XtremeDreamers: Bottom-Up Innovation Strategy

This blog is so close to my heart as this is the only post that am writing which is so relevant to the purpose of why this blog is created. As an ‘Xtreme Dreamer’ I tend to have this ‘’Innovations urge” and when my organization conducted a fabulous “Innovation Summit”, the volcano erupted. We are renewing our CMMI certification and L5 orgs should bring in process/business/technological innovations within their scope of market so as to be eligible for the renewal and this is why the org was on fire to do things differently. But as I always had this spark, which was turned into a huge firestorm, when everything around me had a tag that said “Innovations” in it, I intend to write this post. I know it'll be hard to gaze through the entire post but believe me the frustration has always had a witty end!

There was an interesting topic in my org’s community forum wherein the AVP has posted a thought about ‘Bottom Up’ Innovation strategy. The below crap of @#%$% followed is my reply to the thought process that was initiated.

I would like to throw some light on both “Top down” as well as “Bottom up” and the S curve that relates to three phases of an organization.

Whenever an organization enters into market it has got 3 phases in it growth:

• Formation
• Growth
• Renewal

During the formation phase we set strategies to grow wherein leaders bring in innovative plans to implement and we will have grand designs in place to reap success. Once the formula for success is known, we will be following the formula and continue to grow in all aspects till success becomes our habit. We will be in a routine using the formula and we will constrain ourselves into a box which we feel is safe. Thus we sustain doing repeated things and then we soon hit downfall as the market we face is a rapid changing one and doing the same thing is never enough for our customers where in it comes to a ‘reinvent or die’ situation. This is where we enter into the phase of renewal where in we change ourselves being back in phase 1 revisiting all our strategies and start to grow again.

In a “Top Down” approach, the contribution in all 3 phases as listed above will only be from the top/senior level managers who decide and people under them act. People in an organization will always need 4 vital things as they grow along – Direction, Coaching, Support and Delegation. “Top Down” approach is a management driven solution, which is so apt for people in organizations who need direction/coaching.

“Bottom up” innovation is the most matured level of strategy as this can only be applied when the people being demise of it should be so mature and ready enough to adopt and apply ideas thereby evolve to bring in growth to the organization that grows them. In this approach as all mentioned, we need to get ideas from the root and start nurturing the dream in the DNA of our associates – I totally agree. But are we matured enough to nurture dreams? The answer never depends on the ‘Associate Innovation Index’ rather the associates’ attitude towards these contributions. To frame a good “Bottom up” innovation strategy, I have came up with 3 vitamins that we need and as one of our associates mentioned in the debate during Innovation strategy meet – “We need Vitamins! Not Pain Killers!”

VITAMIN “A” doption: Adopting technologies and adopting already available tools was the main point that was stressed on ‘Managing Innovations’. We must start using all available resources before we invent. We should adopt existing ideas and consider them before making our own ideas into picture. The culture of inheriting what we have, should spread and then people should think on what we need. Somebody in this post mentioned of developing an effective forum like “FB” and am sorry to ask this – What more you require from this c2mash UI? Start exploring and you’ll find what you need before you start reinventing the wheel.

VITAMIN “C” ommunications: Effective/Improved communications makes the exploration lot easier. Communication models can be closely coupled or as loose as units confined to them. The idea is to effectively communicate within the group. Throw out problems to a larger audience instead of trying to solve it in your desktop. Share it with your unit or across the floor and soon you will hear solutions even WebBot would’ve never thought of.

VITAMIN “D” riving Passion: Every leader has a problem of motivating the members within, make them matured enough to think in a different way, come out with breakthrough ideas and invent something new. To all leaders who think “Oh Yeah! You hit the bull’s eye. This is where I stuck up” – the problem is not the team anymore it could be you. Every leader is the motivating factor of the team and every member will join you if you still have the verge of ideating, improvising and innovating. Leaders should start ideating and put it across, creating boundaries for them to think. Let us make the team to think inside the box first and make them eventually to think outside. This creates passion within the team and soon you’ll find the team buzzing all you with their innovative ideas. Rewards and recognition plays a vital role in this. Hear every idea; never leave any even though it sounds absurd. Recognize the best and reward them periodically which would create the “Wah” factor and this would help to sustain the momentum within.

Relating this with the ‘S’ curve as I discussed earlier, in bottom up approach there will be a group of bottom up innovators doing an excellent job in phase 1 (Formation) and the rate at which the organization enters into phase 2 (Growth) will be phenomenal. But remember what happens when we are reaching phase 3 (Renewal) – everything around just looks great! The sales figure would be high, org will be rapidly growing and its success stories all over. Then there’s a downfall that await us and if we don’t readopt ourselves then no wonder an iceberg could do a shipwreck! This is where “Top Down” helps. The top-level management should drive from front, closely followed by the army of innovating leaders, which would help us grow without hitting the roof, rather I would say grow beyond the roof. Thus a right mixture of both the approaches would constitute in our case.

Please refer: http://bottomupinnovation.blogspot.com/2009/07/bottom-up-innovation-and-s-curve.html to know more on bottom up approach and “S” curve. My thoughts were projected clearly agreeing to the author of the post mentioned.

After a post that is this big which am definitely sure none of them could go through and me still anticipating getting comments on my thought, I hereby post this to a larger audience so that "pirkaala sandhadhiyinar idha padichu pathu therinjikatume!” :D

XtremeDreamers: Man Made Money or Money Made Men

I am happy to be back with my writer’s hat on after a long time. This fizzes my mind on the hot and not around the world that are beautiful to be described. Yeah, I know it’s been a while since my last freaky post on destiny and with a note of apologies to my sincere followers, I go on again. The reason that I couldn’t pen down or even think on penning down is I was running behind MONEY. Oh Yeah! I had a change in job, bought a bike, enjoyed till the last penny worth and now happy to announce myself ‘BANKRUPT’.  Money had been playing, (naahhh, actually defining) all the rules in my life. When I say rules, it defined rules to the extent of what I eat to where I eat.

M-O-N-E-Y

My Ordinance Never Exist in You - MONEY. I may sound like a loser, but all I felt with money these days is the same. I can never figure out the rules or maybe I can’t even figure out what the game is. I had crossed numerous mid of the months, where my credit card whispers ‘Unleash me’ and my debit card says ‘I am almost empty and tired pal!’ I had never figured out what the rule is. All these routines I’ve been running behind the 5 letter magical costly word that defied me against my life. Money is what the world now revolves on as I believe we no longer revolve in an elliptical path called orbit but a shapeless ruthless path called money.

The beginning:

Let us roll back to the “Necessity is the mother of invention” age, the age when people were people and trading was to live. When man started owning things, trading was born and there arose a question of belief. Man needed to believe his own species to trade off what he had for what he wanted. In simple words, money was made the belief to rely and thus from then the questions were quoted as ‘Million dollar questions.’ Money is usually coins of gold/silver then, as it was considered to be truly global.

When slowly we started realizing the fact that gold/silver doesn’t grow and there’s no more gold when you dig deeper the crust, our super brains framed the concept of ‘Representative money’. This is how money turned on to papers. People started pledging their certificates/tokens to trade. Even now we have the concept of this in the form of Demand Drafts, Fixed Deposit slips and so on.

Here is the final evolution of money which is called ‘Fiat Money’. The regulatory bodies (Oh yeah! We rule ourselves and we call this democratic) came up with this usage of paper money and diversified the world based on its economical power. Now, I got an added to responsibility to explain what economical power is! Economy of a nation does not mean how much an individual got in his pocket, bank and home, rather it is the scale of how corrupted our politics is. Dig deeper and its all shit we get when politics of India is to be mentioned. Economical conditions truly rely on the political state of the nation and I would rather say directly proportionate in nature.

The Rules:

I never had any such 10 commandments of life as I stated earlier in one of my post, I am not a Buddha to preach neither have a Gandhi to follow. The rules were so hard for me to define as I struggled across weeks and months to figure out what could it be. I used to just stare at a 1000 rupee note and used to love the moment when Gandhi whisper in my ears – “I promise to pay the bearer a sum of 1000 Rupees…” That’s the way I came to know out what ‘Gandhi kanaku’(Gandhi Account) is. The guy who welcomes you when you enter into a restaurant with a warm salute doesn’t need a sweet lullaby to sleep nor a ride in the beach to enjoy, it’s the tip that you give him makes him merry.

Money brings smile, harmony, joy and even people at times, to wrap around us. There’s a value for everything in this world and for things that money can’t buy there’s even visa cards. The lust of earning things when the world is ours; and the greed of competing among ourselves when we are all one spread across our great minds and we are here trying to save pennies for us, for our children, for our life and more for ours… 

This socially cultivated creature with great powers that boggle around us has turned us into slaves of its own. When we were thinking we were running behind it, we weren’t really running instead our desires made us zombies to saunter. Money ruled us when we thought we made it. The rules that I thought weren’t about how to save it instead how to ignore it. The one magical rule that I discovered to stop being a douche was written about centuries back –

"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"—Matthew 19:19.

XtremeDreamers: Destiny - Defined

Wondering why I took this post to write; wondering why I think like this; wondering why I love to blog; wondering why I am here in this marvelous creation of Mother nature; wondering what’s next in my life. I can all the day blabber on all those wonderful things happening to me, but the answer to all my wandering wonders is one word – DESTINY. People trust in God, believe thyself, rely on money, but I stand by the side of destiny. People, who go with me, please enter and people who don’t rely upon, just gaze through this and give it a thought. I am for sure that reading a blog is not your destiny and writing this ain’t mine too.

If one is destined to do something, it has to be done and no turn backs. This makes me curious to understand what is destined for me or for this human life, which just stroll across decades to do that unidentifiable something. Is there a black book of secrets that really defines destiny for me and of course every saga (acquaintance) that we see and smile everyday in our lives? Let me just connect all those dots that I framed to define what is this intended factor of life.

Darwin’s Code:

This is where it started according to me. The theory that proved Science existed even before we discovered it. The theory on human evolution made me to think what could be the reason of us to get evolved. Is this the destiny?

Charles Darwin, the man who proved the evolution of man and figured out the various stages of human evolution against eras called it “The survival of fittest”. We survive each and every moment in our life by competing with ourselves and proving that we are the fittest to survive. Are we destined to fight among ourselves and prove that we are the best? Is it right to kill the emotions of a fellow being by side to reach whatever we desire? If Darwin’s theory is right, then how human life still exists in this amazing planet? We should’ve fought among ourselves for our own survival and soon became extinct. If you go with great old Darwin, I would recommend you not to proceed further.

The Matrix Philosophy:

Matrix is one good movie when we speak about destiny. The philosophies unfolded were so apt that they stand good for our life. It was just a movie when Neo was destined to save Zion and Trinity to fall in love with the One, but when it comes to the conversation between Oracle and Neo on making a choice it becomes an epic. 

Oracle goes “The choice is already made. Understand the choice.”

Neo then asks, “If the choice is already made, why give a choice?”

Miraculous lines from a marvelous movie. So, what is destiny? It is not about making a choice, but to understand that it is already made and to obey it.

Destiny in divinity:

“Science and spirituality goes side by side”, says Dan Brown in Angels & Demons. Thus as I read in my school, if science is fact, then it makes me believe that the divine lord exists. Alas, I can’t. According to any religion or in any epic, human were shown to saunter aimlessly and a divine guidance brings in the light at the end of the tunnel. If it’s ‘Karma’ in Hinduism, it’s ‘Judgment day’ in Christianity. Every religion says about human deeds which would decide on life after death. So is our destiny to live life by doing all good deeds and to wait for a peaceful place to rest our souls?

Destiny defined:

All the above said theories make my mind go fuzzy. Let me address them one by one.

Darwin’s theory stated “Survival of the fittest”. When I could try to deeply understand, what this great mind tried to convey is “Survival of the fittest among species”. Human considering to be the best of all species in this world and to make that, the evolution happened. We became the rulers of this planet. So Darwin is right. We are destined to survive.

The Matrix philosophy tries to portray that one has to understand what the choice is, instead of just making one. The choice is to survive. In the same movie, Smith addresses Morpheous “The human species which is said to be under the kingdom of mammals aren’t really mammals. They are just parasites who occupy one region and consume all the available resources till that region becomes dry and moves out to the next.” Is this true? The lines prove survival becomes our destiny, but this definitely ain’t the way to survive.

Here comes divinity into picture. All religious studies say, loving and beloved are the most adorable things to reach the One. Why to show love? This shows the way to survive. If survival is the destiny, survive being modest is what divinity preaches us.   

Thus destiny of us is to survive and make survive this brave, beautiful and brilliant species in this tremendous creation of nature through love towards people by our side and understanding that we are here as a part of the kingdom which stood still for eras.

XtremeDreamers: 2010… The beginning

With 2010 being born, I would like to wish my fellow freaks a Happy New Year and I am here going to scribble down the awful midnight of mine during this new year eve. 2009 is gone, so are our miseries and problems and hence like everyone who wanted to celebrate the new born baby, I was no exception. Moreover it was a special occasion, as a close friend of mine owns this day. Call it a coincidence, call it a magic, but the truth is both of my close friends share their birthdays with my parents. Yeah even my dad was born on this special occasion for which, he proudly utters as the whole world would celebrate his birthday which is amazingly true. The other guy shares up his day with my mom, on October 7. I won’t forget these people for my lifetime.

As the celebration fire was on, we freaked out this New Year by bringing up a pineapple truffle to this guy and enjoyed having it solely between 4 of us. The one kg pineapple truffle melted down in our mouths and we were soon greeting each other a prosperous and bright new year with the wish of grabbing success in whatever we are into. It was just 4 of us this eve as many in our circle flew off to evidence the rise of 2010 from their home. After the great birthday celebration, I and my pal called the electric buzz (I forgot his new title as he used rock all the way with his dazzling taps on the floor) ran to the streets where his Unicorn awaited our return.

We planned to take up a ride in the famous ECR to bring our New Year mood to the apex. So we decided to settle down at a place in ECR to toast a drink, welcoming 2010. We started from my place and sooner the coastal road chilled us. Bikes whirring around and people shouting the wish that trembled upon the black sky, we started our expedition to find the place for us to settle down. While hustling through the roads on joy, we saw a guy for whom the New Year seemed to be not so well. He slipped off his bike and was groaning in pain with his blood smiling over his face which made me call this one ‘A bloody New Year’. Passing on this bloody event, we were slowed down by the policemen who I believe would’ve wished a holiday at least the next New Year. These people though knowing that the lads vrooming around aren’t in a suitable position to ride bikes, wished them a happy and safe year ahead. After a 10 min joyous ride passing 4 barrier gates, we found our place to relax around this New Year.

I don’t know who is the richest person in India during 2009, but I am damn sure that 2010 is too good for one special person – Vijay Mallya, the King(Fisher) maker. As we passed through the corridor of the place called ‘Voodoo’ (I know, the name stinks) we substantiated beer bottles of the great brand rolling through the pathway. I never knew until we were offered a seat that even the place stinks as the name do. With a whooping temperature of 20 C in Chennai, our drink came in as cold as it was taken from one of the poles (wish polar bears were guarding them). We toasted our drink for a fabulous start of the ageing factor called ‘New Year’. After a lot of talks to finish off the pitcher, we decided to leave and take a nap as I already had plans to leave home the next day.

When we started off from the mystic Voodoo, there came by the security guard in the bike park saluting us. I offered him 10 bugs and his smile stated 100 reasons to celebrate the occasions like this. With a caring heart he wished us a ‘Happy New Year’ and a safe ride back home. Now I realized that if a matter of 10 bugs can bring in care and smile from one, imagine donating to the needy. The happiness, the joy, the satisfaction that I didn’t get from the ride or the drink, I obtained from this guy who wished me a safe ride back home with a smile of saving money in his pocket. Whatever may be the race, region, religion, job, position or situation is, when the clock ticked 00:00 AM on 01-01-2010, everybody just had one hope – ‘Let this beginning be the best in our lives’.