Know thy readers

Just added a Guestbook to my blog. The blogger audience tracker tells me that my blog has reached people in more than 20 countries. So I thought I should try to find out more about my readers - how you landed onto my blog, which posts did you like/dislike and which of my blog's labels interest you the most. Do drop a note! 

Since BC

The quote 'Love begets love' comes from Virgil, a Roman poet (70-19 before Christ). That line is over 2,000 years old and has lost none of its power. Hugh expressed it with this cartoon that he drew in 2004 (just before FB). He added that it's funny how LOVE makes one feel hyper-connected, like a node on a circuit board, and how isolated one feels without it.

I don't know whether Hugh tried to depict a family tree or our social structure using the graph. What I found striking though is that, a simple graph, with heart-shaped nodes, could fully capture the idea behind the 2,000 year old line. Another interesting link to it is that all social networking websites internally use graphs as the data structure to represent relationships among people. Well, what begets what?

Marking time

Well, the strip for sure is a thought on marking time i.e. waiting in readiness for the right or opportune moment to start a new phase or set on an adventure. 

Sorry about the freakish inclusion of the death bit. I got a little carried away experimenting with the drag-n-drop comics at pixton.com! If you have wanted to create your own comic strips but are as artistically challenged as I am, do give it a shot! If you like it, do post links to your comics  in  the comments below. Would love to go check them out.

Counting change

So after you have become the change you want to see in the world, after you have gotten things moving and after you have begun your "impact", till when do you continue what you started? How do you know if doing something differently can create more "impact"? Where do you improvise and course-correct?

That can be tricky. Establishing a sound model for measuring change might not be the simplest task but delving straight into execution without one in place is only an effort well-wasted. The key to making an effort count for is to make its results countable. It holds true for almost anything that you might want to change. They now have scale-o-meters even for fairness creams and whitening toothpastes!

Here's my 2-step guide to making your own change-counting model,

• Make a metric system – Define numeric parameters that will indicate progress or not. For instance, a tutor uses the reading speed of the kids in her classroom as a parameter to measure her impact. A good metric system gives the advantage of setting quantifiable goals – when has ‘must reach X number in Y time’ not helped?

• Don’t forget a peer comparator – Always make room for measuring how peers are faring w.r.t. the parameters in the metric system. States of more, less and equal impact are all useful indicators. For instance, if a kid in a tutor’s classroom has the same improvement in reading speed as any other kid of the same age, then where’s the impact? 

Shake 'n' Go

Mechanically powered devices are a godsend in times of distress. I realized it recently when a crank flashlight guided me through an 8-hour power cut, till long after my cell phone battery had died on me. Every time the device discharges, all you need to do is crank it and with some physics inside, its battery charges up right back. I also came across wrist watches designed to get charged from the wearer's arm movement.  I wondered how brilliant would it be to have a cell phone that I could just crank and recharge! No need to carry a charger, no more disrupted conversation, no more 'Oops! a dead battery in the middle-of-nowhere.' Extra topping: when on vibrating alert, the cell phone will recover some energy from its own movement. Quite neat I thought to myself. But as usual, I was not the first one to think of it. The Internet returned a gazillion results for 'mechanically powered cell phones'. Check out some sleek solutions here. My favorite amongst these is the iYo charger.

And it doesn't stop here. They are also building talk powered cell phones - yes, these would recharge as you speak into them. Waiting to get my hands on one of those!

Towards better design..

Let's talk about focusing on the design of a solution. The Russians nailed it when they used pencils in space - my first lesson in focusing on the solution instead of the problem. However, in designing solutions to problems, a third option tends to add to the confusion - the problem, the solution and the 'cleanup'. In the context of Russian space research,

- Not being able to record data in zero-gravity space is analogous to the problem.

- The pencil is analogous to the solution.

- NASA trying to invent techniques to somehow make sense out of bad data recorded with an earthy pen!

Well that in all its absurdity is analogous to the cleanup and it tends to creep into most designs. The cleanup solution, as usual, has its attractive instant gratification but neither does it solve the actual problem of 'not being able to record data' nor does it stop the bad data from coming in. The mess persists forever!

In a community initiative, if an NGO invests more on tending to its subjects (say poor/abused/sick) than on reducing the possibility of more subjects being generated, then it has fallen into the cleanup trap of solution designing. Time to realign its focus!

Two good questions to ask for validating a design D: 

• 
  
  Does D help me get what I want (space research data/welfare of subjects)?
• 
  
  Will D take me closer to ending what I am trying to fight (bad data/poverty/crime)?

Success if both affirmative!

The power of the band

Silicone wristbands, more popularly known as the awareness bracelets have become a way to express loyalty to a cause or belongingness to a community. My personal favorites are Lance Armstrong's LiveStrong bands and these.

One day over lunch, one thing led to another and a new band idea was born. We all mortals, at some point in time are on the usual diet control regimen imposed on us by self/doctor. So at any given place, the number of people on a diet is mostly huge enough to form a local support system and in moments of temptation and weakness, all diet-ers could use a little push or some may even do better with the feeling of being watched over.

A lot is possible with 'I am on a diet' bands! Imagine the Subway guy at the office cafeteria regulating the mayo on your sub taking a hint from your wrist band. Or picture an onlooker giving you a kind look to back you fight the chocolate bar at the supermarket. I know fellow foodies understand what I am trying to say.

I thought I should establish our IPR on this idea ASAP. In all its humour, due credit also goes to my friends Dhruv and Suhas.