Life, Technology and The Pursuit Blog

In defence of everything else

Kaustuv Ghosh. — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 08:31:44 +0000

It was not Steve Jobs who drove me towards design. It was, first, my designer wife with William Morris who thinks with some justification that I am a pretentious Left Bank aspirant who knows nothing and secondly,it was the masters programme in NUS where the classes on urban planning opened my eyes to names and possibilities. Of course, William Morris, Steve Jobs and Jaime Lerner have more in common that one might first even begin to think. But I leave that for a later blog. As I sat with a hideous cup of coffee in the airport the other day(the day He died), I was thinking-why did we (and that meant everybody in my Jesuit school) get pushed to become engineers from childhood when everybody else seems to have done so well with everything else? After all, the collateral damage for this approach has been huge-in town afer town, you will meet a 40-something living off the meagre savings of aged parents or ekeing out a living and that victim of unnatural selection once went to a very good school, was reasonably alright in whatever he wanted to do and must have dreat of something. I know-because I came very, very close to being such a person. I still wake up in the middle of the night or on one of my endless flights and make myself realize how lucky I am and what a close shave it was. I don’t think it is the West, contrary to what Mr Friedman says, which has to worry about math and science. As long as their doors are open to immigration, they will get the right mathematicians and scientists-if not from the East,then definitely from Russia. I fear I sound a bit glib. The bigger issue IS the relentless pursuit of math and science as the ultimate virtues to the exclusion of almost everything else, especially in many parts of Asia. Why do we not have a Steve Jobs? Why is IM Pei a product of the West as is Anish Kapoor? I know the answers are not uni-dimensional. After all, for many years,the domination of ideation processes and business funding has continued in exclusivist pockets of influence and affluence, entirely by-passing the East.It is difficult for many aspiring designers, entrepreneurs and ideas people at large to replicate what a Shawn Fanning or Jack Dorsey has done. And let’s face it, Mr Dorsey is not Steve Jobs. Even so, it is not irrelevant to say that we could do with a more well-rounded side to Asian technology than low cost, sweat shops, clever coders and aggressive sales people. But for that, we need a new burst of creativity. The vaunted art of the East cannot be colonized in galleries, museums and tourism road shows. It has to show up in the next user interface, the next device, the next breakthrough process flow. It cannot happen if we continue to churn the privileged few who are so only because they crunch numbers well. The idle boy/girl at the back of the class, who wastes time reading obscure stuff or doodles on scratch paper-that’s the one we want to look out for. Our differentiators cannot continue to be only cost and speed, though those will continue to be relevant and hopefully formidable. We need to equally good at everything else.

The Man Machine

Kaustuv Ghosh. — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:01:29 +0000

Having read the Kraftwerk interview on The Guardian a few days ago, I felt I had to pen my own piece of wisdom. The Man Machine, of course, stayed it’s course in the musical consciousness of those who grew up in the 80s- like myself. Curiously, it was launched in my infancy and it could have only been the pirated cassette network(Free School Street, Calcutta) which brought it to us so late. However, it was another piece of work-The Model-which became synonymous with the group-and it came from an earlier album. An ironic tribute to the consumerist industry of beauty, it provides a glimpse into desire in a tradition that goes back to Josef Von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel. The Model is a medium inside a medium inside a medium- the stage show, the camera, the magazine, the television, the music and finally the music video-and now, the music video on Youtube. By 1977, Europe and America were slipping into the post 60s intellectual desert . There was a lingering whiff of critique in the air but Duran Duran wasn’t far away with it’s 1980s pap. The atmosphere in the video crawls with foreboding behind the upbeat music-desire is manifested in the phallic camera and the clawlike chandelier hanging over the model’s head. The model is human but also an image-the media is what creates her and the desire for her- without the media and the industry of fashion, she is nothing -she is not there and the music itself has no purpose. The desire to meet her is heart-rendering in it’s futility- the singer knows this creation is always so out of reach. By the 1980s, the winter of discontent had been irrevocably banished and you could listen to “True” and “Relax”. Arthur Penn summed up the despair of creativity with his “Dead of Winter” and films like Red Dawn were coming through. The turn back to intellectual provocation, curiously would come with the Terminator, which despite all else I hail as a great work of critique(admittedly reductionist in it’s approach) but also from SiliconValley(1984, Apple-anyone?). But for a number of years,the Man Machine and The Model would stand at the peak of what continued critique could have brought us in creative excellence. What we did get was La Isla Bonita. Well, you can’t always win.

Cleaning things up or exporting pollution?

Kaustuv Ghosh. — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:24:36 +0000

At Professor Newman’s lecture today, an economics specialist raised the interesting question-would the US export it’s legacy cars to India and China and continue encouraging them to build and buy more cars, while it cleaned up back home? Well, this is not the question verbatim but you get the drift. He further clarified matters by comparing this possibility with the export of cigarettes to the third world-we all know THAT one.

This is my question as well and I am afraid we do not have a satisfactory answer yet. It is incomprehensible that the US would just dump all the cars it has made so far(where? the everglades?) and the chances of lots of Americans buying lots of these even at basement bargain rates would be a bit of a stretch. I am sure they will find a market to dump these and perhaps even continue making more of these guzzlers, “out there”. After all, India just celebrated the creation of the Tata Nano. This brings up the old issue of dominance of discourse. Everyone keeps talking about how Phoenix is recreating itself and Frieberg’s cute tram system and so on. Where I think we need more people like Dr Newman is on the Asia side of the discourse. Where are the integrated transport plans for the 20 largest cities in India, China, Indonesia and Vietnam? Are India and China going to bother about the glaciers, almost all of which are in Tibet? These and many others are inescapable questions and they matter more to the world than (sorry folks) Phoenix, Arizona. The battle for the environment gets the flashbulbs in USA but it will be won or lost in the emerging world. I am writing on this and many other topics in my papers published on http://www.wesrch.com.

Peter Newman, in the flesh

Kaustuv Ghosh. — Tue, 26 May 2009 23:40:41 +0000

Tommorow, I will have the rare opportunity of hearing Peter Newman speak at our School of Design and Environment.Unlike many other academician speakers who carry a bit of a halo, Prof Newman is not widely known in the lay management-a-minute community. That and the venue should keep the pop-management followers at bay.

Prof Newman is one of the most influential urban thinkers of our time and I believe he should rank up there with Anthony Geddes and Lewis Mumford, among others. His concept of automobile dependency may sound quite sane today but less than 10 years ago or even three years ago, people might have thought it to be another ivory-tower abstraction. Yet in his observations of the impact of cars on social life(and not just the oft-cited fossil fuel argument), he has touched the critical aspect of urban human ecology. The study of the environment from a sociological or cross-disciplinary standpoint is often ignored, as has often been the field of communications. Peter Newman, Thorsten Velbein, James Carey-these are the men who point to a more inclusive paradigm of scholarly thought.

From the stormy seas, a clear and present warning

Kaustuv Ghosh. — Tue, 26 May 2009 02:05:24 +0000

Cyclones are not new to Bengal. It’s history is replete with storms of extreme violence, some of which make excellent, if terrifying reading. Ashapurna Devi refers to one such super-cyclone in her short and little-known classic about the Portugese of the Sunderbans, “Bhoot Jodi Bhokto Hoi”(If the Ghost were to be Devout). But we have short memories.

The great escape for Calcutta yesterday does not take away the fact that coastal Bengal has become heavily overpopulated and has a sagging infrastructure. Both the Tsunami and Cyclone Nargis showed us how a single incident in a heavily populated region can have devastating consequences. Nargis especially holds lessons for Bengal-it, too, occured in a heavily populated delta region, the people there were also by and large desperately poor and you have to account for a backdraft up a massive river. The question is not, however, whether Bengal has infrastructure(it does) but whether it has the right kind of infrastructure. It is, perhaps, quite pointless to build a world class refinery and an expressway if you cannot call in an emergency service in real time. An expressway has no meaning , other than of empty symbolism, if it takes away tillable land and cuts villages into half. A refinery that is built by clearing mangroves has makes itself it’s own victim. The salt floods which would have inevitably followed the cyclone would make it amply clear what may be expected if the scale does tip in favour of global warming. We are looking at the possibility of irreversible economic decline, which Keynesian interventions cannot stop. Keynesian economics,after all, was built on the basis of a functioning biosphere-how can you drive a car whose engine has burnt out and for which there are no spares?

It is a sign of our times that even as policymakers condemned other countries for not adhering to the Kyoto principles, they were busy approving a factory to build more and cheaper cars of the type which should never be built. It shows a dichotomy inside the political economy of India-unless the old schism between environmentalism and classical anthropocentric development is not reconciled, development can only take place at the cost of the environment. That is a cruel paradox, for such development cannot climb up the curve-by assaulting it’s own natural assets, it is condemning itself well in advance.

The shop round the corner

Kaustuv Ghosh. — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:11:25 +0000

The last time I was in a bad sort of way, I dreamt of opening a grocery store. The musty smell of dry goods, the slight whiff of sundried chillis, the oily movement of the ..uh…oil through the funnel into the bottle..I could wet-eyed with nostalgia. Still, I am impressed that despite the organisation of retail, the local grocer pretty much holds his own even in Singapore. Of course, it’s much more regimented in way because you don’t have these shops popping up wherever they like. But they are an integral part of the neighbourhood and people like spending time wandering down the goods-laden dim corridor. So when people like myself and others go headlong towards seventh heaven thinking of mobile commerce, it sometimes behoves us to come down to earth.

So here’s the question- will people buy goods using their mobile phone? Yes, they do something like that in parts of Africa already. Why? The prime concern is lack of safety in carrying cash but there’s also the distance of travel and a host of other factors. But will this succeed in Singapore? Frankly, I don’t see people falling over one another in Singapore, KL and Hongkong to use their mobiles to buy cans of coke or petrol or burgers. The fear and inconvenience motivations are not there. But I do see this happening in almost every country’s rural heartland, although more on the wholesale side than the retail side. This will work in the humdrum of institutional trade though it will also work on the consumer side in banking and remittance. Will it work in the cities? Maybe, but I see a 85:15 in favour of small towns and semi-rural areas. Still, you never know. It could be a hit in Patna, Jaipur and Guwahati but not in Bangalore and Bombay where flashing cash is not that big a deal. So that’s the mobile wallet for you-the ATM around the corner for the shop around the corner. Will we start using airtime as a global currency, then? Well, for that, you need to read my thesis.

The Magic of Cooperative Banks

Kaustuv Ghosh. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:31:07 +0000

Sometime back, I sat with one of my colleagues in the industry and over a tumbler of the very strong, gizzard-cooking whisky available, we worked out a plan to pursue cooperative banks. Of course, that never quite happened-I went to university to study policy and my friend went onto another assignment. But the idea has never quite left me.

India, Phillipines and Malaysia are three large Asian economies with big cooperative banking sectors. If you go to Ahmedabad, one of India’s richest cities and where I took my first graduate degree many years ago, the locals bank with cooperatives. So did I.

I was an outsider, a scrappy looking student speaking Hindi in a bad accent that belonged really nowhere, looking for a bank account with a small bit of money. No problem, Jose- line up with a letter from your school.The bank was small and rustic but efficient(as are Gujaratis by nature) and extremely helpful. My chequebook was printed in Gujarati but what the heck- I could navigate it by dead reckoning. These are banks which stay very close to their communities and are flush with cash. They do not bother their customers with saccharine smiles or glossy brochures- but if you walk into your branch, the teller calls you by name and he knows all the banking rules. He will help you. That is a huge relief from the assault on the senses that goes for marketing nowadays.

I have been surprised, therefore, when I see most mbanking companies not lining up to serve this sector. This is a difficult one to crack, no doubt, but if it was easy, we would all be dead anyway(to take a bit of a quote from Keynes). By bypassing large segments of the financial sector which are solvent and have large customer bases, the technology sector is doing harm only to itself. I know this is being taken care of to some extent in the Phillipines where the carriers and others are pushing the envelope all the time. But it would be nice to see the same level of enthusiasm in India, Malaysia and Indonesia. The ability of these banks to use SMS and USSD to extend their reach and sell the mobile wallet concept would be phenomenal. Yes it would be time consuming- but if you want to go about building value, lets look back to the ethos of Hewlett and Packard and take a few pages from their book- high time someone did that.

The Challenge of the Indian market

Kaustuv Ghosh. — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:11:05 +0000

It always was the rupee to dollar exchange rate. Then, it was the revenue per message. Then, it was the bad debts. Then, it was(and still is) the sales cycle. That’s India in a nutshell- a market that excites and tantalises. You can do very well or dig a hole for yourself. But having worked elsewhere in Asia, it is not all that different. The sales cycles are long everywhere and not all countries have a strong exchange rate. The revenue per message-well, I hope they still don’t keep talking about it past midnight. The market size and growth is astounding. But here’s the secret- if you are in for the short haul, don’t bother. Look at the success stories in India-Suzuki, Unilever, Pepsi, Vodafone.You need to invest in the market and you can forget about those quarters for sometime. But from personal experience, I can tell you that hard work and persistence can be rewarded with stunning growth.

All that being said, do not assume the Indian consumers suffer fools gladly. They march to their own, many beats. Their recognition of brand and value is quirky, fuzzy, brilliant. They will bargain till death over a minute of airtime and then blow a lot of money on a strange looking thing no one has heard of. Merchants will rig up some contraption in the middle of nowhere and sell it as the next wonder. The Indian consumer leads a hard life but few give him/her what he/she really wants. Those who bother to find out, get a market of several lifetimes. The rest can find their way out.

That’s India-and therefore, when you hit the market running, make sure it’s not the only one. India with Asia and Asia with India. Never one and not the other.

Market Failures and Ghost Towns

Kaustuv Ghosh. — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:18:09 +0000

Often, the deeds of our own speculative selves come back to haunt us. Enough has been written about neighbourhoods in the US becoming deserted as people lose their mortgages and foreclosures mount. For many years, there has been a debate about the revitalisation of the inner city and the docklands and the brownfields. In places like Canary Wharf, it has actually happened. But then again, what was the basis for that? The cumulative paper wealth of a speculative City?

Obviously, compared to many wretched places on earth, London is a wealthy city and the financial crisis will not change that. But it is my submission that there are two victims of this crisis- one, the renewed inner cities and brownfields and the second, the new suburbs. The latter become ghost towns. But what happens, if say, Canary Wharf really, really collapses? Will the inner city creep back with a vengeance? Will this process of urban renewal be reversed or morph into some kind of blackfield development, a phase of twilight where entire zones are emptied, dominated by gangs and civic services break down? Certainly, across the centuries, economic and political upheaveal has seen the urban (and rural ) landscape reshaped. It would be very short-sighted of us to suggest this may not be the case again, in our lifetime. The other question is- once the recovery comes,how much of business as usual will be restored? Will the real estate industry get back on it’s feet fast, racking in the money of the newly speculative? Or will a generation have been so burnt by this episode that speculation will come back only with the next historical cycle?

Until next time.

The Power of A Peso, A Rupee, A Taka

Kaustuv Ghosh. — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:09:26 +0000

Migrant labour should be the biggest source of microfinance in the world today. Even as microfinance companies seek to mobilise millions into becoming customers, partners and viable businesspeople, the equally large worker population in the Gulf, Southeast Asia and Canada should be allowed to invest directly into business units of their own choice. It is debatable,but if they were to send all their money home, no one could be very sure how much of that would be saved, spent and invested. If a worker sends 1000 Taka home every month, let him have the option of sending 100 more into a safeguarded bank account or financial instrument that invests it in a company of his choice. Let him have the liberty of topping this up with 10 Taka whenever he pleases. This is his own, very own nest egg, rainy day wallet, future dream and fallback plan. Let these masses be co-owners in real businesses and help build sustainability bottom up. Can this be done by the private sector alone? Yes and no. The government should be the watchdog, referee and non-participating captain of this programme. The private sector should run it but the funds should not be allowed to used for speculative purposes-there have to be very ironclad curbs built around these. Can it works? No harm in trying. Better still. Can we open a microfinance scheme in Singapore, Malaysia and other countries where foreigners, PRs and citizens can get together to invest in such local companies? Is this viable or just a windmill to tilt at? Perhaps it would be a good way to generate jobs and businesses in an economic crisis. But first, can we please, please allow people to open mobile wallets and remit money into those countries that do not allow it? Like India? That would be a starting point. I look forward to it.