What do you prefer, Working Like a Donkey or a Monkey?

Making money with closed source software, related IT services: Donkey Work ( You got to do all the heavy lifting in the muck)
Making money with opensource: Monkey Work – you need to be real smart to make money with open source. ( I’m using the Mind=Monkey Indian spiritual metaphor here )

This question is motivated by the discussion that followed a talk at Madras Management Association by Gp.Capt.K.Balasubramanian of Teledata Informatics Ltd, a fast growing( organic and inorganic!) Golbal IT company headquarteded in Chennai. He was lementing that the manpower productivity could be improved by focusing on ‘High end’ work. He further elobrated that working on life critical things is an example of “High End work”. In passing he mentioned, the cost of fixing a bug must be real steep to get the high compensation the high end work deserves. I was interested in knowing his stand on open source trend. My take is, life critical things will all slowly be opensources: Life is more precious than anyone’s greed; Greed is good only if life is there!

I can understand his heart mind conflict in addressing the threat/opportunity of opensource: heart knows opensource is the way to go; Mind with all the conditioning of old economy greed( Karma!) says old ways will stay on forever!

Unfortunately the top IT companies in India- TSC, Infosys, Wipro, and the gang – have tuned their ‘Engines’ towards Donkey Work. Any day, managing a bunch of donkeys is easier than managing a handful of monkeys.

Smart people are/will increasingly find the donkey herd repulsive and look for alternatives to use up their smarts. There is tremendous opportunity to make use of this talent to do useful things and create a lot of wealth!

So I ask again: Do you want to do Donkey’s work? or Monekey Work? Flames welcome!

Second Life: Featuring Project Green Hands Marathon

The Love Affair with Second Life is getting strong. As mentioned earlier, I’m exploring Second Life especially events. Events in Second Life has immense potential to intersect with real life events. Project Green Hands’s Mass Tree Planting Marathon was a fitting event I attempted featuring in Second Life. It was a very intense experience right from planning, thinking up ways to feature and finally ending up doing 1% of all that I wanted to do! Well that is Life

Here are some screen shots:

Maha( upsl Pink in SL) and Vasudeven( Vasu Surya in SL) are hooked to it and presently going strong with linden scripts.

Here is the slurl of Project Green Hands at SL if you care for it. It is no Reuter’s Island in Second Life( BTW Reuters opened shop – via Jeff – in SL recently and it Rocks! – bandwidth and server performance permitting )

I thought Second Life is just a glorified Chat. After the featuring the event I’m wiser: I’m amazed by the diversity of the views, the types of responses and of course the diversity of the Avatars. I’m mulling over the learning and will consolidate and post.

Project Green Hands Mass Tree Planting Marathon

When an A-lister bites the toenail it is discussed with vivid detail in Blogosphers. When something Earth changing like a Mass Tree Planting Marathon is underway, I’m surprised by the deafening silence!
Project Green Hands of Isha Foundation is an initiative to increase the green cover of the state of Tamil Nadu( India) by 10% over the next ten years. Here is the a quote from the Project Rationale:

Statistics show that the number of trees required to make substantial difference is huge and daunting – for example, an estimated 114 million new trees are required to increase the green cover of the state of Tamil Nadu by 10% (from the present 17.5%, over the next 10 years). However, as Sadhguru says, if every one of the 62 million people of Tamil Nadu planted one tree in 2006 and another in 2007 and tend to it over the next 10 years, we would have 124 million young trees, by the year 2016.

Actual statistics and practical logistics may come in the way, but the rationale is very simple, with the right kind of focus and motivation, the gap between what is needed and what is possible could be very small.

Surely, raising two saplings over the next 10 years is a task that even the poorest of the poor can do. The rich and the resourceful could do much more. So with no additional financial burden upon the state, just people’s action could make something truly beautiful, wonderful and timely, happen. Faced with the grim threats to the environment that exist today, this is the scale of action that is required.

Besides, it is a well known conservation paradigm that people conserve only what they love and value. So the amount of awareness, sensitivity, and involvement created amoung the general population through planting and growing trees combined with the inspiration received and the motivation created in accomplishing such a huge task would be a huge social and national asset.

The world record setting, Mass Tree Planting Marathon is presently happening in Tamil Nadu. Some 200,000 people are taking part in the activity dispersed across 2000 locations planting 700,000 plant saplings.

The project originated as part of Tsunami rehabilitation effort in coastal areas. Planting of trees along the coastline will act as a wave breaker in case of a future Tsunami. It is extended to the entire state now. The process of seed selection, and making the sapling is done with dedication involving school children, common men, educated, illiterate, rich, poor, famous etc all alike.

Hat tip to Jaggi Vasudev

Update( 24 Sep 2007): This years Project Green Hands is even more ambitious 25 Million Trees for 2007 and they start on September – That is confidence! . Catch all the action at the Gramotsavam Blog.

There is a photo exhibition at Alliance Francaise too till Oct 3.

Second Life warming up for Real Life; Events is SL

My Second Life exploration is getting serious and interesting. With Sun Micro jumping into Second Life, SL becomes the new testing ground for Moore’s Law and Metcalfes Law in action. Of course Intel is pitching in- seamless interactive 3D will soak up enough processing power to sustain Intel’s growth for a few more years ! The Real Life – Second Life intersection melting pot is hot and cooking with educational institutions offering courses in Second Life. The combination of technology majors’ attention, University patronage and the membership nearing a million users is making Second Life cross the Tipping Point. I’d don’t care if the Linden scripting language sucks, or if it is not open source, the innovation spur beyond the Tipping Point is sporting action I look forward.

I’m interested in using it as a collaboration tool with and a way to manage information overload. I’m still a newbie at Second Life and there is much to explore. I’m impressed by the way user generated content is monetized in second life right from day one. And the booming economy will be a major membership pull factor. I figured that to do anything serious, building skills are a must. And I’m learning that. Some day soon I will integrate my paper location tracking information on to SL. Here is a screen shot of me at Rev Univ at Second Life.

I’m taking help of Maha of UPSL to evaluate the SL builds. Here is a screen shot of a build in progress.

Apart from avatar customization, fashion, landscape, furniture and real estate that contributes to the major economic activity, Events are very interesting form of content in Second Life. Events hold the key for intersection of RL and SL meaningfully. I’m going to explore and learn about second life Events through Isha’s Green Hands to plant 700,000 saplings on a single day I will post more as I learn!