Privacy matters

Today I need a “proof of employment” letter from my employer. Upon putting in the request, the first question I got asked was “what for?”. To put this in perspective, “proof of employment” letters in India are demanded for everything – whether it is filing for a visa, applying for a credit card, a phone-line, renting an apartment, anything. In essence, they act as proof of who you say you are, and they are demanded by everyone. The only person who hasn’t asked me for one yet is an auto-driver.

Now, my employer has a policy of asking why it is needed. Why is it my employer’s business? If I am doing something illegal, clearly I can fabricate a letter of employment without going to my employer. If I am doing something legal, why invade my privacy?

I don’t know if this is true of other companies but my company asks all kinds of intrusive questions and publishes this information to random people. For example, every time a direct report of mine wants to order an official taxi, s/he has to submit a form online (all our internal systems are automated). In that form, the person has to put in what kind of taxi, from where to where, etc. But the form also automatically (using employment records) adds several more pieces of information – e.g. the age. This information come to me every time. Why on earth do I need to be informed and continuously reminded of the age of my team members? Worse, this information + the person’s full title + employment band is sent to the Taxi company! So, if a taxi company wants to target someone for mischief, they can easily figure out which person probably has a higher net worth based on band and title. Wonderful! The taxi company knows your seniority, where you live, your home line, your mobile, etc.

What about safety, security, or even a bit of simple privacy?

Waste not... (or at least seggregate)

A detailed blog on waste...

Reading Time

I was at the Crossword bookstore yesterday, at Strands a couple days ago, at Blossom's a couple of weeks ago... None of the bookstores in Bangalore, it seems, cater to avid readers. Crossword was selling "A Thousand Shining Suns" and Alan Greenspans books as "new arrivals". Strands still had The World is Flat on display. Blossoms had nothing new worth reading. They seem to think that accounts of people graduating through IIMs make for literature. And why there is a sudden explosion of books on this topic is beyond me.
Cleary, I am not their target customer.
I go through at least one book a week, sometimes more. So I am stuck with re-reading old books I have. Also, these bookstores completely fail in exposing someone like me to new authors. You can't really go and browse in these stores in the hopes of finding something interesting to read.
Buying from Amazon costs a bundle -- not just the shipping to India, but also the price of the books themselves. The books that I buy cost 300-600 rupees, or $8-15. On Amazon, the same books are $17-$28. Plus if I want to save the shipping cost, I have to wait for continent-hopping friends to bring the books here.
The bookstores here don't stock the books I want to read, and nor do they offer any alternates that I find interesting. Some days I really miss Barnes and Noble. And Amazon.

Finally, it's over

Of course, I’m referring to the Democrats’ nomination for US Presidential Elections next year. Perhaps there is a lesson in all of this somewhere -- for the Dems to shrink the length of the whole process, to avoid apathy simply due to the seemingly never-ending process.

Generating new ideas - the Cisco way

Excerpt:

While innovation prizes can be a low-cost way to generate great ideas, they're also fraught with potential legal and HR headaches. Hsieh and Jouret wanted to ensure participants retained ownership of their ideas if they weren't chosen as the winner. They had other matters to consider, including making sure an idea truly belongs to the contestant and that a winner isn't found to be a convicted felon. So Cisco hammered out ways to prevent fraud and notified candidates that they'd have to go through background checks if they made it past the semifinals.

Not everything went according to Cisco's plan. Initially, the I-Prize site let contestants vote on each other's ideas, à la news-rating site Digg. But then executives discovered that some contestants were trying to game the system. So Cisco decided not to use the community voting mechanism to influence the selection of semifinalists and finalists.

The big challenge in some innovation competitions is making the prize difficult enough that real innovation can be achieved, but not so difficult that the prize can't be won. The larger the challenge, the more likely people will try and fail.

>> Read more:

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2008/tc20080529_968185.htm