Innovate to stay competitive - a speech

Sharing my recent speech on how to use simple thoughts to innovate and stay competitive.

Speech Transcript:

It was the award night ceremony at our company. I was tense and nervous because along with 4 others, I was nominated for the coveted best manager of the year award. Five of us were close colleagues and sat on the same table eagerly waiting for the announcement. Everyone wished good luck to each other wearing their best smiles. Finally, the announcement was made and I was not the winner. The winner lifted the trophy amidst rapturous applause while we, the 4 losers drowned ourselves in copious amount of whisky at a pub. After drinking, all losers suddenly became best friends, we blamed the system and shared with each other how we felt from the bottom of our heart that one of us should have been the winner.

Later, I realized…..on that day we completely missed one point – the winner did things differently, he was an innovator.

Today I will discuss why innovation is no more just a “good to do” thing….but innovation is a must to stay competitive.

Why is innovation so necessary to stay competitive?

Because, more and more people are getting good education, there’s an explosion of free access to information, people are becoming more ambitious resulting in a situation where most of the things are equal among individuals……except the ability to innovate also called divergent thinking.

Now, Let us find out what should we do to innovate…

First let us understand the difference between creativity and innovation. Most of the time we use the words interchangeably but they are different. Creativity is the raw thought or idea that comes without being logical whereas innovation is the implementation of the idea and bringing it to a logical conclusion.

Mankind is designed to think creatively. Researchers believe that an average person gets around 50 to 70000 thoughts per day. I believe there are 3 primary kinds of thoughts – What, Why and How, most of the time we get “what” thoughts – for example…

What are the new concepts?

What is my role?

These thoughts are also triggers for creativity.  

The “why” thoughts are of two types – “bad why” and “good why”. Bad whys are all the negative thoughts…..for example….

“Why my salary is lesser than his?”

“Why should I do so much work?”

“Why my boss is not happy with me?”

But the “good whys” makes you challenge the obvious and helps your mind to explore. For example…

“Why do we always do it manually when this can be automated?”

“Why I am not losing weight even after dieting?”

We also get “How” thoughts – they are rare but these thoughts helps us analyze. We should always try to invoke this thought. For example…

“How can I improve sales?”

“How can I write better?”

“How can I reach my goal?”

You must have noticed that in all the examples I have used the word “I” because thoughts are always your own. For example….If your subordinate is coming late to office, you get a thought “Why is he coming late?” but once you ask the question to your subordinate “why are you late?” then it is no more a thought, it’s an action. We don’t want action during the idea generation stage. Just open the window of your mind and let the ideas come in freely.

Once you have generated enough ideas, you can start testing them to give shape to your innovation.

To sum up - encourage yourself to think, nurture the positive thoughts and stay competitive.

Remember, the sunshine you see was created millions of years ago in the sun’s core, it took millions of years for the sunshine to travel from the core to the surface of the sun and it reaches you in just 8 minutes.

Start preparing yourself and one day you will become the shining star.

Indian science fiction movies - a perspective

Traditionally, the genre of science fiction eluded the Indian film makers depriving the audience of quality sci-fi entertainment. What could be the reason for this? – Are Indian film makers scared of venturing into sci-fi? Is the Indian audience too premature to understand and appreciate quality science fiction? I jumped from one puddle of thought to another and gathered some information which I will share with you.

I was in my school when I first saw Shekhar Kapoor’s Mr. India – I was transfixed and blown out of my bloating imagination.  It is one of the biggest blockbusters in the Indian film industry. I never loved any villain more than Mogambo. The characters became immortal and so did their sharp and short, yet hard hitting dialogues. It was one of the first attempts to make a science fiction and people loved it because of its simplicity and grandeur. Shekhar Kapoor started it but I am disappointed that he never attempted another science fiction. But how Indian science fiction movies evolved from that time?

After an inordinate 20 years, Indian’s got a new science fiction hero – Krrish. The Krrish sequel was again a massive success. Robot (Enthiran) and Ra-One also pulled huge crowd to the theatres. Suddenly after 2006, the box office floodgates were thrown open by sci-fi geeks as Indian audience took a fresh look at the silver screen. With this kind of response, it is very clear that Indians enjoy science fiction, but they were denied the ultimate fantasy because of the myth – Indians don’t understand science fiction. This myth was completely busted by the phenomenal success of Avatar, directed by James Cameron. The movie grossed Rs.142 crores, beating Dabangg’s collections in India.

I think it is not the audience but the film makers who lack the love for science. The Indian movies I mentioned earlier in this article are also far below the international quality as far as inclusion of authentic scientific facts are concerned. According to me science fiction movies can be categorized into 3 broad categories – Physics, Biology and Geology.

Physics include topics such as space, gadget, artificial intelligence captured in films like Gravity and Matrix. Sci-fi movies with Biology as its central theme deals with subjects like extinct species, cloning, medicine – Jurassic Park and Sixth Day are examples of such movies. Geology based science fiction talks about natural calamities, weather change etc. – These are showcased in films like Volcano and Day After Tomorrow.  Now there is a fourth category – fantasy fiction which includes all superhero films like Spiderman, Superman and Harry Porter. Our Indian science fictions belong to the lower end of fantasy fiction because we have still not evolved from superheroes.

It’s time that the Indian film industry evolve to match the intellect of the Indian audience. You don’t have to be a science student to create quality science fiction movies – you just have to love science.  Steven Spielberg and James Cameron are both college dropouts but they love science, read science and then apply their imagination and creativity basis scientific facts. We have seen enough of flying cartoons – give us a break. I request the Indian film fraternity to read science journals and novels to come out with some genuine science fiction and not just petty fantasies. Science fiction helps to create interest and love for science among children and young adults. It broadens our imagination and enhances our understanding about scientific facts. We have started to see efforts being made and I am sure we will get what we want soon.

Innovative Flexi Filling Option for Filling Stations

Whenever I go to the petrol station for filling, I have to wait in long queue and often end up getting late for the work I was out to do. I thought of finding an innovative solution.

While trying to solve the issue of queuing or managing queues better I came across two perspectives – all customers do not have the same volume requirement and the other is that when customers are in a hurry they are willing to fill lesser volume if that helps them get back on the road faster. They plan to fill up the rest when they are not in a hurry.

This triggered the idea of Flexi-Filling. This can be accomplished by:

1. Displaying waiting time at the entrance of the station 
2. A customer in a hurry sees it and decides whether he wants to go for the flexible filling option
3. Create flexible filling options by creating separate lanes for customers with lesser volume requirement 

 How it would work? 

1. Install a display screen at the entrance of the station on which customers driving in can see the number of cars already in queue and the approximate waiting time.
2. This will allow him to decide whether he wants to go for the faster filling options 
3. Create separate lanes for smaller volumes…like… 11 litres to 19 litres…Less than 10 litres etc
4. The dispensing units should not dispense more than the volume specified 
5. Bikers can be directed to these lanes 
6. Cars in a hurry can fill up limited volume for the immediate journey and then fill up the rest later 

Photo credit: Vivek Jena

World's first 3D Pen

Writing and painting had always been 2 dimensional. But things are about to change with 3Doodler around. This amazing innovation doesnt really look like a pen, but can be used like a pen to create 3D writing or drawing. Instead of ink the this Pen uses plastic strands. This innovation melts the plastic strand when the device is switched on, the melted palstic comes out of the other end of the device allowing users to give a third dimension to their imagination. This device can prove very handy for a lot of creative work for various kinds of designers. I think this should also help school teachers who wants to explain 3 dimensional things innovatively.

Completing the Creativity Triangle

To get an innovative solution to a problem we need to have knowledge, skill and ideas which are parts of the creativity triangle.

We gain experience and knowledge from books and our environment. We use the acquired knowledge and exercise our abilities to develop our skills. Only knowledge and skills are not enough to get a creative solution, we need ideas and ideas are powered by “Creative Thinking” without which the entire triangle remains dormant. It is like the electric power without which even the most sophisticated electronic device is nothing more than a piece of trash.

The highly competitive and challenging environment we are in, demands a lot of innovation and constant improvements, so it is absolutely imperative to activate the Creativity Triangle inside us. But, how to activate thinking?

We can follow some basic rules to activate the creativity triangle:

1. Dont ask for solution, search for solution

2. Challenge conventional thinking - always ask "but why?"

3. Do not stop after you have got the first idea. Remember, that you need to keep the Creativity Triangle active, so keep generating lot of ideas. Think of this model as a machine inside you that will perish without thoughts, so generate new ideas everyday to keep this model alive untill thinking becomes a habit.

The Future of Future

We spend inordinate amount of time every day to catch up with the future. We do this by learning things which aligns us with “tomorrow”, synchronising our capabilities with the needs of the “future”. Once we transform into more intelligent species, we push our imagination and the frontiers of science to define a new future. The dynamic future is like the fast expanding universe with millions of thoughts and ideas spewing into its enormity every moment.  So, what is the future of future? Let us look at the past and then it will be easier for you to understand my thoughts about the future of future.

Post the invention of steam engine and the industrial revolution, mankind have never looked back. Then came the age of computers, which surprised our imagination with unthinkable levels of speed, accuracy and automation. Our technological advancements are accelerating at a much higher speed, than it was before the dawn of internet. The speed of information flow has been phenomenal. So, with every major breakthrough, the speed at which we advance have only increased. In other words we are shortening the life of future. Even the smartest mobile phone becomes obsolete within a year. Our grandfather would have dreamt of faster and sophisticated cars to evolve in hundred years but we can imagine piercing through the twilight sky in our flying cars in just a few decades.

Photo Credit: Sam Howzit

I believe there are two elements which are integral to this inexorable march of technology – Imagination and Speed. I am not aware if the speed of imagination can be measured, but in future, humans should be able to imagine at a speed at which the universe is expanding. To reach that speed, humans would have transformed into Transhumans (a much advanced human-like species also referred as “posthuman” supported by gadgets embedded in their bodies).

As the speed of our imagination merges with the galactic speed and as technology catches up with imagination, we might start measuring “future” technological advancements in terms of a weeks or even days.

How to create visually appealing PowerPoint presentations in few minutes

While working with organizations I realized that most people struggle to create visually appealing PowerPoint presentation. There are many reasons for this, mostly it is because of lack of time when other business issues takes priority, out of which, some of them could be critical. Obviously, in such cases, enhancing the quality of presentation takes a back seat, until its just about time to present. A last minute dash on the keyboard to upgrade presentation quality often results in messing up the slides with irrelevant clip arts inconsistently inserted to create a collage of confusion. In some cases poor presentation quality occurs because of the lack of adequate PowerPoint skills and creativity. Let me address these three issues one by one:

Photo credit: Robert Couse-Baker

1. Time - 
I tried to address this issue and created a website (www.pptinspiration.com). The website helps PowerPoint users create high quality presentations with minimum effort and the best part is, its absolutely free. Users can choose from a wide range of business ppt templates and download the relevant ones. These slides/templates are fully editable, so users can easily customize the slide according to their need.

2. PowerPoint Skill - 
This needs some practice but I will share some quick tricks which can make your slides visually appealing:

• Use 3D shapes - There are two ways to use 3D, first option is to choose one of the already available 3D shapes from the menu bar at the top. The second option is to transform any shape into a 3D shape. To do this right click on the shape, go to "3D-Rotation" option and rotate it slightly, then go to "3D-Format" and create a depth. Your 3D image is ready.
• Use gradient - This is one of the least used functions. Right click on the shape. Go to "Fill", then choose "Gradient fill". In "preset colors" you will find a range of gradients, I found the grey and white gradient useful - it gives a metallic look to the 3D shapes.
• Use "Word Art" and "Text Effects" options present on the Menu bar to highlight key words or phrases
• Do not use Clip art unless it is absolutely necessary

3. Creativity - 
Do not think in terms of "words", think in terms of "pictures". For example, if you are trying to showcase your achievements, one way is to put a bar graph crowned with numbers.  The other way is to imagine each bar as a hill you have climbed , now you can create a story around the hills and weave it with strategies you have used to climb each of them. Give a name to each "peak", create a landscape of success and finally create a "WOW"

World's first animated T-Shirts

Morph Costume has introduced amazing range of animated T-Shirts. Its an innovation that combines smart phone apps with great looking fancy t-shits. The world's first smart phone animated t-shirt is designed by a NASA scientist who quits his job to create these awesome Halloween costumes. Have a look...

Is it time to Unlearn

Right from our childhood we start learning – from environment, from parents and then get subsumed into the enormous world of books and the world-wide-web. It shapes our intellect and at the same time crystallizes bits of inhibitions and prejudices to create a contaminated perception of the world.

You might be wondering how “perception” can be contaminated because perception always includes our own views, prejudices and myths. I believe the contamination occurs when one’s original views and thoughts are inundated by external influences to an extent that it loses its uniqueness and unites with what majority thinks. This is exactly where unlearning has to intervene. 

People are scared of being singled out. They always want to acquire conventional wisdom and be a part of main stream which supports and accepts their learning and perception. Unlearning will pull them out of the “known” and force them to think afresh.

Imagine that three people are asked to describe a moving ball with a hole on one side. They have their heads held tightly from both sides. So, they can’t move their head, they can only move their eyes. Out of the three some will see the side of the ball without hole; some will see the side with hole while some might see both the sides. These are all uncontaminated perceptions. Now, given an opportunity to move their heads freely or discuss with each other, they will all have the same perception of the ball.

Photo Credit: Henadz Freshphoto.ru

If you want to stay out of the crowd and make yourself distinctly visible....Unlearn. Initially you might feel insecure and alienated from the rest of the world but it’s worth it. Unlearning can only happen by chopping off the fringe information which claws into your eccentric thinking. This is an internal process of identifying such information, thoughts and myths and then scrapping it off to let your distinct thoughts emerge.

How is Unlearning different from exploration and innovation?

I feel innovation is external, like shifting from a vision through a magnifying glass to a binocular and then a telescope. But Unlearning is internal, more about knowing our own thoughts, pruning our beliefs. It is like a doctor examining a fractured knee from outside, then recommends an x-ray and then a scan. It is like reinventing yourself.

There is a challenge – to Unlearn you have to learn to Unlearn. So, here learning and unlearning happens at the same time. Be careful while learning to unlearn and make sure you keep yourself away from the claws of prejudices which will make your unlearning incomplete.

So, what have you Unlearned today?