12 Bestseller Book Recommendations For The Year 2018

Here is a summary of my experience of reading all these books in the year 2017. I highly recommend you to start your new year 2018 with these bestsellers...

12 Bestseller Book Recommendations For The Year 2018

The Concise 48 Laws Of Power (The Robert Greene Collection)

The concise version is a very good read if you are traveling on a flight or a train/ bus. The 48 laws of power is very helpful to understand various scenarios in which one can become comfortable with Power. Specifically the Judgement, Image and Authority mentioned in each chapter is very accurate.

Ziglar on Selling

This is a very practical guide for those who want to make a career in sales. To me, it was very helpful because even in the IT industry I have to perform some pre-sales activity and then eventually some sales activity as well. Zig Ziglar’s book provides lot of valuable information on how to master the art of selling in the fast paced selling world.

The Google Story

I didn’t knew that the real power of Google is not just its search engine but it is the power of sophisticated computers and patented custom designed programs that run on thousands of machines inside the Googleplex, the company’s space-age Silicon Valley Campus. This is one story that everyone needs to know. Highly recommended.

Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time

Brain Tracy makes it very simple. Get the biggest hurdle out of your way first. Twenty one great ways for us to get more things done in less time. A very good and fast read indeed.

How to Win Friends and Influence People

I always run short of adjectives when it comes to praising this book. This is mother of all books on communication and interpersonal skills. With over 32 million copies sold worldwide, the clear and concise actionable advice provided in this book is definitely worth millions of dollars.

13 Steps to Bloody Good Marks

If you have children in school then this is what you need to read. It provides practical advice on how to approach learning, how to deal with exams and how to get good marks. It is a very fast read too.

13 Steps to Bloody Good Wealth

One more smart book from Ashwin Sanghi and Sunil Dalal. You can use it as a supplement to Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich dad Poor Dad for some practical advice on how to create and manage wealth.

13 Steps to Bloody Good Luck

My personal favorite from the 13 Steps series by Ashwin Sanghi. For those who believe in making their own luck, this book provides step by step guidance on how to create favorable circumstances and how to attract and catch more opportunities.

The Art of Public Speaking

Authoring a book on speaking is not easy. This books explains in detail about how and what a speaker should do to improve in public speaking. The language of this book is not that simple and you may find it tough if you are a beginner in English language or reading books in English. Note, the advice given in this book is useful only if you are ready to implement in real life, just reading it without any action will not be helpful at all.

What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful!

Highly recommended for those who want to improve their behavior continuously. Practical examples of how certain habits stop us from getting better; what we can do to identify those habits and how to implement improvements in our day to day routine.

The Secret

Different people have different opinions on this book. I personally found the message very clear and very effective. To me it occurred that the structure of the book could have been better, it somehow didn’t quite end up being a seamless reading experience. Nonetheless, the law of attraction is something which has stayed in my mind ever since, of course I am of the opinion that a thought without action is not going to give any results.

The Intelligent Investor

Honestly I haven’t finished reading it completely yet because it is very thorough and detailed. It has over 600 pages. Also one needs to have basic understanding of financial concepts before one starts to read this book. I searched for some videos on YouTube to understand the summary of this book which made my reading easier. It is said that Warren Buffet followed the advice given by Benjamin Graham in this book. Warren considers Benjamin Graham as his mentor. So yes, this is the definitive book on value investing.

How 43 Dislikes Earned Me $24.24 Of Passive Income On YouTube?

I posted my first and probably my worst YouTube video on 14th Feb 2016 that is on Valentine's Day last year. It had nothing to do with Valentine's Day.

Here is that video...

As of today, 3/25/2017, this video has over 38,689 views, that is, some 65,468 minutes of watch time, 98 Likes and 23 Dislikes resulting in $13.69 of revenue. If you do the math you would know that it took around 2800 views to earn $1. So if this video gets 2800 per day then it can generate $1 per day, that is, around Rs. 65 per day, equivalent to Rs. 1950/- per month. Wow, that is a good amount considering that it has 23 dislikes and rightly so because I consider it as my worst video till date. 

Now, let us just imagine if I have 10 such videos. The revenue generated would be 10 times, that is $10 per day or $300 per month. In India it would be Rs. 19,500/- per month. This is a great amount of money.

But the fact of the matter is that my video didn't get 38K views at the rate of 2800 views per day. The rate was a lot slower, it was somewhere around 100 views per day. So the math done above is valid but the rate at which the revenue is generated depends a lot on the rate at which the video is being watched. Of course search engine optimization and promotion on social media makes a lot of difference.

One more fact is that not every video that we prepare may get even 100 views per day, some of the videos don't get any views at all and some may just get 10 or 15 or 100 views in their entire lifetime. Such videos don't generate any revenue. 

So what should be done? 

Simple solution is to prepare 10x videos, that is, prepare 10 times more videos than what you think you need to achieve around 3000 views per day. Rough calculation goes like this, 1 video gets 100 views per day then you need 30 videos to get 3000 views per day. But in order to create those 30 successful videos you may need to actually create 10 times more videos, that is, total 300 videos. Wohoooooo, creating 300 videos is a lot of work. Isn't it? Indeed, it is a lot of work but remember it is just one time effort, if you are able to do it once then the same video gets you continuous revenue for your lifetime. This is a great example of passive income generation.

Before I leave, here are some of my successful videos along with some statistics of how they have performed.

Coconut Shell Toy, created at home, best out of waste: 38179 views, 44709 minutes watch time, 103 Likes and 12 Dislikes. $6.95 and counting.

Eggless Condensed Milk Cake Recipe, 5170 views, 11293 minutes of watch time 19 Likes and 4 Dislikes. $2.20 and counting.

I hope by now you have realized that it is NOT just the number of view counts that generates the revenue, what also matters is the watch time or the number of minutes your video has been watched. The geographical region from where it is being watched also matters a lot. So if in my example I had to get roughly 2800 views to earn $1 then it may not be true for others, some people make the same amount in comparatively lesser number of views and few others may even take a lot more than 2800. The data shared above is just my example for your reference purpose, there is no guarantee that it would work for you in the same exact way that it worked for me.

This directly relates to the quality of the content in the video. If your content is good there is no looking back.

Oh but wait, I didn't tell you yet how the revenue is generated? It is pretty simple, you generate the revenue by signing up for the Google Adsense Program. Through this program you allow Google to show advertisements on your YouTube videos and in return Google pays you a certain share of the revenue gathered from the advertisers. Google has an eligibility criteria and specific guidelines for registering publishers on its Adsense program. You may want to visit Google Adsense website to learn more. 

There are many more ways to generate revenue by creating video content. One such example is  Lorecart - LEARN EVERYTHING ONLINE, this platform provides you the ability to upload your own videos and sell them online.

To summarize, it doesn't matter whether you are a chef or a mechanic or a teacher or a home maker or a beautician or a techie or a management professional. Opportunity is equal for all of us. If you are ready to put that little extra effort then you can make the most of Video sharing technology and The Internet sitting at your home.

I hope you find this helpful, if you have any queries, feel free to post a comment and I shall respond with details.

Your Decision To Pick A Chair In A Meeting Speaks A Lot About Your Character And Self Image

At a public gathering...Do you take a seat at the back because you are scared that the speaker may ask you questions? or is it because sitting at back is helpful in quiting the meeting if required? Consider this scenario...

Your boss forwarded a meeting invite to you. Meeting is with the CXOs or senior leadership team. Your boss explains the agenda to you and informs you that you may have to present or talk about one or two key supporting points. On the day of the meeting when you enter the meeting room you see a center table with few chairs at the table and then you see another set of chairs kept adjacent to the wall. Few chairs on the center table are already occupied and few are vacant, you look around the room to see if your boss is around? He isn't. As people start to step in the room you get under pressure to pick a seat. What would you do? Where would you sit? Will you pick a seat at the center table or will you play safe and pick a chair adjacent to the wall?
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Your decision to pick a chair in the above scenario tells a lot about your character and your self image. It reveals a lot about your behavior and the way you deal with tricky situations. More than anything else it tells whether you believe in being a spectator or whether you really push yourself to be a participant each and every time you attend a gathering of people (meetings, seminars, town-halls, workshops etc.).

Here are few more scenarios...

1. Your manager calls for a team meeting. You enter the room and see that most of the seats are vacant. Where do you sit? Do you occupy the seats in the last row or do you go and sit in the front row?

2. You are attending an award function to support your friend or family member. Do you leave the function as soon as the award for your friend or family member is announced or do you attend the event till the time last award is announced?

3. One of your friend invites you as a guest to attend a toastmasters meeting. When you attend the meeting you get an opportunity to speak at the table topics event. What would you do? Would you take the opportunity to speak or let it go because you think you are not prepared and wonder what would people think of you?

4. Your department head is giving a speech about how the organization will progress in the next 2 years. Once the speech is over he opens the forum for the audience to ask questions. What would you do? Would you ask your query? or Would you look for someone else to ask the question on your behalf?

Developing a front bench or front row attitude requires lot of practice and focus. Here is my suggestion: Whenever you attend a gathering ask yourself: Are you only a spectator or is there a way you can become a participant and make a mark in the event or gathering? Here are some tips that may help you become better at making your mark as a good participant...

1. Always carry a notepad and a pen when attending any public meetings. This will help you in taking notes of the key point discussed.

2. Always ask for the meeting agenda and the list of attendees in advance.

3. Make sure you reach at the venue 5 to 10 minutes prior to the meeting start time.

4. Knowing the meeting agenda and the list of participants in advance should help you prepare some questions that you may ask in the question and answer session.

5. Avoid arguing with the speakers during a public meeting. There is always an option to connect offline if you don't get a suitable answer.

6. Always pick a seat in the front or the second row from the front. Make sure you don't occupy a seat which is marked as reserved for other guests. Avoid siting towards the end of the hall.

In general, the point I am trying to make is that with a little bit of presence of mind and preparation you can elevate your status from being a spectator to being a good participant. Your attitude to make things happen matters a lot. This reflects in a lot of small things that you do on a day to day basis. Developing a habit of making your presence felt is a key attribute of successful people. You don't always need to take the center stage or be in the limelight but if you are smart you can make your presence felt in a small but effective way, which is equally important. At last remember that just talent may not be enough for you to succeed. Never under estimate the power of doing small things. God is in the details.

Bonus: If you are interested in getting better at setting goals you may want to read this recommended book for setting high goals...

Why Will Chat BOTs Fail To Replace BPO Agents?

You can't ask a fish to climb a tree or ask a pig to bark. But this is exactly what most IT giants are about to do. Let us understand how...

Today as a customer when you need 'service' you call the customer service desk or ping the customer service agent on instant messenger. A portion of the phone/ call support agent's work has already been replaced by the IVR machines but the instant messaging service-agents are not replaced by the chat BOTs yet.

Leading research and IT companies have forecasted that the next 2 years will be the years of digital transformation and in this period chat BOTs will replace humans in almost all forms of first level instant messaging interactions.

But is this for real? Will we be able to create intelligent, self-learning chat bots that will be able to succeed with the help of natural language processing (NLP) to a level where they can replace humans?

The answer is Yes and No. Yes because a miniscule amount of work will certainly be taken over by the BOTs and No because there is a limitation on how far the BOTs can go. Getting a BOT to respond to customers/ users may work at a very basic level, for example, the BOT may perform tasks like...

• Gathering information from the customer/ user

• Raising tickets or cases on-behalf of the user

• Sharing URLs or information or status based on the keywords entered by the user. 

Chatbots in banking, chatbots in healthcare are few examples where chatbots integration with messengers(IM) has become reality. However, the above scenarios may be applicable to only a limited set of use cases. At best it may serve as an equivalent to the IVR system for receiving calls, that is, the BOT will route the customer to the right set of information or raise a case/ ticket as mentioned above. It may not work as soon as the customer/ user states a problem which requires analysis or in scenarios where 'human' behavioral skills are required to understand and manage the customer issues/ expectations.

For example, BOTs will not be able to...
- Take ownership
- Be Proactive
- Identify when a certain issue may be on the verge of escalation
- Know Implication
- Follow-up / Identify and remove road-blocks
- Ask for help

There is one more aspect that seems ignored at this point, that aspect is of 'user adoption' and 'user acceptance'. This requires real attention. No one knows how the customers/ users will respond to a situation when they get to know that they are not chatting with a human but with a BOT which is trained to support only few scenarios.

Having said the above my fear is that if not used wisely BOTs may in turn give rise to...
- Confused Users/ Customers
- Frustrated customers/ Reduced CSAT
- Increased cycle times of issue resolution
- Potential loss of revenue

The reason why I say so is because we are only looking at one side of the story. We are talking about humans being replaced by BOTs on the 'response' side of the chat but we are not at all looking at the humans on the 'request' side of the chat window. By 'request' side I mean the users/ customers/ or people who are facing problems. For the user and customer groups it will be a huge culture change. The success of chat BOTs will depend largely on how the culture change is managed. Hence, while driving operational excellence through digitization the IT giants should not ignore this 'human' side of the reality. If they do, it may backfire at them. Giving the command of frontline support to non-humans is like flirting with danger. Beware!

I hope you find this information helpful. If you are more than 18 years old you would also like to read this post How Much Money Would One Save In USA? 

10 Effective Ways To Pass Time At Workplace When Your Boss Is Not Looking

Your boss is not around and you have some free time at work and not sure what to do? Here are few suggestions that you may want to follow:

• Number one habit to follow during your free time is to read good content. It doesn't matter whether you read books or online articles or newspaper or magazines, but as long as you are reading stuff you are growing your knowledge and that is what matters the most.

• Create new contacts. Get to know more and more people. This is the most under-rated thing but comes in handy in the time of need. Target to make 50 or 100 new contacts every month at your workplace. These may be your customers, colleagues, user groups, peers, superiors etc. Create a decent goal for yourself and work towards it. It works wonders in the long run. You may also want to read: The Power of 1000 active contacts on Social Media

• Identify 2–3 things that you want to learn. Also identify the resources, reading material, free webinars, videos etc. that will help you learn those 2–3 things. As soon as you get some free time at work divert your attention and focus on learning. This is the best you could do rather than gossip or chit chat.

• Next best thing is to invest time in updating your CV, updating your LinkedIn profile and sharing it with the job consultants. This will help you remain up to date. You may also consider appearing for job interviews even if you don't want to change your job. This will give you some real practice and clear idea of how the current job market is trending.

• Subscribe to online hobby groups, forums and blogs. This will automatically send lot of good stuff in your inbox which you can read as per your convenience. This is one time effort which proves very beneficial. You may also want to configure aggregator apps like Flipboard to keep you updated on the current trends.

• Attend trainings/ workshops. Based on the time available find out which trainings you want to attend. This will help you remain in touch with the latest tools, technology and processes.

• Devote some time for social causes. You may want to join your corporate social group and help the community.

• Participate in the extra-curricular events organized by HR. This is a wonderful way to socialize with people and spend some quality time on company/ team events.

• Last but not the least, use your free time to organize yourself. Plan the activities for next few months or years. This will help you to be disciplined.

If you control your free time then you can practically add lot of value to yourself. Take a pause and look at your schedule, get rid of those gossips and water cooler chit chats, these are not the best ways to pass time at work. Avoid that extra coffee break and get organized. There is a lot that can be done by small adjustments, it is just a matter of getting disciplined. Try it now because Time and tide wait for no one.

I hope you find this information helpful. If you are more than 18 years old you would also like to read this post How Much Money Would One Save In USA? 

How The Power Of 1000 Active Social Media Contacts Can Work Wonders For You?

The power of 1000.

I read somewhere that in the information age driven by social media if you have 1000 'active' genuine contacts/ followers/ fans then a lot of good things happen to you automatically.

Here are some of those good things:

1. All the top trending content liked, upvoted or shared by your contacts on various social media sites is delivered in your feed. This ensures that you are always updated with the latest business and technology trends.

2. You are updated with the latest happenings around the world because your contacts are active on social media. There is hardly any need for you to watch TV News.

3. Your contacts like, upvote or share your content with their network which helps you build your personal brand. You reach increases exponentially.

4. You get to know of hobby groups and communities on social media followed by your contacts and this in turn expands your own reach and enables to you reach millions of like-minded people around the globe.

5. Last but not the least there are some tangible benefits as well. Some examples include: You get to know the latest job openings of your interest or if you are an artist you get to know of the latest events or concerts happening in your area or online. You can also create your own content and promote or sell it on social media through your contacts.

To start with I didn't completely believe in this concept of having 1000 genuine contacts, but I still found it interesting enough to explore and see if works. I looked at my social media contact list. It looked somewhat like this: Facebook around 320 friends, LinkedIn around 180 contacts, Quora around 380 followers.

I then decided to grow my network and that is when I found how difficult it is to add 1000 contacts on social media. Forget about 1000 I struggled to get 500 contacts on Facebook. I realized one primary reason why I struggled on Facebook is that I don't have 500 contacts in my real life and that is why I can't have 500 friends on Facebook. 

I also realized that similar to Facebook each social media website has a niche or unique purpose and I will be only successful if I follow or master that niche. For example:

• I will be able to increase my followers on Quora only when I write quality answers
• I will be successful on LinkedIn only if I am professionally active
• I will be popular on Instagram only if I post quality pictures

After I had figured that out I started afresh on my mission to grow my network. Today, I have 540 Facebook friends, 458 LinkedIn contacts and over 975 followers on Quora.

Did I reap any tangible benefits? No, not yet. But I realized that I have started to see a lot of quality information flow in my feed not just because a lot of people follow me but because I follow a lot of good people and in the process I have subscribed to a lot of good topics/ forums and blogs. I directly get the mind share of top CEOs, CIOs, authors and thinkers. This helps me grow personally as well as professionally.

I am still far away from following or adding 1000 people to my social network but I see real value in doing so. And mind you the goal is not to add 1000 random contacts, the goal is to add 1000 'active' genuine people who can add value. Becasue a lot of people are dormant or passive users the task of adding 1000 'active' users is not at all easy. In order to find those 1000 people one may need to add 10,000 people or more but as long as you believe in the power of networking this is not an impossible task.

At the core of this theory of having 1000 contacts on social media is the habit of reading good content. If you are eager to learn new things and if you want access to best of the content then the social media can play a very vital role. The pace at which technology is changing you never know how the power of your social network may work wonders for you. All you need is the focus, perseverance and belief. Hence, I believe in the power of 1000, do you?

I hope you find this information helpful. If you are more than 18 years old you would also like to read this post How Much Money Would One Save In USA? 

Wisdom Byte - Learn To Walk Before You Can Run

Wisdom Byte - Learn To Walk Before You Can Run
Inspired by a WhatsApp Forward

As a 60 year old Tom was really not able to understand how cool or silly is it to search for a Pokeman in your vicinity? While some people find it amusing, there are others who find it terrible. Sometimes Tom felt left behind because he was not that tech savvy. The bigger question however was whether he was ready to adapt and learn?

A lot has been already said about the negative impact of the mobile games and apps on our society. Technology brings these challenges along with the benefits. As humans the best we can do is to be proactive for handling such situations. 

Everything reaches its destiny at the right time. To us it may appear that certain things are happening too early or too late but nature has its own way of doing things at the right time. The Pokeman rage will soon get over and the world will move to the next cool gadget or funky app. Don't forget few years back Angry Birds was a similar rage too.

It is not just the mobile games, the whole world is changing too fast with mobile computing technology. This however makes me wonder whether I am able to keep pace with the super-fast changes? Am I too slow to realize the pace at which things around us are changing? May be yes, may be no.

While I was puzzled, I came across these examples of how things can work differently for different people:
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• Someone may be growing old, say 30+ years of age but still single. Someone else may have got married early but 'waited' 10 years before having a child. Then there is another who had a baby within a year of the marriage. All of them are doing things at their own pace, there is no right or wrong.

• New York located on the east coast of United States is 3 hours ahead of California (West coast) but it does not mean that California is slow, or that New York is fast. Both are working based on their own "Time Zone."

• Someone graduated at the age of 22, yet waited 5 years before securing a good job; and there is another who graduated at 27 and secured employment immediately! Both are successful.

• Someone became CEO at 25 and died at 50 while another became a CEO at 50 and lived to 90 years. 

There are certain things you control and there are certain things that you don't control. Everyone works at their own pace. People can have things worked out only according to their pace. Your Colleagues, friends, younger ones might "seem" to be ahead of you. May be some might "seem" behind you. Don't envy them or mock them, they are good with their pace and you are good with yours!

There is a bit of wisdom that goes: "You need to earn to walk before you can run". 

• Don't be in a hurry to run because someone else is ahead of you. 
• Learn at your own pace. 
• Grow at your own pace. 
• Walk at your own pace and run at your own pace. 

This is true for all aspects of your life including financial know-how. Even the genius of mathematicians need to start learning math with 1+1=2. Don't rush yourself through the learning process because it is the process and the rigor that will make you rich emotionally and mentally.
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This made me realize that technology will change at its own pace. Even for tech savvy people moving from laptop culture to mobile app culture can be a big shift. So if I don't have the latest app or game on my phone I don't need to panic. I need to take time and learn because it is wise to learn to walk before I can run.

Akodara - India’s 1st Digital Cashless Village Handles Post Demonetisation Situation In A Hassle-Free Manner

A lot has been already written regarding demonetization of Indian currency. Some experts see it as a bold move while few question it as a political stunt. The government however looks firm on its decision and determined to take this forward towards cashless economy.

I was wondering what a cashless economy is and then I saw this notification on Indian Railways website

Government of India encourages people to move towards a Cashless Economy. This can be achieved by use of debit, credit cards, electronic payment gateway systems such Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) and Real Time Gross settlement (RTGS) in India. The advantages to citizens of a country in a Cashless Economy are: •Risk of loss of cash while carrying is avoided

•Facilitate exact payment and reduce transaction costs
•Convenience in payment and management of utility bills, purchases and other financial transactions.
•It helps to authenticate financial transactions and maintain proper record facilitating better tax compliance and increasing tax base.
•Digital payments indirectly reduces expenditure by reducing need for printing of currency notes and its transportation
•Electronic transactions helps in curbing corruption and black money flow, thereby helping in economic growth of the country
•Lesser use of cash prevents money laundering and better tax compliance
•Increased tax base would result in greater revenue for public welfare activities 

Indian Railways offers cashless ticketing option to its customer through internet ticketing on IRCTC website for booking reserved tickets. More than 58% of the train accommodation is reserved through e-ticketing . IRCTC also provide option for purchasing Season Ticket for suburban train services on Western and Central Railways. Facility for purchasing unreserved tickets through mobile phones is available at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Secunderabad. Further Automatic Ticket Vending Machines dispensing unreserved tickets using smart cards are provided at over 1000 locations over CR, ER, ECoR, NR, NER, NWR, SR, SECR, SCR, SER, SWR, WR and WCR. The smart cards can be purchased from nominated counters at the stations.
Indian Railways seeks your cooperation and support in helping the Government and the nation in creating a cashless digital economy.

After reading this notification, the critic inside me started to question:

• Is India ready for this kind of a change? 
• Do we have the infrastructure in place to make our country completely cashless? 
• How does the Government expect Indians to use digital payments when most people don't have access to reliable electricity?

While I was still puzzled I came across the below DD News video on youtube:

Akodara, India’s 1st digital village handles post demonetisation situation in a hassle-free manner

Wow, I found this amazing. A village of 1200 people is completely cashless. Government's move of cashless economy then started to make sense to me. Logic is very simple. To start with those who have electricity and internet will use digital payments others will not. And the government will work towards getting internet and electricity access to the rural and remote areas. It will take time but will happen for sure. We need to make a start somewhere.

We cannot expect the government to kick off digitization only when all of India will have electricity and Internet access. That is not practical.

The fact that we have so many Internet users in India reading this article is a testimony that we should kick off digitization right here, right now. 

India - Let's go cashless.

What Should You Learn From Donald Trump's Historic Victory And Demonetization Of Indian Currency?

November 8th 2016 will be remembered for two big happenings in the history of United States and India.

1. Donald John Trump's upset of Hillary Clinton in the United States presidential elections
and
2. Demonetization of Indian Currency as the Indian government declared the scraping of Rs.500 and Rs.1000 currency notes effective midnight of Nov 8th and Nov 9th 2016.

There is no doubt that these events will have a long term impact, not only in United States and India but also in other global markets. Common man around the world is shell shocked and puzzled, primarily because most people didn't see it coming. 

But when slowly the reality sinks in, you start realizing that there were cues and signals all around. It is just that we kept ignoring the cues until it became a huge reality.

Here are those cues...

In United States:

• Experts thought that Trump lacked in experience but they ignored the sentiment that Common Man wanted Change. Hillary who was already a part of the Obama administration and was not seen as an agent of Change.
• Hillary was cheered as the first female president and the experts projected her as a symbol of Women leadership but they ignored the sentiments of the working class Americans who had other ideas
• Trump made debatable comments on H-1B visas, his plans to build a wall to avoid illegal immigrants from Mexico, countering terrorism in his own way and reforming the tax laws etc. Most people thought that his talks were not realistic but he was successful in making a connect with the common American Man. He was seen as a leader who could revive the American Dream rather than one who would focus on making America a global moral cop.

Impact: Some people have no idea what to do, they are just in a mode of panic and looking for options to migrate to another country.

In India:

• In 2014, Modi Government first started with a campaign to create at least one Bank account per family
• Linked Bank accounts with Aadhar Card, PAN Card and Income Tax Return
• Strengthened the IT backbone with various tools for collection and data mining
• Then they followed it by Income declaration scheme and provided an opportunity to convert black money into white money by paying taxes
• Finally surprised everyone with a bold move and scrapped the old currency notes

Impact: All the black money/ dirty hard cash has all of a sudden become waste paper. Those who had millions are now scratching their head. They have no idea what just hit them.

After reading these details are you able identify what is common between these two historic incidents and what is the learning for you? The learning is in this phrase: God is in the details or Devil is in the details, if you look closely at the details you will see signs and hints of the 'BIG CHANGE' coming your way.

Let me elaborate with one more example:
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Suppose you have an online e-commerce business and your website ranks at #1 in the first page of google search results. What else would you ask for: Thanks to the perfect SEO(Search Engine Optimization) customers and users would automatically get routed to your website through google search.

Now imagine one morning all of a sudden google comes up with a change in its SEO algorithm, they call it Google Panda or Google Penguin or Google Pigeon and because of this algorithm change your website does not appear on the google search engine results anymore. As a result you lose all the incoming traffic from google and your revenues drops overnight.

This has happened to many websites in the past who have failed to notice the small cues/ signals(Press releases/ Newsletters/ Bootcamps/ Policy Changes) given by Google regarding the change they are bringing in their search algorithms.
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This is an example of what could happen if are not reading the signs/ changes happening around you, be it your business or be it in your society. Over time, small waves of change turn into big tornados and cause very very severe impact on your business and your personal life.

Keep your eyes and ears open, don't just look but observe, and don't just hear but pay attention. God is in the details.

Is Your Business Ready For Disruptive Platform Innovation?

I recently read a message on whatapps which said...

• Whatsapp messaging killed Mobile messaging(SMS)
• Youtube killed DVDs
• Skype killed international calling
• Amazon killed real shopping in malls
• Facebook killed meeting friends in real

The points mentioned above are not entirely correct. They are partially correct though. It signifies the fact that what is relevant today may not be relevant tomorrow, today's in demand thing may become outdated after few years. 

Businesses change with each passing day. This has been the trend since so many years now. Let us look at one of key example which stands out.

How the music industry changed?

Record Discs gave way to cassette players/ VCRs

Cassette players/ VCRs gave way to CD ROMs/ Blue ray disks

CD ROMs/ Blue ray disks gave way to USB storage devices

USB storage devices gave way to Cloud storage/ Google Drive/ Youtube etc

What is the resulting impact of these changes?

• Now you can't run a video library business which gives Video cassettes on rent, instead the customer has options to rent movies online, for example on Netflix.
• Laptops do not have a CD drive these days, that means the CD ROM manufacturers and CD Drive manufacturers are out of business.
• Storage space has become cheaper by the day so you can have a 64 GB memory on your smartphone and upload or download video/ content directly from your phone onto a common cloud location for sharing or retrieval in future. That means, USB drive and USB storage devices are getting out of business too.

Another example, Internet TV is a reality now and all the TV channels are now available as apps so very soon the cable tv service providers like AT&T, Comcast, Tatasky, Videocon, Reliance etc. will not provide a cable connection to your home or install a dish on your home. All TV channels will be telecast directly using an internet connection and will be played using a app on your TV set. Television set as a hardware may be able to survive just because it provides a larger screen as compared to what a mobile or tablet does.

What happened in the last few years?

With technology innovations the next big change is seen with the replacement of hardware by software, where possible. Initially I was not able to understand how a software can replace a hardware and then one day I realized that the apps/ software on my smartphone have infact replaced many hardware. Let us look at some of the hardware which have changed their forms:

No#1 Transistor or a Radio used to be a hardware earlier, now it is a software sitting on your smartphone

No#2 Camera (photo or video) used to be a hardware, now it is a software on your mobile.

No#3 Wrist watch too has been converted into a software, ditto for stop watch, alarm clock etc.

No#4 Books/ Newspaper/ Magazines have taken a digital form and with gadgets like Amazon Kindle reading has become a different experience all together.

What is happening now?

Traditional businesses are getting transformed. The world today is moving towards platform based online businesses. Consider this (a) Uber is an example of a taxi service which does not own a single car/ taxi but it still is one of largest taxi service in the world and (b) AirBnB who does not own a single hotel is one of the largest online marketplace that enables people to list, find, then rent vacation homes. These are examples of disruptive innovations.

So what should I do now?

• Re-look at the business you own.
• If your business is not on internet, figure out how you will take your business online.
• If your business is already online then it would be wise to do a quick SWOT analysis(Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) and figure out how you will sustain or save yourself from disruption. Also look at the opporutnities to disrupt and expand your business.

At last remember, this is the era of digitization and IOT(Internet of Things). If you dont disrupt yourself, someone else will.