Reality Bytes - Wired Perspectives #AnandKumarPadmanaban

There are around 70+ companies working on a vaccine for COVID-19 (Corona Virus) right now. It’s quite interesting to note that we have only ~22 vaccines available around the world .. for example we don’t have vaccines for malaria, Nipa virus etc but do have treatments for them. I was quite curious on the concept of vaccination and decided to research and see what’s up with this. Aided by wikipedia and research on the internet, I think it’s a very interesting history to the evolution of the vaccine.   THE GREEK CONNECTION   In fact the seeds for a vaccine probably started from 460 BC when a noted historian and writer (Thucydides) saw that some people became ill from the plague which was prevalent then and recovered and could tend to other sick without falling sick again.   THE CHINA CONNECTION   Fast forward to the middle ages and Plague, Smallpox were the major diseases which ravaged the world and at one point 1 out of every 3 were d...

# sharing # know # resource # think # fundamentals # startups # akp #Top60DecisionMakingToolsForStartups The Effectuation approach (analyzing the means and selecting the approach) as compared to the causality approach (defining the objective and selecting the means) is a practical and useful approach for decision making and problem solving.    Take a look at it and use it in your everyday approach towards problem solving especially startups.    

# excellence # framework # important # AllItTakesIsAMinute # AKP#TopToolsForStartups The theory of constraints framework helps identify the most important bottleneck in your processes and systems in your organization which can then be dealt with to improve performance.  It is also about strengthening your weakest link. # management

# value # inspiration # newyear Just a bit of trivia, December got its name from the Latin word decem (meaning ten) because it was originally the tenth month of the year in the calendar of Romulus c. 750 BC which began in March and we have entered a month named after the Roman god Janus, an appropriate personification of the start of the new year.  This particular Roman god Janus had two faces so that he could look ahead toward the future and back at the past at the same time. As we get rid of an old year and look forward to a new one, I hope we can all try to be a little like Janus. We know through experience what we did wrong and what we did right, and hope to do better this year.  Many of us make ambitious new year resolutions while people like me just take a deep breath and hope for the best.…Here's wishing you and your family a happy new year 2020

It is human nature to fear the unknown and be very comfortable with the known but the times are such that to grow, you would need to constantly expand your comfort zone and explore unknowns ... This is a great story which illustrates this ..... In the late 1800s there was a thriving ice industry in the Northeastern part of the US. Companies would cut blocks of ice from frozen lakes and ponds and sell them around the world. The largest single shipment was 200 tons that was shipped to India. 100 tons got there un-melted, but this was enough to make a profit. These ice harvesters, however, were put out of business by companies that invented mechanical ice makers. It was no longer necessary to cut and ship ice because companies could make it in any city during any season. These ice makers, however, were put out of business by refrigerator companies. If it was convenient to make ice at a manufacturing plant, imagine how much better it was to make ice and create cold storage in everyo...

As I meet and mentor startups and other SME's the one challenge I keep looking for is how are they addressing and tracking their critical paths on the work they do ... most of the time I find that the focus is on the symptom rather than the cause or the plan is very loose and vague ...  I thought that having a visual guide to help build your own KPI's maybe a good way to help anybody working on a project or a project idea or a startup to track their progress or lack of it ....

We recently ran a Pitch fine tuning event at Indian Institute Of Management, Bangalore, India and while the participants did OK, I realized that we seem to have forgotten how to tell a story .... quoting the celebrated entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk ... “People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don’t have a middle or an end any more. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.” Storytelling is a powerful strategy for building personal relationships, as well as building relationships with your customers and potential customers, and for providing these customers with positive experiences. Storytelling is an age-old concept that brings people together and keeps them engaged. Person-to-person connections are at the center of any successful business and interpersonal relationships and connections are basic needs.  Even in business, we need to know and feel that we are dealing with a real person.  No matter what business you are in or what kind of per...