Monster ad: No matter what

I wonder if the word 'magic' has recently gained a whole lot of importance in the online sphere. In MagicBricks.com, guys have used the word for umpteenth times to spruce up various product attributes, I don't know how apt that was actually, but they used it anyway!! And they can afford to do so, because the end users are certainly not as demanding as Monster's ones. LOL.

Now, Monster, it seems is taking a cue from it (After all MagicBricks and arch rival TimesJobs reside under same roof...hehe) and using the proposition for something called, Magic Search. I don't know exactly how the attribute strengthens the product feature here. Are employers (advertisers) in a mood to discover the right fit 'magically' from the Monstrous database, or they would look for some (supposedly) comprehensive non-magical robust data bank which gives them a certain result. Confusing.

The Monster ad detail:

Headline: We do anything to get you the right candidate.
Subhead: -
Bodycopy: In today's competitive world, talent is everything. And the best of talent is on Monster.com, India's best job site*. Using Monster's highly acclaimed Magic Search, you can search over 12 million job seekers and yet get just the right candidate. To give your business the Monster advantage, call 1800-419-6666^ today! * As declared by PC World in 2007 ^From any telecom operator
Baseline: No matter what
Agency: -
Client: Monster

Tags: monster ad, monster commercial, monster advertising

Future Corporation: The organization will be a totally different animal

Donuts, Rowing Eights and Fleas. Yes, that’s how you’ll describe the corporations of the future. On a winter afternoon in Jaipur last year, the old man of management, Charles Handy was at his articulate best. What provocated a long spiel from him was, the future of organisations, a concept he had written about in many of his books. The whole world listened in rapt attention as he
illustrated his point one by one. Donut — comprising a core set of people in the middle who drive the organisation as a central force; Rowing Eight was akin to a boat rowed by eight people with a leader at the helm. And last, the Fleas, he prophesied more and more individuals will spend more of their lives as fleas, or as members of flea organisations. Elephants can go into hibernation. Every guru worth his salt has written about the future and how it will change the organisations. Changes technology will drive, dismantling structures and emergence of truly globalised organisation would emerge. And finally, the most written about and least understood concept of the emergence of the virtual workplace.

No doubt, the future corporation will be a very different animal. Tom Peters has been propagating the idea of the ultimate virtual organization in his book Re-imagine, he says, “one which is fast, wily, flexible, and determined”. The companies will have redesigned work systems that will maximize flexibility, efficiency, and effectiveness. There are several who agree. “With the continous mindset of change, work system will demand continuous change from the same people who demand definition. And the work system is going to drive that duality,” says Smita Anand, country head, Hewitt Associates. Whether the structure will be ‘loose tight’ or ‘amoeba shaped’ it’s too early to predict, but the organisation of the future will be structured very differently. As far as structures are concerned, a recent McKinsey quarterly article says that, the vertically oriented organisational structures, which are today retrofitted with ad hoc and matrix overlays will have to be replaced. Companies will have to create new, overlaid networks and marketplaces that make it easier for professionals to interact collaboratively and to find the knowledge they need. “In terms of their organisational structures, there will be a stronger push for flat pyramidal organisational structure and anti-bureaucratic system to make the corporation highly responsive to competitive changes and the market,” says Robert F. Bruner, Charles C. Abbot Professor of Business Administration & Dean Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia.

Global management consultancy, Hay Group sees what it calls, ‘horizontal leadership’ surfacing in Indian companies as well. “We see a clear trend towards leaders use influence and collaborations to get the work done rather than through the mandate which was in the case of the hierarchy-driven traditional corporations,” says Gaurav Lahiri, Operations Manager, Hay Group.

One of the biggest factors driving the change will be technology as it demolishes traditional boundaries of time and place. And one of the biggest disruption will be led by the Internet. Tom Peters goes a step further when he preaches ‘web-everything’. He points that people will have to embrace total enterprise reinvention. “What was rocket science yesterday will become commoditised very soon, so companies will have to review commoditisation and continously innovate,” says Anand.

Keeping innovations alive will be a major challenge for future corps, it will be a necessity, in a day and age, when disruptions could vaporise businesses in a moment. And to keep up innovations, corporations will have to deal with the rebels like Sony’s Ken Kutaragi or IBM’s Michael Gorssman. “Industry revolutionaries are like missile up the tail pipe. Boom! You are irrelevant! Think about that institionalising ‘mavericks’,” declares Gary Hamel in his book Leading the Revolution. Also since the future organisations will be ‘knowledge organisations’, it will be the rise of knowledge enterprise. Peter Drucker who coined the term ‘knowledge worker’ to describe a new class of employee whose basic means of production was knowledge. As the rise of the knowledge workers begins, the organisation will also change. The company will have jobs that require leveraging of information, skill, and knowledge (and sometimes even wisdom).

In a global village, every decision will have to be global, right from managing supply chain, to workforce, to marketing. So if you’re not thinking global, you might as well as shut shop. “Corporations of the future will be much more global in form and mindset. We will see the emergence of corporations with extensively networked systems and processes open to collaborations across networks, boundaries and geographies to generate thinking power and seamless sharing of knowledge. Their structures will constantly change to take advantage of intellectual horsepower,” says Anil Sachdev, Founder & CEO, Grow Talent, HR Consulting and change management firm.

A major change in the future organisations will be increased transparency and corporate values. They will introspect more about their place in business. According to Peter Senge, companies will have to explore the relationships between the businesses, society and the environment more deeply. “Companies will have to focus on a triple bottom line of people, planet and profits, not just the last one. The big fish in the global pond will lead the way. The big companies have a moral role to start and legitimatize these issues as important business issues and start creating different standards,” he told ETin an interview. Changing paradigm will make the ‘virtual workplace’ a bigger reality than it is today. People will work almost from anywhere and anytime. While ‘virtual workplace’ has gained ground in IT and consultancy, we shall see that gaining rapid currency in other sectors as well. “We shall see emergence of plug and play format for workplace. The scenario wherein, HR head may choose to sit at a different location than at the headquarter will become common. Interestingly even within the confines of the office, face to face physical interaction will diminish and executives will use videoconferencing, teleconferencing route to work and discussions,” says Sachdev.

Future organisations will see far more diversity amongst employees. The tough part is, managing diversity and the wide range of life experiences, perspectives, preferences, values and styles of this workforce will rewrite a lot of rules that were thought to be cast in stone. “Corporations will increasingly regard diversity as a source of competitive advantage and leverage it in the market,” says Lahiri. Quoting a French religious mystic, Jacques Ellul in his book Future Shock, Alvin Toffler says, man was far freer in the past. “Choice was a real possibility for him.” By contrast, today, “The human being is no longer in any sense the agent of choice.” And for tomorrow, “man will apparently be confined to the role of a recording device.”

Tags: Charles Handy, Tom Peters, virtual organization, McKinsey, University of Virginia, Hay Group, Peter Drucker

Overseas jobs are a great option for Indian teachers

Even as the going gets tough for Indian techies, various other skilled workers could consider looking for jobs overseas. School teachers, for instance, have a great opportunity in the US, in view of the projected shortage of 700,000 teaching instructors. And obviously, the advantage that Indian teachers enjoy are English speaking skills and a high standard of education.

The reasons for shortage of teachers in the US are similar to the healthcare sector and include low regard for the profession, low pay and high turnover. According to the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, a third of new teachers in the US leave the profession within three years --and half leave after five years.

While the teaching profession in the US has attracted spouses of L1 visa holders who take up jobs not only for the money, but to accompany their children to school, some teachers from India go to the US under the Visiting International Faculty, which is a US government-recognized exchange-programme sponsor that searches the world over for talented teachers dedicated to educational excellence and the ideals of cultural exchange.

“We match these teachers with select primary and secondary schools in the US, and we provide teachers and schools unparalleled support. The result: classroom success and teachers, students and community members with a new, more global perspective. A number of teachers from India, about 20, are participating as VIF teachers this school year for the first time,’’ a VIF official told news persons the other day.

The programme was started in 1989 as a cultural exchange for teachers and schools and has remained true to its roots even as the number of participating teachers has grown from 12 to more than 1,800 from more than 50 nations. In fact, it is the largest cultural exchange programme for teachers in America recognized by the State Department.

VIF sponsors teachers (kindergarten-12th grade) using US overnment-issued cultural exchange visas (non-mmigrant intent). The visas are valid for one year and can be renewed for two additional years - a total of three years. At the end of three years, teachers must return to their home nations.

"VIF teachers serve as full-time classroom teachers and also as cultural ambassadors, sharing the culture, history and heritage of their nations in the classroom and host community. In short, they teach US schoolchildren (and adults) about the world. After three years, they take away all they have learned about the US education system and share it in their countries' schools and communities, adding a brain gain component for their nations. In that way, cultural exchange goes full circle,’’ the official said.

Though not long term, the teaching assignments give Indian teachers a chance to travel extensively in the US since they can teach in 10 states spread around the country. “VIF provides comprehensive support services to teachers and schools to ensure classroom success and a rewarding experience. As a result, an independently conducted survey of VIF teachers found that 95% would recommend VIF to a friend or colleague,’’ the official said.

There is also a great demand for Indian teachers in the Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and Oman. The most attractive prospect for job seekers in the Gulf is that working there provides the opportunity to save a major part of one’s salary with tax-free income and free housing. Except for food, telephone and recreation, most other expenses of daily living are provided in addition to the salary. Many of these countries have been giving a high priori ty to education and setting up schools.

On the flip side of going on international assignments for teachers is the problem of returning to India and the resulting change in lifestyle and adjusting to lower salaries. For instance, a huge shortage of school teachers in the UK a few years ago saw a big recruitment drive by agencies in India. But when the demand dried up, the teachers found themselves without jobs and in many cases had to pack their bags and return home. Many were even deported.

CFOs create more value, that's it (You may hate them but sorry, cant help)

“Michael Porter gave us the value chain but didn’t tell us how to value it.” And, “by ’10, the financial world will move towards global Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) with industry-based standards.”

Do these opinions sound radical enough? These opinions are of Cedric Read, a global financial management consultant and author of best sellers like CFO As Business Integrator and CFO Insights. Earlier, he led PricewaterhouseCoopers global finance cost management practice, where he was a strategy consultant for 25 years.

CFOs are the cynosure of most eyes in the business world. Post Enron and Parmalat, across the world, shareholders look to CFOs as the “conscience keepers” of organisations. Mr Read, as part of his work, met CFOs of companies across countries to get perspectives on changed roles and the business challenges CFOs face. In the last 18 months itself, he has interacted with around 1,000 CFOs across cities like Frankfurt, Oslo, New York, Moscow and other centres to understand the role they play in their respective organisations.

The role of CFOs has metamorphosised over the years, Mr Read said. In the ’80s and the ’90s, CFOs were mostly involved in such functions like decision support, specialist financial services and transaction processing. But, today, the CFO sits in the middle of these three financial functions strategising whether it needs be outsourced or not. So, “out” went most input processing and basic accounting activities, while strategy policy and business decisions stayed “in”. In his book CFO Insights, Mr Read has underscored the need for CFOs to focus on the “value creating core” and setting a stage for outsourcing and offshoring.

Enhancing shareholder value is a critical function of any CFO, said Mr Read, who has written books on the rise, fall and post-debacle phase of internet companies. It applied during the pre-internet period and is equally relevant today, he added. And, one of the parameters he suggests looking at is cash flow return on investment (CFROI). The reason: internet companies went kaput basically because of a faulty business model that didn’t focus on cash generation. “So, cleaner the cash on the books, better the shareholder value.”

The author of four books —
CFO Architect of Corporations’ Future, eCFO, CFO As Business Integrator and CFO Insights — written over the last seven years, is currently working on a new book titled Value Black Hole. It deals with the future financial disciplines that CFOs need to adhere in future, stressing on management of intangible assets of organisations. For instance, he said that it is important for a CFO to get a full-view of value chain economics — from one end of the value chain to the other. And that entails going beyond the Michael Porter model of just knowing the company value chain, and actually “valuing” them.

Mr Read cited the example of how valuation of products at various stages (say lead identification or drug development) of its R&D pipeline helped GlaxoSmithkline prudently align its products on the R&D pipeline. For a consumer company like Coca Cola, such valuations helped manage brands better, he said.

Tags: Michael Porter, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, GAAP, Cedric Read, CFO As Business Integrator, CFO Insights, PricewaterhouseCoopers, global finance cost management practice, financial services and transaction processing, shareholder value, Value Black Hole, GlaxoSmithkline, drug development, Coca Cola

Hitachi CCTV system will identify troublemakers by itself

When it’s not mandatory you may find pleasure (for the ones who love kinky stuff that is) in watching videos streamed by surveillance cameras in public places like malls, restaurants etc. Now imagine, doing the watching on everyday basis, hour after hour, day after day. I salute those security personnel (both Federal and private) who do this enormously tedious work diligently 24*7, for us, for our safety. But they are human too, and human are vulnerable to errors and unmanageable data, remember they are bombarded with steady inflow of videos, and God knows in a giant mall or hospital on how many number of TV sets they have to fix their attention on. As companies worldwide are spending more and more on security accounts, it is becoming logistically impossible to make sense of the overloaded CCTV streamed information.

Now, realizing the vacuum in the security sector, Hitachi has come up with an innovative solution. This new system by using artificial intelligence will evaluate what images these CCTV cameras are capturing; it will then sift and prioritize selected data for the human inspection.

The system takes feeds from up to 100 online cameras and passes them to a personal computer for image processing and a central server for the meatier task of searching through video archives for comparable footage.

Together, they pull out the four most important video streams and display those on a monitor at high resolution, while the remainders appear as small thumbnails. Source

All that is fine, the system will use face recognition software to find out if the repeat trouble makers are in to create some more trouble. But what about suspicious criminals or terrorists (who may not be recognized by the system as criminals), can the system be able to identify them as well, will the system be able to detect first time suspicious souls who may look vulnerable to an experienced naked eye but not to a software?

Tags: Hitachi CCTV system, CCTV Camera