Category: India

The Great Game- How social media changes the Intelligence Industry

Since time immemorial, countries and corporations have used spies to displace existing equilibriums in balance of power or market share dynamics. An integral part of that was technology. From the pox infested rugs given to natives, to the plague rats, to the smuggling of the secret of silk and gunpowder from China to the West to the latest research in cloud seeding by China and Glaciars melting by India- technology espionage has been an integral part in keeping up with each other.

For the first time in history, technology has evolved to the point where tools for communicating securely , storing data has become cheap to the point of just having a small iPhone 3GS with applications for secure transmission. From an analytical purpose the need for analyzing signal from noise and the criticality in mapping chatter with events (like Major Hasan’s online activities)  has also created an opportunity for social media as well as an headache for the people involved. With Citizen Journalism, foreign relations office, and ambassadors with their bully pulpits have been brought down to defending news leaked by Twitter ( Iran) You Tube ( Thailand/Burma/Tibet) and Blogs ( Russia/Georgia). The rise of bot nets, dark clouds to create disruptions as well as hack into accounts for enhancing favourable noise and reducing unfavourable signals has only increased. Blogs have potential to influence customer behavior as they are seen more credible than public relations which is mostly public and rarely on relations.

Techniques like sentiment analysis , social network analysis, text mining and co relation of keywords to triggers remain active research points.

[tweetmeme=”decisionstats”]

The United States remains a leader as you can only think creatively out of a box if you are permitted to behave accordingly out of the box. The remaining countries are torn between a  mix of admiration , envy and plain old copy cat techniques. The rising importance of communities that act more tribal than hitherto loyal technology user lists is the reason almost all major corporates actively seek to cultivate social media communities. The market for blogs and twitter in China or Iran or Russia will have impacts on those government’s efforts to manage their growth as per their national strategic interests. Just like the title of an old and quaint novel- “The Brave New World” of social media and it’s convergence with increasing amounts of text data generated on customers, or citizens is evolving into creating new boundaries and space for itself.A fascinating Great Game in itself.

Born in the USA?

Here is some econometric search-ing I did

Using Google Public Data-and Wolfram Alpha and The Bureau of Labour Statistics

United States

United States – Monthly Data
Data Series Back
Data		 May
2009		 June
2009		 July
2009		 Aug
2009		 Sept
2009		 Oct
2009
Unemployment Rate (1)
Jump to page with historical data
 9.4 9.5 9.4 9.7 9.8 10.2
Change in Payroll Employment (2)
Jump to page with historical data
 -303 -463 -304 -154 (P) -219 (P) -190
Average Hourly Earnings (3)
Jump to page with historical data
 18.53 18.54 18.59 18.66 (P) 18.67 (P) 18.72
Consumer Price Index (4)
Jump to page with historical data
 0.1 0.7 0.0 0.4 0.2 0.3
Producer Price Index (5)
Jump to page with historical data
 0.2 1.7 (P) -1.0 (P) 1.7 (P) -0.6 (P) 0.3
U.S. Import Price Index (6)
Jump to page with historical data
 1.7 2.7 (R) -0.6 (R) 1.5 (R) 0.2 (R) 0.7
Footnotes
(1) In percent, seasonally adjusted. Annual averages are available for Not Seasonally Adjusted data.
(2) Number of jobs, in thousands, seasonally adjusted.
(3) For production and nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls, seasonally adjusted.
(4) All items, U.S. city average, all urban consumers, 1982-84=100, 1-month percent change, seasonally adjusted.
(5) Finished goods, 1982=100, 1-month percent change, seasonally adjusted.
(6) All imports, 1-month percent change, not seasonally adjusted.
(R) Revised
(P) Preliminary
United States – Quarterly Data
Data Series Back
Data		 3rd Qtr
2008		 4th Qtr
2008		 1st Qtr
2009		 2nd Qtr
2009		 3rd Qtr
2009
Employment Cost Index (1)
Jump to page with historical data
 0.6 0.6 0.3 0.4 0.4
Productivity (2)
Jump to page with historical data
 -0.1 0.8 0.3 6.9 9.5
Footnotes
(1) Compensation, all civilian workers, quarterly data, 3-month percent change, seasonally adjusted.
(2) Output per hour, nonfarm business, quarterly data, percent change from previous quarter at annual rate, seasonally adjusted.

And also included are the average wages for salary of teachers and average salary per hour of some offshore  prone industries

http://www.bls.gov/oes/2008/may/oes_nat.htm#b25-0000

http://www.bls.gov/oes/2008/may/oes_nat.htm#b11-0000

and

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=usunemployment&met=unemployment_rate&idim=state:ST370000:ST540000:ST510000&tdim=true

WHAT THEY PAY TEACHERS (MAY 2008)

Education, Training, and Library Occupations top
Wage Estimates
Occupation Code Occupation Title (click on the occupation title to view an occupational profile) Employment (1) Median Hourly Mean Hourly Mean Annual (2) Mean RSE (3)
25-0000 Education, Training, and Library Occupations 8,451,250 $21.26 $23.30 $48,460 0.5 %
25-1011 Business Teachers, Postsecondary 69,690 (4) (4) $77,340 1.0 %
25-1021 Computer Science Teachers, Postsecondary 32,520 (4) (4) $74,050 1.0 %
25-1022 Mathematical Science Teachers, Postsecondary 45,710 (4) (4) $68,130 0.9 %
25-1031 Architecture Teachers, Postsecondary 6,430 (4) (4) $75,450 1.9 %
25-1032 Engineering Teachers, Postsecondary 32,070 (4) (4) $90,070 1.1 %
25-1041 Agricultural Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary 10,000 (4) (4) $77,770 1.6 %
25-1042 Biological Science Teachers, Postsecondary 51,930 (4) (4) $83,270 2.7 %

WHAT THEY PAY THEMSELVES

Management Occupations top
Wage Estimates
Occupation Code Occupation Title (click on the occupation title to view an occupational profile) Employment (1) Median Hourly Mean Hourly Mean Annual (2) Mean RSE (3)
11-0000 Management Occupations 6,152,650 $42.15 $48.23 $100,310 0.2 %
11-1011 Chief Executives 301,930 $76.23 $77.13 $160,440 0.5 %
11-1021 General and Operations Managers 1,697,690 $44.02 $51.91 $107,970 0.2 %
11-1031 Legislators 64,650 (4) (4) $37,980 1.1 %

and JOBS PRONE TO SHORTAGE /OFFSHORING

Computer and Mathematical Science Occupations top
Wage Estimates
Occupation Code Occupation Title (click on the occupation title to view an occupational profile) Employment (1) Median Hourly Mean Hourly Mean Annual (2) Mean RSE (3)
15-0000 Computer and Mathematical Science Occupations 3,308,260 $34.26 $35.82 $74,500 0.3 %
15-1011 Computer and Information Scientists, Research 26,610 $47.10 $48.51 $100,900 1.1 %
15-1021 Computer Programmers 394,230 $33.47 $35.32 $73,470 0.6 %
15-1031 Computer Software Engineers, Applications 494,160 $41.07 $42.26 $87,900 0.4 %
15-1032 Computer Software Engineers, Systems Software 381,830 $44.44 $45.44 $94,520 0.5 %
15-1041 Computer Support Specialists 545,520 $20.89 $22.29 $46,370 0.3 %
15-1051 Computer Systems Analysts 489,890 $36.30 $37.90 $78,830 0.4 %
15-1061 Database Administrators 115,770 $33.53 $35.05 $72,900 0.8 %
15-1071 Network and Computer Systems Administrators 327,850 $31.88 $33.45 $69,570 0.3 %
15-1081 Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts 230,410 $34.18 $35.50 $73,830 0.4 %
15-1099 Computer Specialists, All Other 191,780 $36.13 $36.54 $76,000 0.5 %
15-2011 Actuaries 18,220 $40.77 $46.14 $95,980 1.4 %
15-2021 Mathematicians 2,770 $45.75 $45.65 $94,960 1.7 %
15-2031 Operations Research Analysts 60,860 $33.17 $35.68 $74,220 0.8 %
15-2041 Statisticians 20,680 $34.91 $35.96 $74,790 1.5 %
15-2091 Mathematical Technicians 1,100 $18.46 $20.24 $42,100 2.7 %
15-2099 Mathematical Science Occupations, All Other 6,600 $26.44 $31.55 $65,630 4.3 %

 

UNEMPLOYED IN THE USA (above)

BY STATE (below)

16 million people out of work. Give or take a million.

How can America pay 5.6 million people UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

Keep another 10 million unemployed,

another 10 million only partially employed.

[tweetmeme source=”decisionstats”]

and still claim aggregate cost savings from offshoring jobs.

Manjunath- A Batchmate on my mine

This is just to mark the 4 th anniversary of my IIM Lucknow MBA batchmate Manjunath.

Below excerpt  on the circumstances of his death from Wikipedia. R.I.P.

Shanmughan Manjunath

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanmughan_Manjunath

 

Jump to: navigation, search

Shanmugam Manjunath ( Kannada: ಷಣ್ಮುಗಂ ಮಂಜುನಾಥ) (1978 Kolar-2005) was a marketing manager for the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) who was murdered for sealing a corrupt petrol station in UP. This incident inspired several students at IIM, IIT and other institutes.

Contents

//

Education

Manjunath earned his Computer Science Engineering degree from Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering, Mysore, and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management Lucknow.

Opposition to corruption and murder

While working for the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) in Lucknow, he had ordered two petrol pumps at Lakhimpur Kheri sealed for selling adulterated fuel for three months. When the pump started operating again a month later, Manjunath decided to conduct a surprise raid around November 19, 2005.

Having not heard from his son for three days, at around 9 that night, his father, M Shanmughan, had sent an SMS: “How are you?”. There was no reply because that very night, during his inspection, Manjunath had been shot dead in Gola Gokarannath town of Lakhimpur Kheri. His body, riddled with at least six bullets, was found in the backseat of his own car, which was being driven by two employees of the petrol pump. Both were arrested and the main accused, pump-owner Pawan Kumar (‘Monu’) Mittal, was held on November 23 along with seven others.

Murder Trial

Manjunath’s death came close on the heels of the assassination of Satyendra Dubey, suspected to have been for similar reasons (fighting corruption). Following the murder, there was immense media spotlight on the case. S. Manjunath’s batchmates from IIM Lucknow (where he was affectionately called machan) also kept the story alive.

Fortunately, the Manjunath Shanmugam Trust took up the case with dogged determination. The Trust lawyer Mr. I.B Singh, the Public Prosecutor Sri Chandramohan Singh, Trustees, volunteers and supporters worked hard to ensure quick justice.16 months after the murder,all eight accused were guilty by the Lakhimpur Khiri Sessions Court (not a fast track court!). This is in sharp contrast to the 6 years for the Sanjeev Nanda hit-and-run case and the Jessica Lall murder case to come to trial. where the son of an influential MP was acquitted by a smaller court and finally convicted in the Delhi High Court after a sustained outcry by the public and dogged campaign by the media.

The main accused Monu Mittal and 7 accomplices were convicted of murder by Sessions judge, Lakhimpur Kheri. [1]

Bail appeals by the convicted killers are being heard in the Lucknow High Court – the Manjunath Shanmugam Trust lawyer Mr. I.B Singh continues to work closely with the case.

Aftermath

The conviction gives renewed faith for citizens of India in their legal justice system in terms of punishing the guilty and also timely justice, bringing it somewhat in line with western justice systems. The speed of this case is also the result of efforts undertaken by the government to clear the huge backlog of cases in Indian courts.

Indian Oil Corporation paid Rs. 26 lakhs compensation to the family. The matter of adulteration in diesel was taken up by the Energy Coordination Committee chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. One of the policy remedies being considered is to minimize the subsidy in the price of kerosene (used as cooking fuel by the weaker classes), and to explore alternate mechanisms for implementing the subsidy. Subsequently, several tanker trucks, laden with thousands of liters of kerosene, were seized en route to a district neighbouring Lakhimpur Kheri [1].

The Manjunath Shanmugam Trust

A pan IIM initiative, “The Manjunath Shanmugam Trust” was registered on 23 February 2006, Manjunath’s birth anniversary. With immediate objectives of fighting the case, they have a broader agenda of improving governance in Indian public life.

On 26 March 2007, the main accused Pawan Kumar Mittal was awarded death sentence, while the other seven accused were sentenced to life imprisonment.

[2]

Key Initiatives The Trust runs India’s first (and only) National Right To Information Act Helpline (080)666-00-999. The 12*7 (8 am – 8 pm)multi language Helpline, serviced by professionally trained call center agents, guides citizens through the features of this powerful tool against corruption.

[edit] The Manjunath Shanmugam Integrity Award

The Manjunath Shanmugam Integrity Award carries a citation and a Rs. One Lakh Cash Award; to honour those who have reported and worked to rectify systemic corruption. The first Manjunath Shanmugam Integrity Award was awarded on March 24, 2007 to Prof. R.P. Singh, Vice Chancellor Lucknow University for his extraordinary courage in taking on criminals and politicians to clean up Lucknow University and implement the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations. The award was presented in a public function by Chairman & Chief Mentor of Infosys Mr. N. R. Narayana Murthy.

Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti president Akhil Gogoi received the prestigious 2nd Shanmugam Manjunath Integrity Award from the Magsassay awardee Kiran Bedi at a function held on March 28, 2008 at the IIT Delhi Seminar Hall. Mr Gogoi who hails from upper Assam’s Golaghat district has been awarded for his fight against corruption. [3]

A comment on OffShoring

A comment on offshoring was put by a reader- I am re-posting it entirely.

When you use the phrase “labor shortage” or “skills shortage” you’re speaking in a sentence fragment.  What you actually mean to say is:  “There is a labor shortage at the salary level I’m willing to pay.”  That statement is the correct phrase; the complete sentence and the intellectually honest statement.

Employers speak about shortages as though they represent some absolute, readily identifiable lack of desirable services. Price is rarely accorded its proper importance in their discussion.

If you start raising wages and improving working conditions, and continue doing so, you’ll solve your shortage and will have people lining up around the block to work for you even if you need to have huge piles of steaming manure hand-scooped on a blazing summer afternoon.

Re:  Shortage caused by employees retiring out of the workforce:  With the majority of retirement accounts down about 50% or more, most people entering retirement age are working well into their sunset years.  So, you won’t be getting a worker shortage anytime soon due to retirees exiting the workforce.

Okay, fine.  Some specialized jobs require training and/or certification, again, the solution is higher wages and improved benefits. People will self-fund their re-education so that they can enter the industry in a work-ready state.  The attractive wages, working conditions and career prospects of technology during the 1980’s and 1990’s was a prime example of people’s willingness to self-fund their own career re-education.

There is never enough of any good or service to satisfy all wants or desires. A buyer, or employer, must give up something to get something. They must pay the market price and forego whatever else he could have for the same price. The forces of supply and demand determine these prices — and the price of a skilled workman is no exception. The buyer can take it or leave it. However, those who choose to leave it (because of lack of funds or personal preference) must not cry shortage. The good is available at the market price. All goods and services are scarce, but scarcity and shortages are by no means synonymous. Scarcity is a regrettable and unavoidable fact.

Shortages are purely a function of price. The only way in which a shortage has existed, or ever will exist, is in cases where the “going price” has been held below the market-clearing price.

The Great Driving Challenge- coolest young couples

Here is one of the new startups in India. A batch mate from B school whom I owe too many beers, and too few

calculus notes —–well he asked me to help him vote. Treat this as shameless self promotion just like http://www.cerebralmastication.com/ ‘s moustache and R rated R stats profanity on #rstats in twitter

Please do vote and read- they are a fun couple. http://www.greatdrivingchallenge.com/application/1245656268196502/

The Great Driving Challenge

White Riders

Here is a nice company started by a fellow batchmate from the Indian Institute of Management, Kaustubh Mishra. It is called White Riders- It is a relative pioneer in adventure travel. Note these bikers are well behaved MBA’s and imparting Team Building Management lessons along the way. I caught up with Kaustubh long enough for him to tell me why he chose the adventure travel business.

km1
Ajay – What has been the story of your career and what message would you like to send to young people aspiring for MBA’s or just starting their careers?

Kaustubh- My first job was as a peon with SPCA, handling paperwork, dishes, etc. My Father wanted to see me getting a bicycle from my own money and that is why it happened. Thanks to Papa, I learnt some important lessons while serving people. During graduation I was doing odd jobs like a faculty at a computer institute, freelance programmer, etc.

The first experience of a large organization came @ Bharti Telecom, where I did my summers. It was a market research project and I remember sleeping in an interviewee’s cabin during a survey. After my PGDM from IIML, I got into Tech Pacific, and then ICICI then ABN AMRO. Please visit my linkedin profile for more details

My message to people doing their MBA is simple – MBA is not the end, it is just a via media for you to get into a good career. Get into an MBA because YOU want to do it and not because everyone else is doing it. There are so many careers options in front of you, follow your heart.

For people starting their careers, just 7 words – realize the power within & follow your dreams.

Ajay- Why did you create a startup? Why did you name it White Collar company ( there was an ad of a business school reunion which had the same name). What is your vision for White Collar Company
Kaustubh – When I was doing my job, I was always over achieving targets, but after some time a rut sets in. I also realized that complete freedom and maximum returns for my efforts were absent. There were so many things, ideas, etc simmering inside me but I could not do anything inside. To do all that, I had to venture on my own and venture I did. So the biggest reason I started my own company was to put my ideas into practice.

White Collar is a name generally associated with knowledge. I first wanted to name it ‘white’ but the name, domain name, trademarks etc were not available. White denotes knowledge. Our goddess of knowledge and learning ‘Saraswati’ is dressed in white. As all my ventures are essentially about knowledge and learning, so white collar. And White Collar Biker sounds cool and very oxymoronish.

I see White Collar Company to be known as the cradle of new ideas, innovation and creativity in the field of knowledge. A university is next in some years.

Ajay- What are the key learnings that you have learnt in this short period? name some companies in the United States that are similar to your company. What do you think is the market potential of this segment.
Kaustubh-We are 3 industries – adventure tourism, corporate training and hr advisory. While in the first and the last there are people doing nearly the same thing (I would not say exactly, because we do have our USPs) in corporate training – White Collar Company is the only company in the world conducting management training through motorcycles

With innovation and RoI being extremely important in training, the market potential is huge. In adventure tourism also the potential is great as we are waking upto it. In consultancy as we operate in SME space, the potential again is very large.

It has been a short period to have big learning, but I have been applying learning I had in my previous jobs to this like vendor management, marketing channel management, etc. But yes, I learnt the art of hard bargain and negotiations during this short period.

Ajay- Is an MBA (IIM or Otherwise) necessary for success. Comments please.
Kaustubh-Ajay, your question here says success. Before answering this question, I would first differentiate between 2 successes we are talking about. Success in corporate life is different from success as a entrepreneur.

For being successful as a corporate executive, MBA to a certain extent is good. It gives you certain kind of thought processes and also a platform for future success.

However, if we talk of a successful entrepreneur, I personally do not think MBA will matter much. In fact I often talk of the ‘1st of the month’ syndrome – this is the comfort of getting a handsome amount deposited as your salary every month. When you get into that comfort zone, it becomes very hard to come out. Larger the amount, harder it gets. For a successful entrepreneur – perseverance, self belief, ability of trust and ability to take risk is very important. I doubt if any MBA is going to give you that. The very same thought processes, way of thinking that help you succeed in corporate life, need to be challenged as an entrepreneur.

Ajay- Whats your vision for your web site. Which website is a good analogy for it? Why should anyone visit the website?

Kaustubh- I am not a technical person, but having said that, I see my website to be the focal point of my business. I myself built my website using widgets, etc and going forward all my business will happen from the site. By 2010, we will put a strong CRM and PRM on the website, thus enabling all business processes to be routed through the website. Like I said, I am not a techie, but I think Web 2.0, participative nature of the internet and cloud computing are going to help me save and optimize. We already have an online chat built in site, any customer can come and get more details about our programs.

Going forward, customers will be able to do bookings themselves on the site. Vendors will be able to log in do all necessary business through website and we plan to implement SFA for our employees. I believe this answers the vision and why should anyone visit my site.

Ajay-What is your favorite incident in this short period of your startup. What were the key learnings. Are you seeking venture capital funds.

Kaustubh- For customers, I thought the typical profile that will come will be young males, I was delighted when a female became our first customer. We have tweaked our marketing strategy and positioning after that.

At this stage my baby is too young and fragile. If I give her crutches to walk, she will never be able to stand up herself and be counted. So while we will go for external funding at some point of time, that time is not now. With our kind of business model, right now we are not ready for the interference of a venture capitalist.

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So if you always wanted to travel to India and have an adventure as well contact Kaustubh at http://www.wccindia.com/rider/R_kaustubh.html and he will show you to be a White Rider too.

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Read more about his company here – http://www.wccindia.com/rider/whywhite.html