Monthly Archives: September 2010

When making liti (pastries?) cow dung briquettes are way better as they give the right taste

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Here we are fighting coal briquette usage and CO2-taste one liti at a time.

Though I am unsure about the environmental impact of cow dung so maybe
I should hold off applying for CDM carbon credits just yet…

What is the story you’re telling yourself? Which story are you ready to give up everything else for?

The other night, I watched the movie Juno, again. It's a beautiful movie with a great soundtrack and some really cool acting, especially by Ellen Page playing Juno. If you haven't seen it, it's a sure feel-good film to watch. 

At the turning point of the film, Juno is frustrated by a break-up and asks her dad whether it's truly possible for people to stay together for ever. She is desperately calling for a such story to believe in. In the end of course, being a feel-good movie, it that is also that story which plays out. 

In the past year, I spent a lot of time looking at the story that people tell themselves and each other within an organizational context. It struck me that these stories people tell are terribly powerful. They shape individual behaviour and they shape organizational behaviour. 

I also realized, that deciding to go back to Sweden was a choice based on that I needed a break from the story that I was telling myself at that point. Likewise, now going to India is part of a story that I'm hoping will unfold.

Some stories in our lives, thus, brings great positive value. Some stories holds us back. Many stories we let ourselves be told to believe – such as many of the ones we see on TV or in movies.

So, how to relate to Juno's story? It is one that many of us so desperately wants to tell ourselves. That we'll find someone to stay with forever. It's clearly possible. Is it something worth changing our other stories for? Is it something worth giving up our stories for?

What do you think? What stories do you burn for? What stories would you sacrifice everything else for? Is it the same as Juno's?

Internet access is a commodity – it’s the service that matter

You would hope that it soon becomes clear to more and more companies
that internet access is not a product or service you charge for –
rather its a baseline infrastructure and it’s the product or services
on top of this that hold value to the customer (especially with
everyone carrying around internet access in their pockets ..)

Of course, thus doesn’t quite apply in India yet, but that’s another
blog post 🙂

http://mashable.com/2010/08/12/starbucks-digital-network/?utm_source=TweetMem…

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On power cuts

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Having a computer operated by battery is not just a convenience here – it is a necessity. With power cuts about every 3-4 hours or so, I have got used to keep my laptop plugged in constantly, so that it has enough juice to last me through the next power cut. And in the nights, it won’t be nightmares waking you up, but rather the fans turning off leaving you sweating intensely.

At first I got quite excited by the power cuts (in the way that you’d get in say, Sweden ;)), but I realized most people here just simply didn’t noticed and just got on with their business as if nothing happened, so I started to hide my amusement. I guess in a while, I won’t need to hide it any more as I’ll be as accustomed as the natives to them. 

A pretty ordinary Indian city

Bokaro is a pretty ordinary place, with the main exception being it’s large, nay huge(!), steel plant around which the city was built. Most of the city seems to be constructed in the 60s and 70s in parallel with the steel plant. It’s located in the province of Jharkhand, a province recently forcibly separated from northern Bihar. It proved to be a boon for Jharkhand which in the process also got rid of a corrupt chief minister and is now enjoying a much needed period of safety, order and improved business climate. In the region there is still a low-level Naxalite (maoist) insurgency, however I’m told that beyond the odd kidnapping and skirmishes in the eastern forests, things are generally safe. 

In the city people seem to be living in either 60s or 70s four-storey apartment blocks, in smaller villas/2 floor apartment houses, or in various degrees of more informal accommodations (ranging from shack by the road to mud-bricked buildings). There’s a cinema (which I’ve as of yet not had the chance to check out), a fun fair (open 13:30-20:30 in case you fancy a visit), several “exercise grounds” and a forlorn, but still quite beautiful city park – apparently (according to one of my local colleagues) the place for couples to meet as it lies just in between the boy’s and girl’s colleges – a fact I could quite easily verify given the amount of youngish couples in the lakeside restaurant (another forlorn place – with red curtains kept closed at all times). 

Unless you’re a big fan of 60s architecture or steel plants, it’s probably not the place to visit, but for the complete “travelogue” listing – there’s a daily train from Delhi (Rajdhani express) taking approximately 14 hours and a train from Kolkata (Shatabdi express) taking (5 hours). I believe there’s at least one local hotel and  more than a couple “hostels” (girls or boys). 

PS. A small side-note for the Swedes reading this, some of the pictures is quite reminiscent of that old Skatteverket advertisement “This is how it’ll be in Sweden if you don’t pay tax”… Well, most people don’t pay tax here so maybe Skatteverket is right…

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See the full gallery on Posterous

Indian’s sure now how to make train travel comfortable

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The menu on the Rajdhani and Shatabdi express certainly won’t leave you getting off the train hungry. All included in the fare, which on the 5 hour trip from Bokaro to Kolkata was around 500 Rs.