Category Archives: Uncategorized

If scale is what got us in this mess, is scale really what will get us out of it?

There’s a need, it seems, to acquire and expand. And it’s not just in our personal and material lives. Startups want to scale — that’s the most critical stage for them. How do we expand? How do we robotize it so we can speed up the process?

Nonprofits need to collect data for “impact” reports, illustrating how their ideas are not only innovative, but scalable.

It’s a numbers game to grow and, if possible, grow exponentially. That’s the sign of success — numerical growth.

Everything needs to have scale. Scalability is like sustainability now — another simple concept made far too abstract and complex.

Yet, what used to be sustainable can no longer be so because we live at roller coaster speeds. The small-town businesses struggle against the giants because they cannot “scale” or, perhaps, they don’t want to. Hence, as consumers, we have to decide do we go for the local “brand” or the corporate one? It’s one or the other, it seems.

So, should scalability really be such a big focus?

Sustainable lives are smaller lives. They’re lives that are in sync with the community, with the earth, with each other. Scalable lives require us to extend ourselves beyond ourselves.

via vcstar.com

In the social enterprise world, scale is plenty important for most actors. The impact investors, the foundations, the social entrepreneurs they’re all talking about how to scale, how to measure impact at scale, how to build the missing middle or how to select and supports those few enterprises that can grow. I am (and have been even more before) certainly ingrained with this mindset.

Now from a perspective of (environmental, at least) sustainability in many regards it was the advent of large scale production and consumption that got us into the mess we’re in right now. The disconnection between production and consumption of food, the carbon costly supply chains, the export of environmental degradation to the places which can manage it the least… all of it came on the back of rapidly scaling enterprises and global systems. It has elevated environmental and social challenges to a size of equal proportion meaning that we now no longer talk about the survival of individual communities but of everybody (well, except maybe for the 1% – they can afford to pay their way out of the mess).

One answer to these challenges have been touted as globally scalable social endeavors – be it the Gates Foundation or Grameen Bank. However, isn’t this just repeating the same process which got us in trouble in the first place?

The signs are there: much-touted microfinance have been shown at scale to have little effect on poverty (http://blog.linuskendall.com/microfinance-contribution-on-poverty-reductio) – in Andhra the scale of microfinance got so out of control that it contributed to a spate of suicide and eventually extreme government reaction.

Read the original article here:

http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/apr/28/esha-chhabra-redefining-growth-in-a-mo…

Why thinking in products invites failure

One problem is that having a cheap, clean technology is no guarantee that it will be properly adopted. In a new NBER paper, economists Rema Hanna, Esther Duflo and Michael Greenstone note that there’s been very little evidence on whether these stoves work in the real world. They looked at a randomized control trial that handed out cleaner stoves to 15,000 people in Orissa, one of India’s poorest rural areas, and tracked the results over five years. The stoves were a bargain, costing about $12.50 a pop, and they used a chimney to keep smoke away from the users.

What Hanna and her colleagues found is that in the first year of using the stoves, households saw a serious drop in smoke inhalation. The cleaner cookstoves were working exactly as they did in the laboratory. But in the years after that, the stoves stopped working effectively. “We find no evidence of improvements in lung functioning or health and there is no change in fuel consumption (and presumably greenhouse gas emissions),” the authors write.

So what went wrong? Basically, none of the earlier evaluations of the clean cookstoves had taken into account how households in places like India would actually use the things. In early tests, there were trained technicians on hand at all times to inspect and repair the stoves. Not surprisingly, households used the stoves frequently. But when the technicians departed and the owners had to clean the chimneys themselves, they lost interest over time. People were spending too many hours conducting repairs and eventually just preferred to switch back to indoor cooking fires.

via washingtonpost.com

Without considering the larger system, especially when dealing with communities that are vulnerable (socially, environmentally, economically) you invite failure. Upper middle class designers create beautiful, smart, lab-tested products, successfully implement them during one year and then leave. What happens? Reality strikes.

Just as thinking in products is creating the basis for an environmental (and often economical) overconsumption hangover to come for the rich communities across the world (and that goes for the rich in Delhi as well as in New York), applying this thinking to poor communities is resulting in equally disappointing outcomes.

Maybe it’s time to stop thinking about selling this or that product to the poor and rich alike and instead think long and deep about what it is that we really need and how we design systems that provide for those needs. Sure it’s neither as easy to touch and feel, nor as sexy or cool as a fancy new gadget, and yes it might cause us to ask some uncomfortable questions about ourselves, our lives and how we might need to redistribute wealth in the world (hint: not by selling the poor gadgets so that they can become as awesomely wasteful as the rich).

Making your deodorant

Ingredients:
1/4 cup baking soda
1/4 cup arrowroot powder
4 tablespoons unrefined coconut oil
10 drops/shakes grapefruit essential oil
A tin or jar with lid

 

 

In a bowl, stir together dry ingredients, then add oils gradually until you like the consistency, mixing with a fork. Store in a closed container at room temp. (If the mixture seems too soft, try refrigerating it for a bit to firm it up.)

To apply, scoop up a bit with your finger, hold it against your skin for a couple seconds so it melts a little, then rub around.

 

via howaboutorange.blogspot.in

In another win for sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), here is a recipe for deodorant. I’m currently battle-testing it in 40 degrees Delhi summer, and as far as I can smell, feel or see it is absolutely superbly functional. Benefit of essential oils like lemon (which I used) is that I also believe they add extra anti-bacterial properties (sweat smell is in the end bacteria smell).

Not only is this deodorant effective, it’s also dirt cheap (at least in India), doesn’t include any harmful chemicals or metals (most other deodorants even ‘natural’ or ‘sustainable ones’ seem to include various forms of aluminium), shouldn’t be too carcinogenic (like regular deodorant) AND you can get it in any smell you like (just alter the essential oils).

I added some tea tree oil which also means that it’s good for your skin…

Apart from muffins, sodium bicarbonate has provide to have many uses like toilet and bathroom cleaner, pesticide and so on, in fact so many that once I should probably collect a post of all baking soda recipes I’ve collected (including that of chocolate muffins..).

Thankfully we can now reach Khan Market easily

Img_4535
“While working on the redevelopment plan of the community centre at Khan Market, we stumbled upon the drawings of Land and Development Office. We found that the Amrita Shergill Marg extended all the way to Humayun Road, which had been encroached upon over a period of time,” said Amit Prasad, spokesperson of NDMC.
“A boundary wall had been constructed by people and some hutments had come up there. We have removed all of them” said a senior NDMC official.

 

So, thanks to NDMC the 3000 daily visitors can now visit their market easily and the pesky squatters have been cleared out of city. Another victory for the world class city!

 

 

Painful Cake – Racism at Swedish Art Exhibition?

Yesterday, for World Art Day, the Swedish Minister of Culture, participated in an event at the Modern Museum of Art in Stockholm which among other works of art included a performance art cake depicting a stereotypical image of a body of a black woman with the artist himself in blackface as the head.

Yesterday, for World Art Day, the Swedish Minister of Culture, participated in an event at the Modern Museum of Art in Stockholm which among other works of art included a performance art cake depicting a stereotypical image of a body of a black woman with the artist himself in blackface as the head.

http://storify.com/linuskendall/racist-cake-at-swedish-art-exhibition

Why men can’t – and shouldn’t – stop staring at women – The Globe and Mail

This is another thing that made the girl on the bike so appealing: she was free. It would be nice if we all were. Y, a 35-year-old married friend who still flicks his gaze at passing women the way other people flip channels, blames our national earnestness. “The problem for us as men is that we’re in the wrong culture, and we’re men at the wrong time. We’re not a culture that empowers men with casual sensuality.” ;

via theglobeandmail.com

This article has a whole host of wonderful lines, about how men should be allowed to stare and leer at women, as it’s merely a way of appreciation and of natural, evolutionary drives… It’s funny how it doesn’t fit into our consciousness how passing interactions with other human beings can be anything but sexualized and objectifying.

Protect yourself against pesticide – eat oranges

Scientists at Gwalior-based Jiwaji University have found that a combination dose of vitamins A, C and E can prevent organophosphate pesticides from causing too much damage. Organophosphates are the most commonly available pesticides in India. They are used in agriculture and in households against head lice and parasites in domestic animals. Its exposure can lead to, among other things, neuromuscular paralysis.

via downtoearth.org.in

A wonderfully sparse language

“Who has boarding pass may go.”

Or in other words:

“Those passengers who have already received their boarding pass may please proceed through the security check immediately”

Amazon’s customer service kicks ass

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via library.corporate-ir.net

After having battled it out with customer service operations of Indian companies such as Airtel (dismal) and MTNL (slightly less dismal), dealing with Amazon this morning was nothing but revolutionary.

First up, the problem: My Kindle’s screen displayed a strange pattern and was stuck in a “Critical battery” screen. It’s a few years old, so the ordinary 1 year warranty wouldn’t apply.

Since this however, seemed like some internal software or hardware error I decided to contact Amazon. Conveniently, you can easily do so via online chat on their website. I entered the chat and described my problem. The original chat representative connected me to a “Kindle specialist”. After he started with the regular customer service routine (plugin, reset etc.) I realized that it would go faster if I uploaded a picture of the Kindle to my Dropbox and sent it to him.

As he received the picture he quickly realized that a replacement order was necessary. He went off for a minute to file it (I guess) and returned to chat saying I would be contacted by replacements department in 48 hours. Within 20 minutes I received an order confirmation that they had created a replacement order with express shipment which would arrive in the next few days…

Now this is how you create loyal customers (& ambassadors for their products…)