The wired features a very interesting article today: Tweet the new size of thought?.
Twitters success has been a much debated topic in the tech circles. And I am yet to see a convincing argument in favour ot twitter. The way we have kept in touch with our friends and family has seen dramatic changes in the last decade.
From email to chatting to social networks to micro blogging. Yet what is it that twitter has that none of the above can offer?
The thought that a twit could be the new size of thought is at the same time a very scary thought indeed. The pessimists would view this as the beginning of the end of coherent thought. And they would seem right, if you were to look at the seemingly pointless twits that people seem to be sending. However there is an opportunity here.
Historically all our published works have been coherent sets of thoughts that have concluded something based on a lot of serious thinking. However, what about all those incomplete thoughts that do not get published or discussed as they have not been taken to a logical conclusion? Are they lost for ever?
What if these could be taken to completion by someone else? This is what twitter has the potential to do.
The silliest of ideas that would normally not be talked about could become serious discussions on twitter.
However will it go down that path? Will twitter result in the next great invention? I guess only time will tell. But we are ready to capture every thought that occurs to people. Go send that twit out people!!
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Its time for IT IN India...
For long this country has earned its name for the high quality IT Services delivered FROM its shores. Its time some of these are delivered IN its shores now.
The global recession has expectedly had its impact on the Indian IT Services industry as well. With the IT Budgets being slashed across the US and Europe, the industry is looking to reinvent itself.
The huge IT Talent pool in the country needs to continue to be productive. What better time than now to deploy this talent pool to develop a NATIONAL IT INFRASTRUCTURE.
Its time we think about Centralized Identities to track citizens. i.e linking licenses, PAN Cards, Bank Accounts, Property documents, Insurance etc to a single identity.
The absence of this ability to track has been the root cause for most of the problems our country faces today. The basic premise that one can get away easily, even if one does not follow a rule, even if it is the smallest or most insignificant like parking in a No Parking Zone, has given us a Freedom thats more akin to what animals experience in the wild.
It is not that we lack discipline. Its just that when we defined "Freedom" for ourselves in this country, we seemed to have forgotten the duties to our fellow citizens that this freedom demands. For 60 years now we have experienced "Freedom" in the truest and wildest sense of the word.
This can change if every action has a consequence, even if it is minimal. And this is not rocket science, it has been done elsewhere. Yes, we do have challenges in terms of scale of implementation and we have to keep this in mind when try to solve this problem.
National Identity Cards with chips in it that store everything from one's DNA are probably not the best solutions for us. Is it feasible to deploy such a solution to a billion people?
What we need is a simple, clean solution. For example, Assign a number to every citizen and make sure that number is mandated on every legal document like a license, property, bank account, PAN Number or insurance.
This solution, in whatever form, if scalable, will be an investment whose ROI can be boundless.
The global recession has expectedly had its impact on the Indian IT Services industry as well. With the IT Budgets being slashed across the US and Europe, the industry is looking to reinvent itself.
The huge IT Talent pool in the country needs to continue to be productive. What better time than now to deploy this talent pool to develop a NATIONAL IT INFRASTRUCTURE.
Its time we think about Centralized Identities to track citizens. i.e linking licenses, PAN Cards, Bank Accounts, Property documents, Insurance etc to a single identity.
The absence of this ability to track has been the root cause for most of the problems our country faces today. The basic premise that one can get away easily, even if one does not follow a rule, even if it is the smallest or most insignificant like parking in a No Parking Zone, has given us a Freedom thats more akin to what animals experience in the wild.
It is not that we lack discipline. Its just that when we defined "Freedom" for ourselves in this country, we seemed to have forgotten the duties to our fellow citizens that this freedom demands. For 60 years now we have experienced "Freedom" in the truest and wildest sense of the word.
This can change if every action has a consequence, even if it is minimal. And this is not rocket science, it has been done elsewhere. Yes, we do have challenges in terms of scale of implementation and we have to keep this in mind when try to solve this problem.
National Identity Cards with chips in it that store everything from one's DNA are probably not the best solutions for us. Is it feasible to deploy such a solution to a billion people?
What we need is a simple, clean solution. For example, Assign a number to every citizen and make sure that number is mandated on every legal document like a license, property, bank account, PAN Number or insurance.
This solution, in whatever form, if scalable, will be an investment whose ROI can be boundless.
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