Book Review #101: Crooked Minds - Creating an Innovative Society By Kiran Karnik

Title: Crooked Minds – Creating an Innovative Society

Author: Kiran Karnik

Publishers: Rupa Publications India

Genre: Innovation Ideas/Society and Social Science

Pages: 220 (Hardbound)

Source: Advanced review copy from Publishers

What it takes to being innovative or inventive? What are the roles that an individual, society, organizations, governments, cities, states and countries play in building those sustainable models? What are the pros and cons of doing the same? What are the parameters that one should and must consider while innovating? How those markets can be capitalized? These are some of the questions that any entrepreneur will face in their lifetime while they’re trying to establish a new venture of their own.

This is a book that speaks about those challenges of setting up an innovative culture in any aspects and in any scale. Be it an individual contributor or a team, each one of them can gain a good insight from this book on how to take a step ahead. Innovation is something that requires out of the box thinking in each and everything that a person or an organization does. But, what are the pitfalls or lessons that one needs to incorporate in dealing with such aspirations? This book specifically deals with that ideas where the entrepreneurs can get a new perspective altogether.

The book has various sections covering wide range of topics which deals with the innovation. Author Kiran Karnik, a man of many credentials, has crafted a well researched and thought off book that could create an interest among individuals who can take up the role of entrepreneurs. The author emphasizes the fact that exploiting and capitalizing the Indian innovation market (popularly called as “Jugaad” market) and tap into those areas which is not yet been given full research and importance. He has given numerous examples of companies from Indian and international arena. 

One such example is the organization called “Zip Dial” a venture setup by a foreigner in Bangalore which purely exploited the Indian invention of “Missed Call” concept and started out a huge organization based on this very comical idea. Zip Dial has assigned a specific number to their clients where customers can give missed calls to it and immediately the customer would receive the required information regarding that product or services at no cost. This is purely a win-win situation for both customer and the company. This was proven a game changer for the company Zip Dial, and they went on to add nearly 500 clients as their customers in few years of starting it up. Zip Dial was acquired by Twitter recently.

Further reading into the book, we will also get to read stories of the startups, now big companies like Uber, Netflix, and Airbnb. These companies have had their basic idea of exploiting the untapped markets and created a niche out of it. Now, Uber has definitely changed the concept of how the customer will book a taxi service and how Airbnb has asked the users to become hosts for strangers in their country by sharing their accommodation for a nominal fees setup by the customer themselves.

The book also covers some of the important aspects regarding the logistics considerations while setting up the new company. From the Indian perspective, author has carefully probed and analyzed the major metro cities and the advantages and disadvantages that it provides to support a new venture. He has eloquently explained about cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi/NCR, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Kolkata and so on. He also emphasized the 2^nd tier cities like Ahmadabad, Cochin, Surat, Pune, etc…

Author also expressed his concern regarding the government policies that are available in promoting the innovation and startup cultures in the country. Also, he has suggested the new entrepreneurs to reach out to specific government bodies to avail the facilities and funding for their startups. This includes from various fields and not only IT sector.

The author has made some good amount of research on the standings of India on a global startup scale. India’s ranking in the yearly patent filing category. How India is faring low compared to USA and China in filing and procuring the patent rights for their unique designs and concepts. He has explained the importance of obtaining the patents to inculcate the habits of safeguarding the intellectual property rights of an individual and organizations.

The book also stresses about the need of the high quality university requirements for our country. How a globally recognized institutes would result in fostering a startup culture and why India is basically lacking these kind of infrastructure. For sure, India is struggling with old syllabus in our technical universities and is not keeping up with the pace of the changing world. The book has a clear explanation of the importance of higher; advanced technical education. This is the need of the hour if we want our younger generation to compete with others globally to make a mark in the startup initiatives and making them a success.

Overall a must read book for all those aspiring entrepreneurs. This will give you a fair idea of how competitive this world has become in terms of setting up new ventures. I would definitely recommend the readers to buy this book.

My Rating:

5/5

Note: This book was given to me by the Publishers in exchange for an unbiased review.

Book Review #100: Chanakya in Daily Life By Radhakrishnan Pillai

Title: Chanakya in Daily Life

Author: Radhakrishnan Pillai

Publishers: Rupa Publications India

Genre: Life Lessons/Motivational/Non-Fiction

Pages: 272 (Paperback)

Source: Advanced Review Copy from Publishers

Life is all about doing the right things in the right way. As the old adage puts it out “Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it into a fruit salad”. There is a clear idea of what to learn and what not to learn from vast amount of sources. But, what if you find everything in a book that is combined as a one stop solution for all those life lessons? The book “Chanakya in Daily Life” by Radhakrishnan Pillai would fill that gap. This book is all about differentiating between what is right and how to tread that path.

The blurb at the back cover of the book says “Life is unpredictable and full of challenges. One wrong step and everything can come crashing down. In such a scenario, one often wishes for a roadmap of life, but how is that possible?”

This book is a clear roadmap for all your doubts and worries ranging from personal, professional and family life. Taking example of an Indian guru, Chanakya and his ever popular work Arthashastra, author has come up with a book that can be read every day and for lifetime too. The book is broadly and rightly classified in to three different sections. The first part deals with the individual life and lesson that can be learnt and adopted in one’s personal life. The second part of the book deals with the professional life that teaches what one must do in their professional life. The third and final part of the book teaches the importance of a family life. Each part holds its importance and is equally connected to the other two. One cannot have a sounding personal life, but lacking professional or family life satisfaction. It is interdependent on each other and this book explains the best way of handling all these things diligently and in a profound way.

In the first part of the book, the author discusses the personal life of an individual. The ideas ranges from waking up at a certain time every day, daily ritual, exercise for the body and the mind, relaxation, developing tastes in music, inculcating the habit of reading, having a hobby that could become a profession one day, sleep duration, breaking and planning the day into productive hours, imparting the knowledge of astrology and up to what extent one can believe in  astrology, practicing meditation, food habits, financial goals, creative hobby, finding a guru, having a personal philosophy, etc.. Each chapter holds a valid point and a direction in which one can master these habits. Each chapter is explained by keeping a reference of Chanakya’s Arthashastra.

In the second part of the book, author discusses the professional aspects of an individual. This part mainly focuses on how one should behave and adopt a disciplined professional life. Author has discussed topics ranging from going to the workplace, pondering over the day to day task, preparing for the day in advance, developing the interpersonal skills, handling the team member and co-workers that has different mindset and thinking capacity than yourself, training people, daily documentation of work, developing the contacts in a working place, how to give a recognition for your sub-ordinate, what one must follow while appointing a manager, what one should do in case of work related travel and how one can adopt these leisure hours to productivity, how to plan for daily, weekly, monthly and yearly review meetings, and finally how one should plan for their retirement in advance. These lessons for sure are relevant even today. As per Chanakya’s reference in Arthashastra, each and individual lesson explained in this chapter would make a king wise and assertive in the long run. So does a common man when he adapts a tiny bit from these sections in to his personal life.

The final part of the book deals with the family life and its importance for an individual and how it is connected to the personal and professional life. The author discusses various facets of one’s family life and how Chanakya has prophesied in this Arthashastra regarding a King’s family life and how it is still relevant in present world scenario. This chapter begins with the duties of the householder and what best one can offer to his family at his abilities. What is the purpose of marriage and how one should treat his spouse, what are the advantages and disadvantages of sex that can impact a family life of a person, how one should take care of his family and provide basic necessities for his dependents.  How to educate their children, what is the best way to bring up their children, the power of family prayer. What are the lessons one can learn for being a good parent, why imparting the concept of charity to children should be encouraged, and how to give personal individual space for each family members. This part ends on a chapter of how to feel gratitude for whatever things we have obtained in this life from their family.

Overall, this book is not a regular one time read it and forget it affair. This book can be read again and again. You can start in any chapter and it still makes profound sense. A book that can be considered as a package of life lessons in all three important aspects of a human life. I would encourage readers to buy this book. This is definitely a collectible stuff.

Few famous Chanakya’s quote that are used in this book:

-       Education is the best friend. An educated person is respected everywhere. Education beats the beauty and the youth.

-       There is some self interest in every friendship. There is no friendship without self interest. This is bitter truth.

-       As soon as the fear approaches, attack and destroy it.

-       Once you start working on something, don’t be afraid of failure and don’t abandon it. People who work sincerely are the happiest.

-       Learn from the mistake of others, you can’t live long enough to make them all by yourselves.

My Rating:

5/5

Note: This book was given to me by the Publishers in exchange for an unbiased review.

Book Review #99: Taking Wings And Winning By K.V. Subramaniam

Title: Taking Wings and Winning

Author: K.V. Subramaniam

Publishers: Rupa Publications India

Genre: Startup Stories/Management/Non-Fiction

Pages: 230 (Hardbound)

Source: Advance Review copy from Publishers

In today’s competitive world, setting up a new company is a tedious and challenging task. There are many parameters, aspects, ideas, processes exists that one should follow diligently in order to succeed. The unflinching determination and an innovative idea should be the focus of any startups. What this book might offer is not a regular mumbo-jumbo of how your startup should be setup or what are the guidelines should be followed. Rather, it is the story of a company that has been setup with a zero experience in the particular field and yet, the company has passed all the hurdles and established a name in the business arena.

This is the story of a company called “Reliance Life Sciences” authored by its very own President K.V. Subramaniam. The author was the person who took the responsibilities of setting up this company from ground zero. Given his background, he was more of a management expert, expertised in energy and utilities sector and little or no knowledge about Biotechnology or any clinical research medical industry. But still, with an enormous support from the Reliance group head and chairman, Mukhesh Ambani, this company took its birth as a novice in the industry and today it is one of the top contenders in the field of Biotechnology, Stem cell research and other medical based products.

The book gives us a clear and a detailed explanation of how this company has been conceptualized at the first place. Author has described his inspiration of taking the responsibility of setting up this company with his own personal traumas in his family in his younger years. The need of advanced medical equipments, medicines and other related products are the need of the hour in a country like India as per the author’s assessment. So, he started off with the basic plan of understanding the industry in the first place.

As we read through the book, we get to read a lot of initial planning that has been put to set up this company. What was the management decisions made, how the team has been recruited, how the real estate has been procured, how the plant came into existence, what was their action plans on the crisis management, how they managed their finances, what are all the pitfalls they had to face, how they overcome the resources issues, how they strived for the top notch quality in their products and finally how did they sustained in the race, is all well documented and an inspiration to read from the book.

Having the backing of a huge organization like Reliance doesn’t necessarily proves that a new company can be managed without any bottlenecks. Each company has its share of pains and pleasures. So does the Reliance Life Sciences. In terms of working as a team, they had to endure lot of adverse situations from the likes of industry experts who are hell bent on working in a specific way and would not budge to the rules and regulations of a new company. This is true in terms of any startup. Once we recruit people that claim they are experts in some of the core areas, we cannot ask them to tow the line, but it doesn’t mean that, they are allowed to work on their own accord. This is precisely what happened with Reliance Life Sciences too. Especially when it comes to research experts or scientists, they work like they have all the time in the world. So, how did they manage to make people to work for them?  How their people management system was was effectively put in place? These are the grey areas that a startup is more concerned, and this book provides a clean and simple explanation on how to manage that kind of egoist personalities.

There are also a few examples of money laundering cases in Reliance Life Sciences where they had to take drastic measures on top officials in order to stay clean and work with utmost morals and ethics. This is one area where a startup should focus on disbursing their funding. If too much of money spent on the extravaganza of few people, then the company is bound to answer their investor for the amount of money they are spending.

Overall, I guess this book is a step by step guide to establishing a new company and how to make it a success. It has great lessons on people management, finance management, property management, quality control, human resource, administration, logistics, procurement, contracts, micro managing, etc... I would definitely encourage readers to buy this book and read. It will surely give you a fresh perspective on the task that you’re ready to take up.

My Rating:

5/5

Note: This book was given to me by the Publishers in exchange for an unbiased review.