Understanding Pillars of a Knowledge Economy

India has been ranked 100 at Knowledge Economy Index (almost at bottom rung) by World Bank’s benchmark Knowledge Index recently. India is much behind other BRIC countries (BRC rightly): Brazil, Russia & China with ranking 54, 77, and 61 respectively.

China, Brazil & India have gone up in their ranking with an increase of 20, 10, & 5 respectively while Russia has shown a decline of 5 positions from the benchmarking year 1995.

We say that we are living in Knowledge era that simply means that knowledge would be key in creating wealth (Like expansion of Industries to large the scale in Industrial era).So it is important for countries to expand the knowledge factor in order to achieve the good economic growth in global knowledge economy. Putting this thought at the core, WorldBank developed Knowledge management Methodology (KAM) which was designed as an interactive tool for benchmarking a country’s position vis-a-vis others in the global knowledge economy.

There are mainly two knowledge indices developed by World Bank Institute of KAM: Knowledge Economy Index(KEI) &Knowledge Index(KI) .
Before understanding KEI & KI, let us have a look at 4 pillars of Knowledge economy. They are

1) Economic incentive and institutional regime,
2) Education and human resources,
3) The innovation system and
4) ICT


KI is the simple average of the normalized performance scores of a country on the key variables in three Knowledge Economy pillars – Education & human resources, the innovation system and ICT (2, 3, & 4 mentioned above).It measures a countries ability to generate, adopt & diffuse Knowledge.

While KEI is the average of the normalized performance scores of a country or region on all 4 pillars related to the knowledge economy.
Each pillar is further divided in three key variables(See the diagram) . Variables are normalized on a scale of 0 to 10 relative to other countries in the comparison group.

India scores 3.12 & 2.94 at KEI & KI respectively. India, among all 4 pillars, gained the highest position (81) at the innovation system with an increase of 13 positions from year 1995.Check ranking of India on other pillars.

The power of thinking without thinking

In our Life many times, we come to a judgment about people ,places & things ,obviously on the basis of some reasons that we can’t explain at all………………..
Sometimes even the best decisions are those that are impossible to explain to others. And if you try, it may seem like:

!!!!! Well I think “ ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?”* is the reason I went for this..!!!!!

Why? This is so.
........................
{*Think of a short beep you’ll get an idea.}

Blink has explained it beautifully. The very first message I got from the book is same as one gets from parents, teachers & well wishers (not always) when one’s decision taken gets flopped.
“i.e. Haste makes waste.”
But truly speaking got it with two additional words: “does “, “not”.

“Haste does not make waste” can be the times when our snap judgment & first impression can offer a much better means of the making sense of the world.

Malcolm Gladewell in Blink reveals that great decision aren’t those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating but those who have perfected the art of thin-slicing – knowing the very few things that matter.
Here is the one of the great experiments mentioned in the book:
Suppose you are considering me for job. You have my resume & think I have necessary credentials. You want to know whether I am right fit for the job. You have two options

1. Meet me twice a week for one year- have lunch, dinner or go for movie*
2. Drop by my house when I am not there & spend half an hour or so looking around**

Which would you choose?
............................
*I am not goanna pay for any of them
**Don’t dare to choose this one if you are a kleptomaniac

The seemingly first one that is –thick- slicing. More time you spend, the more information, the better off you are right.I hope if you read the book, you would be skeptical of the first one.

Samuel Gosling began an experiment by doing a personality work up on eighty college students. For this he used what is called Big Five Inventory, highly respected, multi- items questionnaire that measures personality across five dimensions. Then Gosling had close friends of those students fill out the same questionnaire. Friends of those students ranked them closely. That’s fine. Close friends know each-other well.
Gosling repeated the process with people who were strangers to the students they were judging. All they saw were their dorm rooms.
Surprisingly the dorm room visitors were more accurate of measuring conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to new experiences. On the balance, the strangers ended up doing much better job.
This suggests that it’s quite possible for people who have never met us and spent 20 minutes thinking about us to come to a better understanding of we are than people who have known us for years. You might find Gosling’s conclusion quite incredible but I see it as a great example of thin-slicing.

Malcolm Gladwell brought together a lot of experiments and theories from the field of neuroscience & psychology in order to support such unconscious decision making phenomena. He also claims that this of decision making can be improved by practice. After reading the book I can suggest you only two things to do that : Please purchase or borrow the book & read it.

The Enterprise of Future: Hungry for Change

The change is only constant thing in today's era.No doubt the degree of change will be much- much higher in future.So need for managing change in enterprise of Future would be more critical.In such a changing environment, one must have ability to change quickily. It would be easier for them who are hungry for change. Same holds true for the organisations!!!!!!!!

Hungry For Change. Wildly imaginative.Disruptive by nature.Totally wierd to the people who matter the most. would be the qualities,organisations will need to thrive in near future,according to IBM third Global CEO survey. The survey consists of some fascinating findings which are based on the conversation with more than 1000 CEOs and public sector leaders.

How will the Enterprise of Future look like?

Enterprise of Future is
.Hungry For change
.Innovative Beyond Customer Imagination
.Globally Integrated
.Disruptive By Nature
.Genuine, Not Just Generous

Do you have any other idea how will it look like? ........

Economic Prosperity Driven By Innovation

The verdict is out for the most innovative companies of 2007. Apple tops the BusinessWeek-Boston Consulting Group’s list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for the third year in a row. Google is on second place like the previous year.While Toyota (from 4th last year) has gone up to 3rd position.
Apple’ results for second quarter ended March 29,2008 shows a 43 percent growth in revenue on a year-over-year basis. The Company posted revenue of $7.51 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.05 billion, or $1.16 per diluted share. Internet search giant (Google) also defies the economy and shows a profit higher than what the analysts expected.
Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt gave all credit to the ongoing innovation in search, ads and apps , which helped in healthy growth globally across different product lines. "We are obviously very pleased with another strong quarter for Google,” Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said during a conference call with Wall Street analysts. “It is clear to us that we are well positioned for 2008 and beyond, regardless of the business environment that we find ourselves surrounded by."
As Michal Porter says “ Innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity”
I’ll say that the big innogiants (innovative giants) have proved this even in situation of economic slowdown or recession.

Going to doctor for cure, think twice if your doctor’s hand-writing needs cure first

There is a popular joke about doctors is that their hand-writing can only be understand by their spouse or a chemist. If the chemist find it difficult to decipher medicines listed on a prescription, who’ll bear the joke. Will you ? Surely not.

According to a report by Institute of medicine (IOM) in July 2006, medication errors affect more than 1.5 million Americans each year in hospitals alone. Nearly 7000 deaths attributed to medication errors, including prescribing or giving wrong drugs. Here we’re talking about US where drugs are only dispensed by pharmacists, if converted in Indian figures, I am sure count could go much higher.
Some drugs can get substituted for each-other because their names are read/sound similar. Some of them are:

• Arkamine (for blood pressure) and Artamine (for rheumatoid arthritis)
• Isoprine (an intravenous given to increase blood pressure) and Isoptine
• Digene (antacid) and Digoxin (for congestive heart failure
• Fludac (for depression) and Flunac (for anti-fungal)
• Magna (for respiratory tract infection) and Magfa(for depression and anxiety)
• Anxit (for anxiety) and Axhit (for malaria)

Errors can happen due to wrongly spelt names , decimal errors, writing style and abbreviations (hoping list doesn’t go on length). In 2006, in Olympia (US) ,a law had banned doctors from writing prescription in cursive hand- writing. Wheresoever there is no such law, there is a need to take Precautions .

A matter of thinking twice……………

The Questions Every Entrepreneur Must Answer

Most newly launched business ventures never get off the ground because entrepreneurs often neglect to clarify their strategy. To chart a successful course for your new venture, start by articulating your goals for the enterprise. Do you want the rush that rapid growth delivers? Capital gains from selling a successful company? Define the kind of enterprise required to achieve your goals. For example, if you want to sell the business eventually, you’ll need to build a sustainable organization that can renew itself through changing generations of technology, employees, and customers. And you’ll need a company big enough to support an infrastructure that won’t require your daily intervention.

How Your Management Team Can Have A Good Fight

Think "conflict" is a dirty word for top-management teams? It's actuallyvaluable for team members to spar (figuratively, of course!). Handledconstructively, conflict helps teams make high-stakes decisions underuncertainty and move quickly despite intense pressure.
But the key to managing conflict is preventing it from taking a personal turn.Tactics for doing this include multiplying the alternatives under discussion. Asyour team weighs a decision, consider four or five options simultaneously --even some you don't support. This diffuses conflict by preventing teams frompolarizing around just two possibilities. For example, executives at onestruggling company brainstormed alternative solutions that included entering anew market
and even selling the company.