Uncategorized – Page 2

Where Are The Real People?

These days, we connect with friends, family, and colleagues through digital media. We are proud that we are always connected and and these days, there are countless ways to stay connected. We are proud of adding more and more connections to our network. In the world of social media, we are getting addicted to follows, likes, feelings in the shape of the heart & different icons, the count of connections, etc.

But somewhere, somehow, we forget where the real people are. Are we even connected to them? Or how many genuine connections, friends, follows, hearts, or many of those emojis do we own?

This begs the question: Where are the real people? This sets me into a quest to understand who they are, where they might be, and why do they seem so hard to find and I’m willing to bet you’ve had moments too — times when you’ve wondered the same, faced situations that made you question what’s real and who’s truly genuine.

To the world, you are what you appear — But only a few glimpse who you truly are

Have you ever looked at someone in a position of power and thought, “How on earth did they get there?” We’ve all witnessed it. People who seem thoroughly incompetent are rising to positions of authority while more capable individuals remain stuck in the shadows. Why is this happening? First, I thought this was something that started happening recently. Then I stumbled upon the studies of “Niccolo Machiavelli,” an author, philosopher, and historian who lived during the Italian Renaissance. He is best known for his political treatise The Prince, written around 1513 but not published until 1532, five years after his death.

That book is not merely an ancient philosophy — it’s a real psychological force and mindset that shapes our world from boardrooms to politics.

Unlike the other philosophers, Machiavelli wasn’t concerned with how rulers should behave in a perfect world. Instead, he focused on how power actually worked in the real world. He understood that perception always matters, and that is the way to control the crowd. “To the world, you are what you appear — But only a few glimpse who you truly are.” This is the key.

“Appearing competent is often more important than actually being competent”.

Machiavelli observed that rulers who display too much intelligence often create problems for themselves. Because intelligence usually comes with certain traits that can become liabilities. Traits like critical thinking, ethical considerations, and self-awareness.

Imagine what happens when a genuinely intelligent person enters a power structure. They tend to see complexities where others see simplicity, they point out limitations where others make blanket promises, they question themselves and the choices we make, whereas others project absolute confidence in everything they say or do.

This is where you might notice that the loudest voice that simplifies situations becomes most influential. Why is this happening?

In the 1990s, psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger identified what we now know as the Dunning-Kruger effect, the cognitive bias

“The people with limited knowledge in a particular domain overestimate their ability /competence, while genuine experts tend to underestimate their awareness of how much they don’t know !”

Like Socrates used to say, “I know that I know nothing,” this made him a philosophical genius, but ultimately sentenced him to death by the Athenian democracy.

You could see this in politics and in the tech industry. The politician who claims to have solutions to everything and the founders who speak in absolute visionary terms often secure massive funding and support over more measured, experienced counterparts.

The self-proclaimed leaders, Me Me Culture or Narcissism

“Narcissism and non-competence are the strongest predictors of who emerges as a leader in unstructured groups.” This is not my statement, it is from 2012 researchers at Stanford and the University of Houston. They found that the groups that were led by these narcissists didn’t win; they just thought they were winning.

The confidence signals and cognitive bias help these incompetent individuals initially rise to power.

Machiavelli observed something crucial about power structures: incompetent leaders tend to surround themselves with even less competent subordinates. In “The Prince,” Machiavelli wrote, “The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.” The weak leaders deliberately select weaker subordinates to ensure they never face threats to their authority. You might have observed the same around you in politics, in corporations, organizations etc.

Reality Vs Certainty

When dealing with real-world problems, uncertainty is real, and that is the reality. We can’t predict what exactly will happen. But according to human psychology, we crave certainty even when certainty isn’t possible. Because of the same reason, when in crisis, either a political crisis or a project crisis, people rally behind the leader who says, ‘I can fix this, and I alone can fix this’. But the reality is that the complex situations with no easy answers will require careful thought and inevitable trade-offs instead of self-proclamations. You might have seen incompetent people rise to power and fall flat on their faces. The world has seen this during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The political figures and leaders who offer simplistic solutions and promise everything with no downsides will win public support. Those who offer everything with certainty, regardless of feasibility, are jarring.

These days, these kinds of leaders and solution providers are everywhere you can see them in politics, in corporations, on social media, and LinkedIn is no exception.

Fake personas all over.

University of British Columbia researchers found that psychopathic traits like, lack of empathy, were positively associated with rapid advancement when combined with social charm.

Studies conducted in corporate offices show that “manipulative leaders often outpace their intelligent, moral, ethical peers”. Game theorists call this “A race to the bottom”, when unethical tactics prove successful, others face pressure to adopt similar approaches or be left behind over time. This can transform entire systems, making unethical behavior the norm rather than the exception. This is a serious issue — we are normalizing extreme thinking & intolerance, which in turn fuels sociocultural conflicts and violence. This trend can be observed across nearly every country around the world.

You might have even noticed a version of this on LinkedIn. In the initial days, those who created a persona of an expert on LinkedIn started landing jobs. Fast forward to now, LinkedIn is full of experts, and it’s difficult to find the real ones.

Machiavelli recognized that most people evaluate others based on surface impressions rather than deep understanding, especially in complex domains where few have the expertise to make informed judgments. He said, “Systems that reward short-term performance over long-term outcomes create fertile ground for incompetent leadership with superficial charm.”

Machiavelli has been misunderstood for centuries. He wasn’t advocating for the dark patterns instead, he was describing and exposing them by understanding how power actually works. He believed we could create better systems of governance if it’s not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles. This profound observation reminds us that authority itself deserves no inherent respect. Power must be earned through worthy use, regardless of who holds it.

The intersection of Machiavellian political philosophy and modern psychology reveals uncomfortable truths about human nature and social systems. The uncomfortable truths are precisely what we need, if we hope to create a better future. The path forward isn’t pretending these dynamics don’t exist; it’s understanding them deeply enough to transcend them. It’s designing systems that account for human vulnerabilities rather than exploiting them. It’s developing personal practices that strengthen our resistance to manipulations. Most importantly,

“It’s recognizing that while stupidity may sometimes gain power, intelligence coupled with moral courage remains our best hope for creating societies where merit truly matters.”

Reference materials:

The prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

Dunning-Kruger effect by the psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger

Research materials from Stanford and the University of Houston

Research about psychopathic traits in humans from various research materials and universities like the University of British Columbia, and other psychology papers

Surface scratching basics about Game Theory

Impact of Cognitive Bias on people and decision making

Many YouTube videos on these research papers

https://bivekrenuji.medium.com/where-are-the-real-people-d226ce4b91b0

A digital takeaway from “The Nike Story”

Nike, a company that once owned 38% of the shoe market, a company that always focuses on athletes and innovations. But if you look at the sales for the last quarter, they are falling. It’s the lowest since the 1990’s. Because of this dip in sales and to drive innovation, Nike has fired 2% of its workforce. Nike and the analyst are looking into the reasons for this downfall and they are coming up with various reasons for this. One such reason is “digitization initiatives in Nike”. We are going to look at this factor.

John Donohoes became the president and CEO of Nike in 2020. He has been on the board since 2014. He came to Nike with the experience of leading digital product companies like eBay, Paypal, ServiceNow etc. His presence on the board and becoming the CEO were some of the major reasons for the digital focus of Nike.

This was the time when Nike started focusing heavily on digitization and digital innovation. Nike started bidding on the “Direct To Customer” strategy by leveraging their Digital innovation and products like apps, websites, etc. During the same time, Nike started investing in its Global store concepts and four mobile apps.

Soon the sales numbers started responding positively to this strategy.

By the end of 2020, the digital initiatives started paying off and the sales from the app doubled and 20% of Nike’s sales were through digital channels.

The Strategy and investment boosted during the time of the pandemic. During the pandemic time, the competitors were struggling to reach out to their customers using their below-par digital presence and products. Nike was able to capitalize on this gap and as a result, the digital sales went up 30%, and the membership of Nike apps went up to 160 million.

This became an eye-opener for its competitors and many other retailers.Suddenly all of them started investing in digital.

During this time in one of the meetings Nike claimed that “Consumers today are digitally grounded and will not reverse back” and they predicted 50 % sales through online channels. They started production based on these projections.

By this time the lockdowns were lifted globally and people started returning to the stores, the digital story slowly began to reverse the online sales started going down, not just for Nike but in general for all the retailers. As customers walked into stores they started realizing what they were missing out on while they were in the digital world. They started seeing innovation and fashion created by other brands. People started trying out new products and they started appreciating the new styles and innovations created by other brands.

No one thought this could happen nor Nike. They ran into an inventory nightmare as the products started piling up in the warehouse at the same time sales were going down.

So post-pandemic the competitors and retailers got another key takeaway from Nike, “You should always focus on your core products and never stop innovating”. Nike made this mistake with their digital-focused initiatives.

Don’t get me wrong I am not saying don’t invest in Digital. Instead what I am saying is, “Use digital strategies to innovate in your core business, and don’t try to create a new digital product”.

Never forget that the customers are sticking with you because of the product innovation, or because of the style you are bringing to the products. The experience you provide is only a wrapper. Tomorrow someone else can easily come up with a better wrapper but it is not easy for them to continually innovate like you do with your products. Hence innovative products should be the primary reason for customer acquisition and retention. Digital should be only a complementing or supporting factor for that.

The key takeaway from the pre and post-Nike story is “ Digitization is needed for all brands. While doing so, it should not become your core focus of innovation instead, use digital to drive innovation in your core business”

Humans Need Stories to Work Together: The Power of Storytelling

One key factor differentiating humans from other animals is that we can work together in big groups. Yes, some animals can work together in groups like wolves or chimpanzees but in a maximum size of 50 or 100. But we are not like them, we can work together in groups of millions or billions. Yes, you read it right “millions or billions”

Take the case of religions, millions of people march towards achieving their spiritual principles even though they don’t know each other, people from different parts of the world, from different ethnicities, cultures, values etc. Have you ever wondered how and why this is possible?

That is the power of storytelling. Take the case of religion. Take any religion in the world they all are collections of powerful stories that connect directly to our emotions. Stories that paint a bigger picture or cause, a cause for your existence, a role that you have to play, or an inspiration from a character from the many stories those books have.

All of those stories have conflicts, resolutions, relatable characters, motivations, and emotions, that create a sense of belonging and community. This is the reason why people who haven’t seen each other rally behind these religions.

You might be wondering where am I going with this. The reason why I thought about this is because of this project incident.

My friend has been working on this team for the last 10 to 12 years. A team that was delivering consistently for these years but suddenly things have changed and now everything is stuck,and things are not moving.

What happened was:

This dev team was part of one of the biggest companies in the world. The dev and business team used to be under the same company until one day they found that they wanted to increase the profitability, and their numbers were not going in the positive direction according to the competition in the market.

The C suites sat together and looked at the numbers and they pulled out the most powerful tool they had. “ The Excel sheet”. They started playing around with the numbers and found out that if they could reduce the dev cost then the numbers could match up to the figure they wanted.

This was the eureka moment for them.“ Sell or outsource the dev work” !

They formed a separate unit inside the company whose responsibility is to make the parent company profitable. By either selling, handing over, or outsourcing the development team. Effectively they made their problems someone else’s. Simple!

So what happened at the end was the dev team who had been working on this project for many years was suddenly bought over by another big service company in the world. During this process, some of them lost their jobs. The new service company outsourced those roles to save money and the remaining was being absorbed under their banner. A story that looks perfect in paper. The numbers became positive and happy ending for the C suites, They achieved the target.

But the same people who were super productive earlier are not effective now. Projects are not getting delivered, systems are failing one after the other, escalation emails are flying right left-center, nothing is happening and the team doesn’t care. Why?

This made me wonder why the same set of people is not able to resolve these issues or not care about what is happening now.

The reason is, they lack belonging, they lack purpose, and they feel cheated. Now there is no story that connects them to the new flag that’s being flying above their heads. This is similar to the feeling of the people who are being conquered by another empire.

Almost with every merger and project pressure, most of the corporates miss this part. The power and effectiveness of storytelling. You have to realize at the end of the day every project in every company is a group of individuals, they need a common belief, a role which they all have to play towards a bigger story, and the leaders have to articulate that story and stay true to that narrative.

People seek purpose in life. If work lacks meaning or purpose, they will leave despite friendships. To retain employees, ensure the company’s mission resonates personally with them.

This incident ignited a spark in me about “why people collaborate”? What I realized is, that for us to work together we need a shared story or goal and one of the most impressive thing about storytelling is the ability to communicate and create feelings.

When you come up with stories, remember that storytelling starts with your audience and not with the story. For this, you must know your audience and empathize with them. Otherwise, you will be like that uncle who repeats the same story repeatedly. Not just that, you should keep your words and actions in sync so more and more people will start believing in your story and will start following you. Thus creating strong lasting teams.

Also, keep in mind that it is not just a number game at the end of the day.

I would like to know your opinion about the power of storytelling and team building. Please feel free to share your comments below.

The content is also available on my channel: https://youtu.be/Ke8jjejPG30

The Flow State

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

We all have this problem of getting bored. I am the one who gets bored when doing the same things again and again. When I sense boredom I try to find something which is interesting. What I have noticed (at least for me ) I can distract myself for only a certain period after that the boredom just consumes me fully.

I started talking with people who are in the same boat and realized almost all of them are in the same category. If they get bored they will try to distract and eventually, they will be consumed by that fully. Since they realize this most of them quit early before it hits them and some look for distractions and eventually get consumed by boredom.

During one of those boring days, I was retrospectively looking at the period where I was bored Vs the period I was super productive. That is when I started realizing that we are more productive when we are in the “State of Flow”.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is one of the founders of positive psychology and was one of the first to identify and research about “ The Flow State”. He once said

“The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile”

If you think of a time when your performance excelled and we call in the zone where we were ready to take up any challenge. That is the state of flow. Flow occurs when your skill levels and challenges match.

According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi below are the 8 characteristics of flow

Complete concentration on the task
Clarity of goals and rewards in mind and immediate feedback
Transformation of time (speeding up/slowing down)
The experience is intrinsically rewarding
Effortlessness and ease
There is a balance between challenge and skills
Actions and awareness are merged, losing self-conscious rumination
There is a feeling of control over the task

So the question is who can achieve this state of Flow? Studies suggest that autotelic personalities(having an end or purpose in itself) tend to achieve this faster. They tend to do things for their own sake rather than chase something.

The personality traits of this group (autotelic) are: they have high interest in life, persistence, and low self-centeredness.

We also need to understand what happens in our Brain during Flow

During the state of flow, the prefrontal part of the brain will get temporarily inactivated. This part of the brain is responsible for self-consciousness, memory, temporal integration, and working memory. This temporary inactivation results in feelings of distortion of time, loss of self-consciousness, and loss of inner criticism. This also allows our brain areas to communicate freely and engage in a creative process. You might have felt this while playing sports, games, reading, solving puzzles, etc.

How to achieve the state of Flow:

The balance of perceived challenges and skills are important factors in flow. On one hand, when a challenge is bigger than one’s level of skills, one becomes anxious and stressed. On the other hand, when the level of skill exceeds the size of the challenge, one becomes bored and distracted.

Studies suggest that the state of flow is enjoyable when you flow together as a team. For a team to be in the flow state we need motivation. There are two types of motivation Intrinsic and Extrinsic.

Intrinsic motivation is when you do something because you love it. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi said “The highest intrinsic motivation is a flow state where self-consciousness is lost, one surrenders completely to the moment, and time means nothing”

Extrinsic motivation is when your motivation to succeed is controlled externally. That includes doing something to avoid getting into trouble or working hard to earn more money. That type of motivation is short-lived. A good kind of extrinsic motivation is when you are practicing to get better but you still need a tutor or teacher to validate your efforts.

Difference between Team & Group

A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are working towards achieving common goals. A team is dependent on one another while holding each other accountable so they can accomplish their goals. Whereas a group is mostly independent members focusing or working on there piece of tasks.

How to lead your team toward Flow state?

For the team to be in a flow state every individual must be in the flow state. This occurs when team members can immerse together in an interdependent task that all the members are satisfied with. When your team achieves Flow state they can create greater results than the individual contributions. Some key points to achieve a flow state are:

Set clear and immediate goals at every stage
Receive clear and immediate feedback
No agony over failure
Have a balance of skill & challenges
Have control over the situation and have no fear of failure
Create intense and focused concentration
Ensure the work itself is intrinsically rewarding
Clear communication both verbal and non-verbal
The process is what’s enjoyable, not the result

Effects of Flow:

Flow is often explained as a positive experience. It’s not just improving productivity but also the group’s happiness and positivity. Consistently being in the state of flow could lead to a state of stress, because once in flow, unknowingly a person easily gives everything of their capacity.

It is therefore important to know how to ‘get out’ of the flow or take a break from it. Teams, Leads, and Individuals have to understand and learn the fact that “ promises cannot be always kept and that is natural and it’s not poor planning or intentional”

It is also good to understand that breaks from flow are important and natural; otherwise, they may appear sticky or even depressing periods after the joy and successful performances created by flow.

Studies found that flow experience is better when experienced together.

I would like to know if your team ever worked in flow. What did you notice? What were the results?

https://bivekrenuji.medium.com/the-flow-state-b2fe22ae938f

EVs, Batteries, and the lives we choose to ignore

We often consider eclectic cars as an environmentally friendly alternative or its been sold to us in that format. What do you think, the EVs are eco-friendly?

What a stupid question right? Of course, electric cars are environmentally friendly.

Emissions from Gasoline cars

An average gasoline passenger vehicle emits about 400 grams of tailpipe carbon dioxide (CO2) per mile, Which accounts for 4.6 metric tons of CO2 per year. In addition to carbon dioxide (CO2), automobiles using gasoline produce methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) from the tailpipe and all vehicles can emit hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) from leaking air conditioners. For gasoline vehicles, the emissions of HFCs are small in comparison to CO2; however, the impact of these emissions can be important because they have a higher global warming potential (GWP) than CO2.

Emissions from Electric cars,

CO2 emission from electric cars is 0%. Period.

We compare/ being sold in this way.

What about the emissions while producing large lithium-ion batteries?

To produce the batteries we need minerals like lithium, cobalt nickel, etc. These are not available on the surface of the earth. Same as extracting crude oil from the earth we need to mine these elements from the earth. For extracting and transporting these materials we still use machinery that runs on fossil fuels and then we have to heat them in high temperatures to make these batteries. As a result, building an 80 kWh lithium-ion battery found in a Tesla Model 3 creates between 2.5 and 16 metric tons of CO2 (exactly how much depends greatly on what energy source is used to do the heating). This intensive battery manufacturing means that building a new EV can produce around 80% more emissions than building a comparable gas-powered car. . . There goes one point from your eco-friendly badge.
Like most gasoline cars most of the emissions of today’s EVs come after being rolled off from the production floor. The major source of EV emissions is based on how we charge the batteries. These emissions will vary enormously based on where you drive and what kind of energy is being used there to produce electricity. The best case model available in the world right now is Norway, the nation that draws most of its energy from hydropower. This means that the carbon footprint left by EVs is minuscule. In other countries, the condition is different because they generate electricity by burning fossil fuels or nuclear power plants. Hence EVs are almost in par or a little bit better than burning gasoline.

There goes one more point from your eco-friendly badge

We could still get these points back by being environmentally friendly in the way we extract, source, and manufacture things

There is a third point that we have never thought/discussed about. The point that the world knowingly ignores.

The Environmental Impact of Mining and the Social impact on human life in those countries.

The cathodes in lithium-ion batteries typically used in EVs are made of metal oxides that contain a combination of cobalt and other elements. It’s even used in the device which I am using to write this article to the device you are using to read this article from.

Most of these elements are extracted from African countries. Take Lithium and cobalt as an example. Democratic Republic of Congo( There are two Congos, Democratic Republic of the Congo, the larger country among the two and the Republic of Congo” ) has the largest source of Cobalt (44 % comes from here ) and 8th largest source of Lithium. In spite of having all these natural resources, they remain one of the poorest nations in the world, what an irony right?

They use a totally carbon-neutral way to extract the cobalt, they use child labor, and people dig out using their hands and not using any machinery. The most inhumane way possible. Believe me or not we are still doing this in the 21st century.

“Cobalt should be handled as a CARCINOGEN — WITH EXTREME CAUTION. * Cobalt may cause a skin allergy. If allergy develops, very low future exposure can cause itching and a skin rash. * Exposure to Cobalt dust can irritate the skin, eyes, nose, and throat.”

We are using humans, that too kids to dig out these minerals using bare hands. We want these minerals even more now because we are trying to be carbon neutral, we are trying to be eco-friendly, we are trying to collect green points. What about the people who live there, what about their family, their social life? The fact is: “We just don’t care !!”

Their last generation had beautiful dreams about their grandkids. The current generation is petrified and the future looks bleak, cloudy and remains scary for them.

The Shabara artisanal mine, where cobalt and copper are dug out by hand, near the Congolese boomtown of Kolwezi.

Take the example of Goma, a place in Congo that is very rich in Cobalt. Once it was a green hilly paradise. Now it is one of the most dangerous places in the world to live/visit. It’s all because of our greed to collect the green points, that is getting funded to the militias as weapons and money so that they can evacuate the once paradise and extract Cobalt from there.

This Cobalt comes at a high human price. It should not be called cobalt, instead, it should be called “Blood Cobalt”. Knowingly or unknowingly we all are using that “blood cobalt” in our daily lives. We have a complicit/ accomplice liability in this.

The second part of the last point: The Environmental impact of these mining

A mine in Goma

The negative environmental impacts of mining include climate change, deforestation/habitat destruction, pollution, soil erosion, human-wildlife conflict, and the loss of biodiversity. Take the case of Goma, it was once a lust green hilly paradise now being turned into a place of rubble and stones. The people are being thrown out of their homes and the biodiversity is being harmed.

Now what do you think about the question I asked at the start

“The EVs are eco friendly?”

The answer is “Not yet !!”

Will it ever become eco friendly:

“There is sufficient in the world for Man’s need but not for man’s greed.” Mahatma Gandhi

https://bivekrenuji.medium.com/evs-batteries-and-the-lives-we-choose-to-ignore-f5a311b75edd?sk=edddf74c20bd096f398b460ad51fbf5d

When you are right doesn’t mean that the other person is wrong

A common misconception in arguments is that if you can prove yourself right then the other person is automatically wrong.

Nowadays if you switch on the news channels you will see people arguing to prove their point, even the news anchors are fighting to prove their point.

This thought process and the influence of social media platforms have resulted in political polarization. The world is diverged towards ideological extremes, which are far from the center.

This results in intolerance, and this Socio-Religious intolerance is increasing day by day. Leading social media platforms are playgrounds for everyone to argue, comment and contribute in any format. In this process they new care about facts, they just want to prove that they are right.

Have you ever thought why are they fighting so hard to prove their point?

This is because we always think of the result of arguments as binary, ie. If you could prove yourself right then the other person has to be wrong.

Is that really so?

Let’s have a look at the two answers we have :

Right and Wrong

What makes someone right/ when is someone right / What is the definition of being right?

The definition of “Right” according to Britannica is :

The meaning of right depends on whether you use the word before or after the noun

When it is used after a noun then the meaning of the word “Right” is “Morally or socially correct or acceptable”:

Eg: Stealing is not right

2. When it is used before the noun, then it means “you are agreeing to a fact or truth”

Eg:

a. The right answer is —

b. She was right about him not having a job.

The second one is more related to tangible augments which data, proofs, facts, etc can justify. So let’s look at the first one:

It says right means “ Morally or socially correct or acceptable”

So the immediate next question will be who is defining morality/ what is socially right /acceptable for society. The answer is not that simple.

Social norms are the perceived informal, mostly unwritten, rules that define acceptable and appropriate actions within a given group or community, thus guiding human behavior. They consist of what we do, what we believe others do, and what we believe others approve of and expect us to do. Social norms are therefore situated at the interplay between behavior, beliefs, and expectations.

These social norms, morality, or acceptability vary between ethnicities, cultures, countries, regions, companies etc..

For example, it is socially acceptable to smoke weed in some societies VS some don’t socially accept this and consider this a criminal offence.

Imagine two guys from these two societies arguing about it. Then how can you prove who is right and who is wrong? It will be like below:

So when you are right doesn’t means that the other person is wrong. Instead, it just means that you haven’t seen life from the other side.

https://bivekrenuji.medium.com/when-you-are-right-doesnt-mean-that-the-other-person-is-wrong-481f0b5a0233

Lucid Gaming

Arthur: Hi All, I would like to thank you for providing me an opportunity to present this new concept and a game based on that.

Before I start I would like to take you through some details that will help you understand how this works, and why it’s effective.

We all see dreams. You might have noticed that when you dream you will feel that it is real when falling down from a cliff, talking to your close ones who have passed away, or while fighting monsters. Whatever the dream the one common thing is “You will feel that it’s real”.

Why is it so?

During dreams, the whole brain is active, from the brain stem to the cortex. Most dreams occur during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. This is part of the sleep-wake cycle and is controlled by the reticular activating system whose circuits run from the brain stem through the thalamus to the cortex.

The limbic system in the mid-brain deals with emotions both while awake and dreaming and includes the amygdala, which is mostly associated with fear and is especially active during dreams.

The cortex is responsible for the content of dreams, including the monsters we flee from, the people we meet, or the experience of flying. Since we are highly visual animals the visual cortex, right at the back of the brain, is especially active, but so are many other parts of the cortex.

Least active are some parts of the frontal lobes, and this may explain why we can be so uncritical during dreams, accepting the crazy events as though they are real — until we wake up.

Let’s hold your thoughts here for a sec and I will take you to the next aspect and then we can connect both of them together.

The next question:

“ What is happening in your brain while you play Video games or why is that so addictive?”

“The scientific journal Nature in 1998 showed that playing video games releases the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine. The amount of dopamine released while playing video games was similar to what is seen after intravenous injection of the stimulant drugs amphetamine or methylphenidate”.

Dopamine is released by the reward center of the brain in response to pleasurable experiences or when a sense of achievement is realized.

All the new video games are now visually so appealing and with the help of VR tools, they are able to create that immersive experience.

Let’s take the example of the Spiderman game. With all those devices we feel like we are in that world and when he jumps from a sky scrapper you will feel those vibrations in the device.

What if you are spiderman and you can jump from that skyscraper? Let’s imagine you jumped, the feel and the adrenaline rush you get from that, do you think any games will be able to recreate that for you? Your answer will be “No it can’t”.

I would say “ Not yet !”

What if we could reverse the experience? i.e.

What if you are spiderman, instead of you starting the spiderman Game? This means you will get the view like how you see from the top of the skyscraper, you are sitting on that and then you can jump. This will not be a realistic view but instead realistic.

Now let’s connect the game and the dreams together. That is the world of Lucid gaming.

Lucid Gaming is changing the way you play games. All the games will be played in your REM sleep.

Let me explain how it works.

When you want to play a game all you have to do is put this headset on. It has electrodes connected to all parts of the brain which is responsible for dreaming. You will be slowly induced to REM sleep and you will be able to select the games you want to play.

Let’s select spiderman for example. Then all the challenges which you see inside the game will be done by you and you are spiderman, as if like in a dream you are becoming spiderman and doing all the things. This means when you get bitten by that radioactive spider you will feel that pain, at the same time when you jump from the top of a building you will feel adrenaline rush.

Same as in normal games you will have settings where you can control the pain settings and other real-life feelings. You will also have the option to quit or save the game at any point in time.

When you do this the game will be saved against your profile and the device will slowly wake you up from the dream.

The difference is, in traditional games you play as a character and here you are the character.

Almost everyone stood up from the chair and clapped and shouted out loud.

“That is when I woke up from the Lucid dream”

I shouted out loud

“Eureka, Eureka, it worked, it worked ”. The first attempt of inducing a game and speech into my dream worked.

So guys let’s wait for the next generation of Gaming.

https://bivekrenuji.medium.com/lucid-gaming-4a2b6d50d264

Immortals

The alarm started ringing.

Siri greeted me as always, “Good Morning Donnovan, Today is Dec-26–2031, and the time is 6:00 AM. It’s beautiful clear skies and 20 degrees outside”.

I woke up and sat on my bed for some time. Then I asked Siri, “Good morning Siri, updates & notifications, please”.

“You got an email and a voicemail from Dr.Steve Spillman at 12:30 Am”

What! I was shocked, “an email from Dr.Steve” I immediately grabbed my phone and looked at the email & voicemail.

Yes, it is an email and voicemail from Steve, he is inviting me to his funeral function on Jan-1-2032.

Before digesting it the next thing I did was

Siri “When did Dr.Steve Spillman pass away?”

Siri said “ Dr.Steve Spillman passed away on Dec-21–2031 at 7:59 Pm in Birthwine Hospital due to cardiac arrest”

So I am right he passed away then how can he send this to me now? Maybe Harry ( his elder son) is doing this, but it was his voice in the voicemail how can that be possible?

All these things were going through my mind while I was twiddling through social media and I noticed a hot discussion going on in one of the science forums.

There I realized it is not just me but many of my friends and media people in our close circle have also received emails and voicemails like me. But no one knew what was happening.

We started speculating it is a fraudster and we were furious that someone got the balls to use his name to cheat us.

I kept thinking about this and finally, I decided that I should let Harry know. I picked up the phone and dialed Harry

“Hey, Harry how are you,” Thought of checking how you are doing and if you needed my help.

Thanks, Uncle for checking in. We are almost ready for the funeral and Dad was really helpful in organizing this. We are doing it like how he always wanted it to be.

“What, How !!” accidentally those words came out of my mouth.

I could hear Harry smiling, I know you will also have received an email invitation saying “ Funeral invitation of Dr.Steve Spillman”. That is not fraud please accept the invitation. All I can say is, the invite is only for very few lucky ones.

“So see you on Jan 1st”

I was speechless, I knew he was crazy but this is crazy and creepy.

Like everyone else I also tried a lot to find out what is going to happen on that day. But like everyone else I was unlucky.

Finally, that day arrived Jan-1-2032

Only the ones which got the invitation from Dr.Steve was allowed to enter the church premise.

When I walked in the first thing I noticed was there were two “Caskets”

One is pitch black and the other one is pure white. The white one was closed and decorated with birthday flowers. Whereas the black one was traditional with white flowers.

I was thinking why there is a second one

By around 6:00 pm we could hear a hello from Dr.Steven. I was surprised for a second then, I realized this guy have recorded his funeral speech and is playing it now.

Every function was happening based on his instructions, the speech and the activities were so timed. We all were so amazed to see that. It seems like they practiced this so much that no one is missing the timings.

Even in such great grief and pain I was listening to his speech and was amazed by the timing of everything that was happening.

We were doing our tributes when he called our names, and he shared a small memory with each one of us eventually my turn came in.

My name was called out “ Mr.Donnovan, my friend who is always close to my mind and our family. I like to thank him for all the help and care he has shown to me and my family. I cannot explain the relationship with him in words” Donno, I know you really miss me but don’t worry, I will see you soon. He laughed loudly, his normal hysteric laugh.

I was sad while listening to his words but my mind was wandering around the two caskets which were kept there. I was staring at the white one.

Then the time came that we have to move on to the burial ground.

As we moved the Casket into the grave I noticed the white casket was moving.

“ No it is not real !”, I thought maybe I felt that just because I was staring at it for a very long time.

Suddenly his voice stopped. It was an awkward silence for a moment.

That is when the white casket opened up with a loud noise and it was filled with red flowers.

At that moment everyone pulled back, we all were shocked and I felt my heart jump out of my chest.

Harry smiled and walked towards that and extended his hand towards the casket.

Suddenly a hand popped out from that and everyone screamed out loud, some even ran away.

I was frozen and couldn’t breathe or move.

Then harry smiled and said. “ Happy birthday Dad, Welcome back”

We could hear only those words in between all those loud screams.

Then that happened, Dr. Steve Spillman came out from the white casket filled with red flowers.

All the screams stopped everyone was stunned and frozen.

He looked exactly similar to Dr.Steve, I was wondering how is this even possible.

We didn’t have any clue or explanation of what we were seeing.

He started talking “Thanks to all of you for attending the “resurrection function”.

That is when I realized the voice I was hearing till now through the speakers was not a recorded one. It is this guy who was talking from that Casket.

But how and who is he?

He continued,

You guys will be wondering how and who is this guy. The short answer is :

“It is me, but it‘s not me”.

Confused, yeah I know it’s surprising and overwhelming.

I would like to welcome you all to the new world of “Immortality”. As I mentioned before what you see in front of you is “Me, but not Me”!

If I simplify this, It’s the Humanoid version of Dr.Steve SPillman and today is my resurrection day. I will be immortal and will live among you forever. “The first Immortal”.

Everyone was silent and their mouths were wide open.

He continued…..

15 years back, When my close friend passed away at that time we both were working on a project. With that, I just didn’t lose him but I also lost my project. That is when I realized that we humans have evolved but the way we document our history hasn’t changed.

We used to write history based on kings and wars and now we write that based on countries’ leaders and prominent personalities. But if you look at that every death is a loss of knowledge for us. I thought of addressing that problem.

What if we can document the learnings of every person in a digital format and make it useful for future generations? That spark of thought has led me to this wonderful project “The Project Immortal”.

What if we can create a clone who has all the knowledge and experience you have like walking, talking, thinking, acting, and behaving like how you do?

If I simplify this for you,

This was my pet project for the last 15 years. It mainly has two parts.

The Mind and The Body

The Mind is a Neural network and AI algorithm that is trained while you are alive. It feeds in all the data in your brain, it learns your behavior, character, etc. Basically, it replicates your thinking and will create a digital version of you who live in a digital reality.

The second one is what you see now “ The Body”. This is the humanoid shape of your body. So basically you keep this ready or someone can create this for you after you pass away.

Once you say goodbye to this world then it is time for your resurrection. You hook your mind to this humanoid and you are ready.

He kept on talking, it was too overwhelming for me and I could not grasp the rest of the things because I was amazed by what I was seeing in front of me.

I started looking at the burial site and was thinking,

“Even though we lost him, he is still with us not just as a memory but literally with us. I was not able to identify the feelings I was having.

My thoughts took me so far that I started thinking about a time when almost everyone is immortal. The Immortal world and I kept staring at that casket door. That is when it popped open

When I looked up Dr.Steve walked up to me and extended his hand and said

“Mr. Donnovan welcome to the world of Immortals, It’s time for you to resurrect ”.

I grabbed his hand and stepped out from the casket of red flowers. When I came out of it I noticed the big banner where it is written

“Sep-13–2041 Resurrection day of Donnovan Smith”

That is when I realized, it was my mind playing out the first memories of the resurrection event that I have witnessed.

https://bivekrenuji.medium.com/immortals-2dd74d614d4d

The lost art of listening

Which is more important being heard or hearing? If communication is not a one-way street then the latter makes sense.

Now let’s frame the question a little differently “Are you a good listener?

When was the last time you really listened without thinking about what you are going to respond to? Or When was the last time someone really listened to you?

Human psychology is tuned in a way to listen to our inner voice, and our heart, and rarely think of listening to others. Because of this, we would like to talk more and listen less.

But what does a good listener means? I asked this question to a couple of my friends and what I got was a strange stare. That was a surprise for me and I thought of extending the same question to the audience which is outside of my immediate circle. As the number of stares increased, I decided to add one more question to the survey “ What is a bad listener”.

That was a game-changer for the survey suddenly people started answering a lot more for the second question.

Among the answers technology was one of the major culprits. I don’t disagree, it is one of the main culprits. With mobile phones, smartwatches, and other smart devices plus the number of notifications on all these devices, we all are constantly distracted and end up being in the bad listener category.

But what/who is a good listening/listener

It’s not about turning the buddha mode on and holding the peace. It’s quite the opposite you facilitate the clarity of other persons’ thoughts, and through that process, you will solidify your own understanding. During this process, you end up asking the right questions.

I was talking to one of my friends who is a journalist he was saying “Anyone and any interview can be interesting as long as you remain curious and ask the right questions”. After that, I started looking at many of the interviews and realized that most of the interviewers came into the interview with a prejudiced mindset. The same is happening with us in all the meetings/conversations we listen to people with a prejudiced mindset. We categorize them based on the answers and approaches to those categories are predefined in our minds. This makes us bad listeners.

Why is it difficult to become a good listener? It is because our brains can think faster than how we talk and listen. The more you are well-versed in a particular area the chance of getting distracted is very high, we tend to read where the conversation is going towards or what the other person is going to say. There is no mantra or breathing technique for listening, there is only one way, ie listen to the speaker, control your inner noise and make yourself curious. The result will be an interesting conversation.

Same as any other skill listening is a skill that needs constant practice and polishing. If you don’t have the natural ability to listen then you have to work hard. “ practice will make you perfect”. The more people you listen to, the more aspects of humanity you will recognize eventually you will develop better instincts. It will help you in reading all those nonverbal communications. If you look at the great leaders they are not just good speakers but also good listeners and they could read what is not being said.

As humanity progress, this is one of the skills we are losing unknowingly. We all are in our small world which revolves around the smart gadgets we carry. We could do pretty much anything with a touch and a swipe. With all these, we are slowly building a small world of our own where we live and devise our own rules. These hard shells have made us bad listeners. In that small cocoon we are not used to listening instead we dictate how things should work in our world. Suddenly when we are being asked to listen to others it becomes a psychological shock.

Now a days with all the digital devices we always complain about the number of ads that show up on devices and the different ways by which companies pushed their products to us. But we can’t complain about that, because the world has become a group of non-listening dictators, and any company/product that is serving this community is a true reflection of the society. So we are getting what we deserve.

As Gandhiji once said, “be the change you wish to see in the world”. So let’s first break the dictatorship in you and start listening. Keep in mind “Talk less, listen more, and be curious”.

https://bivekrenuji.medium.com/the-lost-art-of-listening-780b1e8be59e

Digitization doesn’t mean building a skyscraper on top of an Old Pyramid

During the course of human civilization, we evolved a lot in terms of technologies, the way we build our houses, towns, buildings, etc.

When Dubai decided to build skyscrapers they didn’t think of transforming one of their old fortresses into skyscrapers nor did they make it on the top of an existing fort. Also, Burj khalifa is not the first skyscraper in downtown Dubai instead, they started building several others and as an epitome, they created Burj khalifa.

You might be wondering why I have started with this example/analogy. I believe keeping this example in mind will help you in connecting the things which I am going to discuss below.

When you analyze the retailers you will realize a pattern. Everyone is considering digitization/e-com/app as using their existing ecosystem. Remember when Dubai thought of building skyscrapers they didn’t build them on top of the existing buildings.

Retailers have to keep in mind that, earlier you used to bring the customers to your stores so that you can showcase your products. When they come into your stores you give them the best experience you can. But now the world has changed, now retailers are in the pockets of customers. They see and compare your products with many other retailers in the world. They can compare you with anyone of their choice.

There is no one size fits all strategy for digital transformation. But when you look at the successful retailers who have digitally transformed you will see some similarities to the first example I mentioned.

They never tried to force-fit digital into their existing fortress instead they approached digital as a new skyscraper and reused the materials they can from the old fortress. Those who tried to build a skyscraper over their old fortress are still limping, complaining, crying, and nailbiting.

Why retailers are doing this?

When you look at the retailers almost everyone is trying to build skyscrapers on top of their existing fortress. That made me think why is this happening?

So let’s go back in time, most of these big retailers started as small stores in a small community where they knew almost everyone. The customers also knew the store staff ( most of them were the owners of the shop).

From that small community store, they started growing and started opening stores in different communities throughout the country and eventually in different parts of the world. This journey was a natural transformation as they grow they started adding technologies that support the brick&mortar growth. As a customer, if I want something then I have to go to the nearest store to get the product, and if I have to return that I have to go to the store again. Customers didn’t find it difficult because there was a store in every community. This is when technology started changing, the internet and mobile became so common and approachable to almost everyone.

Along with this, a new wave of retailers started emerging who were telling the customers that “you don’t have to come to the store we will reside in your pocket or home, you watch/buy at the comfort of your home”.

The old brick&motor retailers didn’t take it seriously they laughed at it. “Blockbuster” was one among them, when Netflix started they might have laughed at it. But soon they became part of the history.

That was an eye-opener for many others they started realizing that they have to do something to onboard this bus. Many of them started digitizing their business but they approached it as if like building a skyscraper on top of the current forts/pyramid. This didn’t work out and many fortresses have fallen.

The reason for the failure was they all approached digital as an addition to their existing brick&motor technology and processes. When they extended their existing brick and motor technology to the pockets of customers it ended up like “Modifying an old Toyota corolla to look like a Tesla”. The moment customers pushed the pedal they started realizing its the same old petrol engine under the hood.

What should the retailers do?

Retailers have to understand that they are not just a shop which is inside a mall or a part of the community but with the technological changes, they also have to exist in the pockets, wrist, cars & homes of customers. When you move from mall to wrist of a customer you have to be nimble, agile, and quick.

The best way to adapt to this is to reverse your thinking. Right now many of these retailers are building a small digital extension of their old technology & processes and putting it in customers’ pockets as a website or app.

This is the same as modifying the Corolla to make it look like a Tesla. So reverse the thinking and put a digital-first strategy (Not just in your marketing campaigns or leadership talks). Redesign your landscape and processes to match with the new world then slowly modernize the old fortress in the meantime slowly correct the basics to adapt to the world of skyscrapers and start building the skyscraper using the knowledge you acquired over the period of time. You have to understand that “In order to offer flexible service the business itself has to be flexible”

If not,

“The old fortress which you have will soon become part of history and will be remembered as a lost town of glory”.

The choice is yours and only you can decide how you want to be remembered in history and the future.

https://bivekrenuji.medium.com/digitization-doesnt-mean-building-a-skyscraper-on-top-of-an-old-pyramid-cfd48f6fc04