"What's right isn't always popular and vice versa"

This is a story about decision making. The story goes like this.

"A group of children was playing near two railway tracks,one still in use and the other disused. Only one child played on the disused track, the rest on the operational track. The train came, and you are just beside the track interchange. You can make the train change its course to the disused track and save most of the kids. However, that would also mean the lone child playing by the disused track would be killed . Will you let the train go on its way or switch its tracks?Many of us might choose to divert the course of the train, and sacrifice only one child. They might think the same way, I guess because to save most of the children at the expense of only one child was rational decision most people would make, morally and emotionally.But, have you ever thought that the child choosing to play on the disused track had in fact made the right decision to play at a safe place? Nevertheless, he had to be sacrificed because of hisignorant friends who chose to play where the danger was.

This kind of dilemma happens around us everyday. In the office, community, in politics and especially in a democratic society, the minority (here the word does not mean the contemporary political word-minority) is often sacrificed for the interest of the majority, no matter how foolish or ignorant the majority are, and how farsighted and knowledgeable the minority are. The child who chose not to play with the rest on the operational track was sidelined. And in the case he was sacrificed, no one would shed a tear for him. The friend who forwarded me the story said he would not try to change the course of the train because he believed that the kids playing on the operational track should have known very well that track was still in use,and that they should have run away if they heard the train's sirens. If the train was diverted, that lone child would definitely die because he never thought the train could come over to that track! Moreover, that track was not in use probably because it was not safe. If the train was diverted to the track, we could put the lives of all passengers on board at stake! And in your attempt to save a few kids by sacrificing one child, you might end up sacrificing hundreds of people to save these few kids. While we are all aware that life is full of tough decisions that need to be made, we may not realize that hasty decisions may not always be the right one.

"Remember that what's right isn't always popular... and what's popular isn't always right."Everybody makes mistakes; that's why they put erasers on pencils."

My Thoughts:

After going the above case, i found that this is what my professor was trying to teach us in the strategic management class. He always asked us to challenge the most popular ways of doing business which are prevelant. Some of his statements were in the following lines:

1. Corporations with huge advertising budgets : This is one of the foremost belief he challenged before us. The class was also very much adamant to believe that such a poular belief could be really challeneged. But as he gave some illustrations of much cheaper and powerful alternatives to advertise, some of us could realize the fact that this is indeed true (still some are adamant).

2. Another statement which struck me very hard was about the cellular services in India. In the beginning of the launch of cellualr services the call rates were around Rs 16 per call . This he stated were primarily because the services were started keeping in view the customers in the city and not the rural customers. If the cellular services would have been started keeping in mind the rural customers then the costs would not have been so high as the whole focus would have shifted to reduce the costs of the service so that the rural customers could afford it. I can now relate the above mentioned story with this as all the cellualr companies and even the government of India, behaved like the man who would take the train on to the track with a single by on it, the track with the single boy can be related to the city customers which are much less when compared to the rural customers(30:70).

3. The careers that many of the people choose also follows the popular belief kind of syndrome, where everyone takes a career path as that is the most popular one. At this instant i remember a famous Inidan dancer(sorry i do not remember her name) who had no formal schooling and had only home schooling. May be the career she has chosen did not require her to go through the popular way of schooling but she made the right decision, but how many of us would do?

The way decision making is influenced can be summarised in this statement" The cartesian partision has been embedded in the minds of people for three decades after Descartes and it will take some time for another attitude to replace." Werner Heisenberg.(the words may not be exact )

"God Gifted-- Standard Path To Success???"

Iam writing this blog after attending a lecture of Strategic Management in my college. In the class we were having a discussion revolving around some key words as "secure career", "standard path to success". I would like to put forward here some of the key highlights of our discussion :
1. What is the standard path to success: if you are good at maths in your 5th standard then you are destined to be a engineer. if you are not good at maths then you are destined to be a doctor or an accountant. so these were the standard paths to success for any individual. Though here there is a big disconnect as to if you are good at maths in your 5th standard can you be a good engineer in your future or not?
2.Contrary to this path to success, here we have a new way to look at career paths where people are pursuing the things which they are interested in doing, which they are passionate about and still making tonnes of money out of what they are doing. Examples for this can be Mark Zorro on the net, Sachin Tendulkar in cricket and many others.At this instance my professor metnioned the name of 'Ankit Fadia', the whiz kid who has risen to popularity in this world by doing what he likes the most.Then suddenly one of my friend stopped him and said " But Sir, they are all God Gifted people". Here again we can see the disconnect as to how manly people still think as to successful people are extraordinary people and who cannot be matched, by ordinary souls like us.
3. At this instant i remebered what my father always used to say whenever i went to my father with my report card after my examination. I used to get 3rd or fourth rank in my class (though i do not believe in the process of ranking) and my father used to ask me "what is so great about the guy who has topped the class? Is he born twice? does he have two eyes tow ears? you have also been given all the facilites as he gets in his home? So where is the difference?"
4. The answer lies in " hardwork". The so called Godgifted poeple tinker with different things , work hard towards achieving what they have set out to achieve and are passionate about it.
5. The other thing that has come out in the discussion is there is nothing like a secure career now in the world. The moment you are secure in your job, your growth will get stagnated. The point was highlited with the illustrations of the companies which have been wiped out the moment they have felt secure about there market position.
Finally the conculsion is in this world with the help of technology and hardwork there are lots of opportunities for every individual to take advantage of. so everyone has to wake up and try to make his mark.

hey back after a break

Hello everyone,

Its been four days since my last post and i have been a bit lazy to do it. I spent my weekend reading a book, spending time with my friends and also watched a movie. The book iam reading at present is "A Goodhard Kick On The Ass" by Rob Adams. It is a guide for entrepreneurs on how to go about validating their market and then getting the finding they need. Then I watched a movie called Page 3 , which was a nice movie.

As of now i have to go , i will be back again as early as possible.

HEADLINE NEWS: the major news for today for me was the killing of Paritala Ravi, a powerful politician in Andhra Pradesh. There is lot of tension in the state and the tension might continue for few more days, as he was one of the strongman of Rayalaseema.

Thoughts of the day

Today i woke up late at 10 in the morning and off to college. Right since yesterday after my strategy class in the college i have been thinking about it. Professor of strategy, has given us an assignment to the class to think five words about each of us, which when written in a search engine, like google, would get us on the top of the list of results. This was very easy for us at the beginning, but once we started thinking about the words in terms of how the search engine searches them on the net, it was difficult. Getting my name on the top ten results of a search engine would require me first to understand how a search engine works and then have to develop the required content for it. So since yesterday i have been working on this front. I have studied the google technology(though it was too complicated for me to read) and the started devleoping content for it. The various steps i have taken in devloping the content are

1. Develop my own website. I have started my own website by registering with tripod.com. Iam still working on content of the site. I would post the link of this website after i finish building the site.

2. I have started this blog of mine.

3. I already have my ryze account and you can reach me on ryze by following this link http://www.ryze.com/go/ivnravikanth

Doing all these things i could experience that it is very easy for anyone to have his presence on the web and its completely free. This fact has been stated by my professor in the class many times. I have to still experience the power of such a medium.

BOOK REVIEW

yesterday night i have completed reading the book "Speed is life" by Bob Davis, founder of Lycos(now Terra Lycos). It was a good read for me as i could get many insights about doing business on the net. Some of his concepts are as true for the traditional businesses as they are true for the online businesses. He has brought about one interesting aspect about the online businesses taking over the traditional businesses to sustain in the long run. In this regard he had quoted the example of the merger between AOL and Time Warner, AOL a online giant and Time Warner a traditional media giant.

Reading this book a lot of questions have cropped up in my mind for which i have to find answers. May be i will able to come up with the answers in the coming days.

so this is all for today , i have to lot to blog, but got to go now.

cya.

A New Beginning

Hey Guys,

I have finally decided to enter the blog world, by creating a blog. The idea of a blog has been introduced to me by one of my professors in the college, and it would not be wrong to say that iam starting this as an experiment to resolve multiple issues which are as follows:

1. First and foremost , i want to test how the world of blogging is empowering every individual in its own right.

2. Second i want to explore the power of internet, as a network of people.

3. Third i want to study the affect of technology on the day to day lives of people by giving them access to varied applications (like blogging, mobiles etc).

4. Last but not the least i want to use this medium to improve my skills of interacting with different people, expressing my thoughts , and to experiment a few things first hand.

So with these novel ideas i end my first post on the blog.