The WSJ reports:

When companies try to come up with new ideas, they too often look only where they always look. That won’t get them anywhere.

The ideas are typically at the edge of a company’s radar screen, and
sometimes a bit beyond: trends in peripheral industries, unserved needs
in foreign markets, activities that aren’t part of the company’s core
business. To be truly innovative, companies sometimes have to change
their frames of reference, extend their search space. New ways of
thinking and organization can be required as well.

InnoCentive.com

is a site where people and companies look for help in solving
scientific and business challenges. Posters of challenges sometimes
offer cash rewards for solutions: Amounts have ranged from $5,000 to $1
million. The site began as an in-house tool for research scientists at Eli Lilly & Co. to help one another. Now it is independent, with Indianapolis-based Lilly as a founding shareholder.

Sometimes innovations arise when different departments talk to each other. But what’s the best way to start the conversation?

Many companies set up so-called communities of practice, which are
typically internal Web sites where employees are encouraged to share
knowledge and skills important to the company.

Nielsen released the “How teens use media” report.

Its a fascinating read overall.

1. They are more focused – they view one media type at a time.
2. They have better recall – they tend to remember ads and consider ads as content (if good)
3. They read newspapers – really? No really!
4. Television is still the most dominant form of media for teenagers.
5. The most popular genres for U.S. teens are Evening Animation, Participation/ Variety and General Drama.
6. In South Africa, teens averaged more than five hours per day of TV viewing. In Taiwan, teens averaged just two hours and 47 minutes.
7. Beyond the first (TV) and second screens (Computer/Internet) , teens are increasingly watching video on their phones.
8. Teens browse less than half as much as the typical user
9. Sixty-seven percent of teen social networkers say they update their page at least once a week
10. More than half of all U.S. teen mobile  subscribers (66%) say they actually prefer text-messaging to calling. Thirty-four percent say it’s the reason they got their phone.

I was at the Buzz140 conference yesterday, in Chennai, organized by the effervescent Kiruba Shankar, Photon (Vasanth and others) and the knowledge conference. It was a one day Twitter conference attended by about 150 folks, many of whom were learning about twitter for the first time.

It was actually a trending topic on twitter for a brief few minutes. (Photos on Flickr) and some by tag.

There was event coverage in the local media – both the Hindu and Deccan Chronicle covered it briefly today.

There was a very interesting topic on Real time search and its implications on Twitter and Google. Many new players have emerged in the space like Topsy, almost.at and Scoopler.

Photo thanks to Keval Prabhu.

From McKinsey quarterly:

Scientists, sometimes in cooperation with economists, are taking the
lead in a young field that applies complexity theory to economic
research, rejecting the traditional view of the economy as a fully
transparent, rational system striving toward equilibrium.

Many other scientists in the field of complexity theory argue that
earthquakes, forest fires, power blackouts, and the like are extremely
difficult or even impossible to foresee because they are the products
of many interdependent “agents” and cascades of events in inherently
unstable systems that generate large variations.

See the image below for the eerie correlation between banking crisis and earthquakes in So. Cal.

These examples indicate that power law patterns, with their small,
frequent outcomes mixed with rare, hard-to-predict extreme ones, exist
in many aspects of the economy. This suggests that the economy, like
other complex systems characterized by power law behavior, is
inherently unstable and prone to occasional huge failures.

Sarah Blue has some recommendations on the 5 steps to be a better community manager:

It not an earth shattering revelation but a tried and tested set of known best practices.

I love planes. Of all kinds. There’s no better sight to my eyes than a plane taking off (or landing for that matter). I was unable to attend the Paris Air show 2009, although I would have loved to go. Here are some amazing photos from the event.

Some more photos from Washington Post.
Here’s the list of exhibitors.

Airbus seems to have a lot more orders booked than Boeing.

It’s a safe bet that consumers will
eventually swap their gas-powered cars and trucks for rechargeable
models. Electrified transport, in some form, would seem to be in our
future. But how long will investors have to wait for the bet to pay
off? Years? Decades?

From Mckinsey Quarterly

1. Successful folks focus in on what they love and they wait for the world to come to them.- Jeff Bezos
2. You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable – J K Rowling
3. Humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries – but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity – Bill Gates

1. Opportunity never knocks.
2. Follow your heart, but stick to what you know.
3. It’s not about the money – it’s about winning.

Read it all

I have an aunt & uncle who live in Chennai. After 20+ years in Singapore and the USA they are back. Always living modestly and within their means, they have 2 wonderful kids who are “well settled” – married, or engaged and doing well.  They came by last weekend to spend some time with us and the kids.

Wanting to give back they moved to India with the intention of setting up a “home away from home” for young girls from broken homes – about 50 or so kids whom they will completely pay for in terms of food, clothing, shelter and education.

Aunt’s the passionate one and this has been her life project and mission for the last few years. They already support an entire school in their village (where they grew up). Its completely free for all kids and they paid for the land, construction, and pay for the teachers annually. All kids study there for free. Uncle for most parts, pays the bills and is an amazingly supportive husband. Its his way of saying thanks to her for being by his side for the last 35 years.

They came by home to see if I could take them around. Bangalore’s weather is temperate and nice (like Silicon Valley) and unlike Chennai (think Dallas in Summer, 365 days of the year). They were considering opening the shelter here in Bangalore. We spoke to a few principals at local schools who each had over 20 young girls who desperately needed a safe place to stay.

They figured they’d need about 150 Sq Ft of space per kid (this is on the high end, but its worth it) so about 7500 Sq ft home, in a 10,000 sq ft of land space. They had planned on hiring help for the home – a maid, a cook and a security guard.

Here’s their project costs. All numbers are REAL.

1. Cost of acquiring land in the suburbs of Bangalore (about 20 miles away from the city, think Morgan Hill or Gilroy for the suburb to a San Jose city) – $240,000
2. Cost of registering land (Taxes, government fees) – $3400
3. Cost of bribing officials to ensure their land can be used as a shelter instead of home – $10,000
4. Cost of building the home (structure) $120,000 ($16/sq ft is on the low end but its doable)
5. Cost of running home with food, maids etc. $40,000  (per child, per year is $800)
6. Cost of paying for kids education annually ($500 per child) $25,000

Total Capex cost ~ $375K
Annual expense – $65,000

The same costs were compared with doing the same project at the village that currently houses their school. The total capital expense costs were $120K and their annual expenses were about $20K for 50 girls.

They had budgeted about $250K in an evergreen fund (so it has to pay for CapEX and ongoing costs), so Bangalore priced itself out.

Trouble is urban slum dwellers need this kind of support. The average poor person in the city lives on the same daily income as the rural one.

With rapid urbanization (close to 60% expected to be in urban cities by 2020) this is the inevitable landscape change that Indian cities will go through. They are too expensive for the poor and too expensive for the rich to support the poor.

“I’m even more convinced that success in this lifetime comes from our
ability to think positively about others or growing a bigger vision
about others.“

One perspective.