Powerless Power Points

Power Point presentations is one of the biggest innovations of the last decade, so was declared by a recent newspaper article. Needless to say, powerpoint slideshows have become an in built necessity for corporate communications. They have also become the passion statement of different types of expressions, we have to only peek at the various slideshows available at the slideshare social net. 

It has also been a depressing feeling that sometimes power points are used in exaggeration and in a routine manner. In one conference I attended, speaker after speaker projected the slides of their power points and verbatim read out everything that was placed in the slides. It won't be hard to imagine the condition of the listener audience who were made to go into a long trance because of this monotony.

In some recent conferences, I have noticed that the best speakers who could get the highest attraction of the listeners did not purposefully use any power points. In the absence of any diverting colours and texts on the screen, the audience could concentrate on the eloquent flow of the language and their expression from these speakers which proved highly successful.

Power Points need not be always powerful - particularly if they fail to do the job of communicating well- Have I been able to communicate this to you effectively ?!!

Network of Social Networks

Are you getting mail remainders asking you to join any number of social networking sites as a connection, friend, acquitance, friend's friend etc. etc.? After much affirmative actions, you may find yourself in an unmanageable knowledge cloud of passwords, profiles, photos, blogposts, readings, observations, twitter feeds and so on.

Well this news item about W3C forum trying to standardise the social networking architecture and connectivity and applications through open source concept, is indicative of the future evolution where there would be seemless and effortless migration possible to share and apply personal and professional knowledge across many social networks. 

Great News to share to KMers!

Earth Hour for Knowledge

There is campaign everywhere for the "Earth Hour" to remind all the inhabitants of the earth towards global warming. Symbolically many will be switching off lights and other electrical appliances to reduce energy consumption and contribute to greening of the earth, for one hour on 28th March, 2009 from 8.30 PM local time.

While we switch of external lights, may we also switch on specially the "Internal" lights within us to signify "Knowlege" emancipation towards to better world for tomorrow!

Silence - The Knowledge Enhancer

There are two types of people's nature of speaking and conversing, those who deliver their thinking very fast in verbal form and those who speak slowly and pause often between words. While speaking fast, people have the tendency to spill words that they might not have intended but due to involuntary mind overtaking the logical intelligence. There is also the possibility of the listener not able to quickly comprehend the meaning of the words streaming so fast.

Contrarily, those who make enough pauses and speak slowly have ample time to think even while they are delivering their words and have opportunity to make continuous course corrections to their talks. Why not consider those short silences in their verbal representations as actually knowledge enhancers to the giver and the receiver ?

Pray for Knowledge

We always know that praying for others and the universal well being is a noble act. Now a website has offered to do it for you for a monetary consideration. It promises to say your prayers to your choice of God without fail by using latest web tools and text to speech conversion software. It however does not say how much of the God's blessings for these prayers would be accrueing to its sponsors.

Is not interesting to have the satisfaction that you can pray for knowledge as well as have the knowledge of how to do praying without fail, using Knowledge Technology tools ? :-)

Return on Inducement

ROI - Return on Investment is considered to be vital for approval of any management development project including productivity and KM interventions. Of late, many KM gurus are questioning the overdependence on ROI argueing that the ROI gets forgotten once the project gets on the ground after the pet sponsor pushes it through.

In learning organisations' theory, mental models emphasize what is believed gets executed and ROIs can also be believed to be induced in a certain fashion. I read that in an organisation, after a detailed operations research study was carried out, the computer aided techno-analysts came to a logical decision that the new office premises should be most advantageously located within walking distance of the residence of the new owner of the company.

ROIs if they turn out to be Returns on Inducements, be better ignored by KMers and rather they can enjoy the varied interesting experience offered in their KM journey.

Seagate Challenge to Bill Gates

Have you heard of innovative challenges posed to IT sector giants that can go to improve Knowledge and Productivity in a comprehensive manner ?

Well! Seagate has introduced a suite of portable storage products in the brand name of "Free Agent- Family", whose capabilities can challenge Bill Gates' Microsoft to invent and bring out more and more IT applications that require enormous processing space and data storage needs. These drives have capacity in 'tera' terms ( 1000 times a billion) to challenge the 'nano' speeds of present day computer processors.

Apart from conventional storage applications, these sleekly designed products can have any number of other applications to the users, some of them that comes to my instinct are:

• Considering their range in so many colours, these can be gifted to your friends and well wishers who can use them as fashion displays suiting to their moods and occasions.


• These drives have encryption facility, so you can keep confidential personal and business information away from spying enemies.


• You can save your videos, music and presentations all in one go and display them to your beloved ones.


• The clutter on your desk can be replaced with a single sleek Free Agent disk drive which can perform the job of both the hard drive and storage space of your data.

If you are concerned about Knowledge Productivity applications to be fast used in your own situation, please have a look at their utility and make an informed decision.

Programme at Darjeeling

It is a nice feeling to be back to blogging after a few days break. The experience at Darjeeling programme where there was opportunity to interact with about 50 officials from various Government departments and organisations was quite knowledge enhancing.


Some of the knowledge ideas and challenges emanated from this programme:


The judicial department is well prepared for e-court scheme with excellent digitisation of the judicial records like precedent orders and case histories, but there is still indifference on the part of many judicial officers to access the information through IT means.


Many employees of Government departments as they are prepared to adjust themselves to modern ICT tools and facilities but loath to any commitment towards any form of accountability.


-There seems to be enormous task at hand to create a conducive culture for KM and productivity to succeed.


Another interesting idea proposed in the programme was that a part of such programmes could be structured in the form of 'Unconference' where any person who has material to share can make a suo motu presentation to the participants.


On the sidelines, the experience of divine sight of 'Sunrise' over the Himalayan mountain range in the dawn provided excellent spiritual bliss. :-)

CKO Humour Series

First CKO : It was a mistake to have explained to our company owner that in a Knowledge Economy, we should accept that most of the assets would be intangible.

Second CKO : What actually happened ?

First CKO : He claims to have credited our salaries to a virtual bank in Nigeria through the syndicates operating "You had won a jackpot" email networks.

Leadership Communications

Have you observed people with 'leadership' material ? There are any number of literature to argue for whether 'leadership' is an inborne quality or a trait that can be developed by grooming. Either way, I have lernt that one important requirement of a 'Leader' is to make 'instinctive' decisions but after a sufficient amount of input from multiple channels of communication. Whatever information that comes to him from one source should not be taken as 'absolute' without double checking and even multi checking with other sources.



Despite this fundamental truth of 'Communication' theory being taught in all 'leadership' programmes, many times people fail to verify authenticiy of communications and get into erroneous decisions. Many wars and destructions have resulted from the failure of 'leadership' to verify communication channels.

As the elections to the Indian Parliament are approaching, there will be tendencies to spread half truths and complete untruths masqueraded as well researched theories and opinon polls. It is for our leaders and the people to completely verify such communications before arriving at opinions in the democratic process.

Holy Holi

Here is wishing everyone for a 'Happy Holi' - the festival of colours signifying the arrival of spring.

On this occasion, everyone visits an abode of God to thank him/her for the happiness bestowed on the world and play with cheers and enjoyment.

I was wondering as to how one is able to draw so much solace by visiting a temple or a church or a mosque or any other divine location where we believe that the almighty resides. The older and mythological the place, the greater is the peace and tranquility that people derive even with a few seconds' glimpse of the deity or the sacred symbol. It struck me that those millions who visit the shrine carry enormous love, peace and piousness and when these get concentrated on the symbol of the God, there emerges great power that can create wonders to the devotees. Have'nt we heard about the real stories of plants and animals transforming superlatively productive with the love and tender affection of the caretakers? If these earthly items can do, so will be the miraculous powers of such divine places.

Let us add and derive love and peace from the Divine prevalent everywhere !

Innovative Instincts

How can one use the natural instincts as an innovative method for workplace improvement?

Well we had all been knowing about the use of the Langur Monkeys to chase away the lesser powerful Rhesus simians in the Delhi Government offices, a news item today reports that the Police Department of a neighbouring state innovated to use the White Mice against their Black cousins.

Every day morning, during my walks, I witness some well off neighbours not only take their well bred fiercesome pet dogs to walk, but also use them to chase away the stray varieties invading their colonies and I wonder what all other innovative possibilities are available to use the instinctive offence mechanisms present in the animal kindgdoms against their own ilk. 

All said, we, the human beings, must have invented these innovations from our own instincts to find fault and chase away our own fellow beings.

(Knowledge) Fruit of Action

You might have heard this mythological story: Once Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvathi wanted to test their children and so they declared that the one who will first make a round of the earth will get the fruit of 'Gnana' (Knowledge). While Karthikeya went about circling the earth in his peacock plane, Ganesh had the impediment of having a small mouse which can't even run not to talk of flying. So he devised a shortcut and circled his parents three times and claimed that they represent the world for him and hence he has fulfilled the test. Thus he got the prize of the Knowledge fruit by this smart action.

In organisational situations, it is common to see behaviours similar to that of Ganesha, to quickly satisfy the wants of the leadership rather than take the devious path of fulfilling the roles and responsibilities of the jobs. Such actions also may at times, fetch quick results.

But then, that is not the end of the mythological story; as the twists and turns of the lessons taught from the mythologies unfold, we are also told in another story that while the Child Karhikeya already possessed the eternal knowledge of the pranava mantra "OM", even his Lord father Shiva had to assume the role of a disciple to learn it from him. This signifies that those spirited with the efforts for perfect action are bestowed with the Expert Knowledge and even the leadership or the organisation would like to learn from those people.

CKO Humour Series

This part of the humour series is dedicated to the great soul Mahatma Gandhi, the possessions of whom are in the news recently.

First CKO: In order to compensate for the losses due to recent slowdown, we put to auction some of the artefacts of Mahatma Gandhi's, in the possession of our company.

Second CKO : So, how much could you manage to amass?

First CKO: Well, the items like his glasses, eating plate, walking stick etc were picked up with enthusiam for millions of rupees. But the books and publications containing his writings, ideals, thoughts and beliefs had no takers at all :-( .

Leader and Followers

The elections in the largest democracy of the world has been declared in India. Expectedly many people would like to project themselves as the 'leaders of the masses'.

"A leader is one who leads his followers to where they ought to be and not necessarily to where they want to be" says a old proverb. Contrarily, some studies in research of the people's expectations have revealed that "People want their leader to satisfy all their wants, whether justified or not, but do so and remain totally honest with integrity."

It is now time to match the leaders' qualities with the followers' expectations in the coming electoral scene.

Me and My Shadow

Evertime companion my shadow

Destined to stick, stay and follow

If he leads me from the front

It is for Good deeds from my past

When he follows from the back

Chasing for actions done wrong

Let light of knowledge shine above

He shrinks and stays within my life.