H1N1: The story of overreaction

The day since H1N1 has entered Indian shores, it is been the top news/breaking news on almost all the channels. Within 3 days of it claiming the first victim, all the schools in Pune and Mumbai were closed or decided to be closed. The multiplexes were closed. People were seen walking on the streets with masks. There has been numerous views on whether we should have closed the schools or closed the multiplexes etc etc. I thought to put my two penny views as well:

a) In the initial stages of the outbreak , the information dissemination is very low. People are not aware of the precautions to be taken. Schools are one of the places where kids interact and there was every chance that it could have spread pretty fast without the lack of proper knowledge. As of now, even though there is an overflow of info, most of the parents are aware of the precautions and problems, will be careful and hence the chances of it spreading uncontrolled (at least in schools) are very low.

b) We always fear the unknown and this was an unknown virus. That's the reason there was so much of panic the moment deaths were reported. Of course media played its role in over reporting but I am sure it forced everybody to be more careful. You will see that in coming days the deaths will reduce dramatically even though the number of people affected will keep on rising.

c) Entry of private sector hospitals into treating H1N1 was very important as we all know government health care infrastructure is not sufficient. Initial few days were really difficult owing to very few test and treatment centres.India is a populous country and we need many hospitals and many touch points to handle patients of suspected flu. The over reaction has helped government promptly asking Pvt Hospitals to be ready for this. This is an extremely good sign.

So even though every body over reacted (Government, Hospitals, People) but in the melee, things are looking much better now. We are in better condition to fight H1N1.

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Handling H1N1: Corporate Dilemma

With the rapid spread of H1N1 Flu in India, it will be a challenge for Corporates to keep a balance between continuing serving customers and keeping workforce healthy. What is the best way to handle it? In India, there are no guidelines issued by the Federal government and hence every institution is taking a call in their own way. Should the government issue a guideline? That is not so simple, experience of handling H1N1 outside India has been a mixed bag. Every country handled it in a different manner. Probably Delhi Chief Minister chose the most politically correct response- It is upto individual institution (in this case schools) to decide. All such public places were closed in Pune couple of days back while it is closed in Mumbai from tomorrow. Whether these decisions are right, only time will tell.

So what if your company operates out of Pune, which is the epicenter of the flu? You have to make sure that your workforce does not get impacted at all. We took this call yesterday night and from today, We have allowed our employees to work from Home so that we can serve our customers without interruption and also prevent people from getting affected. The second important aspect is the access to latest info on the disease as the Government is taking a lot of steps on daily basis. We have decided to send mails to everyone on latest advisory and updates every day. DO let me know if something else can also be done?


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Global NIT meet in Dec 2009

Fellow NITians,

NIT has produced talented engineers who are spread across the world.It is high time that we get together and channelize our combined strength to nation building as well as giving more prominence to NIT brand. We need to be together at one forum. We have started our effort to do so in Mumbai. Please come and join us at Facebook group:

Facebook Global NIT Forum

Cheers
Abhishek

Good Primer for Sales Professionals

James T. Healy has written a four-part series titled Selling in Non-objective Environment. It is definitely worth a read.

Abhishek

The Stanford Prison Experiment

I stumbled upon an interesting study conducted by Stanford University. This study was conducted in 1971 summer, quite a long while back and Standford had neatly shared the details on its website http://www.prisonexp.org/. The experiment had to be called off because of blurring of difference appearing between experiment and reality and first comment on morality by a PHD scholar. One of the interesting discussion points was:

In the encounter sessions, all the prisoners were happy the experiment was over, but most of the guards were upset that the study was terminated prematurely. Why do you think the guards reacted this way?

Abhishek

Startup Marketing

Dharmesh shah of OnStartups has written an informative article on marketing strategy for startups. It is a good read as it mentions some smart ways of marketing without spending money. You can read it here.

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What Happened to BJP?

The results of 2009 national elections must have been shocking for BJP. Nobody imagined such a bad performance by BJP. Starting from minuscule numbers in 1984, it went on to rule the country for 5 years and 13 days under Atal Bihar Vajpayee. It looked promising and many thought Indian democracy has matured with the rise of the second party at the national level. Five years of BJP rule were good for India and were expected to return to power sans the “India Shining” campaign in 2004. What happened to BJP?
My first memories of BJP as a party are of Mr. Vajpayee's masterful speeches where I used to go with my Dad. He was witty and used simple language. Later I used to read about many prominent personalities joining the party. It created a lot of promise riding on the image of Mr. Vajpayee. Congress at that point of time was suffering from lethargy. Its leaders looked tired, uninterested in India or too aristocratic. Slowly it started to loose its ground. Emergence of regional parties in northern India also contributed to congress’s fall. Finally it culminated in Congress losing a lot of ground and BJP coming to power.
But once BJP lost in the 2004 elections, it is on a downward swing. What happened to it? In my view, the reasons are as follows:
1) Most importantly, I feel, BJP never prepared the second rung of leaders. Arun Jaitley, Pramod Mahajan, Sushma Swaraj etc were visible in media and were articulate but were never mass leaders. They were seen on television and appreciated by intellectuals but India lives in villages and these leaders never connected with the real voters.
2) BJP always tried to use the Hindutva as its main plank. But in a country, though driven by emotions, people don’t remember an emotion for long. It can work once but will not work always. That is where BJP lost the plot. Even in 2009 elections, it tried to rely on that, which proved to be counter-productive. This could have worked, had it been wisely mixed with economic issues and rural development.
3) Rahul Gandhi was the third most important reason. He is a Gandhi scion and India always had a fascination for Gandhi family. He is smart and understood the voters psyche pretty well. The emotional attachment can only be leveraged by connecting with masses. He did precisely that in UP and other places.
This is my two cents on BJP's defeat in 2009 elections. I still feel, it is one of the most organized and important pillars of our democracy and its strength will provide stability and supremacy to the largest democracy of the World.

Cheers