confused of calcutta

Culture shock is a strange thing. When I came to the UK in 1980, there were many things I had to get used to, and many things I got wrong; I’ve shared some of my thoughts with you over the years. But not this one.
You know, the scariest thing I had to overcome, in the [...]

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Sharing isn’t just about what you do, it’s also about the way you think. I remember, many years ago, learning this the hard way:
When I lived in Calcutta, I used to be pretty gregarious. We were that kind of family, and “home” had the feel of being a club. People coming and going all the [...]

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A few days ago, I commented on the some of the reasons why I thought Facebook was different, and ended with this:
So that’s my guess, that Facebook is a multidimensional conversation. Why is that important to the enterprise? Why is it important to work-life balance? These are questions I will seek to answer over the [...]

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One of my friends twittered : Gort, Klaatu Barada Nikto :  a little while ago, and it showed up in his Facebook stream. That took me back a while. I had seen that phrase in so many contexts over the years that I began to wonder whether someone had bothered to write a Wikipedia entry [...]

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Kurt Vonnegut, who died earlier this year, was that rare breed, a sane and articulate maverick. I’ve read most of his stuff, and enjoyed everything I’ve read. His last book, A Man Without A Country, was a wonderful read.

Some years before he died, as part of a collection of hitherto unpublished short stories called Bagombo [...]

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I guess I used to be a CIO for a while. At least that’s what my business card said. I have so far not been able to convince my employers, past or present, to let me call myself Grand Panjandrum or (my current preference) CXO (formally expanded as Chief Something-Or-The-Other). So CIO it was, and [...]

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Let me start with an aside. Why 1752? I just love that year. Changing calendars, changing the start of the year, some parts of the world dropping the period 3rd to 13th September, riots as a result. How I’d love to be able to time-travel there and back.
It must have been a truly confusing time. [...]

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I really enjoy reading The Believer. Just the kind of magazine I need to read at the end of a long weekend, after completing my Sunday evening chores.
You see, I’m with Doc. I believe in VRM. I believe that in the 21st century, product-driven advertising is fundamentally flawed. Personal recommendations, whether direct or via collaborative [...]

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My eldest daughter’s mobile phone decided to go to that great hunting ground in the sky. Without warning. So she in turn decided to get another one, and to use the opportunity to get it this time in her name rather than mine. Her bill rather than mine. Which meant she shopped around for deals, [...]

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Regular readers of this blog are likely to be aware of my stance on the expert-versus-amateur debate. Suffice it to say that I believe in formally acquired expertise and in wisdom-of-crowds, that I am prepared to learn from so-called experts and from amateurs alike, that I do not insist on looking at the future through [...]

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