I disagree with Prof Funk, with whom I had exchanged mails way back in 2010. Academic research focuses on the fundamentals, the market is not the audience for such outputs. The output is the basis for applied research as rightly articulated in the article. Academia is a place to experiment, take long shots and so called neoliberal Market efficiencies do not apply. The problem is one of information access rather than relevance of academic science. The market lens is not the best KPI. VC led innovation is takes science closer to the audience, does not necessarily take science to the next level. A negative result in a lab is a legitimate output.

The original article here: 

http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/prof-no-one-is-using-your-ideas?&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social-media&utm_campaign=addtoany

Non profits are essentially organisations such as any other, the only difference is that they work on the lifecycle of an idea, this idea is intertwined with social justice. The enterprise is the machine, moral aspect is the idea.

If anything cannot be quantified is called ‘strategic’ , and anything which cannot be scaled is ’boutique’. We are prisoners of our own logic. Start up founders and founders, think through the words being deployed in our everyday communication, as not every one will be consuming jargon sans any thought.

Modiji takes back the Demonetisation narrative in the well of the house. ‘Corruption breeds in the Cash Economy’ says the Prime Minister, and adds that this step was taken at a time when, post Diwali the economic health was its peak. The anchor of the narrative is anti corruption, and cash is the enemy. The argument is tried to be won by attacking historic graft. Demonetisation is framed as affirmative action to tackle graft, which the Congress lacked and thus the juxtaposition of intent versus action. At last the intent is the weapon in this narrative war.

Shekhar Gupta on NDTV: ‘The Punjabi compares development in his village to the life in Canada as every home has a member overseas, rather than other parts in India’ Punjab truly has post material politics as the folks at the Centre for Policy Research have coined.

Text is imagination, and gains a fresh life each time it is liberated on the digital. Rather it is manifested in the landscapes of the digital. Archives are interpreted, where are the landscapes of the digital past interpreted? Is the cache, the archive?

Piyush Goyal ji couching reduced employment figures in the economic survey in the fourth industrial revolution and the gig economy on NDTV. As creative as it can get.

One of the greatest features of the hyper digital era, more information than we can process juncture, euphemistically called Big Data, unimaginatively reduced to a term which no one really understands properly, is the obsession with the instant, outcomes and monetisation of our everyday activities think how social media companies make money of our likes, shares and quips. The lack of the reasonable long term is changing the superficial without tackling the basics of rights, agriculture and climate change. The vexed is so uncool.

Trump and his shock doctrine decision making is reframing how we define our everyday life and the larger geopolitical narrative arc since 1945. Our lives are in a flux between the structuralist modern, a broach from the traditional, brushing with new radical thought and a revision back to our primal selves, as a addressing to that globalisation has not created winners, jobs have been lost to China. The post modern is surreal, a blur and the world order is being disrupted with very old school racist pandering. The digital, which is so called modern is a surveillance tool in the eternal panopticon, is being deployed to amplify the neo-colonial prejudices. Then in this times, I wonder; what is the true modern? Are the data points on the digital a reflection of history making? Or is a brief distance in terms of time critical in meaning making of the continual discourses of our time? Power to frame what is considered modern, is also an interrogation in to the modernity that we celebrate. Silicon Valley is suddenly realising that Capitol Hill is relevant, and not the past masters. Trump is manufacturing a rupture in terms of the status quo. Peter Thiel has a back up plan with a NZ Passport since 2011. 

Creative and Analytical Research Leaders in the corporate-social space add unprecedented value if the clients on the on other side of the power equation are reading off the same page, in operations, grant development or in cutting edge thought leadership. Bonding and Trust in Teams is critical for resonance. As organisations expect clarity of employees, employees expect the same amount of trust reflected in proper paperwork and appreciation. Professionals are here to do real work.