Maze or Amaze?

In the history of times, when something amazing happens, many people do not realise it. After it has happened, there is no need to justify the amazement.

Something similar is happening in our times and you either get caught in the Maze, be Amazed or make the best of it.

1. More of the global wealth creation is happening in Services, intangibles, intellectual property and Data , rather than hard assets like land, gold, oil etc.
2. Consequently economies are powered by services with lesser contributions from manufacturing, agriculture.
3. Amassment and accumulation for future proofing is also in the above areas and not the traditional asset classes. ( Alibaba and Tencent buying everything in Digital, $500Mn AI venture fund, 50% of US market cap in the hands of digital firms…. , Dead dinosaurs like Blackberry, Motorola, Nokia living on IP royalties…)
4. Resetting and reskilling every few years becoming the norm, thanks to the Gig economy. Job categories disappearing every day.
5. Digital is touching every sphere of life from flipping elections, citizens deciding on how to spend the tax money, overthrowing governments, uprooting old business models and industries..
6. Typical barriers to start a business crashed already. You must have heard of 1 or 2 person companies, outsourcing everything to Amazon cloud, specialist firms and starting a business from an idea over a weekend.

While sceptics doubt anything will touch them, the revolution is taking place. Hopefully you don't miss it and only realise it after the fact!

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( this post has no title, and it's not by mistake)

When are we most peaceful and happiest?

There are 4  States of consciousness. The first one is the conscious state. The second one is the dreamy state. The third one is the subconscious state. The fourth one beyond all three is the happiest.

We are in this state every night when we go in to deep sleep. There are no thoughts,the mind is not active and there's nothing to distract.

This is the happiest and the most peaceful state. We all know it ,yet we try to avoid it all the time.

Be it our need to be recognised ,to be part of a group ,to be continuously in touch,to be continuously busy ....

Technology and more importantly the businesses are trying to help us do all the above, not for our sake but for their commercial needs.

While it's easy to blame the technology to keep us forever busy, it is our innate need to be a social animal that makes us embrace these technologies with gusto.

What is forgotten or ignored is to be at peace with nothing and nobody. That's really the deep sleep state in which we are the happiest.

The more desperation with which we try to be in the first three states ,the more restless and unhappy we become.

Our natural state is the fourth state. You are at once more peaceful and blissful when you tried to be in the fourth state than the others.

That is not a technology issue but your own choice.

The 'Unseen'

In the great Indian epic of Mahabharata, the great archer   Arjuna is asked by his teacher on what he sees. Unlike his peers who see a number of things such as trees, objects, people, sky etc, Arjuna replies that he sees only the eye of the bird. Arjuna then shoots the bird to kill with one arrow.

Cut to the world of innovation. When everyone sees noise,chaos, lots and lots of things, if you are able to see far into the future on how your idea will change the world, the impact it can potentially make and the consequential success it can make, its the first step to make the kill.

When everyone is finding reasons why the idea won't work, why its not a 'good'idea by conventional wisdom, how its not the way 'things are done by us', nothing matters more than the clarity of thought. Are you able to see through the mess/clutter/chaos to a better world? Are you able to mute the noise, ignore the distractions, think 10 steps ahead ?

How did Jeff Bezos see the world of single click purchase when people were afraid to use credit cards online? How did Muhammad Yunus see the group thinking benefits of micro finance when people only thought of individual lending? How did the Blockchain founder ('X') see disintermediation when everyone saw databases? How did Travis Kalanick see ride hailing when everyone saw maps?

Popular opinions serve the common denominator not the disruptions that change the world. People are comfortable with 'Status Quo' as its less risky and more predictable. The clarity of vision and thought and the ability to see the 'unseen' before everyone else is worth going against the tide!

Data is Money, Or.....?

 One of the reasons for high valuations of Google, Facebook etc is the sheer volume of data they hold which they can monetise. It is the reason Google assistant is able to answer you better than Alexa or Siri. The sheer volume of data it learns from.

Very soon, many players will have data. In the traditional world, there are many organisations which sit on mountains of data already. Then how is it they are unable to encash?

Before you think this note is a veiled pitch on analytics, it is not.

Let’s take an example. Spotify,itunes,Google music and many others have the same catalogues or content. Apple and Google have tons more money than Spotify. Then how is Spotify able to retain a large market share? What gives?

From the user behaviour, it has figured the right way to enhance playlists so it knows exactly how to delight you with a song based on what you just heard ,or heard before. This is why people are hooked to Spotify that it is able to 'know' exactly what they like and is playing the 'right' thing.

Apple and Google with the same catalogue of content haven’t figured this ,yet.

Bottomline is the value is not just in content( which will soon become a common denominator among quite a few), but in the connections to those pieces of content that could be the differentiator to hook the user.

You need not own the data, if you have the magic sauce of making the 'right' connections that bring value to the user!