Living in a Flat World

The world is being flattened in more ways than one. Geographies have no meanings - the work that earlier could happen only from a specific geography can now happen from where ever. India's IT and ITES industry is a prime example and beneficiary of that. Traditional barriers between businesses are being torn down - A computer company in the US is biggest distributor of music! A cell phone company takes that title in India. So, what are the lessons for everyone? Couple actually,

a) Don't take anything for granted. If IT and ITES work came over to this geography following some economic advantages, don't be surprised if it flies off to another, if that other geography offers a compelling proposition. What can one do but wait for the fate accompli? Well a lot, first understand the reasons why this geography attracted this type of work. Understand for how long will those factors play to this geography's advantage. Be aware, flattness will follow. Sooner or later, what worked as an advantage for this geography, won't work for ever! However good thing is if what worked earlier won't work any more, there probably be many other things that will! When you are aware, you are prepared!

b) For survival depend on innovation. It is no longer sufficient to do, what you do, better and faster. Understand what you do! Question the very need of doing it. Ask what besides that. It is about breaking the mould, but not for the heck of it, or just to see how much noise it makes when it breaks!

From organization's perspective, there is one lesson as well - Doing it better and faster gets the incremental growth, the tectonic shifts can't be handled by this philoshopy. Killing of Walkman by iPod is a typical example. Why could Sony not see the digital revolution coming? Did it not have smart people? Well, I think it is not about people, it is about the way organizations are strctured. The organizations puts blinders on the employees. The incentive structure gets setup such that everyone in the organization does well when incremental growth is achieved. No one is incentivised or disincentivised to handle the tectonic shifts. A large ecosystem gets created that lives and breathes the incremental targets. While, milking an established product of incremental revenue is essential, however, to secure the long term future, a separate ecosystem has to be created that thrives on innovation, experiments and crystal ball gazing!

Narrow roads and over sized politician motorcades

Sunday evening, I was driving back to Chandigarh from Delhi. We stopped over at Karnal for dinner. It was getting late. We wanted to get back on road quickly. We gulped down our dinner and jumped back in the car. I was counting on reaching home in an hour and a half.

As the chance would have it, I drove for couple kilometers and up infront of me was a motorcade. It had big cars, SUVs, security jeeps and what gave it away was the trademark ambassadors. They all had bright red light on them. Obviously a politician was being driven. From the registration plates I figured that it must have been a Haryana minister's motorcade. That meant that the motorcade will go till Chandigarh, the capital. The rear end of the motorcade was being brought up by a security jeep. I tried to overtake the motorcade and this jeep blocked my way. The security chap waived frantically, signalling that I must not dare overtake. I was a mere citizen of the country, how could I even think of overtaking Mr politician, who was being driven at 65 km/hour, even though I wanted to drive at permissible 90 km an hour on NH1!

Soon, besides me, there were a bunch of other cars jostling to overtake the motorcade but could not! Now and then a new car would overtake the rest of the ordinary cars only to hit the politician wall and fall back.

I was following an over sized motorcade, that was transporting, as far as I know, a necessary evil, a politician, at a speed what was well below the legal permissible speed on NH1. It reminded me of the situation in our country. Incapable and incompetent people sitting right at the top are acting as bottlenecks. They have put leash on the energy, creativity and potential of an entire nation. These folks are not capable of moving fast and have thus reduced the speed of the entire nation. The situation is worse at the state level.

Anyhow, that was the situation I was caught in. There was no way that I could overtake the motorcade and would have had to drive at the speed of 65 Km/hr or less till my destination. But that was not acceptable. I realized that at Ambala cant, the motorcade will go over the elevated NH and if I break off from the motorcade at that point and drive fast enough on the surface street, such that I join back the NH ahead of the motorcade, then I stood a chance to beat it! My attempt at the Ambala cant flyover was not successful, the surface street was too crowded for me to beat the motorcade, as I tried to get on the NH, I ran into the motorcade. It had beaten me to take the lead again.

I knew there was another flyover coming, this was Ambala city flyover. While the motorcade took the flyover, I took the surface street, the traffic was less. Couple places I had to actually blow my horn like crazy for the vehicles to get out of my way. This flyover was longer than the previous, this allowed me a longer stretch over which I could attempt to overtake the motorcade. At the place where surface street met the NH, I came just ahead of the pilot car. I had finally broken free!

Utilities of Future

I read this article in HBR sometime back. A very intriguing read, especially when their is renewed awareness and acceptance of the fact that for our own species' benefit we need to judiciously use what the nature provides

There is a something wrong with the way utilities business model is structured today. In the current model, the utilities are supposed to encourage people to consume less of what the utilities produce!! How do we expect utilities to innovate such that consumers consume less of their products when it directly impacts the utilities revenue? You understand the dilemma?

The solution may lie in changing the utilities revenue model from charging for service rather than charging for output. e.g. the power company would charge for lumen of light generated vs. watt of power consumed.

In the telecome industry this is already in practice: The service provider charges you for minutes, text messages and video downloads rather than for bits per second, which is the underlyinfg commodity.

In the new model, the utilities would charge you for amount of light, heating, cooling etc. This model brings the utilities revenue model in line with conservation of basic energy while still getting ever increasing revenue from ever increasing need for lighting, heating and cooling etc.

That way, it would be in the interest of the utilities to devise means to deliver these services as efficiently as possible. Consumers on the other hand will also understand how they use these services and be better able to lower their cost.

Foundations

Some time back I picked up the three original trilogy novels in the famous foundation series by Issac Asimov – Foundation, Foundation and the Empire, and Second Foundation. I was impressed and happy. I enjoyed what I read.

Here below is the summary of the three novels. I have liberally picked extracts from various places in the novels. Hope you enjoy it.

The first Galactic empire had lasted tens of thousands of years. It had all the planets of the Galaxy in a centralized rule. Human beings had forgotten if there was any other form of existence. Except, Hari Seldon.

The seat of the power of this first Galactic empire was at Trantor. The whole planet was a big city. It was more under the earth than above it. It was all concrete, metal, high buildings, all connected to each other. It was inhabited by 40 billion people. The entire population was almost all devoted to the administrative necessities of the Empire. The enormity of the scale can he had from the fact that daily, fleets of ships in tens of thousands brought the produce of twenty agricultural worlds to the dinner tables of Trantor. The only place on the Trantor where one could still see bare earth was the Emperor’s palace. Most people spent their entire life never feeling the need to see open skies or bare earth. Such was the life.

The empire that Trantor administered was colossal, stretching across millions and millions of worlds across the entire length and breadth of double spiral that was the Milky way.

It’s fall was colossal, too – and a long one, for it had a long way to go.

It had been falling for centuries before one man became really aware of that fall. That man was Hari Seldon.

Hari seldon was last of the great scientists of the first empire. It was he who brought and perfected the art of psycho-history. Psycho-history was the science of human behavior reduced to mathematical equations.

The individual human being is unpredictable, however the reaction of human mobs, could be treated statistically. The larger the mob, the greater the accuracy that could be achieved. The size of the mob that Seldon worked with was no less than the population of the entire Galaxy, which in his time was numbered in the quintillions.

Seldon saw in the glitter and glaze of first empire the signs of its decay and decline. His equations told him that the empire would fall and that left to itself, the Galaxy would endure thirty thousand years of anarchy, before a unified government would rise again.

It was too late to stop that fall, but Seldon embarked upon the task of plotting the social and economic trends of the time, and the future, to reduce the gap between the complete collapse of the first empire and the rise of the next, to a thousand years instead of thirty thousand.

Seldon, setup two colonies of scientists that he called “Foundations”. Intentionally, he set them up at two ends of the Galaxy. One Foundation was setup in full public view. The existence of the other, the Second Foundation, was shrouded in secrecy.

The First Foundation started with a small community of Encyclopedists lost in the emptiness of the outer periphery of the Galaxy. Their stated objective was to document the scientific inventions, discoveries and advancements of the First Empire, so that the knowledge is not lost with the loss of the empire.

As the empire rotted, the outer regions fell in the hands of independent kings and warlords. The Foundation was threatened by them, by playing one against another, by cleverly playing the basic needs of the people against the expansionist needs of their rulers, Foundation continued to hold on to its sovereignty and also started dominating the surrounding worlds. As the sole possessor of the atomic power among worlds which were loosing their sciences and falling back on coal and oil, they even established an ascendancy. The Foundation became religious center of the neighboring kingdom.

Slowly the Foundation developed a trading economy, as the encyclopedists receded in the background. Their traders dealing in atomic gadgets which not only the Empire in its hay days could have duplicated for compactness, penetrated hundreds of light years thru’ the periphery.

At the end of two hundred years foundation was the most powerful state in the Galaxy except for the remains of the Empire which concentrated in the central third of the Milky way.

It was obvious that the Foundation will have to face the last lunge of the dying Empire before it could go on unobstructed to fulfill its destiny. The empire did strike, but the suspicion, treachery, selfishness, lack of vision and lack of moral, the basis of Seldon’s prediction of the fall of the empire, took care of it and the Empire retreated.

Then the Foundation faced something that even the great Saldon hadn’t predicted, the overwhelming power of a single human being, a Mutant. The creature known as the Mule was born with the ability to mould people’s emotions and to shape their minds. His bitterest opponents were made into his devoted servants. Armies could not, would not fight him. Before him the First Foundation fell and Seldon’s schemes lay partly in ruins.

The Mule knew that the only thing remaining between him and the rule of the entire Galaxy is the Second Foundation. But before he could deal with it, he must find it.

Since Mule was not catered for in the Seldon Plan, and since his continuity on the Galactic scene was endangering the Seldon plan, the Second Foundation had to reveal its existence, worse, it had to use portion of its powers to subdue the Mule. Like Mule, Second Foundationers had perfected the art of mind control. While Mule was born with it, Second Foundationers had learned it.

The Mule was allowed to preside over the territory he had conquered till he died. Shortly after Mule’s death, First Foundation broke away from Mule’s Union of Worlds and gained independence. Seldon’s plan again came back on track, or did it?

With Second foundation revealing itself to counter Mule, First Foundation had learned of them and First Foundationer’s actions got influenced by that knowledge. That in itself could be the death of Seldon’s plan. Remember, Seldon’s plan was based on the spontaneous behavior of a huge number of people, if the same people became aware of the plan or the actors that were directing the plan, their behaviors would no longer be spontaneous and that would mean curtains to everything.

The loss of spontaneity at First Foundation, because of the knowledge of existence of Second Foundation, could have manifested in two ways - One, people would have abandon their purposeful stride and would have started depending on an external agency to help them in their crisis. Second – Knowledge of Second Foundation’s guardianship and control would have aroused is some, not complacency, but hostility. Hostility that would not end till Second Foundation is destroyed. Infact that suited second foundation as well!

Second Foundation had a formidable task of molding the collective consciousness of First Foundationers such that they, on their own will, believe in the destruction of Second Foundation and also in their own strength.

Second Foundation worked on some select First Foundationers, controlled their minds and setup situations such that the First Foundationers were convinced that Second Foundation has been destroyed.

Second Foundation knew that First foundation must carry on with its business as usual, without the overbearing shadow of Second Foundation, such that when the time comes for the establishment of 2^nd Galactic empire, First Foundation can supply the physical infrastructure and Second Foundation can supply the mental infrastructure to rule over it.

The Seldon plan was back on track.

Wines

During my years in the US, I got hooked to an American sitcom, Frasier. There the main character, Frasier Crane, is shown a wine lover. What intrigued me was the number of adjectives he used to attach to some thing like wine. I had been taking wines now and then, but would go with whatever the bartender recommended, since I had had no clue. Then I thought that I should know better.

In this article I have tried to take away some of the mystery that surrounds the wines, for myself!

Simply, it is fermented grape juice.

Wines are either blended or single varietal. Blended wine can either be a blend of different variety of fermented grape juice or it could be blending of different vintages.

Single varietal is a wine made from single grape variety only. Actually, single varietal may contain a small amount of other variety as well. There are different rules in different regions. In Australia, for a wine to be called single varietal, 80% of the wine must come from one variety, in the US it is 75 percent.

Originally most of the New World (Australia, America, Latin America, South Africa, New Zealand) wines were single varietals where as those from the Old World (European wine producing regions) were blends. This difference is however blurring. Now all kind of wine is made at all kind of places. However, amongst the connoisseurs of wine there continues to be a world of difference between blended wines and the single varietals, with the former being associated with purity and intensity while the later being associated with subtlety and delicacy.

Wine ageing

Some wines are ready to drink as soon as they are made and deteriorate with time, if held longer. There are some that are undrinkable when young and are exquisite when allowed to age for a few years or even decades.

What determines if the wine will age well with time or not? A million dollar question, literally. The answer lies in two things – a) the basic ingredients of the grape juice which includes complex combination of the acids, the sugar, pigments, phenols and minerals and tennins. b) The whole process of how wine is matured; in what kind of climatic conditions, in what kind of barrels, how the barrels are stacked, what wood are the barrels made of, for how long does the wine stay in the barrels before it is bottled and so on. Just imaging, how complex it can get if one were to predict the quality of wine a few decades from now by tasting the ingredients in the present!

Over time, as the effect of temperature and oxygen works on the elements of the wine, the character of the wine forms.

Wine begins to age as soon as it reaches the barrel. The barrels are air tight but allow carbon dioxide to escape, which is the byproduct of grape juice fermentation. If the barrels are not properly sealed, instead of grape juice fermenting to become alcohol, it becomes vinegar. The oxygen that the wine needs for fermentation, it gets thru’ the barrel staves. Hence, the importance of the wood that the barrels are made off, the thickness of the staves etc.

One important ingredient that determines whether the wine will age well or not is called tennin. It is found in the skin, seeds and stem of the grapes. Tennin is crucial to the complexity of the wine. High tennin wines tend to age best over a long period of time, such as those made from the grape varieties Cabernet Sauvignon, Nebbiolo and Syrah. Wines also take tannin from the wood of the barrels in which they age. Oak is rich in tennins. Barrels made of oak provide the extra tennin that the wine needs for ageing better. Wines also pick extra phenol from oaks that imparts stronger aroma to the wines. Younger the oak, more phenol the wine can pick and hence more aromatic it becomes.

As it is said, too much of everything is bad. Wine can not age forever. If it is allowed to age for too long, the wine loses its color, aroma and tastes flat. Once the wine has aged in the barrel just enough, the wine is bottled and is allowed to age in the bottle.

Corked bottle ageing is very different from barrel ageing. Though the wine does pick some oxygen from the air thru’ the cork, but mostly the ageing happens thru’ the oxygen that is there in the bottle, which steadily declines as the wine mature. This process is called reductive aging.

Bottle shapes and sizes

Standard size of wine bottle is 750 ml. Other sizes such as half bottles (375 ml), liter bottles are also made. One thing to remember, the larger the bottle, more slowly the wine in the bottle matures, this is because of the fact that the ratio of the oxygen to wine in the bottle becomes unfavorable as the bottle size increases.

Main shape of bottles – Three main types – a) Green with high shoulder b) green brown with sloping shoulders, and c) Port bottles made of back opaque glass, high shoulders and a long, think neck

Green bottles with high shoulders are common for the wines made in Bordeaux region of France. Green brown bottles with sloping shoulder are common for the wines made in Burgundy and the Rhone valley in France.

Wine types

Red, White (dry, semi-sweet and sweet), sparkling and fortified.

Red wines get their color from the color of the grape skin. The grape that is reddish, deep purple or blue, lends its color to the red wine. Red wine is not really the exact red across all wine varieties. The red wine can take any shade of red and maroon that you can think of, with purple and violet thrown in.

The body-type of red can vary from light-bodied to full-bodied. Light-bodied is less dense, feels light on the palate and has less tennins. Example is the wine derived from Gamay grape in the Burgundy region of France. The medium-bodied wine has more tennins examples are Merlot, Shiraz. The full-bodied ones are French Bordeaux wines.

Top red wine varietals are Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, Cabernet Franc, Chianti, Barolo, Barberesco, Sirah, Syrah, Shiraz, Sangiovese, Malbec, Grenache, Bordeaux.

White wines are actually, pale yellow, golden or straw-like in color. Like the way red wines drive there colors from the color of the grape skins, the white wine also drives its color from green, yellow or gold color skin of the grapes. Best white wine varietals are – Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Pinot Gris

Sparkling wines have considerable carbon dioxide in them giving them the fizz. The mechanism of putting carbon dioxide in wine is much more involved then the soda making mechanism. The idea is to have very tiny carbon dioxide bubbles in the wine, so that the fizz does not go away as soon as the wine is poured in the glass. Sparkling wines must contain more than 2.5 atmospheres of Carbon dioxide at the sea level and 20 degree centigrade. The most famous sparkling wine is Champagne, produced in the Champagne region of France. Sparkling wines made in France outside of Champagne region are called Cremant. Sparkling wines of Germany are called Sekt, that of Italy are called Spumante, in Italy its called Asti and that from Spain are called Cava.

Fortified wines are the ones where fermentation of the wine is stopped by adding some additional alcohol. Mostly, the additional alcohol used is brandy. The whole reason for doing this was to preserve the wine over longer period, when no other preservation method existed. Alcohol is added just before the fermentation finishes, leaving some sugar in the wine. Additional alcohol kills the yeast and the residual sugar stays in the wine. Although various other preservation methods now exist but fortified wines continue to be produced as people have developed a taste for them. The most popular being Sherry produced in Spain. Other examples of fortified wines are Port and Maderia from Portugal, Marsala from Italy etc.

Dry and sweet wines

Wines are made thru’ the fermentation process in which the sugar content of grape juice is converted into alcohol. In dry wines the residual sugar left in the wine is less than 0.5%-0.7%. There is no taste of sweetness. A wine may give the aroma of sweetness without being sweet. That is the sign of a great wine. Dry wine goes with food while sweet wines are dessert wines.

Where does it grow?

Wine world is divided in the Old World and the New World. Old world refers to all the wine producing regions that spawn the mainland Europe, covering France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Germany. New world is everything that is not Old World, primarily – Argentina, Australia, America, Latin America, South Africa, New Zealand.

Best region to grow grapes for wines is between 30 degree and 50 degree latitude on either side of the equator.

Largest producers of wine in the world are France, Spain, Italy, the Unites States and Argentina.

Most famous wine regions of the world -

Bordeaux - Bordeaux is an Atlantic port city of France on the South west of France. Total of 700 million bottles are produced annually. Besides the everyday wines, it produces some of the most expensive wines in the world. Red Bordeaux is called claret in the United Kingdom.

Burgundy - Burgundy is a region that spans France and Switzerland border. Burgundy is known for some of the finest Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines in the world. White burgundy is made of Chardonnay grape while the red Burgundy is made of Pinot Noir. Burgundy wines command high price, so much so that some consumers buy wines of this region from purely speculative purpose.

Champagne – Champagne region is in northeaster France and this is home to production of sparkling wines in France. Three grape varieties are used to produce champagne – Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Munier. Champagne goes thru’ fermentation in tanks that form very acidic still wine. There after the wine goes thru’ fermentation in the bottle, where the carbon dioxide is released as a result of fermentation is mixed with the wine itself giving it the sparkling nature.

Sparkling wines are produced in other parts of the world as well, but none of them can call themselves Champagne.

Loire and Rhone river valleys – Loire is the longest river in France, flows east to west and drains in the Atlantic. The Loire valley is famous for white wines. The grape used is Chennin Blanc, towards the coast, and Sauvignon Blanc, upstream. The Rhone river valley, in southeast France is known for Red wines. The two grape varieties that make the most of the wines produced in this region are Syrah and Grenache.

Italy is the second largest producer of wines, accounting for 20% of wine production. Italy is home to many grape veritals including Nebbiolo, Barbera, Sangiovese, Dolcetto, Corvina, Garganega and Trebbiano. The three key wine regions in Italy are Piedmont in the northwest, Veneto in the northeast and central Tuscany. Key varietals are Nebbiolo in Piedmont, Sangiovese in Tuscany and Garganega, Trebbiano and Corvina in Veneto.

Spain is the third largest wine producing nation in the world after France and Italy. Spain has been known for producing best fortified wines. The best of the best fortified that Spain produces is called Sherry. Fortified wines are the ones where fermentation of the wine is stopped by adding some brandy. Other examples of fortified wines are Port and Maderia from Portugal, Marsala from Italy etc.

United states is the fourth largest producer of wine. The main regions in the US are California, Washington state and Oregon. Main grape variety in California being Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Merlot, Pinot noir, Sauvignon blanc, Syrah, Zinfandel. The main grape of Oregon is Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Merlot and Riesling. In Washington the grape varieties are Barbera, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay

Next time you drink wine, spend some time reading the label and remember the taste, fullness and aroma. Experiment, read and remember. But most of all Enjoy!!