An Indian Engagement in a global world with a little help from Technology

Unlike many parts of the world  the Indian Marriage still take a traditional route whether arranged of the prospective partners decide to marry themselves. With the Indian diaspora  setting their footprint globally technology comes to the rescue again. 

Let us start with the matchmaking, it is more complex then the song in the Movie Fiddler on the Roof "Matchmaker", though the criteria remains about the same. Here are the lyrics to the Matchmaker Song : http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/fiddlerontheroof/matchmaker.htm

After the match making is done mainly through matrimony websites dedicated for this purpose which are complex matching engines and then a number of meetings between the parents and the concerned couple it is finally decided and announce it is an YES. Then come the engagement ceremony, which is today's post.  

The engagement ceremony normally takes place in the groom's residence , a priest is called to first pray to the gods and then a contract or what is known  'lagna patrika' is drawn and announced containing  the date, time and venue of the marriage and is binding on both families. The bride's family brings fruits and sweetmeats and the groom's people in  serve them snacks and dinner and present a sari to the bride. And also the bride then wears the new sari and ornaments presented and then the boy and girl exchange the ring.

In a global world when the boy and girl are in another continent and the parents still want to continue with this ritual there is a challenge and that is when SKYPE again comes to the rescue. 

Skype supports low video and voice and is Free and so here is the Indian engagement in a global world. 

The priest and parents go through the rituals in India and the couple who are not in India then participate through Skype, they can see the event and also they can be seen in the large Television provided for this telecast. Then when the turn comes for the girl and boy to go through their piece of rituals, presto the action shifts to the Television.

Thousands of miles away the girl, boy and their friend and relatives have assembled to participate in this event, they do their bit by changing garlands, changing rings and whatever else is needed all through Skype.

The engagement is over and the food and sweets are served to the guests in India and the foreign location and tradition has won again thanks to technology.

Welcome to an Indian engagement in global world, with a little help from Technology and an matching time to match both time zones for all to participate in the event.  

We all cherish our traditions and why give it up when time and distance can be compressed by Technology. 

 

 

 

The Gold Rush for Secure Clouds

Europe has blown the War Bugle, they will build their own EU clouds and secure their data and applications within the boundaries of Europe.
The Rest of the World will also follow suit in building their own Secure clouds for their business, government and anything else that needs cloud computing.
The Gold Rush is on for Secure Clouds built bottom up, it is going to be a bonanza for leaders who offer virtualisation solutions like VMWare and its competition including Microsoft Azure & others, Data Center Equipment hardware providers  IBM, DELL, HP and CISCO and others.
The marketing teams in these companies that provide the building material for cloud computing are going to be busy and laughing all the way to the bank. Their fears of the cheap Public Cloud will be history and no longer a challenge to their growth and revenues.

Secure Clouds in the Horizon will herald the demise of Public Clouds.

The cloud pundits who understand how to put together a cloud computing environment will be in demand, irrespective of their nationality. Cloud Architects who can deliver secure clouds will be  paid in gold for their skills.
China has shown how to build a secure national cloud by buying the Azure platform from Microsoft other countries will follow.
Open Source Computing may be used by countries who have good cloud computing  talent like India, China and Eastern Europe.
Are you ready for the Gold Rush, even if you do not understand the cloud it is a great time to invest in companies which provide the hardware, software and services in building secure clouds.
It is also time for to dis-invest from Public Clouds and SAAS solutions in the Public Clouds, their demise will be swift once these secure clouds are build, the decline could start from  New Year if the requirement for Secure Clouds becomes stronger
Are you ready for the Gold Rush for Secure Clouds, there is gold for everyone.

New Indian Banks need to ride the cloud for their Success

Come January we will have 7 new Indian Banks given licences to operate from the many applicants.
The new licences will be given with conditions attached for rural thrust in banking and also social banking.
As the applicants eagerly await their licences and start head hunting for their leadership the promoters will need to review whether Cloud Computing could be  the Elixir for getting them operational in weeks rather then months.
Cloud computing will give them reach to the remote rural hamlets in India and also be effective, reliable and a secure vehicle to reach banking technology to the 40 million unbaked Indians.
As the head hunters set the wheels in motion to hire the new suite of leaders to put execution plans into action it may the time for the Board of these promoter Banks to consider Cloud Computing for their profitability, agility and secure banking.

Are New Indian Banks Ready to Fly into the Cloud ?
Photo by Amitav Thamba

Hiring Technology leaders from the conventional technology banking landscape may be disastrous for these banks who will need to hit the ground running.
The good news is a few of these new banks could be Micro Finance institutions who are already using the cloud and they will surge ahead of the other Banks who use conventional wisdom in rolling out banking solutions the old way.
Indian Banks need to learn from cloud deployment for banking in Latin America and Africa and learn from their experiences in providing reliable and affordable financial services to their customers.
Are the new Indian Banks prepared to ride the cloud for their success ?

Founders' must Let Go !

Founders must Let Go!

Many founders are so attached with their company that they are unable to scale of grow their company fast enough to realize value and take it to greater levels. 

The challenge for the Founders is to grow the company quickly and then bring in professional management and list the company so that the risks are distributed among shareholders plus the company can raise more capital and the founders can de-risk their investment in their company. 

But most times company founders treat their company as the extension of their personality and like a protective parent do not let go and allow it to grow and mature. There are so enamored by their success that they suffer from myopia.

Over the last 20 years I have seen companies similar in aggression and business grow, but I have found companies where founders were willing to take it to a wider investor base and also bring on board more passionate professionals succeed where as companies where the owners have hung on are still dwarfed and have not realized their full potential. 

Let Go to take your company to greater heights!

Are you as a Founder ready to "Let Go" or do you want  your company to clinging to your Apron ? 

Disruptive Technologies and their Adoption

Over the Centuries any Disruptive Technology has always been welcomed with skepticism and resistance to adoption, sometime the creators of these disruption have been executed, imprisoned or forced to publicly take back their technology insights and apologize for their oversight.
In the last fifty years disruptive technologies have transformed the way we live, eat and procreate and also pair, whether it is DNA sequencing, bio-technology;genetic modification, health and medical delivery, intrusion into our privacy and the way we conduct our lives and business.
These disruptive technologies have compressed time and have been deployed  quickly that we sometimes forget that there was an era without these tools.
Let us take the instance of this blog, in the old days I would have to get this written in a typewriter, have it proof read and hope to disseminate it through print media, indeed a herculean task for a layman to get their ideas to the  world.

Disruptive Technologies Adoption needs Acceptance of Change 

Today withing minutes and a press of a button people right across the world have access to my thoughts expressed in this blog irrespective of their location, the disruptive technologies that make this possible are the blogging site, the cloud computing, the internet, the mouse, the laptop on which I write this blog, the spell checker in the world processor, the ease of transferring my pictures from my digital camera into this blog and finally the social media through which this blog will be advertised and distributed.
Many of these technologies are less then a decade old and for sure none of them are more then 50 years old; but we have learnt to adopt these technologies and harness this for the benefit of mankind and sharing  our thoughts and insights.
Disruptive technology have repeatedly  shown  that they have an adoption cycle, they are first denounced, then accepted and then embraced. The same is true of Cloud Computing which has been one of the game changers in the way we compute, communicate and share information and collaborate.
Accepting Disruptive Technology Adoption with open Arms is the right way forward rather then trying to resist change in a world where technology innovation is in months rather then decades, get real and get used to the ever changing and disruptive world of innovations if you want to excel in your pursuits.
Your thoughts on how disruptive technologies and their adoption has changed your life will be appreciated as an addendum to this blog post.

Emergence of National Clouds and National Intranets

With a porous digital world many nations will build National clouds and National intranets to protect their citizens, government and country from intrusion.
A national cloud will go against the very tenets of the internet as a growth engine for collaboration and dissemination of information in a free world.

Countries will erect fences to keep out the freedom offered by the cloud, internet and social media. 

As national clouds and intranets get build countries will shut access to the internet and will also encourage us of social media and other collaboration tools within the country.


This will impact the globalization of digital data and also the sharing of information and use of the social media and the internet for dissent and discussion.
We are charting into dangerous waters as a few countries have already demonstrated the ability to contain the internet access and also have deployed national clouds.
All this does not augur well for the growth of computing and the future of the internet; but with countries and governments getting defensive and protective a better moral policing of information on the internet will be called for to ensure the continuation on the cloud and internet as we know it today.
More importantly the fallout of this will be the death knell to democracy and freedom of expression which is valued by many citizens of the world.

Shutdown in the Cloud !

Recently there have been a few Shutdowns of Cloud Services with short notice periods which have forced customers to scurry for cover and in some cases customers have been caught in a bind
Shutdown in the Cloud will be an eventuality when companies cannot scale in the cloud and remain profitable, they get choked for cash and suffer slowly leading to instant death within weeks after they are choked of funds.
How do we handle Shutdown's in the Cloud will be the next domain for Risk Management in the Cloud.
Though outright it looks straightforward and it appears we can apply the same matrix as we would to technology vendors, but this may not be the right approach.
There are various dimension of Risk to be associated and constant monitoring of the health of the vendors is essential in the fast changing landscape of technology vendors which is pitted with risk and unexpected twists and turns.
Why Cloud computing, we seem to forget how Tandem, Digital was snapped up by Compaq in months when they were tottering and more recently Blackberry. Constant vigil is required on the technology readiness of the vendors, their financial liquidity and the ability of the leadership team.
No one would have predicted that the Investors in Microsoft would want Bill Gates out along with Steve Ballmer who is stepping down as the CEO.

Make sure your vendor can stay afloat in the cloud !(Photo Courtesy Amitav Thamba )

Hence singling out the cloud service provider for unexpected shutdown is not fair, rather a more mature approach is needed in managing and preparing for Shutdown's in Cloud.
For one there must be a contingency plan and for sure you must have all your Data backed up with a second independent vendor to contain the risk of losing your digital assets. Regular assessment of the vendors financial and operational health and review of the leadership team is essential.
Does Shutdown in the Cloud means we go back to the old ways of computing, it is doubtful if we can replicated the benefits of the cloud in running our own data centers and also we may be hampered in finding adequate talent to keep the lights on.
So the best approach will be to embrace the cloud, but with wide open eyes and with risk management skills and as a team rather in cloud adoption.
I am sure more will be written on managing shutdown in the cloud and how to prepare for them, let us wait for the pundits to give us the nuts and bolts, until then let us use our expertise and maturity in managing our cloud vendors.

Honesty

In a fast changing world Honesty is the victim which is discarded as a liability by citizens who want to grow rich and accumulate wealth by all means.

The old adage Honesty is the Best Policy is under threat, as you look around you may be convinced that the Dishonest are prospering while the Honest are still at the Starting Line.

But then one can justify that dishonest people do not reap the benefits of their actions which is advocated by most religions or to quote the Bible "As you Sow so shall you Reap".

At school we used to have a weekly class of Moral Science where the virtue of honesty was imbibed for eternity into our souls forever.

The question which one asks in today's situation is Does Being Honest essential and is a good attitude to life.

As I look around me I find the Honest People more content and balanced and managing with what they have earned within their abilities and genuine labor.

Dishonest people stand out in a crowd,  for some strange reason it becomes easy to identify them even if we hardly know on how they operate, this is brought out by their very behavior and attitude in a social setting.

If you are known to be an Honest Person then the dishonest groups do not want you among  them , but being dishonest to be accepted is not the solution.

What is honesty, is is just not robbing , when we explore the attribute of Honesty it is more than money, it is an attitude of being fair, virtuous and respecting the fellow human who live with us.

[caption id="attachment_636" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Dishonesty lives a trail, like the shadows in the picture.[/caption]

Honesty is not about putting your fingers into the money jar, it is much more, it is your action, your behavior, your thoughts and your outcomes in  your life.

Next time when you decide to call yourself an honest person, check on all your attributes of honesty and you will find that you can be a better person by working on your shortcomings.

And when if you are ever in doubt about Honesty, thing of  what you have achieved by being honest and that will justify the need to remain Honest.