The India Poised Story
Just finished reading “Transmission” - Hari Kunzru, and prior to that "The world is flat” - Thomas Friedman".
Both had today's technology (and technological lifestyle - e-mailing not writing, chatting not talking, blogging, etc) as a backdrop, but diametrically opposite in their concept. While Transmission was a fiction (but very much possible or probably have happened somewhere) it looked at the disaster one man can cause if he wants to, Flat looked at a scenario when a small invention in Bangalore can impact the biggest company in US.
While the books were written few years back, Transmission got lost after getting few good reviews, Flat still features in the bestsellers list (at least in the Indian book stores). Also in some sense Flat is more of a factual account of things which are happening around the world and trying to put certain hypothesis in place, while Transmission is more like getting into one individual’s mind and how it works. If the question – what motivates a hacker, why the hell someone actually writes a virus crosses your mind, you will enjoy the book.
What I liked about Transmission is that it beautifully portrayed how this entire euphoria of being connected, India Shining is taking it’s toll on simple middle class families.
The juxtaposition of suppressed feelings of a young middle class person who is very capable / intelligent / sincere, who is growing up bombarded by these India shining images and at some point of time a decision is made in his mind. “If I can get that Computer Science (BE / BTECH) degree I can go to US or get a call center job (which his sister tries) I can get out of this middle class ghetto which I have been living for last 15 years.”
How to escape from this he creates his own world – writing small programs and trading them with different people across the world. How he has a pseudonym under which he starts operating and creates his own identity in the Internet underground. How he goes to US by paying money to a body shopper; reaches US to get dumped in a ghetto of 10 other Indians. All of them, waiting for that all-important line “You are hired”. When he does get a job, he gets chucked out because the company is closing down. From there on the story is a dream like state, where in the destructive mind takes control and runs havoc on the entire eco system.
It’s actually true for millions of Indians – when I passed out my Engineering way back in I991. I think except for 10 odd guys everybody would be in US. But what happens there is actually not known or understood by many. End of the day, what matters is that the dollars are coming in. Yes, probably 10% of them would have become stars in the Silicon Valley, rest of them are coding their way to the banks with nice car, houses etc etc.
“The world is flat” – in a way talks a lot of Indians who belong to that elite Silicon Valley group. But, it also talks about small, small companies / call centers / software developers based out of Pune, Bangalore, Gurgaon which are actually helping manage large corporate in US.
It also talks about how corporate are using technology to do the impossible. The kind of examples he gave while establishing his hypothesis made interesting sorry riveting read. At times it almost felt like science fiction, but it is actually happening in some part of the world.
For example – In Wal Mart, the technology is so live that the supply chain actually knows when a customer picks up a diaper so that it can send a signal to manufacturing to start making it…
As some one who is in throes of implementing CRM n Loyalty Program, lot of questions came to my mind – What kind of thinking would have gone behind it? How did they scope out the entire thing - panning across countries and millions of times? Was it a natural progression? How do they manage efficiencies, breakdowns?
Reading the book reminded my interactions with someone from HLL. How his brief’s / meetings / discussions was always to always think big and beyond the ordinary. From him I learnt this concept of thinking big, dreaming big, striving for that one objective which u and team / company can share. Once that seeps in rest of it just putting processes in place and executing it.
PS:U can look at all the flatteners Friedman talks about here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_is_Flat
