Life Story

It is better to live the story you like; rather than like the story you live- for  the first way is your creation and later one is anyway happens.

Habits and Rituals

Rituals are tribal habits; habits are personal rituals.

Life: Fruitful or Fruitless

If my life is fruitless, it doesn't matter who praises me,

    and if my life is fruitful, it doesn't matter who criticizes me."

Love and Hate Mingle

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate 

his friends

The Nature of the Unfirm

Way back in 1930's Ronald Coase published a scholarly paper The Nature of Firm  and explained why business firms are formed although all the resources required for building business are always available in the market. Coase's analysis proceeds by considering the conditions under which it makes sense for an entrepreneur to seek hired help instead of contracting out for some particular task. It also points out the nature and scope of business firm change as new technologies emerge - for instance the advent of telephone helped business firm to expand over geo-spatial areas. Since then new technologies have created new businesses, built and  transformed them and often have undone them.  In 1964, Peter Drucker stated that the most important realities of business- resources, knowledge and  results are always outside of it. And it makes little sense to build a big firm to produce products- and smaller the firm better it is for serving the environment

The advent of the Web has created a new stream of floating fund of resources- both for constructing firms and building products and services. The traditional approach for hiring resources - either material or men is not needed at all. In fact now there is need for developing another approach for building business firm. In this new form of firms- there is not business activity inside the firm- either procurement or production or anything. Everything happens at the interface and nothing inside of the firm. To denote this new reality I use the term - Unfirm and may start developing on the new  The Nature of the Unfirm 

Financial Literacy: From Kids to Corporates

Money – Wizards, a Chennai based company that focuses on providing financial literacy to students. 

Money-Wizards was founded by Venkatesh Varadachari and Thillai Rajan A and it focuses on providing user friendly financial literacy to people of all age groups and profiles. It has taken the initiative to simplify, clarify and demystify concepts related to finance, money and investments. It extends its services by covering various topics like banking, finance, insurance, taxation, stock markets currency markets, commodity markets, derivatives, bond markets etc. It also meets the customized needs in advanced topics of investment in private equity, art and antiquities and real estate.

The program offers its literacy services in Tamil and English and is also planning to extend itself by providing information in other languages.

MOOC: Massive Online Open Course

The Massive Open Online course (MOOC) is an emerging method of online teaching whose application in education is just emerging. The successful implementation of MOOC requires conceptual changes in understanding by teachers and students. 

The massive refers to the number of students- usually in thousands. The Open reference to open-source, registration is open to anyone, and curriculum is open ( or loosely structured, and course sources are open and assessment process and procedure is also open. One example is Venture Lab run by Stanford University 

Reference: A BriefGuide to Understanding MOOCs

Learning in the days to come.

Learning and instruction are changing in education. A growing number of institutions are considering a more personalized, learner-centric approach, designed to meet individual learning needs. Colleges are adopting a dynamic teaching methodology governed by rapidly changing technologies. As cloud computing and mobile device start to transform the teaching, an exciting and challenging time is ahead for teachers.

Service Oriented Architecture(SOA)

In the market a customer has a choice of either buying a tangible product such as a computer or grocery; or availing an intangible service such as software. Realizing the immense benefits of offering services instead of products, businesses are building a new enabling infrastructure. For instance Microsoft is now offering its office suit

e as a service Office 365 which was earlier came in the form of installable CD.

The transformation of product offerings into service offering is called Service Oriented Architecture(SOA). 

Sometime back we offered a semester long course on on it. ( http://vtusoa.blogspot.com) 

Power and Potential of SOA.

The concept of service is very powerful and the foundation for many of today's hugely successful enterprises. For instance Google offers search as a service. Even a very mundane activity such as currency conversion may be offered as a service and a successful business can be built around that as seen below.
http://xe.com/

The Meaning of Concept

Concepts are fundamental in every discipline and conceptual understanding is essential both for learning and practice.

" A concept is an instrument and a history- a bundle of possibilities and obstacles  involved in the world as experienced"

The accompanying picture of the coffee flask illustrates it. It is an instrument to fill a "set" of cups simultaneously (a new possibility), may has a chance of spilling over (an obstcle). Existing flask (with a provision to pour coffee to one cup at at a time) represents history.

Another example for concept is money. Money rises new possibilities for business exchanges, hoarding.... It has a history in bartering system. It has new possibilities in banking, ATM, currency and more. Its obstacles including - theft, forgery, risk ...

Concept of Cloud Computing

Learning Times

The concept of cloud computing is to use the Internet as a global repository; and avoid thick client and enable thin client access to those repository resources. A user becomes a producer or at least a part in production process-prosumer. It is often called co-creation too.

New Age New Literacy

Word is to traditional literacy what tool or app is for digital literacy. In the traditional literacy , the more words you know, more shades of meanings of each word you know- vocabulary better would be your ability to comprehend and wider would be the variety of u r expressions.

So is with digital literacy- more digital tools or apps you are well versed with, varied uses of each app you know - digital literacy - better placed u r in digital world.

A Teacher's Quote

Just as a store owner must lay out his store for maximum sales, a teacher must set up her classroom as an effective learning environment.

Elements of Tomorrow's Living Environment

Information is structural element. Interaction is new transaction  Interaction is for sharing, producing or procuring information. Expression is an interaction where u share u r experience.

Five Minds for Future

Learning Times.

Changing times needs changing approach to education and professional success. According to Prof. Howard Gardner, we need Five Mind for Future.

1. Disciplined Mind. This mind is concerned with learning fundamentals of given domain such as engineering or medicine or like. It normally takes 10 years of schooling to master a discipline.

2. Synthesizing mind: is concerned with filtering out important information from the rest in these days of avalanche of information flow. The ability to determine "important" info is based on disciplined mind.

3. Creative mind: comes out with a new way or paradigm that changes a domain or discipline.

4.Respectful Mind: regards and respects other disciplines as much as it demands for its own. Often engineering and other professionals fail to consider liberal arts as distinct and useful

5. Ethical mind.: goes beyond routine thinking and asks "what makes me a good worker? And relatively higher level questions.

Creativity in Professional sense.

Learning Times

Creativity in Professional sense.

The word "creativity" is used in general talks and discussion with a wide shades of meaning. Sometimes people are said be creative when they arrange a "nice dinner" or render an "impressive rangoli". But in academics and professions, creativity would mean the invention of something that actually changes a domain in someway. For instance, the discovery of microbes brought huge transformation in medical field and invention of relational database made deep changes in the way manage data.

Love is a Double Dupe

When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self; and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance. ” — Oscar Wilde

Success too shall pass

Success means writing some thing on sea side sand. Keep Moving..

World is largely Unjust: Story of The Goat And The Horse!!!

The Goat And The Horse!!!
There was a farmer who had a horse and a goat . One day, the horse became ill and he called the veterinarian,
who said:
- Well, your horse has a virus.
He must take this medicine for three days.
I'll come back on the 3rd day and if he's not better,
we're going to have to put him down.

Nearby, the goat listened closely to their conversation.

The next day, they gave him the medicine and left.
The goat approached the horse and said:
- Be strong, my friend.
Get up or else they're going to put you to sleep!

On the second day, they gave him the medicine and left.
The goat came back and said:
- Come on buddy, get up or else you're going to die!
Come on, I'll help you get up.
Let's go! One, two, three...

On the third day, they came to give him the medicine
and the vet said:
- Unfortunately, we're going to have to put him down tomorrow.
Otherwise, the virus might spread and infect the other horses.
After they left, the goat approached the horse and said:
- Listen pal, it's now or never!
Get up, come on! Have courage!
Come on! Get up! Get up!
That's it, slowly! Great!
Come on, one, two, three... Good, good.
Now faster, come on...... Fantastic! Run, run more!
Yes! Yay! Yes! You did it, you're a champion!!!
All of a sudden, the owner came back,
saw the horse running in the
field and began shouting:
- It's a miracle! My horse is cured.
We must have a grand party.
Let's kill the goat!!!!

The Lesson: this often happens in the workplace.
Nobody truly knows which employee actually deserves
the merit of success,
or who's actually contributing the necessary support
to make things happen.
Remember………
LEARNING TO LIVE WITHOUT RECOGNITION
IS A SKILL!!!!

If anyone ever tells you that your work
is unprofessional, remember:
Amateurs built the Ark
[which saved all the species]
and
professionals built the Titanic
[all died tragically]

Prepare for Tomorrow and Not Yesterday

Zen teachers train their young pupils to express themselves. Two Zen temples each had a child protege. One child, going to obtain vegetables each morning, would meet the other on the way.

"Where are you going?" asked the one.

"I am going wherever my feet go," the other responded.

This reply puzzled the first child who went to his teacher for help. "Tomorrow morning," the teacher told him, "when you meet that little fellow, ask him the same question. He will give you the same answer, and then you ask him: 'Suppose you have no feet, then where are you going?' That will fix him."

The children met again the following morning.

"Where are you going?" asked the first child.

"I am going wherever the wind blows," answered the other.

This again nonplussed the youngster, who took his defeat to the teacher.

Ask him where he is going if there is no wind," suggested the teacher.

The next day the children met a third time.

"Where are you going?" asked the first child.

"I am going to the market to buy vegetables," the other replied.