Girish's Blog

The NY Times had an article on new habits and the benefits of getting out of the rut: ....brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks. Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives. And the New Yorker had a piece on generating big ideas , featuring the new venture of the former Microsoft CTO, Nathan Myhrvold and his innovation factory - Intellectual Ventures. Ideas weren’t precious. They were everywhere, which suggested that maybe the extraordinary process that we thought was necessary for invention—genius, obsession, serendipity, epiphany—wasn’t necessar...

Gandhian Engineering is the term that's cropping up all over Cyberspace after the launch of Tata's radically innovative car: the Nano. Clayton Christensen's company blog refers to it and India's version of the Wall Street Journal, Livemint , says Gandhian engineering is "combining irreverence for conventional ways of thinking with a frugality born of developing-world scarcity". The car has no seatbelts, no airbags, no radio, The dashboard has only a speedometer, fuel gauge and oil light There are no reclining seats, no power steering or power windows. The car is assembled by the dealer and not by Tata, reducing transportation costs significantly and helping Tata build an ecosystem of suppliers and partners. The Nano claims to deliver 50 mpg - comparable to the Toyota Prius which is priced at ten times the Nano. As Andy Grove puts it, this is a ten-times force acting that will cause a strategic inflection point both for Indian automobile manufacturers as wel...

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on a low-tech innovation that has helped improve the standard of living for some of the poorest people in India. In this impoverished tribal belt in southern Tamil Nadu state, catching rats has been a primary job for members of Chinnapayan's Irula tribe - an impoverished community of 3 million people at the bottom rung of the Hindu caste hierarchy who have often found themselves teetering on the brink of starvation. But the introduction of innovative rat traps has remarkably reversed the Irulas' plight. By curbing the amount of rodents that have long menaced Indian farmers, the tribe has seen its income triple in the past three years, while bringing them new respect. The Irulas, who were once jeered by many locals as "rodent assassins," are now being touted as saviors by many farmers. Low-tech innovation probably makes as much a difference as a high-tech innovation considering the larger population in developing countries who are ...