Writing a book for the last 18 months has taught me much about the digital sphere but more about me as a person. The topic is a moving target with a dynamic role of the digital in society, but I have learnt that how one thinks and articulated ideas in a way which the stakeholders shall accept is more important than what I convey. Being a non PhD means that academics and academic publications take you with a pinch of salt especially because I write on policy being an engineer. I have worked in places where this has been a massive handicap, but due to a few good souls who backed me, out of sheer generosity, I keep knocking at the door. I will complete my book for sure and make a Impact. I share my skills in my day job as a sustainability adviser, with curiosity, empathy and zest for making the system work.

The anti intellectual’s new treatise on risk and uncertainty. Taleb is the thinker of the generation after Black Swan, Fooled By Randomness and Anti Fragile.

People often quip that Gulf life puts one in a comfort zone lifestyle wise as far as learning is concerned as books are pricey and unavailable. I beg to differ as learning is individually driven. I bought the book here in Muscat and was a price of a meal for two in an okay place. A lot of books are available for free online. Your MacBook does not mean much if one is not accessing the right content.

#changethinker

Create your own space

It’s too crowded to ask for an inch

There are always interstices

But that’s survival

Not flourishing

Initiative and Energy

Is the key

But the hunger is what matters

Smash Walls

Crash Doors

Gate crash clubs

Invitations won’t come

Demand an invite

Mark your territory.

Digital is being weaved in to everyday life as a fibre which is indistinguishable. Digital as this fibre is predisposed as ‘advanced’ and the pre digital as not up to the mark. Smart cities are the planning manifestation of the digital, where sensors harvesting data is considered more needed than more fundamental infrastructure. It is time to interrogate digital for its merits and have a hazard warning for its minuses, such as privacy for Aadhar and the social Internet. Did the gig economy make life better for the Transporter sector? Did more information make decision making better?

Bata CEO Alexis Nasard to Christine Tan, Managing Asia at CNBC Asia on replying to the question; ‘What would you like to achieve as a CEO?’

Transform Business in to an Institution, (which is) Build to Last.

The best business interview in a while. Learning can happen with the right intent on the content. The Lebanese Civil Engineer and Haas MBA is a tough cookie when he says, that the young should follow passion rather than instinct. Work hard on something that one loves and hope to succeed and make money along the way. Pure Gold.

Post Truth is passé as with CA scandal, we have entered a ‘Data Politics’ era in India, where Data and Digital is positioned on the core of society rather than the periphery, of its discourse.

A lot of start up entrepreneurship is about fake it till you make it. The other synonym is rather more familiar, it is called the hustle attitude. Just do it. Build the plane while flying it.

I have been writing since high school and seriously since first year of college, and the writing trajectory had been spaced into several formats; research papers to begin with, punctuated with articles and essays and more recently poems. My writerly practice is undergirded by a sense to respond to the machinations of the world around us and to create a response to create awareness through criticism and feedback. While this might not seem very creative in a conventional manner in a statement of artistic pedagogy and I have not attended MFA school yet. The world through social media echo chambers are monologues and monolithic, and real informed Deep engagement to stand the test of the refreshed feed on Twitter. While my writing is self consuming and speaks to the chaotic immediacy of our times where digital, migration, urbanity and sustainability (all intertwined themes that I scribble on) are the mega trends of our times. Different formats in framing a response evoke a varied sentiment. All written art does not need to have the character of haute couture, but needs to have a story to narrate in a distinctive voice, one which I hope that I am on the way to carve. This is my first attempt to frame a philosophy of writerly practice.

In this data age, the resources with understanding will be rewarded, not surface level data, but insights which would add to Solutions and to the bottom line. Data means hardly anything if it can’t be monetised. Excess of data, means the reliance on search engines for access. Understanding and connecting the dots is more important. I have a sense that subject experts will be back with a vengeance, hitting the über generalists hard. We want safe and reliable systems right?

#digitalasmodern

Reading the Economist, helps me connect the dots such as this article about the Spaghetti Smugglers of the Sahara or ‘Why doesn’t mean always cheap’ in Africa’. Quality has a price and it is great to pay for quality analysis, and Economist is at the top of the pile along with HBR and FT.

#economistmagazine