confused of calcutta

a blog about information

confused of calcutta header image 3

About me

I’m JP Rangaswami. 50 years old, married (my wife’s called Shane), three children (Orla, 22, Isaac, 16 and Hope, 10 ). I was born in Calcutta and lived there for half my life before emigrating to the UK. Originally an economist and financial journalist, I’ve been an accidental technologist for a quarter of a century or so. After nearly a decade of working for an investment bank, I’ve recently joined the services arm of a telco.

I’m passionate about the things that interest me. My family. My local church and community. A retarded hippie at heart, I listen primarily to music made in the mid sixties to early seventies. CSNY, Traffic, Grateful Dead, Doobie Brothers, Joni Mitchell, The Band, America, The Who, The Beatles, that sort of thing. I read voraciously and collect books as well, but only in specific genres. Detective fiction. The Raj and Empire. Science. Economics. Management. Technology. Humour.

I’m passionate about my profession(s), both planned and accidental. A Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and a Fellow of the British Computer Society. More and more my interests have moved towards education, I keep thinking of setting up a school from scratch. One day.

I’m passionate about work (!) , particularly with reference to how work is changing: the paradigms created by globalisation, disintermediation and the web; the implications of virtualisation, service orientation and commoditisation; why publishing and search and fulfilment and conversation are the only “applications” we may need; how telephony becoming software and the wireless internet interact with mobile devices; the terrors of poorly thought out IPR and DRM; the need to avoid walled gardens of my own making; how children now teach me about work; the socialising of information, how it creates value by being shared, how it is enriched, how it is corrupted. How information behaves and what I can learn from it.

Ever since I read The Cluetrain Manifesto I have believed in the “markets are conversations” theme, and have had the good fortune to meet and spend time with the Cluetrain gang discussing their views and values.

Which naturally makes me passionate about opensource as well. In democratised innovation. In emergence theories a la Steven Johnson. None of which should surprise the reader, given that my thoughts on opensource were probably more driven by Jerry Garcia than by Raymond or Stallman or Torvalds et al.

51 Comments

51 responses so far ↓

  • 1 » Supernova: Navigating the personal infosphere | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com // Jun 21, 2006 at 5:38 pm

    [...] JP Rangaswami noted that too much structure isn’t ideal. "I am scared if form and structure is imposed, you throw away value before it can be generated," he said. This echoes Andrew P. McAfee, an associate professor with the Technology and Operations Management Unit at Harvard Business School, told me–the most promising sites based Web 2.0 and social networks are those where the structure emerges over time and the results of interaction are more persistent. Wikipedia, the canonical Web 2.0 example, has some structure that evolved over time that applies to the management of the service, such as arbitration of conflicts.  [...]

  • 2 Confused Of Calcutta » About me at Churbuck.com // Jul 24, 2006 at 4:14 pm

    [...] Confused Of Calcutta » About me [...]

  • 3 Jerry Garcia - Father of Open Source at Churbuck.com // Aug 10, 2006 at 1:25 pm

    [...] This post was sparked by J.P. Rangaswami’s “about” page at Confused of Calcutta. “…given that my thoughts on opensource were probably more driven by Jerry Garcia than by Raymond or Stallman or Torvalds et al.” [...]

  • 4 Good Old Trend » Blog Archive » The new way of reading // Aug 28, 2006 at 12:15 pm

    [...] After hearing JP Rangaswami talk at Reboot in June I knew straight away that I had to start reading his blog regularly. Although mentally exhausting at times (in a good way that is!) I keep coming back and I keep being fascinated by the clarity that he manages to pass to the reader. And this even though the level of abstraction is high. I strongly recommend anyone interested in the way the internet is changing society to pay him a visit. In a post yesterday he wrote the following: I don’t read blogs to find out things faster than anyone else; I don’t read blogs to find things to link to and comment on before anyone else; I don’t read blogs because I can’t find any books to read. [...]

  • 5 » The muse of social software | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com // Sep 4, 2006 at 3:50 pm

    [...] If you don’t know JP Rangaswami, you should.  His Confused in Calcutta d how they operate internally and relate to customers. By day he is the chief of Alternative Market Models at the investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in London. JP follows in the Bob Dylan (be sure to check out his just released CD, "Modern Times") tradition, in this case exploring the folklore of the enterprise computing space, not always easily comprehended, pulling in references from everywhere, a poet and he don’t know it, the muse of social software, but so right about how the pendulum is swinging toward empowered individuals. He believes that new business models should have a clear stance on values and ethics; allow relationships and collaboration to take place; intermediate to enable trust and fulfilment rather than channel towards lock-in; and recognize that customers want to create and co-create value rather than just receive. [...]

  • 6 Catching Up … Social Software And The Enterprise at Thermo[SAT] // Sep 5, 2006 at 5:06 pm

    [...] I will also be delighted to learn from JP Rangaswami. [...]

  • 7 Kim Cameron’s Identity Weblog » JP Rangaswami on how the OSP “feels” // Sep 14, 2006 at 5:20 am

    [...] Take a look at this piece by JP Rangaswami, author of Confused of Calcutta. I think he expresses what a lot of people are feeling.  Ambrose Bierce, in The Devil’s Dictionary, defined a cynic as follows: [...]

  • 8 What causes rants against teamwork and collaboration? « Stronger Teams Blog // Sep 19, 2006 at 12:31 pm

    [...] However, I felt compelled to post my concerns about the article because, as JP Rangaswami explained, “This kind of thinking will gain currency.” Rather than posting immediately, I decided to wait several days to conduct a (non-scientific) experiment to watch what kind of traction Freedman’s ideas would get. I wanted to see how the crowd in the blogosphere would react; whether a group would coalesce around Freedman’s arguments; whether differing opinions would emerge. I refrained from blogging my own views to remain an outside, although not completely unbiased, observer. [...]

  • 9 JP Rangaswami is moving on to be CIO of BT’s services division « Digital Life // Sep 27, 2006 at 2:36 pm

    [...] Martin has a post on JP’s new role at BT [via] [...]

  • 10 Technological Winter » Blog Archives » European Corporate Blogging conference // Oct 24, 2006 at 2:55 pm

    [...] Just a few weeks ago I went to the ‘European Corporate Blogging’ conference and it was without a doubt a total joke.  Few (50%) were in a attendance even though the room was tiny - perhaps only accommodating a 150 people.  Most of the speakers were about as prepared as I could get just having woken up and fallen out of bed.  Although in fairness the IBM, HP, and Headshift presentations were pretty spot on and contained value, as well there was a favourite among those I spoke with was Mr JP Rangaswami the Confused of Calcutta author. [...]

  • 11 Advanced Technology Products Interactive » Blog Archive » On the economics of the customer // Nov 23, 2006 at 10:48 am

    [...] I came across this on megite by JP Rangaswami on Shane Richmond blog. Many years ago, it used to be said that serving an existing customer is nine times as profitable as acquiring a new one. [...]

  • 12 The Park Paradigm » Customer available for acquisition. // Nov 24, 2006 at 5:42 pm

    [...] Well as far as I can tell, neither T-mobile, nor for that matter any of their major competitors (at least from what I can see from their websites) have embraced this approach to their business and their customers. Anyhow JP’s Telegraph guest post inspired me (and reminded me of others he and Doc Searls amongst others) to test out the intention economy and possibly solve my problem by reverse advertising. This is what I want to buy. Who can sell it to me? [...]

  • 13 Dinosaurier i grÃ¥zonen « Copyriot // Nov 26, 2006 at 8:55 pm

    [...] Känns som att Ã¥hörarna pÃ¥ plats var delade i tvÃ¥ grupper: Dels skeptikerna som uppfattade PiratbyrÃ¥ns tankar som blott en slags ideologisk överbyggnad till de där giriga fildelarnas ekonomiska egenintresse. Dels de som intresserade sig direkt för frÃ¥gorna om grÃ¥zoner, kulturell cirkulation och informationens infrastrukturer. Ett par av konferensens övriga talare som kom fram direkt efterÃ¥t var mycket entusiastiska. Däribland JP Rangaswami (CIO pÃ¥ en stor investmentbank, som själv begravde bÃ¥de upphovsrätten och annat), och Malcolm Matson (mÃ¥ngÃ¥rig affärsman i brittiska telekombranschen som nu leder OPLAN foundation och som i Köpenhamn passionerat pläderade för öppna nätverk). Det är förstÃ¥s vansinnigt kul att se hur den senare pÃ¥ sin blogg utnämner PiratbyrÃ¥ns föredrag till “the best argued and most coherent paper to state the case for the absurdity and impossibility of hoping that existing principles of copyright and intellectual property can be force-fitted into the new digital paradigm“! Tydligen sÃ¥ refererade även Lawrence Lessig till texten när han talade i Köpenhamn i söndags, i samband med Creative Commons danska lansering. [...]

  • 14 Richard Francis // Jan 19, 2007 at 4:57 pm

    Hey there JP ya old coot, ya statesmancrosswordsolverin 7minutes…ya genius you!!!!!

    This is the guy you also knew as Fuzz way back when…i just happened by chance onto your site - was looking for news on bertie Dasilva and your blog came up - drop me a line when you can - would love to hook up with you - I am in Toronto now with wife hena and 6ft 4 son Axel - immigrated here in ‘99 - would love to stay in touch…luv, light & peace - Fuzz!

  • 15 Chris Ham // Feb 15, 2007 at 4:23 pm

    Hey JP ….time we touched base….

  • 16 Pinaki Basu // Feb 15, 2007 at 11:46 pm

    Hi JP,

    Just a hi.

    Last I saw you was back in 1995 back at Ascot.

    Was reading something and stumbled across your Agile post.

  • 17 Clarity from an year of Confusion « Joy Of Innovation // Mar 2, 2007 at 2:45 pm

    [...] 2nd, 2007 · No Comments JP, Confused of Calcutta, refines his learning in The kernel of this Blog: Governments and firms are [...]

  • 18 ana brown // Mar 9, 2007 at 5:55 am

    I was Looking at your page
    ( http://confusedofcalcutta.com ) and thought that the link
    url : http://www.action8cricket.com
    Title : Live Cricket Commentary

    will be great and enjoyed by your visitors.
    I hope you enjoy it too.

    Regards Webmaster

    Ana brown

  • 19 Purathatil Krishnan (Krish) // Mar 16, 2007 at 2:21 pm

    Hi JP,
    I came across your recorded presentation on “Open Source in the Enterprise..” on InfoQ and felt good to see an acquaintance from the past.

    Let me try jog your memory. 1994, London, DSQ (formerly Square D), Pradeep Mathur, P & O Containers, Multimedia CBT project. The guy with a “Twang” (I believe was the word you used) in his accent.

    Just wanted to say hi and hope things are well with you and Shane, Orla, Isaac and Hope. I have bookmarked you website and hope to keep in touch.

    I bet you are ardently following the ICC World Cup.

    Regards,
    Krish

  • 20 pedro // Mar 19, 2007 at 12:45 pm

    If you like that kind of music, you’ll love porcupine tree

    enjoy it

  • 21 Rahul Maheshwari // Mar 21, 2007 at 9:25 am

    Hi JP:

    Just came across your website. We lost touch after Akbar’s death but am really happy to find this platform to be in touch once again.

    Warm regards,

    Rahul

  • 22 Nigel Hopkinson // Mar 23, 2007 at 2:27 pm

    You clearly have too much spare time on your hands. Considered resurrecting your golfing career

  • 23 JP // Mar 24, 2007 at 12:39 pm

    Rahul, Nigel, good to hear from you guys. I will write separately by e-mail as soon as I get the chance. regards

  • 24 Francois Gossieaux // Apr 11, 2007 at 7:08 pm

    Hi JP,

    I have been a long term reader of you blog and wanted to get in touch with you regarding an upcoming Enterprise 2.0 RAVE, a 24 hour brainstorming session with HBS Prof Andrew McAfee and a few other thought leaders specifically designed for practitioners. You can find info on the RAVE at http://www.enterprise2rave.com

    When you get a change would you please email me? For obvious reasons I would love to find a way to get you involved.

  • 25 JP // Apr 11, 2007 at 10:26 pm

    Please email me at jobsworth@mac.com. The mail address is no secret I’ve been too lazy to publish it on the sidebar. I expect to see Andy McAfee in Boston pretty soon anyway.

  • 26 Philippa // May 28, 2007 at 10:00 am

    Hi JP
    You never cease to amaze and astound me. My love to you Shane, Orla, Isaac (my little BeeGee’s fan) and Hope.
    Philippa, Joey and Max Davis

  • 27 JP // May 28, 2007 at 10:05 am

    Hi philippa welcome to the conversation. Say hi to Max and Joey from me.

  • 28 The FASTForward Blog » Open email — is it for you? // May 29, 2007 at 3:08 pm

    [...] morning I read about JP Rangaswami’s open email system in a post by Stowe Boyd. JP has opened access to his email to his staff. [...]

  • 29 JP Rangaswami’s “open email” system // May 29, 2007 at 3:09 pm

    [...] morning I read about JP Rangaswami’s open email system in a post by Stowe Boyd. JP has opened access to his email to his staff. [...]

  • 30 Deepak Tandan // Jun 3, 2007 at 12:23 pm

    Hey JP,

    A long way from Fr.Bouche conducting the guys at SXC and Mr.Brown blowing his whistle at you speeding on the Athletics track on Sports day.

    Was visiting London and Sanjay Kapoor told me about your exloits and I felt that we were proud of you.

  • 31 Jordan Hooper // Jun 14, 2007 at 11:43 pm

    Hi JP,

    How are you?

    I came across your details on Doc Searls blog whilst doing some research for an upcoming conference I am organising on Vendor Management for international conference company IQPC. I also read several articles quoting you whilst you were at Dresdner.The event in question will take place in Sydney, Australia in November this year.

    I am interested JP in getting some of your ideas on the growing trend of vendor management as you have been a CIO on both sides of the fence as I know it, and as such I thought you would have a pretty balanced perspective of the key issues facing both parties.

    What do you see as the key challenges facing the customer and the vendor in relation to the topic vendor management? How has your role of CIO changed as a result of this trend?

    Also, in your eyes, in a conference such as the one I am putting together, what do you believe are the key issues/ themes that should be addressed?

    I look forward to hearing from you soon.

    Regards,

    Jordan

  • 32 Sagar Sarkar // Jun 18, 2007 at 11:03 am

    Hello JP.

    Great to read your blog. I am interested in creating a ‘My Space’ page for the band ‘High’- Dilip Balakrishnan, Nondon, Lew, etc. I think they deserve it. Could you point me in the right direction to get hold of content - recordings, photos, etc.

    Hope to hear from you - I too grew up in Cal and now live in London.

    Regards

    Sagar

  • 33 » Facebook infltrating the enterprise: the ups and downs | Irregular Enterprise | ZDNet.com // Jul 29, 2007 at 10:36 am

    [...] wonder what JP Rangaswami thinks? He was until recently CTO at Dresdner and is a social media advocate. Last week he said: I [...]

  • 34 Banning Facebook in business is futile « AccMan // Jul 29, 2007 at 11:10 am

    [...] sure the irony of this won’t be lost on JP Rangaswami. Until recently, JP was CTO at DrKW and remains a firm advocate of social computing tools like [...]

  • 35 Facebook in the enterprise « Rob’s Digital Life // Jul 30, 2007 at 8:57 am

    [...] second and third blog posts were from JP’s blog and is views on Facebook and specifically it’s place in the Enterprise parts 1 and [...]

  • 36 Jeffrey Beall // Aug 3, 2007 at 3:06 pm

    JP: I would like to invite you and your readers to submit articles to a journal I am the editor of: The Journal of Library Metadata. Librarians need to be exposed to the views of non-librarians on all topics related to metadata and information retrieval. Please see the call for papers below and let me know if you need any additional information. Thanks,

    Jeffrey Beall, Assistant Professor
    Editor, Journal of Library Metadata
    Auraria Library
    University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center
    Downtown Denver Campus
    1100 Lawrence St.
    Denver, Colo. 80204 USA
    (303) 556-5936
    jeffrey.beall@cudenver.edu

    CALL FOR PAPERS

    JOURNAL OF LIBRARY METADATA

    The Journal of Library Metadata (JLM) is a peer-reviewed journal publishing articles on all aspects of metadata applications in libraries. The journal is published quarterly by The Haworth Press, Inc.

    Previously titled the Journal of Internet Cataloging, after a change in title and editorship, JLM will now focus on metadata, an exciting, timely subject of importance to all libraries. The journal will publish three categories of articles: standard, peer-reviewed articles; shorter, scholarly, non-peer reviewed articles; and short viewpoint articles.

    These articles will cover all aspects of metadata applications in libraries, including:

    Application profiles
    Best practices
    Controlled vocabularies
    Crosswalking of metadata and interoperability
    Digital libraries and metadata
    Display of search results
    Federated repositories
    Federated searching
    Folksonomies
    Individual metadata schemes
    Institutional repository metadata
    Metadata content standards
    Metadata harvesting
    Ontologies
    Preservation metadata
    Resource Description Framework
    Resource discovery and metadata
    Search engines and metadata
    SKOS
    Stochastic vs. deterministic searching
    Tagging and tag clouds
    Topic maps
    Visual image and moving image metadata

    Categories of Articles
    Please consider writing and submitting an article that falls into one of the following three categories:

    • Peer-reviewed articles (original research, scholarly manuscripts), which should be 10-50 typed pages, double-spaced.
    • Short, scholarly, non-peer-reviewed articles, often practical in nature (for example, describing a particular library metadata implementation). These should range from 500-2,000 words, with limited citations to other resources.
    • Upbeat Viewpoint articles giving the author’s opinion on a timely topic related to library metadata applications. These should range from 500-2,000 words and may or may not contain citations. Focus should be on improvements or solutions instead of negative aspects of an existing system, standard, or service.

    For more information please visit the Journal of Library Metadata web site at: http://jlm.haworthpress.com.

    Please direct all inquiries and article proposals to:

    Jeffrey Beall
    Editor, Journal of Library Metadata
    Auraria Library
    University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center
    1100 Lawrence St.
    Denver, CO 80204 USA
    jeffrey.beall@cudenver.edu

  • 37 JP // Aug 4, 2007 at 11:15 pm

    Jeffrey, I’d be delighted to help. Give me a day or two and I will write a post about your request.

  • 38 Shaman » Online social networks and the enterprise // Sep 3, 2007 at 3:03 am

    [...] what the fuss is all about.  Others have been more eloquent in describing this behavior. J.P Rangaswami has a great blog entry that talks about folks who pooh-pooh Facebook. His blog entry, called [...]

  • 39 Alpesh Tailor // Sep 7, 2007 at 10:55 am

    Hi JP,

    Great to read your blog - very interesting and inspiring at the same token…hope to keep up with its progress and keep in touch.

    Best regards,

    Alpesh

  • 40 JP Rangaswami // Sep 8, 2007 at 6:44 pm

    Hi Alpesh, nice to see you here. Welcome to the conversation.

  • 41 Social Networking // Sep 17, 2007 at 6:51 am

    SUB: Invitation for Volunteer Authors at SociableBlog.com

    Dear Mr. JP Rangaswami,

    We just launched a new Social Networking Blog called SociableBlog.com for sharing latest news, articles, and videos on social networking, social media, social community and social software.

    We are inviting some Volunteer Authors for help us to providing our visitors with quality content related to social networking and its various aspect.

    If you are interested to help us, please submit your latest articles or ideas at http://www.sociableblog.com/submit-news/ [Please login to post].

    For any question, feel free contact us.

    Waiting for your reply.

    Thanks and regards,

    Aditya Narayan
    Editor and Admin
    http://www.sociableblog.com/

  • 42 Jaspreet // Nov 15, 2007 at 3:56 pm

    Hello Mr. Rangaswami,

    It is heartening to know an Indian is the CIO or rather i should say MD of a company like BT. People who come from India with dreams, definitely see a great influencer in you.

    I came here in Jan 2007. Did my post grads here and now I am working for a software company. I came across your profile through some business networking website and hence read your blog.

    I would like to be in touch with you and also would love to learn a lot. I like to read autobiographies and blogs. I hope we can be in touch.

    Hope to hear from you.

    Regards,
    Jaspreet

  • 43 Jamie Riddell // Dec 12, 2007 at 9:18 am

    Hi JP - just sat through your Leweb3 conversation - it was awesome - many thanks. I loved your comment on how enterprises need to remove the walls and start the osmosis between entertprise and user.

    Oh and I like the fact your Last FM is full of great music - haven’t found too many traffic fans on there :-)

    Jamie

  • 44 De retour du Web 3’07 // Dec 13, 2007 at 2:53 pm

    [...] Rosling (Gapminder), Martin Varsavsky (Fon), Kevin Rose (Digg), Dave Winer (co-inventeur du RSS), JP Rangaswami (British Telecom), Jason Calacanis (Mahalo) et Janus Friis (Kazaa, Skype et [...]

  • 45 émergenceweb : blogue » Blog Archive » Paris jour 4 : Le Web3, les intranets et l’entreprise 2. // Dec 13, 2007 at 3:43 pm

    [...] vingtaine de minutes pour nous en parler. Ce fut suffisant pour me donner le goût d’aller lire son blogue. Oh, en passant, JP fait partie, comme moi, des «pappys du Web 2.0». Faut que j’initie ce [...]

  • 46 JP // Dec 19, 2007 at 12:02 am

    Thanks for the comments, Jamie. Honoured and privileged. Regards JP

  • 47 Ivo // Jan 6, 2008 at 12:11 am

    Hi, I arrived here following your Twitter message where you suggest my blog to a friend. I’m not on Twitter (yet), I wanted to see who was suggest my blog since is quite a niche of a niche. I like your blog and by the way we have similar musical tastes.

  • 48 Darren B // Jan 6, 2008 at 11:21 pm

    JP,
    This is the first time I’ve come across your blog after just watching your talk at LeWeb back in December. It really was excellent. The idea of enterprises focussing on output rather than inputs is so, so right but so different in practice. Having worked in companies who don’t seem to ‘understand’ the use of the most basic collaboration tools it can be very frustrating. I’m not sure how this message can be delivered to the ‘older’ generation who have control within companies but I’d like to begin to try…! Again excellent talk and hope to see more in the future!

  • 49 The FASTForward Blog » J.P. Rangaswami Brings CIO Perspective to FASTforward08: Enterprise 2.0 Blog: News, Coverage, and Commentary // Feb 10, 2008 at 8:19 pm

    [...] readers will know J.P. Rangaswami, Managing Director in BT Group and ex-Dresdner Kleinwort Global CIO from his popular Confused of [...]

  • 50 Simon // Feb 22, 2008 at 5:43 pm

    Hi

    I love your photo of the Victoria Memorial in the playing fields in Calcutta at sunset. Wonderful.

    Blog’s okay too. Cheers

    S

  • 51 JP // Feb 22, 2008 at 6:38 pm

    Thank you Simon. I love it too. Did you see the larger version at the bottom of the page?

Leave a Comment