Viswanathan K's Thoughts

When Mahindra started its Rise challenge, my dad was interested in submitting his idea to the contest. He couldn’t seem to find the site to submit and when I googled it, my feeling was that the contest was not about awarding the best idea(s). Rather it felt to me like the winner of the contest would be funded by Mahindra to execute his idea. Scott Adams, author of Dilbert, once said : “There's a general misconception that ideas have some sort of market value, if only one can find a buyer. Sadly, that is not the case. Everyone reading this blog is full of great ideas. But usually we don't have the time, talent, resources, or risk tolerance to pursue them.” Before you object, Adams accepts that patents are the exception. But then again, all ideas aren’t patentable, are they? So most of the time, Adams is right. So is there no way for someone (like my dad, maybe) who has an idea but doesn’t have the time/inclination/money/desire to execute the idea to still get his...

Take these examples of companies that dreamed up ideas, technologies and even prototypes but then didn’t make products of them: -          Did you know that Nokia came up with a phone with a color touchscreen set above a single button? 7 years before the iPhone ? But they never started making those phones. And now the same Nokia is being driven closer and closer to bankruptcy by the very same smartphone that they didn’t productize. Is that ironical or what? -          Nokia also came up with a tablet computer with a touchscreen in the late 90’s. Again, they didn’t make the product finally. Apple came up with the same class of products (iPad’s) years later and still dominates that market. -          Microsoft had a prototype e-reader ready way back in 1998. Bill Gates shot it down. A decade later, Amazon made the Kindle. -        ...

“The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for.” - Ludwig Wittgenstein If what Wittgenstein said is true (and it sure sounds right), then by extension, a language that absorbs words into itself readily is indirectly absorbing the ideas that are associated with those words. On the other hand, a language that refuses to absorb words from other languages and instead coins new words loses the context and associations that were part of the source language. To see the point, imagine whether English speakers would have got the same ideas (philosophy?) that comes with words like karma and nirvana if they had insisted on coining new words for them, instead of taking them as-is. So the speakers/custodians who “safeguard” their language by not letting it get “corrupted” by foreign words end up losing the idea-set that comes with the original words. It’s like cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face! Maybe the French should wake up and take note. Of course...