Passing Thoughts

Posts Tagged Passing Thoughts

Gmail Tasks – Should It Be Tied to Google Calendar?

UPDATE: Here it is! Google is listening and they have now tied up Tasks with Calendar.

By now, many of us know that Gmail Tasks is now available on the iPhone and G1. An interesting competitive analysis was done of the most commonly used “to-do” tool – Paper.

Paper has a number of popular features:

Easy editing. Cross out with pen and write something new.

Works offline. You can read paper even when your PC is not connected to the internet.

Mobile. Fold paper and stick in pocket.

Instant boot up. Just pull paper out of pocket — don’t have to wait for it to load.

However, paper does have some limitations:

Limited availability. You don’t always have a pad of paper with you to write new things.

Not ubiquitous. If you leave a piece of paper in one pair of jeans, you can’t access it from the other jeans you’re currently wearing.

Difficult to organize. Eventually turns into a giant mess on your desk.

I am a big fan of mobile productivity and couldn’t agree more with this. And, the most compelling reason is that the phone makes all your data (emails, to-do’s, calendar, notes) portable and available on demand, on the go.

However, I would love to see more inter-operability between Tasks and Google’s other productivity apps, in particular Google Calendar. Tying up Tasks with Calendar will make for a more comprehensive productivity application, with ability to easily add emails as tasks and even get reminders through SMS. That should give users a more complete scheduling and GTD (Getting Things Done) application. The icing on the cake would be if Google voice-enables Tasks, giving users the ability to add Tasks and Reminders using voice. Just like ReQall (which is my current favorite reminder app).

UPDATE: Google Blogoscoped is reporting that a user has spotted the “Tasks” feature in his Google Calendar. Looks like someone is listening!

2 comments February 4, 2009

Don’t Forget to Incentivize!

The Strait Times carries a piece of news today titled “$100 m boost for service”. It says:

A $100 million push to bring Singapore service to the next level has been launched.

The money will go towards funding training and other programmes for staff and supervisors in the retail, food and beverage, health and transport sectors.

It will also be used to pay for research on service, and to monitor customer satisfaction levels.

Also part of the plan: Promoting, publicising and recognising good service.

While this is a well-intended initiative, I hope there is sufficient focus on “incentivization” of good service. As I noted in my earlier post on the “built-in” service charges in Singapore restaurants, the practice doesn’t adequately encourage great customer service, because the “incentive” is guranteed. So, in my humble opinion, a more balanced approach which focuses both on behavioral changes and up-skilling, alongwith dangling a ‘carrot’ would be more useful.

1 comment February 3, 2009

2008 Round-up: Most Popular Posts

Wow! Was that 2008 that just zipped past me!! Time flies.

It has been an eventful year for me. I got promoted. I left my job at Gallup India. I got married. Yay! I had a wonderful vacation in Thailand. Yay, Yay!! I joined Towers Perrin in Sing a pore. I went about Singapore. And so on.

Meanwhile, a lot of posts on this blog got quite popular. And, I thought it will be a good idea to do a quick round-up of the various things I wrote about in 2008.

The concept of “Micro-Boredom” and how the mobile phone has become my saviour.
My wishlist from the grand-daddy of internet – Google.
The business case for Employee Engagement. This post got a lot of attention and was eventually published on the front page of Deccan Herald’s Career Supplement DH Avenues.
I got myself an iPhone 3G and wondered if it is “smart-phone” enough. Subsequent fixes from Apple have resolved some of my issues with the almighty phone.
I borrowed from some research by my company to think about “deal-structuring” for employees or how we could maximize employee RoI from their relationship with organizations.
2008 was the year of economic ‘pain’. I mused about how we could manage differently.
I am bowled over by the wonderful system of ‘incentives’ in Singapore. But, why are restaurant staff here not incentivized enough to provide great service to customers ?
I became a fan of TED. Fascinating stuff. Kevin Kelly impressed with his talk on the next 5000 days of the web.
Mumbai will not forget 2008 so easily. Neither will I. I blabbered as Mumbai took the bullets.
I started thinking about simplifying the interfaces of enterprise applications. I think this is a big big opportunity.
I stumbled upon an idea to convert the employee benefits system into a ‘marketplace for benefits’. I have completely given up on looking at traditional system thinking on solving this critical problem that so many organizations face. An innovative and experimental approach is more likely to lead to a solution. I am looking for organizations who would like to partner with me on such an experiment.

And, if you think, I have bored you enough with this serious stuff, go straight to my alternate blog at Tumblr to enjoy some really cool pictures, videos, quotes and fun stuff. Or meet the shutter-bug in me at Flickr. Or, just head straight to my FriendFeed page to get a snapshot of all my online activity and networks.

Here’s to a peaceful and fulfilling 2009. Cheers!

2 comments December 25, 2008

Kevin Kelly: Predicting the Next 5000 Days of the Web

I have become a huge fan of www.ted.com. I came across this very interesting talk by Kevin Kelly, founder-editor of the Wired magazine, on the future of the internet. He begins with a simple, yet powerful statistic – “the web is only about 5000 days old” and then goes on to predict the next 5000 days. Some key takeouts:

The total processing power of the web will exceed that of the human race by 2040. He does this using simple approximations and using similarities in the functioning of the human brain and the web.
All devices (PCs, mobiles, cameras, cars etc.) are just ‘windows’ to look into the big machine called the web. Every device will be web-based and the web will own every ‘bit’.
Media will have a common platform.
Humans will become the extended senses of the machine!
Data would be able to transcend websites. Eg. you won’t have to tell different social networking websites about your identity. It will be able to identify you and your friends by itself.
Humans and the web will be co-dependent. We will be “always on.” The web will be able to provide us a complete personalized experience, provided we are completely honest with it.
In effect, the web will become much smarter, personalized (at the price of transparency) and very ubiquitous.

1 comment November 23, 2008

The Bane of Sytems / Processes

I came across this picture in one of the forwarded messages in my inbox and it reminded me of situations employees find themselves in so often.

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To me, this picture depicts situations where companies burden themselves and their employees with cumbersome processes / tools for simple tasks. Don’t all of us agree that many of the organizations we work with have a little too much of systems / processes and tools? 10 forms for joining the organization, 20 for leaving. And between those two, a multitude of unwieldy processes to follow, forms to fill and redundant tools to use. We could do a lot with simplification – minimalistic organization structure design, minimalistic processes etc. But, how to make this a reality?

2 comments November 12, 2008

Service Charge Built Into Your Restaurant Bill in Singapore – No More, Please!!

I have been in Singapore for close to three months now. It’s a nice place to live, work, eat and travel and that is enough to make me stay here. But, the thing that fascinates me the most about the place is the “design of incentives and disincentives.” Once you start noticing the minute details about how they have built the nation and systems, you feel amazed at the power of incentives. There is an incentive here for all the “right” behaviours and disincentives for all the “wrong” ones. Let me pick up some common examples. Singapore, for most parts of the 20th century, was a dirty country. To discourage littering, the government enacted heavy fines and followed it up with superb enforcement. Fines for littering can be as high as $5000 and repeat offenders might be sent for “behaviour – correction” activities like cleaning of public parks! I know it sounds like an overbearing idea, but it has worked for the country. And then, there is the much-admired Electronic Road Pricing system and taxes on automobiles, which disincentivizes people to own cars and drive downtown during peak hours. The pricing of parking lots, roads and cars themselves, coupled with a super efficient public transport system, incentivizes people to take public transport instead of driving around, adding to the congestion and polluting the environment. There could even be an incentive for taking early morning trains to town and easing off the peak hours. Every action or inaction has a price to it. Since it needs talented people for the economy, there are incentives to take up Permanent Residence in the country and enjoy several benefits. There are strong disincentives for smoking as it is a major cause of health problems and puts a burden on government spends. Heavy taxes make cigarettes quite expensive and there is no way you can legally get cigarettes from other countries without paying the hefty duties.

While I frantically look for such incentives, I have been disappointed with one particular system – the system of service charge or tipping at restaurants. Most eating places have the service charge of 10% included in the bill. Tipping is discouraged in most eateries and even prohibited at the airport and other places. Now, I eat out a lot and try many restaurants and whenever I fork out the dollars, I expect reasonable service. But, I find that missing in so many of these places. Having a fixed, pre-determined service charge could act as a disincentive for providing great customer service and lead to complacency or indifference in the minds of the men and women who work in these restaurants. They are effectively guaranteed the tip, irrespective of how they treat the customers! I simply fail to understand this in a place like Singapore, which goes all out to encourage the right behaviours.

Here is the link to a nice read (slightly dated) on this topic http://www.singaporeangle.com/2006/11/service-charges-replace-with-tipping.html

Update: Check out another similar post by me.

2 comments November 11, 2008

Managing Differently in Challenging Times

As everybody talks feverishly about the world economy slipping into a recession and people draw numerous parallels between previous depressions and the current situation, I thought about putting down 5 broad management principles that we can adopt and do things differently this time around:

In most downturns, managers typically tend to narrow their focus on operational efficiency and cost-optimization alone. A better way to manage will be to be “ambi-dexterous” and maintain focus on both topline and bottomline.

In most cases, downturns have trigerred the tendency to source talent from low-cost talent pools with a view to minimize costs and at the same time ensuring ‘adequate’ staffing. Instead, organizations should be looking at tapping diverse talent pools to build up a diverse work-force which ideates using different perspectives. This enriches the problem-solving processes with alternative thinking. Some cues can be found in the Creative Class.

Most downturns are accompanied with a free-fall of the “axe” or downsizing. Instead, forward-looking leaders need to focus their existing people assets on most “high-yield” activities and maximize gains.

Economic slowdowns tend to create a general environment of gloom and employee morale takes a big hit. It is critical to keep employees motivated and engaged during these trying times. And, who is better placed to drive engagement than the “people managers”. From “employee engagement” being a HR responsibility, leaders need to ask their managers to be accountable for employee engagement.

Finally, like most situations in life, we tend to take a short term view in times of a slowdown. From a short-term focus on protecting margins and pleasing the stock markets as much as possible, leaders and managers need to take a long term view towards balanced and sustainable growth. We need to remember that equity, as an asset class, has a tendency to trend upwards. So, we just need to be doing the right things and in due time, value will be realized.

Also read this interview with Mark Mactas, CEO of Towers Perrin on “Leadership in Turbulent Times.”

1 comment October 21, 2008

Report on “Key Human Capital Trends” – PwC

I came across this very interesting report from Pricewaterhouse Coopers on the Key HR Trends for 2008. It serves interesting information and analysis under 5 main sections: Human Capital Impact, Human Capital Drivers, Human Capital Foundations, Human Capital Future and The HR Function.

I found the section on “The HR Function” most intersting, espcially when the report talks about how employees perceive the effectiveness of the HR function and what kind of reputation HR enjoys. Here is a chart that talks about this:

Happy reading!

Add comment September 22, 2008

Maximizing Employee ROI

“There are probably as many stereotypes about today’s workforce as there are workers. Consider two of the most enduring: Employees are cubicle-bound clock-watchers, getting by doing the minimum possible. Or, at the other end of the spectrum, employees are ambitious “free agents,” loyal to themselves and their careers, but not to their employers.”

- Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study

I personally feel that employees, in general, should be very willing to go the extra mile, if they have got the right “deal”. Before falling prey to such stereotypes about employees being ‘clock-watchers’, it will be prudent to ask oneself if we have done enough to incentivize the right behviours – behaviours that maximize individual and group performance. HR and line managers need to work together to maximize “employee ROI”. Isn’t it intuitive? A typical employee spends almost 8-10 hours in office. She definitely wants to maximize her ‘returns’ from the time and effort she puts in. Employees are eager to invest more of themselves to help organizations succeed – and will do so if they see the personal ROI. Now, the key task cut out for HR executives and managers is to structure this “deal”.

The study has also identified critical drivers (at a global level) for attracting and retaining talent.

Top 5 Attraction Drivers:

- Competitive base pay

- Career advancement opportunities

- Challenging role

- Convenient work location

- Flexible schedule

Top 5 Retention Drivers:

- Company reputation

- Satisfaction with the organization’s ‘people’ decisions

- Relationship with supervisor

- Clear understanding of career path within the company

- Work-life balance

Of course, the drivers and components of the ‘deal’ will vary across cultures, industries and has to be seen in the light of market realities. But, such inputs can go a long way in optimizing the Employee Value Proposition using a scientific and realistic approach.

Do share your thoughts on maximizing employee ROI.

Add comment September 17, 2008

iPhone – Smart Enough?

Alright, I finally managed to buy myself (and my wife) the mighty phone – the iPhone. It was a long wait, but Singtel and my ABN AMRO credit card worked hard to get me the much-awaited phone.

Much has already been written about the capabilities & quirks of the phone – whether its the elegant multi-touch screen or the lag-free user interface or the average 3G performance or the restrictions imposed by the ‘closed’ operating system. I quite like the phone. But, given that I use mobile phones extensively for much more than making calls, I do feel that the iPhone needs to grow up – just a little bit:

My basic expectation from a smartphone is ability to multi-task. For the uninitiated – simply put I must be able to listen to music, browse the web, view a spreadsheet and chat via IM at the same time. I loved my Nokia E series devices for this. Unfortunately, the iPhone just can’t do it! You can work on one application at a time.
Secondly, to customize a phone so that one is able to ‘power-use’ it, there has to be a lot of applications available. Sure, we have the Apps Store from Apple, and some of the apps are great, but the I didn’t find the assortment complete.
Again, a smartphone without VoIP capabilities is difficult to digest for me. Sadly, it is not possible to talk to people over Gtalk / Skype etc. at the moment. Hoping that Fring comes up with something soon.
Finally, I still share the gripes of so many other iPhone owners about the usual things – no SMS forwarding, no Video recording (despite being Youtube capable), no Business Cards, average PIM capabilities etc.

Really hope that we get around some of these in the not-so-far future.

Update: I am quite unhappy with the battery performance even after the 2.0.2 update. I am just getting about 2 hours on 3g data connection and about 3 hours on EDGE. To put things into perspective, my nokia E51 could be on EDGE on push mail all day on a single charge!

1 comment September 1, 2008

Infosys – Reporting the Intangibles

I finished reading Infosys’ Annual Report 2008 last evening. The report was far more professional and comprehensive than anything I have seen from Indian organizations. The first thing that struck me was that the reports begins with the company’s main assets – “people” and a nice quote from Mr. Murthy - ”Every evening our core assets walk out of the gates. We need to have a way to bring them back every morning.” A good twenty pages, right upfront, is dedicated to employees and what Infosys has been doing about them. The report talks at great length about training, development, organization restructuring, learning programs, employee well-being etc. This is in stark contrast to something like Reliance Industries’ annual report, where “Employee Activities” is a mere 3 paragraph lip-service.

More interesting pages follow after the key financial data – on the intangibles. The company presents a simple, easy to understand brand valuation, a score-sheet for intangible assets and many more. The focus on the intangibles is a welcome phenomenon to corporate reporting, which relies overly on business numbers.

A copy of the report can be found here.

5 comments May 27, 2008