Few in recent times, have been a force of inspiration as Dr.Randy Pausch, Carnegie Mellon Professor who passed away on July 25, 2008.

A man who in his dying days inspired the rest of us on how to live! (Not just through his talk but also on how he handled his terminal illness)

Be sure to watch his “last lecture” and his talk on “time management” if you have not yet done so. The videos, PDF and slide versions of the time management talk have been made available by Professor Gabriel Robins at his site.

It is with great pleasure that I welcome Anupam Jalote, a good friend and now a business partner on board Jigyasa.

His previous position as a Chief Process Officer involved heading service strategy for Bharti Airtel Limited, a $5 billion full service telecom service provider. You can read about him here.

What stands out, apart from the depth and breadth of his Telecom expertise is his ability to lead people, insights into human behaviour, thinking out of the box and a wonderful sense of humour.

I am looking forward (as much as I know that the readers of this blog will) to his posts as well the work we hope to do together for our clients.

If you’ve ever questioned the importance of generalists in your team or if you are a generalist and want to see how your role should be, then check out this well researched and thought out article by Steve Hardy on Creative Generalists.

Some core traits identified by him are:

Wander & Wonder - finding possibility

Entertain curiosity and ask unasked questions.

Synthesize & Summarize - presenting information

Connect the dots and present complex information succinctly

Link & Leap - generating ideas

Take a simple insight and find a transcending application.

Mix & Match - connecting people

Make worlds collide and harness collaborative energies.

Experience & Empathize - understanding worldview

Understand humanity and life’s many interrelationships.

HR professionals in organizations should be mainly be “creative generalists” given the fact that most of the specialised or administrative work can be outsourced and people management responsibilities (recruitment, performance management and the like) rests or should rest with the Businesses’.

This was The Edge Annual Question - 2008

When thinking changes your mind, that’s philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that’s faith.
When facts change your mind, that’s science.

Read how some of the finest of intellectuals responded to this question on subjects close to them.

Extracts from some of my personal favourites amongst many others. Click on their names to read their complete response and to undertsand the context.

Jamshed Bharucha

To assess genuine understanding of an idea one is inclined to resist, I propose a version of Turing’s Test tailored for this purpose: You understand something you are inclined to resist only if you can fool its proponents into thinking you get it. Few critics can pass this test. I would also propose a cross-cultural Turing Test for would-be cultural critics (a Golden Rule of cross-group understanding): before critiquing a culture or aspect thereof, you should be able to navigate seamlessly within that culture as judged by members of that group

Kevin Kelly

It has always been clear that collectives amplify power — that is what cities and civilizations are — but what’s been the big surprise for me is how minimal the tools and oversight are needed. The bureaucracy of Wikipedia is relatively so small as to be invisible. It’s the Wiki’s embedded code-based governance, versus manager-based governance that is the real news. Yet the greatest surprise brought by the Wikipedia is that we still don’t know how far this power can go. We haven’t seen the limits of wiki-ized intelligence. Can it make textbooks, music and movies? What about law and political governance?

Chris Dibona

But, and here’s the thing I changed my mind about, is the tradeoff for silly high productivity that I have to run my projects the way we run the Summer of Code? Maybe. Can I keep my hands off and let things run their course? Is the team strong enough to act as this kind of mentoring to each other? I now think the answer is that yes, they can run each other better than I can run them. So let’s see what letting go looks like.

Pfizer is partnering with a social networking site for physicians, in order to reach out to doctors more efficiently.

Sermo is a networking site for physicians that allows them to use the collective wisdom of the group to discuss, share and exchange and take away new insights.

According to this article,

“Pfizer-affiliated doctors will be able to talk candidly with the site’s 31,000 members, potentially giving the company insights into prescribing patterns and a way to show doctors data on its drugs.”

Pfizer doctors, who will be clearly identified, will be able to ask questions of the Sermo community or respond to posts. If Pfizer doctors were to offer comments others deem biased, the system provides for quick rebuttals.

We should be seeing more such inititaives taking off with the explosion of social networks.

At an individual level, here is a doctor using technology to to reach out to patients who is willing to “evisit by videochat, IM or email for certain problems or follow-ups.

If you’ve read Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat”, you’ll realize how beautifully Brandy Agerbeck summarizes the book through this single picture.

She shares how she created this work here

“Your credit card bills and calendar reveal much about your life.” Geoffrey M. Bellman, The consultant’s Calling.”

The New York Times (23 June 2007) has an interesting article on how Whole Foods has begun to use a single line for check-out which feeds various cash-tills instead of a separate line at each cash-till leaving shoppers to guess the fastest moving line!

Banks have long used a single line to manage queues at the tellers.

While at first glance, a single line as opposed to multiple lines would not seem to make a huge difference. However, data from the article proves otherwise.

From the article:

“The single-line, bank-style system was quickly chosen for its statistical efficiency. Then, Whole Foods paired the system with possibly the largest number of registers in the city, more than 30 per store, and it hired an army of cashiers to staff them throughout the day (including “floaters” to fill in for those who need a break).”

“The result is one of the fastest grocery store lines in the city. An admittedly unscientific survey by this reporter found that at peak shopping times - Sunday, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. - a line at Whole Foods checked out a person every 4.5 seconds, compared with 19.6 seconds for a line at Trader Joe’s.”

“Perhaps the most important role players in the Whole Foods system are the “line managers,” who monitor the flow of people, direct them to a cash register and, when needed, hold up signs saying how long it will take to check out. In another innovation, color-coded digital screens are now replacing those humans.”

“Every month, Larry Huston, a Procter and Gamble vice president and lead creative director, deliberately introduces his staff to at least one new idea from non-business sources to encourage unfamiliar perspectives on the firm’s current practices.

Huston poses a vital question whenever he introduces a new idea: “what would change if we acted on this idea?” The question often generates useful answers. Most important, it encourages his staff to see the world differently, open themselves to change, and consider even more new ideas.”

From, “How Customers Think” by Gerald Zaltman, an essential read for anyone not just dealing with customers but also people within the organization.

• Deepa