Sree Nilakanta: My Interests

India is finally getting free market!!

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 14:53:29 GMT

Sign that India is really, finally, getting to understand free market economy is seen in the current Railway budget. The new budget has taken the unprecedented action of reducing fares for AC first class (18%) and AC two-tier (10%). It makes the railways compete with low fare airlines. It is more remarkable in that the Railway minister hails fromthe socialist party and is well known for his anti-business leanings. With the Railways beginning to enjoy competition (yes free market competition can be fun), perhaps the country is headed in the right direction! Now, if only performance incentives can be offered to the operating staff so that the trains run on time and pressure is put on the maintenace divisions to improve track integrity.

Another news to rejoice is the rise of agribusiness education. IIM-A has taken a step forward in this along with several other agricultural universities. Once free market principles get imbibed by the agricultural sector (farmers have always been entrepreneurial), especially the government bodies that regulate, we are likely to see a boom in this area. The current, pathetic transportation and processing infrastructure available for moving, storing, and processing agricultural production has impeded any progress this sector can make. Farmers can not get the prices for their products because they need to rely on the traders in their markets (mundies) and because of the inadequacies of the infrastructure they can not peddle their wares anywhere elese. In the current environment only the traders benefit from any advances in information technology (availability and dissemination of information through internet and wireless technologies). Build the infrastructure and we will see the country take off!

Alliant Energy de-energizes its customers.

Tue, 02 Nov 2004 16:06:33 GMT

Alliant Energy recently sent their customers a letter inviting them to enroll in their new ePay, an electronic bill payment system. While that invitation is no big deal today, it also reveals the company's ignorance of customer value. Many Alliant customers who already had an on-line access to their bills were told that their on-line accounts are no longer valid and they too must re-enroll. Why? Because Alliant is moving to a new and improved system! System migration or system integration is an internal process. Customers, who are outside of the process should not have to change their tasks because the firm decided to make internal process changes! Alliant should transfer existing on line accounts to the new system and make the trransfer appear transparent to the customer. Any elementary process management class would teach that. Unfortunately, customers of Alliant are locked in. They can not go to a competitor.

Mon, 11 Oct 2004 17:55:25 GMT

A MacGyver for the Third World. An MIT inventor bent on public service creates practical solutions to life-threatening problems around the world. Her approach: be a master of the obvious. Second in a series profiling this year's MacArthur 'genius award' winners. By Kari Lynn Dean. [Wired News]

Einstein remarked that imagination is more important than knowledge. This story supports it very well.

Mon, 11 Oct 2004 17:50:12 GMT

India Emerges as Innovation Hub. Indian labs churn out technologies to help users in developing countries keep up with the information age even if they can't afford a computer, don't live near a phone or speak a language that can't be typed on a standard keyboard. By Manu Joseph. [Wired News]

India in western eyes, especially the so called media elites, is a confusing array of colors and smells and nothing more. Its intellect, resolve, and skills have been suppressed for centuries first by colonial powers and later by greedy, illiterate politicians, and a morbid socialist policy. Free market pholosophies thrusted on Indians by the economic crisis have released a flood gate of innovative and entrpreneurial initiatives. The world will be better for it!

Mon, 11 Oct 2004 04:18:45 GMT

Finally, real people have a chance to see and ask questions of the President. Never in the history of United States has a sitting President disregarded the tenets of democracy as the current one. It is UNPATRIOTIC that not only his party representatives and the secret service deny tax paying public access to the rallies, rallies that are supported by tax dollars, but threaten and haul any dissenters to jail! It is unpatriotic for the media then to cover these rallies and give any voice to anything said at these partisan events. Finally, when the debates happened, we are able to see why the republicans had to do what they have been doing. Their man has no substance. The Emperor has no clothes!

If there is one thing that helped me make my choice, it was the last question, the lady asked, namely, what three mistakes did you make. I was very disappointed in the answer, or lack thereof. It reflected a classic display of denial, something that I have seen too many times by lot of people in power.

I had been reluctant to supprt Senator Kerry until he explained his stance on the Patriot act and Outsourcing. He is also showing courage to stand upto the negative slander.

The claim of compassionate conservatism is hollow. During the last four years that prmoise was never delivered. I am very disappointed in the President. I have accordingly decided how I will vote!

social network

Sat, 13 Mar 2004 17:41:54 GMT

A nation of polarized readers.

An article in today's New York Times features this Amazon-derived network map by social network analyst Valdis Krebs. It's another fascinating illustration of an idea that Krebs mentioned when I interviewed him for the O'Reilly Network in mid-2002:

Given good pictures of social networks, what will we use them for? Valdis Krebs has lots of practical ideas. For example, consider Amazon's related-book feature. If you follow these links a few steps out, says Krebs, clusters emerge, and sometimes those clusters represent disjoint interests connected only through one book. He offers Thomas Petzinger's The New Pioneers as an example. It connected two different groups -- one reading books on business and strategy, the other reading books on complexity science and chaos theory. Now there are a number of books that broker that connection, but Petzinger's was one of the first popular books to do so, according to Krebs.

The general principle at work here, Krebs says, was articulated in Ron Burt's Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition. It states that networks with "holes" -- that is, unbrokered connections -- present the most opportunity. A successful actor is one with ties to many points in the network who can uniquely fill one or more of those holes. To that end, Krebs -- who is writing a book on his experiences with social networks and business organizations -- plans to mine Amazon, map out the communities of interest relevant to his themes, and tune his presentation to optimally broker among them. [WebServices.XML.com: Seeing and Tuning Social Networks]

In today's Times story, Krebs identifies Bush at War and Sleeping with the Devil as the current political books that are being read by conservatives and liberals alike. Will publishers begin to apply this strategy consciously, as Krebs suggests might be possible? Filling the "structural holes" in networks, and creating large audiences from sets of smaller ones, is a fascinating idea -- though I'm sure it's easier said than done.

Valdis Krebs will also appear in InfoWorld's March 29 issue, by the way. For a feature on social software, I spoke with him and his business partner Gerry Falkowski about their use of social network analysis inside large enterprises such as IBM.

[Jon's Radio]

Wed, 03 Mar 2004 20:00:38 GMT

Hands Off! That Fact Is Mine. Congress is considering a bill that would allow companies to copyright databases and other sets of information. Critics say the bill would circumvent the core of copyright law, which says no one can own a fact. By Kim Zetter. [Wired News]

This is another example of clueless politicians crafting legislation at the behest of vested (commercial) interests. Your elected representative is supposed to look out for you. But they are not. They sway to the money waved at them! If I compile a contact list of my friends and relatives then I am in violation because the information is already in a telephone directory or a company directory or whatever. Capitalism and free market do not mean one has to give up individual rights and freedom. That is no freedom at all!

Sun, 29 Feb 2004 17:55:10 GMT

Fighting for Right Not to Show ID. Next month, the Supreme Court will consider whether people have the right to not show identification to the police. At stake, advocates say, is whether our society will have to 'show papers' in daily life. By Ryan Singel. [Wired News]

I am glad that the Supreme Court is willing to consider this issue. In a similar vein, another Federal court is reviewing airline ID case. Readers should also see the text of the interview with Dinh in Wired News. Mr. Dinh was the architect of the Patriot Act. He believes there is nothing wrong with the act and that anyone who takes issue with it are ignorant of the facts. He invites people to engage in democratic acts to challenge it if people feel strongly about it. Curious is it not? Recently in Des Moines, the Federal government issued subpoena to people who attended a peace rally and conference. They issued gag orders on the Drake University and its employees. Local and federal undercover and uniformed officers were assigned to these rallies. Mr. Dinh is right -- there are no violations! He says congress discussed the Patriot act for six weeks. Well, may be you ought to ask your representative if they can recall any part of that discussion. Of course, you should also ask presidential candidates kerry and Edward too.

Wed, 04 Feb 2004 17:05:22 GMT

DARPA Funds Internet Tracking Scheme [Slashdot]

Gibson's neuromancer gives a fictional account of the real life that this story seems to replay! Here is a quote from the book...

"Case was the hottest computer cowboy cruising the information superhighway--jacking his consciousness into cyberspace, soaring through tactile lattices of data and logic, rustling encoded secrets for anyone with the money to buy his skills. Then he double-crossed the wrong people, who caught up with him in a big way--and burned the talent out of his brain, micron by micron. Banished from cyberspace, trapped in the meat of his physical body, Case courted death in the high-tech underworld. Until a shadowy conspiracy offered him a second chance--and a cure--for a price.... "

Ontology

Fri, 23 Jan 2004 16:36:33 GMT

Judging the likely success of an ontology. http://www.virtualtravelog.net/entries/000057.html [xBlog: The visual thinking weblog | XPLANE]

For beginning readers on Ontology this is a good start.

Thu, 13 Feb 2003 04:18:03 GMT

Anti-terrorism draft could expand spying [InfoWorld: Top News]