Tata Interactive Systems

LCB Question of the month: December 2006

The Learning Circuits Blog’s question of the month for December 2006 was actually three questions (very soon they may well start sending questionnaires):

• What will you remember most about 2006?
• What are the biggest challenges for you/us as [we] head into 2007?
• What are your predictions for 2007?

Some of us had expressed our individual views through our personal blogs, but we wanted to put up a TATA Interactive response. We decided to have a panel discussion to articulate our views. We approached the questions from various lenses – design and business, our company and the overall industry, e-learning organizations and client organizations.

And here it is – a podcast of the panel discussion. Download the mp3 to listen to it in a player of your choice or simply use the player below.

It’s a bit on the longer side (~32 minutes / 12.4 MB), but considering the informal nature of it, it has not been edited – so what you hear is everything that was said in the discussion.

The panel comprised Albert Lewis, Head – Business Excellence & Technology Strategy; Geetha Krishnan, Corporate Mentor – Productization; Manisha Mohan, Head – Design & Innovation; Anand Subramanian, Head – Systems Design; and Anil Mammen, Head – Instructional Design.

We would love to receive feedback from industry experts and client organizations on our perspectives and predictions.

Commuting The Great NY-NJ Divide

“What? You go to Manhattan every day? Ayyayayay!” my New Jersey taxi driver shakes his head in total disbelief.

“You sure you want to commute every day from New Jersey?” My Madison Avenue project manager asks with something bordering on pity.

It’s not an emotional divide that one crosses so nonchalantly every day, you see. It takes a special kind of madness and loser-ishness to choose to go back to NJ after seeing the splendor of Upper East Side everyday.

I do it because I like being part of the commuters’ sub-culture. It’s like a covenant, with arcane rituals, rigid rules, and unspoken demands for conformity.

You pick up the rules by subconscious osmosis—within 24 hours, you know which part of the train you should get in to get down at the most convenient spot at the destination; you pick up that the correct etiquette of traveling in jam packed trains is not to make physical or eye-contact as much as possible; you understand that on the narrow escalator, the right lane is slow and left lane is fast; and you know how to pace yourself so that you don’t run over people or get run over by them.

I also like the drama with which I get delivered into Manhattan. First, the train that has been chugging happily along the tired and slightly depressing suburbs of NJ suddenly gets into a long, dark, and mysterious tunnel. It is so long and deep that your ears pop due to the pressure difference.

Then you are thrown into the utterly chaotic, bewildering, and labyrinthine maze of the NY Penn Station. There, you are borne by the jostling crowd, attacked by competing aromas from different eating joints, startled by the sporadic announcements interspersed with (for some really strange reason) classical instrumental music, and made to climb up/down at least 100 steps (I counted) before finding yourself on the street or on a subway platform.

Then of course there is the quintessential NY experience of subway travel. Filled with the regulation junkies, musicians, sharply dressed professionals, individuals talking to themselves, school kids and tourists, it’s a melting point of everything that you have read and heard about New York.

Finally, I just love the way Manhattan bursts on me as a revelation and a reward after almost 90 minutes of commute. As I walk past the decrepit panhandler, past the old newspaper vendor, past the hot dog cart, past the shop specializing in nylons, and on to Madison Avenue, I always feel like a million dollars. Because as my friend succinctly puts it, “It doesn’t get bigger than this, baby!” At least not in the Milky Way.

(Priya Thiagarajan is Deputy Head – Instructional Design, Products & Skills Training Practice at TIS, and a recently besotted NY fan)

The TLDF 2006: A Report

Click here to view pictures from this event.

It was unexpected for many reasons. Neither the speaker nor his topic was on the agenda. In a symposium dominated by speakers with striking backgrounds — neurologists, pediatricians, psychiatrists, principals of world renowned special needs schools, vice-presidents of international associations — to delay a planned session and invite an “unknown” to speak out of turn was something of an oddity. Ashok Kurien was introduced simply as India's Richard Branson. That did arouse a murmur of interest and even as everyone wondered what this white-haired individual had in common with the English entrepreneur, he began to speak.

Ashok Kurien talked of his days as a child, how he had struggled in school, failing numerous exams. The school kept him merely because he was an excellent athlete. Inside the classroom he was the object of derision. He could hardly even spell correctly. His mother who headed a department at a university whipped him and called him slow. As did his teachers. When he went on to college more insults were heaped on him. He dropped out. His mother refused to talk to him and they didn't exchange words for over 45 years. Kurien took up a job in the villages of India, flying small planes to spray fields with insecticide. Five years later he headed back to the city and enrolled in a college again. This time, he persevered to finish his graduation and joined an ad agency. Though his colleagues ridiculed him, his clients loved him for his creative input. Seven years later, with less than Rs. 5,000 in his bank account, he started his own ad agency. Ambience was a big success and was eventually bought by the French agency Publicis, who retained Kurien as the managing director. He went on to become one of the founding directors of India's first independent media company, Zee. He also established India's first privately owned lottery, Playwin and started DishTV, India's first Direct-to-Home TV service. Today he is worth thousands of crores. Like Branson, Ashok Kurien achieved success despite his dyslexia. And he achieved it in a society that ill-treated him and refused to accept his problem.

The over 250 strong gathering at the first TATA Interactive Learning Disability Forum (TLDF) applauded Ashok Kurien all the way back to his seat. His unplanned, simple and inspired speech was one of the many highlights of the TLDF, held in Mumbai on 30 November and 1 December 2006.