Ali Bytes: Bullet-sized strategies for modern living

This is the second of two posts comparing India and the U.S. I started with 6 differences and now that I’ve been back from India for a few weeks, reflect on similarities.

While working at a women’s organization, I remember a news channel interviewing one our directors on the “battle” between couples with children and married adults with no children. DINK groups (dual income no kids) were calling for child-free sections at restaurants. Our stance was that focusing on the differences between the groups raises the wrong questions and that we should instead talk about policies that make workplaces and restaurants better for everyone, like paid sick leave or smoke-free policies.

I share this because it often seems harder to think about similarities, even though these are where sympathy and understanding stem from.  Unfortunately, differences and conflict sell news. I think differences and similarities are like criticism and praise or coffee and tea - you shouldn’t offer one without the other. So here is my attempt at highlighting similarities.

1. People want to be helpful (and probably will be if given the chance): I get energized by how willing people are to go out of their way to help me. If I had a communication problem with an auto driver in Hyderabad, I could call a friend and they would speak to the driver for me. I was always offered rides to and from hash every Sunday and I was given dozens of phone numbers and emails of friends of acquaintances. I have found since I’m in full networking mode, that people in the U.S. will enthusiastically do the same when asked. In my experience, the best way to get the help you need - ask for it and be as specific as possible with the request.
2. Education is considered the key to success: I was in a conversation this week with a man who said the best thing he gave his kids was an education and the rest is up to them.  At the Ashoka conference, a strong case was made that if we solve for education (and convince individuals they can make an impact), humans can solve all other problems for themselves. While every community in the world seems to be focused on providing a quality education for young people, I think the sub story is worth paying attention to. Especially in India, education needs more emphasis on creativity and critical thinking as opposed to factual memorization and skill learning. ASCD (my former client) is working on this in the U.S. with their whole child efforts and The Akanksha Foundation in India provides after school arts and athletic programs for children. Interestingly, the founder of Akanksha, Shaheen Mistri, is also leading Teach for India following the famous Teach for America model.
3. Love of ice cream (and other frozen lick-able treats): By most measures, it feels like I never left DC, but the eruption of frozen yogurt shops is an undeniable sign of change. I cannot understand how it’s possible DC residents can eat more and, yet, within walking distance of my house, I can get Mr. Yogato, Sweet Green, Tangy Sweet, Yogen Fruz and Fro-zen-yo, and that’s not even mentioning where I could get ice cream. At the same time, I can confidently say that at every meal I ate out in India, I had the option of ice cream for dessert. Despite all the differences between consumers in the U.S. and India, I think selling ice cream is a bulletproof business model in both places.
4. Relationships are everything in business: In the U.S. as in India, people want to like and trust who they work with so who you are is often more important than what hard skills you bring to the table.  To me, this is why networking and sales are art forms - you have to get personal enough to make a connection and business enough to make the case for the deal.  Sometimes scheduling happy hours and adopting an affinity for Makers Mark is time better spent than drafting proposals and cover letters.
5. Everyone loves a discount: While in Delhi, I bargained hard for a couple of block fabrics and the guy working there said “you are part Indian now.” I took it as a compliment, though my attention to not over paying was becoming an unhealthy obsession. He was referring to the severe price sensitivity of Indians. Though it is more appropriate to bargain for goods in most places in India, which is not true in the U.S., consumers in both countries want to pay as little as they can and getting a discount is very attractive, even if it is just psychological. Side note: there’s a great scene in the book Inscrutable Americans about this topic
6. There are more problems than solutions and a lot of entrepreneurs trying to figure them out: There are hundreds of foundations, incubator organizations, and venture capital firms - like Echoing Green and General Atlantic - dedicated entirely to encouraging and funding innovative people to figure out business solutions to the worst social problems around the world from youth violence and suicide to poor sanitation.  I asked a friend who works for a solar light company in India whether they are afraid of the competition given how many similar companies exist and she said, no that they are only scratching the surface of the full market. 

A lot of friends both in India and in the U.S. have asked me what I do on the weekends. Though time passes and I feel busy, it’s been tough to answer that question because every weekend has been different. I’ve posted about going to the zoo and TedXHiTechCity but here is a larger sampling of what my weekends have looked like in Hyderabad as I come up on my very last just a week from today.

1. Saree shopping at Pochampally: A little known attraction just outside of Hyderabad is Pochampally, the home to handmade silk saree manufacturing. In 1970, some village headmen decided to integrate silk weaving into cotton weaving to improve the livelihoods of the village and now they are leaders in the industry. We arrived with tempered expectations and were amazed by the selection of incredible silk sarees and equally incredible tour of the huge factory. The lack of crowds, friendliness of the staff, and up close experience of seeing silk dyed and woven made for an awesome experience and I got a saree to remember it by. Now I just need an Indian friend to marry so I have somewhere to wear it.
2. Senegalese hip hop band concert: BBC Sound System was an awesome group that stopped at the Novotel on a 12 city tour. Despite their mostly unknown music, they had an audience of ex-pats and Indians captivated for the couple of hours they played. I highly recommend them.
3. Sight seeing in Mumbai with Abbey: My good friend likes to wander the back roads with a camera, exactly my style for traveling making for a perfect first visitor. We spent a couple days in Mumbai, where she was the pied piper for little kids looking for a few rupees and then a few days in Hyderabad where she was a celebrity taking photos with young Indian guys at Golconda Fort. It was fascinating to notice the difference in how I am treated alone versus when I’m with another white, blond woman.
4. Playing Holi at the Hyderabad Children’s Aid Society: There really is no better group to spend a festival of colors and water fights with than 80 teenage boys. They were quite excited to see they had blank canvases as Mary Ann and I arrived clean with pale skin. It was a lot of fun but almost two months later, I still have pink streaks in my hair.
5. Exploring road number 11: Every day I leave my apartment building, I turn right. It took me until a few weeks ago to turn left to see what the rest of road number 11 looked like. On my journey, I met these two kids Mansoo and Akoo (”like Hakuna Matata” is how they told me to remember it) who walked around with me for about an hour while I took a lot of pictures. Last weekend, I took a bunch of the pictures I took back to the people and it was pretty awesome to see their faces as I handed them the photos of themselves. Two days ago, Mansoo spotted me getting into an auto and called out “Ali Auntie”; he wanted to invite me to his birthday party. These moments are some of the best I’ve had here.
6. Getting baptized at Hash: Each time a “virgin hare” lays the course for the Hyderabad Hash House Harriers, the individual gets baptized with a name and a showering of beer. A few Sundays ago I was up at 7am with a bag of cement and 3 other hashers to lay the trail. It took almost three hours and then I spent the entire day trying to recover before having to do the course all over again with the group in the evening.
7. Fundraiser for the Hyderabad Multiple Sclerosis Society: Last month, I joined a few Deloitte friends for a Saturday evening art auction, dinner and cocktails to raise money for the MS Society.  It was interesting to get a small glimpse into the Indian philanthropic community which a Bain study (full report) recently reported is about 0.6% of the country’s GDP (compared to 2.2% in the U.S.). The event was well done with about 50 pieces of art for sale starting at around 13,000 rupees up to a couple hundred thousand. 
8. GreenMango retreat at the Pocharam Wildlife Sanctuary: On this Saturday, about thirty of us spent an hour walking 6km around a wildlife sanctuary only to see one deer (that we could actually pet) followed by listening to a park ranger talk for over an hour about how we shouldn’t feed plastic bags to cows because they will expand in their stomachs and cry (while motioning a tear running down his face). Lucky for most of you reading this, I didn’t capture it on video or I would make you sit through the joy of Kindergarten-level environmental education. The rest of the day was equally entertaining as we picnicked in a park full of wild monkeys.
   
9. Pedicures at Juice: A couple times I’ve splurged for a 400 rupee (about $8) pedicure. Given that I, like most people, wear sandals every day and there is dirt and trash everywhere, a good foot scrub is the perfect way to pamper.

In late February I heard about these two informally organized groups that completely changed my perspective on Hyderabad and entrepreneurship.

1. Hash House Harriers: This “drinking club with a running problem” was started in Malaysia in the 1938 by a group of British soldiers and has since spread all over the world. The idea isn’t that simple but once you try it and get it, you may become addicted like I am. The group, open to anyone almost anywhere, meets at a different location at the same day and time each week (or month) to go on a run (or walk) that is set by a couple of “hares” who lay the trail using a powdered substance (usually flour in the U.S., cement powder here in Hyderabad). The trail is a series of clues that include sending you down wrong paths so you have to “on back,” retracing your steps to find the right path. It’s an amazing way to explore any city - particularly one where running outside is an alien endeavor; I often feel like we are a parade drawing people out of their homes to watch. Every group in the world customizes it to their liking - some try to catch the hares, some take beer breaks in the middle, etc. - but they all finish with beer at the end and members who have been initiated have nicknames, mostly NSFW. While I only did it once in DC, I joined H4 (Hyderabad + HHH) in February and haven’t missed a Sunday run with this fun group of quirky people from all different backgrounds.
2. Couch Surfing: How does one afford to travel around the world when hotel rooms in some places are $100 a night or more? Well couch surfing found an amazing solution to the problem - allow people to offer up their couches at no cost. While there is no money exchanged (or any other favors actually) between the surfer and couch owner, there is a small fee to register on the site which goes towards maintenance of the site and employing a couple of full time employees of this nonprofit organization based in New Hampshire. What’s most fascinating to me, however, isn’t just the simple genius of the idea started in 1999, but it’s the community that has grown around it. Each year couch surfers meet for a kind of conference, hang out and talk about couch surfing. It’s amazing that there is such a strong common identity among a group of people united by the fact that they prefer to stay in a stranger’s home than pay for a hostel. Though perhaps it’s more than that as the slogan adopted in 2006 suggests: “Participate in Creating a Better World, One Couch At A Time.”

This is the first of two posts comparing India and the U.S. starting with what we as humans seem to be more trained to see – differences.  There are of course many more so feel free to add to this list.

A recent book review for Roadrunner: An Indian Quest In America, suggests that the author uses his experience in America to reflect on his own country, India, and that “to reflect is to identify problems, acknowledge failures, and offer other ways of thinking.” While I’m not quite at the IAO (identify, acknowledge, offer) part of this process, I have certainly reflected on the cultural differences between the two countries.

Borrowing from the thesis of Switch, the Heath brother’s new book, it seems that the question for a successful entrepreneur in this century – whether in India, the U.S. or in between - is how to build on what is working to fix what isn’t. Though sometimes it’s hard to know what needs fixing.

1. Spoken versus written language: In both work and socially, the clearest sign that I am not from India is my attachment to the written word. Despite knowing that face-to-face and voice-to-voice are the preferred means of communication, I can’t let go of my desire to make plans over email and present an idea in a document. So I’ve just started to do both – drafting an email that says I will follow-up via phone or verbally flagging for my colleague that I sent them something to look at. In India, a word of mouth recommendation is just that, while in the U.S. it has become “word of link.” 
2. Service versus empowerment: It takes but a moment in this country to learn that India is a service-based culture in every way. As evidenced by the people that follow you around in stores to some of the categories on the GreenMango site (drivers, cooks, etc), there is virtually nothing you need done that you couldn’t hire someone to do, at a relatively low cost.  This is possibly a legacy of the caste system but most certainly a result of India’s two largest commodities: people and time. In the U.S. on the other hand, labor is expensive, time is limited and people want to feel independent. Companies in the U.S. – from Home Depot to the Food Network to Mint.com – are about automation and helping people become more self sufficient.
3. Order versus law: Indians seem to snub almost all road laws including red lights and helmets, and while judges are honored members of society, a land dispute in India can last generations with no resolution. Very much the opposite of the U.S., which relies heavily on the law to settle disputes, India is a not a litigious society and yet, the crime rate in India is significantly lower overall (at least reported) than in the U.S.. People will get angry, but generally the recipient will absorb it and the problem doesn’t escalate. I am learning to take advantage of this in small ways: when I walk into a store and they ask to check my bag, I give an Indian head bobble and keep walking, as I know they don’t want confrontation.
4. Wealthy obesity versus poor obesity: Generally, in India, people who are overweight are wealthy. (These are the same people I see doing the toe touching workouts at the gym, which might also explain their weight problem.) On the contrary, in the U.S. weight problems more skewed towards low-income earners: 22.4% of young people living below the poverty line are overweight or obese versus 9.1% whose families earn at least four times that amount according to TIME in 2008. This certainly has to do with the cost of food, which generally is the opposite here as it is in the U.S. where unhealthy foods are cheaper (of course, a generalization). In India, a box of cereal costs me about $6 (though imported) and a bag of Haldirams snack mix is 70 cents while a bag of seven carrots costs me 18 cents a yogurt costs 33 cents.
5. Fantasy versus emotional marketing: The core of U.S. marketing – whether for a product or a mission – is trying to make something more emotional to “tug at the heart strings” and make you act (or buy). There are studies that compare puppies against kittens and we know that pictures of kids faces (or any faces really) increase response rates.  But in India, some argue that people are consistently surrounded by emotion (or reality) such that escape is more attractive.  One person told me that you only need to look at the movie industry to see this: Slumdog Millionaire was not as acclaimed in India as it was in the U.S., for example, as compared to the dramatic, dancing, singing Bollywood style of film.  I haven’t completely bought into this but there are significant differences about selling to Indians versus Americans if for no other reasons than some of those on this list. 
6. Landmarks versus street signs: In the U.S. you can for the most part get in a cab and say where you’re going and get there. In India you almost always have to know where you are going and that also almost always involves landmarks as few streets are properly labeled.  This may be a bit different in more metropolitan cities like Mumbai or Delhi but in Hyderabad, maps are pretty useless.  Take the directions to get to Hash House Harriers on Sunday.  Something like: “Go past Apollo hospital and when you get to the fork with the temple, stay to the right. Go about 1km and make a right at the VSIP sign.”  Navigating involves all parties in the vehicle and can become quite a bonding experience with the driver.