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One of the more exciting conferences that I have had the opportunity to attend every year or two is Brainstorm, an annual conference arranged by Fortune magazine. As always, I came away from this year’s conference, Fortune Brainstorm Tech, with a lot of great insights. The focus this year was on technology, media and telecom and happened to touch upon the topic of renewable energy as well. An interesting fact I learned in connection with the fresh water shortage that exists on our planet was that about 35% of all water gets lost during transport, due to old and rusted pipes, in a number of countries, including the US, China and India. These pipes were installed a very long time ag...

One of the joys of my job (and in a sense, one of the stresses as well) is that I spend a lot of time traveling around the world. I recently spent almost three weeks on the road traveling in 6-8 countries in 2-3 continents. And I invariably think about how this would have been a far greater stress had it not been for all the many people that make travel easier for us all, how dependent we are on these people to do our work effectively, and how important the travel infrastructure is to the world’s modern economy. To all the people that work in areas serving travelers, commuters, businesspeople and make our travel simpler—those that drive the taxis, work at the airports and hotels ...

There is currently a tremendous level of emphasis and thought around the issue of job creation. Here is a really interesting, nonprofit, grassroots-evolved job-help situation that I thought people would be interested in reading about and (possibly) joining. Job Angels is a movement that is growing quickly on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and promises to give a boost to out-of-work individuals. The mission of the Job Angels is for each member to help just one person find gainful employment, and to assist people by even just lending a sympathetic ear. This mission is rapidly snowballing and represents an effort by individuals to help battle the current job crisis...

A few days ago I came across an amazing article. While most of us (myself included) sit back and bemoan the current economic crisis, there are groups around the world that are seeing opportunities and preparing for them in a long-term manner. The example given here is the little-known industry of begging. While we may argue about whether or not it can legitimately be called an organized industry and so on, and without going into the moral aspects, this article clearly shows an industry that is looking at things from a long-term perspective, wants to take advantage of a market that they know will exist for a fairly short period, is preparing for it well in advance, is practicing for th...

Landing an expatriate assignment is like a feather in your cap. When sending you on an overseas assignment, your company is demonstrating its confidence in your abilities and rewarding you for your performance. However, on the personal front this move can be rather challenging. After all, you are leaving familiar surroundings, friends and family behind to live in a place where customs, work habits, food, language, and people are probably radically different from everything you are used to. I find that such circumstances tend to draw families closer together. If you begin your new life with an open mind, eager to embrace the novelty of your experiences, and aware that you are going to be view...

If you strike up a conversation with the businessperson sitting next to you on a flight or whom you meet at a hotel, and ask where they come from and where they are going, you realize that the number of expatriates that consciously opt to live and work outside their place of birth is increasing daily. In Kenexa, ten years ago we had none, five years ago there were maybe two or three, and now they number about thirty or more. The other change has been that where once the expatriates were usually from among the senior management of a company, now people from all levels and job descriptions are being offered such assignments. In my opinion, it is very desirable for people just starting out in ...

In the past few months I’ve been traveling a lot globally. One of the striking things I’ve been observing is the increased number of people of different nationalities I’ve been seeing in different cities. In the past, if you went to, say Dubai, you’d mostly see people of Arab heritage there and if you were in Hyderabad, the majority of the people visible would be Indians, and so on. This no longer holds true—one of the major changes that have taken place over the years is that large cities across the world have become more cosmopolitan in nature. You visit one of the larger cities and you come across people from every corner of the world—in fact, in cities...

In a recent post, I spoke about how relationship and results affect performance. Another factor that can greatly influence outcomes is communication. To continue with my example of two builders, A and B, your perception of their performance also depends on how well they have communicated with you, and this communication depends on the relationship you build. As a client, your perception of the builder depends on his response to your queries, whether he has kept you informed about developments and progress, and so on. Good and regular communication helps establish a good working relationship, and you will have a finger on the pulse of the project throughout its course.

I have been pondering relationships. Humans need relationships—they were not designed to be alone. We all set great store by the associations that we have with people, from family and friends to coworkers to casual acquaintances. And each of these relationships means something different to us. What tends to be common to all is that the performance of the relationship is connected directly to the type of relationship it is, to the strength of the ties that bind us, and the resulting outcome of the equation we share. In other words, performance is a function of relationship and results. The pressures that we experience in many relationships are frequently caused by confusion around comm...

Two thoughts hit me at once, one after the other. The first was that I’d be absolutely wasting my time here. The SOA has about 10000 voting members, at least 30 percent of whom must cast a vote. Over the years, I have had no contact with either the decision makers or with the voting members; nor have I written or published anything for the Society—so it seemed to me that I did not stand any chance whatsoever of making it through even the initial screening. But simultaneously another thought occurred to me: What a fabulous learning opportunity this promised to be! This thought was highly exciting—it would be enjoyable putting myself through the process; learning how an organ...