Captive Adaptations

This is a prelude to Bangalore vs BayArea - Part IV and hence a mezzanine entry between Bangalore vs BayArea - Part III and likely-to-be-posted Part IV. Some of the questions that I had left unanswered with Part III were :

• What are the most important ideas Bangalore can emulate from Bay Area?
• How to fuel entreprenurial hunger in the otherwise complacent Indian “Think Tank”?
• What are the tactical, strategic and demographical cohorts that needs to be looked at?

For starters its the Echo Boomers. This generation is coming of age, and its inevitable. What’s more, being a band of around 80 million in strength, and with an individualistic attitude never before seen in history, this generation will redefine the economic markets world over. A consumer behaviour that is individualistic in nature will always demand “Tailored & Esoteric solutions” rather than “Generic products”.

An assertive, self assured, self empowered generation, it will have a $180 billion in annual spending capacity according to Doug Akin, managing partner of Mr. Youth, a marketing company that specializes in youth marketing.

So what are some of the details that the new startups coming out of Bangalore & BayArea need to concentrate on.

• This group spends around 15 hours per week on the web, doing everything from downloading music to chatting with friends, to looking for deals.
• This group is highly internet savvy and responds to electronic communication, they seek out opinions of others, understand and access instant information routinely and they will mix and match products to satisfy their needs for style and convenience.

If you want to avoid a mid-career crisis, and grow consistently with the changing market, follow the pulse of the “Echo Boomers”. What are you waiting for ?. Get started by googling “Echo Boomers”

My salutes to the Man, Peter Drucker who passed away today. The visionary who managed to predict the course of the future of business, many times, has had huge influences on stalwarts like Winston Churchill, Bill Gates, Jack Welch. The names speak for themselves, so Peter Drucker definitely was the rarest in this century.

His book of 1949, the “Concept of a Corporation” is said to have started the “Field of Consulting” which has become an industry which feeds me now. So, I owe not only some of the insights that I have learnt to this man, but also my means of living. So, hats-off to Peter Drucker.

Most importantly like all geniuses, he was not just a “Management Guru” and most people don’t know that he was also a man who touched the lives of many, and some of his insights about life, about adapting to changes and to finally age, have truly captured my imagination. Thank you Mr. Peter Drucker.

If you are more interested, google on Peter Druker particularly “My Life as a Knowledge Worker“.

I am in Chennai Airport, missed my flight back to Bangalore. Had a horrible time for around 2 hours with incessant rains lashing Chennai and normal life completely disrupted. I got stuck in my commute to the airport, the Car I was travelling broke down, because the water entered its ignition area, I took an auto hoping to make it in time, but here I am blogging instead of flying. It has been quite a frustrating but humbling experience, you can’t get down on the road and just walk because its raining heavily and the traffic just does not move, because the roads essentially have become swimming pools.

But as with most paradoxes in India, the airport in Chennai has free Wifi (The first airport I have come across, not Singapore, not America, not Europe - but our own Chennai has Free Wifi). So here I am enjoying the browsing part of the ordeal.

When will I come to terms with the paradoxes of my motherland !. Truly, it happens only in INDIA.

Captive Adaptations wishes Kannadigas world-over, a very happy Karnataka Rajyothsava. We also take this opportunity to remember one of Kuvempu’s poem “Kannada Dimdima” here. Enjoy !.

Our tribute this year is for those fabulous people who have made “Kannada Wikipedia” a treat to all its readers. Kudos to the wonderful work of this amazing team. For people who have not yet been hooked on, here is a snap shot below.

The guidelines to setup the Kannada fonts on your system and browser, can be found here.