In his piece End of the financial world as we know it, there’s an interesting paragraph on the long and short of Wall street’s interests:

“OUR financial catastrophe, like Bernard Madoff’s pyramid scheme,
required all sorts of important, plugged-in people to sacrifice our
collective long-term interests for short-term gain. The pressure to do
this in today’s financial markets is immense. Obviously the greater the
market pressure to excel in the short term, the greater the need for
pressure from outside the market to consider the longer term. But
that’s the problem: there is no longer any serious pressure from
outside the market. The tyranny of the short term has extended itself
with frightening ease into the entities that were meant to, one way or
another, discipline Wall Street, and force it to consider its
enlightened self-interest.”

This balance of short and long term is no different from other balance that gets talked about a lot – Work/Life.

There’s no easy answer to solving either balance problem and I’m not sure solving it is going to get people happy either. Trouble is that the “balance” is mostly self determined. One person’s short term is another person’s immediate term and so on.

Snow White – Apple
Sleepy – Palm
Dopey – LG
Grumpy – Sony Erricson
Happy – RIM (Blackberry)
Sneezy – Motorola
Doc – Nokia
Bashful – Samsung

Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) talked today about why Capitalism needs a makeover. In it he talks about what’s broken (easy lending, profligate spending, unsophisticated investors and sophisticated crime) and what’s still working (freedom of employment and entrepreneurship).

I dont believe this is yet another recession. Its a chance in a lifetime to reshape our approach towards economics. Its clear that capitalism provides some benefit and like all things provides some negative behavior among its participants.

What has to change in my opinion:

1. Spending: Living within your means has to become the norm. If you make $5 you have to spend less than that. I dont believe its required to force saving as much as spending less than you earn. Hence, lending practices have to factor in lot more that just your current earning. It has to discount it by several percentage points, keeping in mind the unpredictability of wage increases (giving room for inflation). I’m not articulating a non-consumer driven society, just a more sane one.

2. Enforcement of current laws: I’m not sure we need more laws. Given SOX already exists for public companies, (and its onerous) what’s needed is active enforcement of it and fixing loopholes in the process.

3. Social acceptance of community good. Its no secret that there are more social entrepreneurs needed now more than ever. This is not so much an economic as a socio-economic requirement.

What do you think? What else’s needed to make Capitalism 2.0 work?

If it takes 10,000 hours for someone to become an expert at something, then it would take you 3 years at 60 hours a week and 5 years at 40 hours / week to become an expert – which is an euphemism for “you are no longer learning”.

I am not sure I believe the number 10,000, but food for thought anyway on how often you should consider doing something new.

The book itself “Outliers” is interesting but I am not convinced its in the “Blink” or “Tipping point” class.

WSJ has a multi-author piece on tips to leverage Web 2.0. They have interviewed about 30 executives and managers to gain the following insights:
1.  Don’t just talk at consumers — work with them throughout the marketing process.
2.  Give consumers a reason to participate.
3.  Listen to — and join — the conversation outside your site.
4.  Resist the temptation to sell, sell, sell.
5.  Don’t control, let it go.
6.  Find a ‘marketing technopologist.’
7.  Embrace experimentation.

Interesting overall, but mostly 101 stuff for experienced folks. The trend to capitalize on is that the suits are now beginning to talk about it, so maybe we can gather that Web 2.0 is now arriving to the mainstream. Ironic that many have declared it over in the Valley.

Here is a link if the embed does not work.
http://www.brightcove.tv/playerswf
Watch it till the end. Its awesome. I guarantee it.

My personal favorites:

#42: We’ve long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make
fortune tellers look good. Even now, Charlie and I continue to believe
that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked
up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who
behave in the market like children.

#14: It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.

The entire list.

2008 Google search trends and Zeitgeist is here. Unlike what people on Yahoo searched for in 2008 (that’s Britney Spears BTW), Google searchers seemed more obsessed with      and American Idol.

No points for guessing the categories that made the top 3:
1. Politics in US – Obama, Sarah Palin, Fox news etc.
2. Economic crisis
3. Beijing Olympics.

Regardless of all the reasons why Detroit’s in trouble the main issue is still one of inferior products being built. The cars made by Detroit are no longer the best in the market. Imagine for a moment instead of the auto industry it was the technology industry asking for bailout. Lets say for example, Sun Microsystems.

The outrage would be obvious.

There are several problems that the UAW and the car companies themselves list to the problems of their industry:
1. Higher employee payroll for Detroit companies compared to Honda, Toyota and Nissan. Sure, but its not a big factor.
2. More retirees with benefits that add to their costs. Also important but not a killer.
3. More dealerships with restrictive state laws that add to their costs. Yeah right.
4. Outrageous executive pay. Sure, it can come down, but its not going to make a huge difference.

None of this can take away from the fact that Detroit makes bad products that most of their customers detest. I don’t buy Sun gear now, and don’t want them bailed out. If they file for bankruptcy, awesome, they can restructure and get stronger to build better products.

The pretax profitability of Detroit’s cars is woeful because their products demand no better. BTW this is not yet another of those – “You are speaking of Detroit in 1980’s, drive an American car today” kinda rant. I have an Audi, Ford SUV (Explorer) and have also had the Acura, Mercedes, Toyota and a BMW (all over the last 5-7 years).

The worst of the lot was the Ford Explorer.

Like many following the Mumbai terror attacks I went through a range of emotions.

Initially shocked, I was unable to concentrate on work the morning of the attacks. Since I called family and friends the night of the first attacks, I was relatively calm but felt the pain immensely.

Photos from Vinu brought out the anger. Stereotypically, I  associate “terrorist” with uneducated, mindless, calculating, heartless misfits. The image of young 20+ year olds with AK-47’s and magazines of bullets brings out deep anger at our state.

The usual questions came to mind: 1) Why is this happening? or Why are they doing this? 2) How can we stop this or What can be done to solve this?

I dont profess to have a lot of answers, but I think we need a much better strategy than a set of talking heads claiming to annhiliate Pakistan or wipe out “Muslim terrorists“.

Why is this happening?
1. The growing gap between the poor (mostly minority communities) and rich is one major cause of this. There are homegrown terrorist organizations in India. I dont think anyone would dispute this, actually. Muslims are a minority in India. So are Christians and myraid other “castes”. Hindus are the majoriy. They all have either their “terrorist outfits” or “Naxalites”.

We have to find more inclusive growth. This is not an easy problem to solve. In fact I cannot think of a single country including the US and China, that has solve this problem. Somehow they dont have as many homegrown terrorists. Why? I dont for a moment think its because of homogeneity.

2. The injustices and supression: It exists in many places, but is more pronounced in India. In report after report, its obvious the minorities have fewer opportunites, make less money and are a poorer lot. Yes, they have “freedom of religion” and inalienable rights but at the end of the day its the majority that calls the shots.

3. Unresolved conflict. Kashmir is a problem, we know, but somehow want it to go away – not the state mind you, just the “problem” of Kashmir. There’s no easy solution to it obviously, else we I am sure we’d have tried it. But if it means sacrificing something to gain peace, we should explore that option. Trouble is I dont think anyone is convinced peace will reign without both sides being completely satisfied with the outcome – which is similar to the Israel / Palestine problem.

What can be done to start to solve this problem?
1. Acknowledge why this is happening. I’m not sure over 50% of Indians even agree that these are the cause of the problems. Most still prefer to blame Pakistan. I dont claim they are innocent, but they are not listed in the top 3 are they?

2. Shore up defences. India has over 1.2 Million policemen and over 1 million paramilitary personnel. Its the largest force in the world. But that number is dwarfed by the size of the population. I dont think adding more people is the answer. The willingness to use the masses to help and the aid of new technology is the need of the hour. I believe you can use the size of the population to an advantage.

3. Create opportunities to help clear the mistrust. India had a terrible Sikh terrorism problem, which no longer exists or is largely subdued. So how did that go away? A combination of ruthless handling of the insurgency and an inclusive approach towards the economic benefit to Punjab.

I am still searching for answers.