2030: A shopping Odyssey

We live in an era of extraordinary opportunities for innovation, creativity and social contribution that seems to have been triggered, much like a primordial life sparking event that changed the face of this earth, by an eclectic mix of ever morphing technology, faster and more powerful data capture & processing abilities and the ubiquitous Internet.

In markets like India this process is getting accelerated, the phenomenal growth of eCommerce in India is coinciding with that of internet explosion and growing flock of young shoppers looking for variety and convenience of shopping. This young population is tech savvy and their motto ‘right here & right now’ seems to nicely fit in the scheme of things. So online shopping is growing by leaps and bounds and the technology is evolving rapidly to keep up with consumer taste & preferences.

With this kind of background it is not hard to crystal gaze into the future and see where the future of online shopping will be around 2030. Consumers will obviously have a plethora of options to shop online through a multitude of devices and platforms to increase the pleasure, speed and ease of shopping. I foresee the following changes in this space;

1. Super Smart phones will arrive on the scene with interactive touch screen interfaces that will provide a 3 Dimensional viewing experience. Enabled with seamless and slick touch pads, they will provide 360 degree navigation and walk through virtual stores

2. Consumer portals will offer advanced analytics with product comparisons, user ratings, offers and other packages that will just pop up on the screen ‘as you go’ on the net. An avalanche of information will be available to the consumer at every click.

3. To enhance the user buying experience, shopping portals, credit rating agencies and finance companies will be come together to offer the discernible consumer with instant buying option without any loan/finance paperwork. Virtually updated credit status of the consumer, on a real time basis will enable these companies to make you offer-by-the minute as you strut the online space.

4. Consumer will have various tools & options to design their own products including new ones altogether, pick and source the right kind of material, and select the finishing vendor to order their products from anywhere around the globe. The consumer will have a virtual control on the entire production and procurement process as a norm and not exception.

5. Specialized accessories like design tools and 3D printers will provide instant gratification to the online consumer. He may like something on the net, say a new product and may download it in a physical form onto his 3D printer after executing the online transaction formalities.

6. Aggregation of consumer data and cloud data warehousing and churning will mean online sellers will have a complete virtual demographic & psychographic profile of the consumer. Online sellers will use this to offer customized user experience based on consumer taste & preferences. So no two customers might get to see the same GuI (user interface) and preferences in any given consumer portal.

7. The all pervasive Internet may morph into a Hypernet and may provide user access to the Products and Markets on Television, ATM machines, hand held devices and ready to access touch screen terminals at offices, clubs, and neighborhood corners.

The future is exciting and the online shopping 2030 odyssey is filled with unlimited possibilities and exciting prospects . Like Artur C Clarke’s journey in his magnum opus 2001: A Space Odyssey, the now familiar story of online shopping will change the way we shop & buy in future. 

Dork: The Rise and Fall (and Rise?) of Robin Einstein Varghese - A Review

What They Actually Teach You in a Consulting Firm could’ve been a more fitting title for Dork, because author Sidin Vadukut takes readers on a laugh-out-loud journey through the chaotic life of freshly-graduated-from-an-Ivy-league-business-school Malayali hero, Robin Varghese. This "consultant in the making" takes his first shaky steps into the world of management consulting, and boy, does he stumble. Vadukut’s sharp wit cuts through every page, making the book an absolute hoot from cover to cover.

At its core, Dork is kind of like a desi take on What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School - only with a hefty serving of absurdity, a dash of slapstick, and a whole lot of ridiculous plot twists. Just think: take the basic consulting principles, add one hilariously clueless protagonist, stir in some laughably outrageous mishaps, and voila! You get Dork: The Incredible Adventures of Robin Einstein Varghese.

So, what exactly does our hero, Robin, learn in "Consulting Land"? Quite a bit, actually…mostly about the absurdity of the industry itself:

1. First up, presentations: Turns out "high-end consulting" means recycling internet slides with a few fancy tweaks.
2. Next, jargon: At consulting firms, layering your speech with impenetrable corporate-speak is practically an art form. If your sentences don’t sound like an AI-generated business generator, are you even consulting?
3. Ethics? Overrated. After all, fleecing clients with a straight face is practically in the job description.
4. Real solutions? Meh. Robin learns quickly that many consultants create more problems than they actually solve.

Robin’s journey through consulting’s "black box" rings uncomfortably true for anyone familiar with the industry, even as it’s wildly entertaining. Along the way, our hero tumbles through bouts of hilariously inebriated escapades, stumbles through projects he doesn’t remotely understand, and slowly grasps that half his firm’s partners know absolutely nothing. The rest? Mostly just expert backstabbers.

Yet, just as Robin’s about to lose it all, he somehow pulls off an improbable transformation: one day, he's a barely competent newbie; the next, he's an unexpected hero and even a media darling. How does this happen? Well, let’s just say it involves plenty of blunders, a good bit of luck, and some solid "fake it till you make it" philosophy.

Dork is much more than an office comedy - it’s a peek into the mind of a cubicle-bound consultant as he navigates (or stumbles through) the absurd culture, petty politics, and sometimes nonsensical practices that come with the job. Vadukut’s debut is a hilarious, insightful, and downright entertaining start to the Dork trilogy, making it a must-read for anyone who's ever felt out of place in a corporate jungle.

The W-L balance

It has been close to 5 years since I walked the other path. And recently I came across two articles one by Whitney Johnson & the other by Sidin Vadukut which echoed some innate voices in the grey hills to this article.

The journey of entrepreneurship is no doubt tricky and challenging. And the reasons that drove me into it was a little bit different from what Whitney had to say.

Coming to her bit first; What drives entrepreneurs? At what age that creative force comes into play? Whitney attempts to answer this. She says that as individuals move into a higher realm of self actualization, what she calls ‘Erikson's Seventh developmental stage’, creativity is a psychological urge into higher gratification and not just something ‘nice to do’.

She goes on to add that this emotional ballast stems from a better quality of life fueled by good well paying jobs secured by medical care which is the reasons why age group of entrepreneurs is shifting into the 40 plus years extending 50 plus years category when people venture out into solo or co creation.

True.

But what about this thing called ‘Work-Life’ balance? How many get prompted by this term to take the plunge?

After 16 years of turning wheels in corporate world, I realized that while the wheels were not only turning slowly much against my expectation, life was essentially happening to me than the other way around.

Soon it realized upon me that the term was inverted. It should have been Life-Work balance.

Work equated at the same level of Life is fundamentally flawed & misplaced. Work is a subset of life, a thing we do to sustain life at a monetary and materialistic level. But in the rat race of today’s existence, many people believe that they are two perfectly different worlds that are always at odds with each other and somehow needs to be balanced.

So a typical world spins around the office, its files, meetings & calls 9-to-7 five days a week and what’s left after that essentially makes up life. Those essential mundane things called shopping, home, Bills, school entertainment etc et al.,

What it all boils down to? Making wish lists and simply burning both ends to tick mark one by one. However the problem is that this list never ends and the deficit catching up much like the Govt’s fiscal deficit always perpetuates.

If you can get over with the list and believe in the following quote by Professor Howard Stevenson of Harvard Business School :

“Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.”

Then take the Plunge.

Because at some point in life, and it may be now, work experience and its acquired skill sets will tip the balance. It gives you that bit of confidence to invert the equation

However as an entrepreneur things can get really nasty. So be prepared to read this every morning

“We have done so much, with so little, for so long, that we can now do anything with nothing.”

And finally after all the sweat & toil, and the rough ride through the rabbit hole it may be time to savor what Whitney Johnson adds as a parting shot

‘The urge to create, to generate a life that counts impels people to innovate, even when it's lonely and scary’.

Bureaucracy Kills

"A bureaucracy is designed to maximize the distance between
a decision-maker and the risks of the decision."
— Nassim Taleb

Hard work has never killed anyone but Bureaucracy surely does. The Englishmen left several legacies at various shores they withdrew, and also terms like the 'Missionary position' which best described what they did to the native lands they occupied. The made for the industrial age system, the Bureaucracy, seems the most potent of it all - thriving to this day in all its glory.

This legacy of the Victorian age; Hierarchy & (outdated) rule conformist system was supposed to run a Govt machinery on the predictable lines of the conveyor belt based, coal steam fired industry at the turn of the 19th Century. 

That this system can fly in the face of common sense & logic has been documented many a times. In India the system is well entrenched & all pervasive. It was surprising to see this system still calling shots in an advanced economy like the United states.

Take this instance of this American whiz kid who gets turned down at a science fair for some dimwitted rule that bars a student from participating in one too many state fairs. No matter even if he has potentially the solution that mankind is looking for the future. In the Mecca of free market forces, the Bureaucracy still has the audacity to contain a potentially revolutionary solution that could transform society, from potential investors.

At a different level & location, I was involved with this Govt dept trying to seek out some information under RTI about its functioning recently.  Though I asked information about one specific division, the typical bureaucracy shot me back  letters from 4 of its sub divisions, each asking me to cough up  money ostensibly as documentation charges for its respective jurisdictions. And when I do that, I realized I had  to run pillar-to-post at each of the 4 subdivision offices for the required information. 

This same information could have been aggregated at the office of the Public information officer (PIO) which accepted my application in the first place.

You gotta hand it over to these people who framed & implemented these rules.