FROM THE MOUTHS OF ‘BABES’

I don't know how many of you on this call are parents. Parents, including myself, generally remember the time when their children start talking and having conversations. From then on they usually ask 'Why?' it's an endless process. You give an answer and then you get the 'but why?' I think a lot of parents ultimately reach the point where they say, "Because I say so. Just do it."

I came across an article which, on reading, made me think that there was a great management principle tucked into that engagement that we have with our children. This article was in Inc entitled 'When and How to Micromanage' by Joel Spolsky. He says he had to work with somebody called Ryan Carson to produce a series of technical conferences for software developers.

RANDOM MUSINGS

About 15 years ago, there used to be a column that came out in the newspaper every Saturday written by Busybee, who went on to start his own newspaper, ‘The Afternoon’ that we get even today. Writing under the name Busybee, he would always start his article (and I’m quoting loosely) “Now for another Saturday and random thoughts that have come to me. These thoughts are all my own thinking and I’m putting them down.” Something like that! They would be just random thoughts – no connection between the things that he would talk about that day.

Well I feel that way today. I have random thoughts; I’ve been trying to find a thread that would connect them all and have come up with none. So I’m going to you just the way it has been with me. Trust that it would make sense to you and speak to different situations.

On our Republic Day

Today is Republic Day and I want to give you some thoughts befitting the day that we are celebrating. It’s going to circle around our country. Some material that I was reading was an eye opener to me and brought back memories of my school days when I studied things about India. Either way, I think it’s a good way to brush up some of the knowledge that we have of India. Republic day is one of the three national holidays that we have in India, the other two being Independence Day and Gandhi Jayanthi (which is Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday). Republic Day is the anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of India and we made that transition on 26th January, 1950.