the phone industry. They can measure every phone call down to the second and decide how to bill you based on the package you have bought.

The key to the solution is thinking cohesively about media creation, media distribution and media access. We rate media in a coarse grained way and hence it is impossible to control it at the access point. Imagine the possibility of having a viewer rating preference button on the remote. While watching a sports game with your kid you switch to the G viewership mode. The access point - TV, IPTV on your computer or your mobile wireless device - detects your viewer rating preference and replaces an ad for an R rated movie with an ad for a G rated movie.

The realisation of such a cohesive solution lies in innovation around three areas.

• Media creation: Create content with adaptable delivery e.g. Being able to watch an R rated movie in G mode and being able to make this decision half way through the movie
• Media distribution: Increasingly we are moving towards dynamic content and contextual ads. Take into account the user preference for rating of the content.
• Media access: Enable the user to have the ability to add rating as one of his viewing preferences

As far as technology is concerned, the media industry needs to get out of the singular focus of how to protect & monetize content. Let's get the technology crowd creative and change the way we get entertained.

Keep The Radio Alive

Listening to radio is one of the strongest memory I have while growing up in India. Music, regional programming, news and sports - All India Radio's Vividh Bharthi had a little of everything for everyone - even children's programming. The radio medium was not open to the private sector then but the programming was comprehensive and the quality was rich. The memories like listening to the program dedicated to song requests by people from the armed forces are etched in memory. Many of the family Sundays and late night with friends have the sound of the radio in the background.

Radio as a broadcast medium has declined in popularity since then. Television has dominated the late 20th century. Internet is fast becoming the new kid on the block with the ability to let the audience engage and interact with the content. In fact, Internet is becoming the platform for delivering all media including TV and Radio. The much awaited media convergence is around the corner.

Regardless of the new media that come along, radio has some special qualities that make it my favourite.

• Simplicity & reach: It is really easy to understand the medium and consume it. Radio technology is not threatening to the consumer. Even the technophobes are at ease with it. Listen to radio in a remote village, while travelling in a high speed train, while cruising in your car or relaxing at home.
• Element of surprise: You can never beat the feeling of learning something unexpected while driving to work. Or the feeling of nostalgia that hits you when you hear a song that refreshes a golden memory.
• Quality of programming: Radio has to engage the audience only through their sense of hearing. The bar for quality of content is very high because you can't supplement it with visuals. Quality of programming on NPR and Vividh Bharthi are a testimony to this.
• Voice as the great equalizer: Have you ever felt that you have known a person for a long time without ever meeting the person? Radio can do to you. A specific personal experience was listening to Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air. The association caused me to read "All I Did Was Ask" but the voice on radio and the conversations are just so much more memorable. When you are listening to someone, you are focused on the content and not judging them on their race, religion, sex, or looks.
• Listening skills: Radio helps developing listening skills in people. In our education system and in the corporate world listening is a very underrated and underdeveloped skill.

There is a lot I am discovering about radio as a part of social culture in different parts of the world. Listen to an old recording of "The Jack Benny Program" from your local library or the vibrant Radio Mirchi while you are stuck in traffic in Mumbai. Radio is an interesting window into our history and culture.

Two very interesting and relevant innovations on the Internet are Pandora (radio from the Music Genome Project) and Mercora (radio using peer-to-peer technology). I hope such innovations keep the beautiful medium of radio alive and interesting for a long time.

Greatness And Consistency

What makes someone or something great?

There is no simple answer to this question. For different people and in different contexts it may mean different things. There is an excellent book by Jim Collins called "Good to Great" that explores this topic.

But here is my take on it.

The stand out attribute that separates the good from the great is consistency. It doesn't matter what the context is. Here are some diverse examples:

• Warren Buffett the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway - Anyone can pick stocks and can make good investments. His consistency in applying his investment evaluation principles makes him great.
• Apple, the company known for it's breakthrough innovations - There are many companies that innovate with one product and maintain leadership. Game changing innovations and raising the bar for it's competition through innovation consistently is what makes Apple great.
• Sachin Tendulkar one of the greatest cricketer in the history of the game - He is widely regarded as one of the best batsmen the world has ever seen. But what separates him from other good player is his ability to consistency influence the game through his great sense of the game. Michael Jordon, Roger Federer and Tiger Woods are few others in that league.
• Foreign Affair - This is a small Santa Clara business that specializes in Honda, Acura, Toyota and Lexus service. The consistency in honesty and customer delight in their service separates them from the rest.

If you can do something well then doing it consistently is the road to greatness.

The next big innovation in SaaS

One of the biggest technology innovations in the coming years is going to be how to protect information regardless of where it resides. Software as a Service (SaaS) has come a long way and technology advances have made the complete SaaS eco-system viable. Some key elements that have transformed this space:

• The access points: Multiple access points providing information anytime anywhere.
• The network: The spread of broadband and wireless internet access at affordable prices headed in the favorable direction.
• The backend infrastructure: This is a complex domain and the success depends on building an infrastructure that can scale infinitely. Companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and T-systems are on the forefront of the innovation here.

In all of the above, the innovators already know what it will take to serve the next generation and have set things in motion.

Perhaps, the most important innovations in this area have yet to come. Today companies and individuals alike are paranoid about keeping their data in the cloud. Three big factors that will determine success in this area:

• Trust: There are various trust issues related to data storage, processing and access. Providing flexibility and access to information while protecting the information is a non-trivial challenge that needs to be solved. The solution needs to be end-to-end. It is not enough to protect the data stored on the server.
• Education: Today, it is too complex to understand how data gets protected at various levels.
• Simplicity: The key to mass adoption is to make it simple – simple to understand and simple to use.

There is a lot of ground to be covered in this area. If there are innovations in this area that can win trust and are simple to understand and use, we will look back and call them the ones that put SaaS adoption on the fast track.

Story of Stuff

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Nicely made presentation. You may have a different view point or want to question some facts. But this one surely gets high marks on how it is presented - really well done to make these complex issues simple for everyone.