I’m JP. 65, married, three children, two grandchildren. I was born in Calcutta and lived there till I was 23, before emigrating to the UK in 1980. Much of that time was spent at St Xavier’s Collegiate School and College; I was there from 1966 to 1979. Trained as an economist/statistician and financial journalist; spent most of my adult life working in that strange space where finance meets technology, for a number of very large firms. Retired since mid 2018.
I’m passionate about the things that interest me.
My family and friends. They define me. I’ll respect their privacy and say no more.
Food. Chillies. Mangoes.
Music. A 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.
My profession(s), both planned and accidental. Anything and everything to do with information.
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.
Education. When I retire from normal work I will build a school. A school that is built for the 21st century, with the requisite connectivity, hardware and software infrastructure. A school that’s willing to borrow teachers rather than own them, as long as the teachers see what they do as their calling, their vocation. A school where students are encouraged to use the web in class, where critiquing the teacher is accepted. Where critiquing students is also accepted. Where the focus is on equality of opportunity rather than outcome; where diversity is celebrated. Where learning takes place. Which means mistakes get made. Where making mistakes is encouraged.
(Now that I’m retired, I still haven’t built that school. One day? Maybe I’ll run a bookshop instead).
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. In fact they were kind enough to ask me to contribute a chapter to the 10th Anniversary Edition of the book.
Which naturally makes me passionate about open source as well. In democratised innovation. My thoughts on open source were probably more driven by Jerry Garcia than by Raymond or Stallman or Torvalds et al.
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!
Hey JP ….time we touched base….
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.
I was Looking at your page
( https://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
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
If you like that kind of music, you’ll love porcupine tree
enjoy it
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
You clearly have too much spare time on your hands. Considered resurrecting your golfing career
Rahul, Nigel, good to hear from you guys. I will write separately by e-mail as soon as I get the chance. regards
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.
Please email me at [email protected]. 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.
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
Hi philippa welcome to the conversation. Say hi to Max and Joey from me.
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.
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
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
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
[email protected]
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
[email protected]
Jeffrey, I’d be delighted to help. Give me a day or two and I will write a post about your request.
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
Hi Alpesh, nice to see you here. Welcome to the conversation.
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/
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
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
Thanks for the comments, Jamie. Honoured and privileged. Regards JP
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.
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!
Hi
I love your photo of the Victoria Memorial in the playing fields in Calcutta at sunset. Wonderful.
Blog’s okay too. Cheers
S