From Productivity to Innovation

There was an excellent experience of organising the International Conference on "Technology and Innovation for Knowledge Management" in February, 2008 to coincide with the Golden Jubilee of NPC. The conference provided a networking platform for KM practitioners and facilitated many organisations and institutions to come together to share the KM experience.

Now APO has brought out an e-book titled "From Productivity to Innovation" containing proceedings of the Conference. It can be downloaded from the APO Website.

Let me suggest that you have a look at this publication and give your feedback to us at NPC.

CKO Humour Series

First CKO : We have recently acquired "Most Admired Knowledge Employees" (MAKE) in the form of Chief Finance Officer, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Audit Officer.

Second CKO : How do you say they are the 'Most Admired' ?

First CKO : Well! The CFO has the experience to produce millions of dollars of profits in the Accounts Books overnight; the CEO can make those profits vanish into thin air with equal speed and the CAO can certify both these as legal and valid.

Billion and Going Strong

About six years ago, the Indian population reached one billion level and there was a great feeling of reaching a summit amongst many Indians.

Now an equally scintilating  news which says the internet users' number has entered the billion mark.

Both the above billion marks are significant for us. The sheer size of the India' s population and its human capabilities give us enormous faith and belief in ourselves and our efforts to contribute significanly to a new world. The incredible and unimaginable proliferation of the internet in spreading & levelling the knowledge gaps would not have been thought of earlier but now it is a reality. As the news says this is just the beginning and we would be seeing many more knowledge and productivity revolutions throught the internet in a very short time.

I wish that the more than the billion Indian population and the more than the billion internet users signify an emerging new world where knowledge signifies peaceful economy and prosperity everywhere.

Change is Natural

The worm evolves to a butterfly

The storm transforms to a silent sky

Eagle bird plucks its parts and refly

Snake sheds its skin to reveal its underlie

Globe spins and repeats night and day    - thus

Mother Nature lives change as regular stay

Let us humans not fear or cry

Change & change - our natural life.

- This poem is to welcome the change taking place today in America with the new President Barak Obama taking charge. 

As for George Bush, he may find a refreshing change at this website.

China - Enter the Dragon

While we are debating the predominance of 'Knowledge Economy' in the twenty first century, a subtle news says that China had already taken the place of the Third largest economy overtaking Germany even two years back.

China has used its tremendous leap in the 'Manufacturing' to leapfrog its economy in the last three - four decades. India, however, has been concentrating on its 'Services' sector with focus on 'IT' for exports. Though China and India may be adopting different routes, a common understanding is that the economic leap of both these countries cannot be stopped as both these nations have enormous human potential, the fundamental resource of the emerging 'Knowledge Economy'.

Let us wish that Collaboration amongst these two giant nations of the Asia and 'Knowledge Sharing' and complementing each other's stregths can spring up super innovations to the betterment of the human society, that has not been conceivable in the past Twentieth Century.

Gradual Transformation

Have you ever felt that the status of your being is always conditioned by the signals you receive from others ? You might have been pondering over to find out a way in which 'you' only decide your status at any point of time.


Well ! A book I read recently suggests the following simple method:


Start with 'I' - The alphabetic symbol 'I' signifies finding out what actions that would satisfy the self objectives contained within you.


Proceed to 'U' - The alphabetic symbol 'U' signifies the union of 'I' in you and the immediate people who surround you, your parents, brothers, sisters, children and other family members. In this effort, you should try to find out synergy in your and your immediate relations' objectives and try to aim for them.


Next attempt will be to expand to 'V' - The alphabetic symbol 'V' identifies you and your immediate surroundings to be combined with the next adjacent entities, your company, your society, your nation, your friends etc. Here you try to enhance your feelings towards the well being of a much enlarged group surrounding you.


Now proceed to achieve 'W' - This alphabetic symbol 'W' symbolises the combination of your surroundings and the remaining similar surroundings of others thus completing the feelings for the entire world and the universe.


The gradual transformation for your empathy from 'I' to 'U' to 'V' to ultimately 'W' can make you empathise with the divine universe and feel conditioned positively.

Learning Organisations - New Learnings

Time to time, we are seeing that the financial figures of the books of accounts of an organisation is not a true indicator of its ability, past, present and future. But still the macro and micro evaluation of its successes are done by believing in those monetary figures published in the accounts.

The conflict between the traditional understanding of the two words "Knowledge" and "Economy" creates additional problems to conceptualise the "Knowledge Economy". The future 'Learning Organisations' have a great challenge to differentiate between apparent and real financial successes of the organisations as well as inherent strengths in the workforce's knowledge vis a vis projected performance to the external world.

Let us look for the 'True Attributes' of a 'Learning Organisation' and a 'Successful Knowledge Organisation' by learning from the recent successes and failures ( examples of whom are trickling fast, of late) of enterprises.

Satyam Yeva Jeyate

As the stirring hands of the economic melt down are churning, more and more financial wrong doings are creaming up - This time it is in India - The news of the fourth largest Indian IT company, Satyam Computers getting caught to face uncertain futures due to deceitful projection of its wealth and profits. The developments over the last week are puzzling enough to draw clear conclusions. However, it can be said with confidence - "Knowledge Economy" cannot be built upon untruths and partial truths. For long lasting survival, the economy has to promote "Knowledge" emanating from only the "Absolute Truth". Let the Satyam episode reestablish our faith in the Indian Ancient and Traditional Mission of "Satyam Yeva Jeyate".

In a seemingly unrelated news, there are people in some parts of the world, publicising their belief "God does not probably exist, hence everyone should stop worrying and start enjoying the life". 

May the stakeholders of Satyam receive solace from this confidence building campaign coming up somewhere.

Reinventing the Dharmic Wheel

I chanced upon to read the article "The renaissance of Indian Institutes of Technology" by Kalyan Singhal of Baltimore University which raises many important questions about the roles of the IITs in the changed times and suggests many action plans to reorient the missions and strategies of IITs to help in Nation Building.

Much similar to many other literature of similar nature, it has been pointed out that India's share in World Economy before the invasion by the Western Rulers, who were also the innovators of the Industrial revolution, was about 25% equivalent only to China. Its economic prowess and growth models had been destroyed by the adoption of imported concepts of management and economic survival.

Though the present century is much touted to be as that of Asia, especially India and China, it would be worthwhile to have a detailed research as to whether the same model of economy that led to its decline in the past, can once again help it to reverse the process. May be there is a need to restrategise the developomental model of our economy. It may be eye opening to realise what the Western World calls as "Productivity and Knowledge Management" have been adoptations of what the pre industrialised and historic India practised as the 'Dharmic way of Life'.

In that sense, it is prudent to reinvent the traditional India cultural wheel, once again, to tone up its Knowledge Economy.

CKO Humour Series

First CKO : How do you say that the KM efforts of the company you visited is  highly focused ?

Second CKO : When I suggested to the CEO of that company, that the top leadership commitment is the most important thing for KM success, he wanted to know how much rewards he will get personally before he can commit his commitment.

Faithful Wishes

I had an eventful and rejuvenating year end vacation covering a good part of the South India and had the opprotunity to enjoy both the natural beauty of rural India as well as the religeous shrines in which the faiths of scores of population resonate.

To finish my holidays, I ended up at Madurai, a famous temple town, on the New Year's day and it is really incredible to see millions of people thronging the Meenakshi Temple to seek the divine blessings on the beginning of the year. It looked as if the sea of humanity surged in a tsunami to look for divine knowledge with faith. These types of scenes only add to our belief that the combination of human efforts and faith in the universal spirits and knowledge when combined would create the ideal platform for a better future.

Here is my wishes to all human beings a Productive and Prosperous New Year 2009 !