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. 

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.

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.”

And then some time passes, something fires me up and I come back to it. This week I had a couple of long conversations with nonprofit organizations - both in India and the U.S. - that have highlighted assumptions that, in my opinion, are flawed and need to be questioned. I’d love to know what you think.

1. Employees need to commit to the cause: I’ve worked for nonprofits in nearly every capacity - as a full time employee, consultant, board member and volunteer - and one of the biggest weaknesses I’ve consistently seen is this idea that people need to live and breath the issue they are working for. Rather than look for someone capable of solving difficult challenges with a willingness to bootstrap or for a specific skill set, it often seems that a demonstration of one’s allegiance to the cause is more important. As a social change generalist, I think nonprofits need to start looking first for the right abilities and then let enthusiasm for the issue be icing on the cake.
2. Voting is a good idea: When online voting became popular about five years ago and significant buzz around crowdsourcing began, voting was different and an innovative way to get mass amounts of people to participate in an effort requiring very little information. However, now that these efforts seems to be launched around everything - two recent ones being the Pepsi Refresh Project and the Unreasonable Marketplace - voting has become a (mostly) irresponsible use of time and energy.  If I email my entire network and encourage people through social sites to vote for my personal idea, then that’s my prerogative.  But when nonprofits have to bring paid employees together to develop a strategy to drive their supporters to vote for them to win something, I wonder if anyone has calculated the value creation. How much time, energy and money is spent trying to get something that isn’t worth even a quarter of that time, energy or money?
3. Consumers are either cause-driven or quality-driven:  There’s a belief that people either buy from their head or from their heart and that the latter is not sustainable. In other words, a quality product will sell in any climate but a product that is branded with a cause will only sell as long as the cause marketing is strong.  This actually may be true in emerging markets, but certainly in the U.S. I think this has changed.  Consumers are not so polar; people can buy for cause impact and because they want the product - like Paul Newman products or Dove’s Real Beauty effort.  I think the notion that products can be both practically and emotionally useful will only continue to expand.
4. Volunteers can’t be counted on: There’s a belief that volunteers, or “most Americans” as one person said to me, are looking for easy answers. They want to come in, do a small amount of work only to wash their hands and walk away feeling better but never thinking again about the organization. In short, volunteering is a short-term, selfish pursuit and therefore volunteers are an unreliable, uncommitted group. On the one hand, this seems to be supported by the existence of these one day clean ups, community improvement projects - or even Race for the Cure and cause-related exercise events - where volunteers just show up and are handed paint brushes. On the contrary, however, I think many nonprofits don’t effectively use volunteers because they are missing a basic point: volunteers are human and want to feel they have made a difference. When visible day to day change isn’t realistic - which it’s not in many cases - it’s up to the organization to help show why they are doing what they are doing. If nonprofits could help individuals see that they are needed and making a difference in the big picture, I know they would find a more committed and helpful free workforce.

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. 

In case you think I must be joking (who could seriously get that excited about lists?), read below for a list that has been developing over the last few weeks.

1. Ceiling fans: Though it’s not the most southern city, Hyderabad is said to one of the hottest cities in India and I’ve only gotten a flavor of it so far. In about a month when “summer” starts - it’s been an 80+ degree winter so far for sake of comparison - it will regularly be above 100 degrees. I definitely love ceiling fans in the U.S. but I really celebrate them here. I am not sure how I’d get through the day without them.
2. Raisins: I have never realized what a universal, nutritious and pretty safe food raisins are. I have them in my muesli and yogurt in the morning, mixed with nuts with my lunch and with my vegetables for dinner. They can be eaten sweet or salty, alone or mixed with a wide variety of foods and taken anywhere requiring no special care or refrigeration.
3. A good driver: Some people say that Indians are terrible drivers. On the contrary, I think they are amazing. A friend pointed out that driving here is like being in a real life video game - with objects and people jumping in the way, cars swerving following no lines on the road and optionally following traffic laws. Yet, there are relatively few accidents given these circumstances.  Though I can barely cross the street alone (when I go in the field with my colleague who is about 5′0″ and 90 pounds, I have to hold her hand), when I get into an auto in the middle of rush hour, I feel quite safe.
4. Pooping: I’m sorry to be crude, but in the spirit of honesty it must be shared - and if you’ve spent time in a developing country I’m sure you know exactly what I mean. Western immune systems are not typically prepared to handle the bacteria which is so prevalent here, including in water. Getting through another day without a case of  traveler’s diarrhea (TD) or food poisoning is something to celebrate in a small way.
5. Stationary bikes: Each morning I get up at 7:15 to go to the gym so that I can enjoy delicious biryani and roti with slightly less guilt (and impact on the way my clothes fit). There’s a great walking park about 25 minutes from my house but it’s open only from 5am-8am and then 5pm-9pm, even on the weekends. This, combined with the 1980s era toe touching “fitness” routines that go on at the gym each morning, suggest to me that exercise is for people who can’t afford to ride in a vehicle to get where they are going.
6. Shade: On Saturday, GreenMango celebrated its 2nd anniversary at a Wildlife Sanctuary about 2.5 hours from Hyderabad. The experience is a another story (there was literally one diseased looking dear that we could pet) but one tid bit is that after 4km of walking with absolutely no trees big enough to shade even a bit of the trail, my colleague Ananth looks at my arms making a face as if he smelled something bad and said “you have a rash.” “Ahh, no that’s just a sun burn. It’s normal.” I’ve learned in these 7 weeks that sitting in the shade is in fact cooler than being in the sun.
7. A good vegetable peeler: I didn’t realize the clear trend here until I’m now at the last one - staying cool and staying healthy. When I traveled to India in 2008, the mantra was “as long as it’s well cooked” but living here for longer than a few weeks, it’s not sustainable to avoid raw fruits and vegetables, even with going to a gym each morning. A good peeler (which my roommate brought back from a trip to Australia actually) saves much time peeling carrots and apples - two of my staple foods here.

One fellow (who happened to also be a Fellow) came up to me with an unusual inquiry: he wanted to confirm that I was not the Ali Cherry he dated in college. In the course of this unique dialogue, some how mental health and Facebook came up simultaneously and Doug shared that he thinks Facebook is good for his mental health because sometimes meaningless is necessary. His theory is that we’re always searching for the consequential and that we need breaks from it. It was a very wise Seth Godin-esque moment that, combined with the ensuing conversations, made this guy one of my favorites of the few days.

So in that spirit, I’ll share some photos and musings from the last few weeks.

1. I live on Road Number 11 in Banjara Hills, a “posh” Hyderabad neighborhood. Like most roads in India, this one is shared by various motor vehicles, stray dogs, peeing men, speed bumps, grape sellers and people going about their day. While it may not sound like it, this combination makes quite the people watching scene. On my first day here I saw three camels on this road, but think it was a covert stunt to shock me into my new life because I haven’t seen any since.
2. I captured this store front in a drive-by shooting (of pictures) around Charminar. I can’t figure out what it does. Watch repair maybe? (Click here to see larger version to fully appreciate my sarcasm.) I asked my colleague to explain this to me and she laughed having with no idea why a store would need four signs. I think strategic signage consulting is a service that could do quite well here.  As far as I can tell, if a sign needs fixing or repainting, a new one is just put up; maintenance is not a core competency of India. 
3. Driving back from ISB a few weeks ago, I also shot this photo from the road. It is one of the best advertisements for targeted advertising I’ve seen. If you look closely there’s a Princeton Review GMAT class ad on a pole next to a shanty village. I would bet many of the people exposed to this sign don’t even go to the U.S. equivalent of high school. 
4. More than anything else, I’ve taken a lot of pictures of kids.  This is partly because almost every weekend I’ve volunteered at a school and partly because kids go crazy when you put a camera in front of them. For whatever reason, they love to wave to the camera though I can’t figure out why. These are some kids from a government school in Film Nagar.
5. I’m intrigued by advertising in this country. In addition to the poorly placed GMAT ad, public service-type announcements lack creativity and seem to have very little impact (like encouraging bikers to wear helmets).  This is a recent favorite: “do not jump signals.” It is actually necessary to promote following a law which would be like seeing a stop sign with a sign below it saying “obey the stop sign.”  Seems a bit redundant.
6. While the western notion of recycling is pretty uncommon, the adage “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is very much alive in India. In the dumpsters, groups of animals and people pick through to recover leftover food or reusable materials.  Here are some goats eating trash, a pretty typical scene in many neighborhoods. 
7. Instructions that articulate the obvious amuse me. For example, these rules posted on the back of a bathroom stall door include: “3. Very Important!! Please do not use the extra floor space of the last loo for any of your business”  I would love to hear the story that brought about this rule.
8. On Sundays, I like to go for a walk in KBR park.  It’s one of the few outdoor spaces where one can walk without having to be careful not to get hit by a moving vehicle.  It is interesting to me that what I consider exercise clothes aren’t very common. 
9. I took my new friend James out to dinner for his birthday and had the wait staff surprise him with a mini cake.  They then insisted that they take our picture while we awkwardly followed the Indian tradition of feeding one another cake. 
10. I didn’t hear about this until seeing this ad in the paper. Apparently Lays discovered some SMS and email messages that suggested their products are not entirely vegetarian. This ad included a full letter from the Director of Legal ensuring customers that they are in fact 100% vegetarian, reinforcing the need for culturally specific marketing.
    
11. Of course my cost of living is less than Washington, DC.  In an attempt at a literal apples to apples comparison, I took this picture of groceries that cost me 150Rs or about $3.  As you can see, it bought me a small loaf of bread, head of cauliflower, pack of gum, 5 bananas and 4 apples.  (And now you also know my pitiful dinner most nights.) 

The cliff notes version of TED talks is that they are typically about 20 minutes of passionate, substantive, innovative and thought provoking content by some of the world’s most notable people. (The 2010 event actually starts tomorrow). TED used to stand for Technology Entertainment Design but they’ve expanded that and now use the tag line “ideas worth spreading.” Interestingly, I just learned that TED Curator, Chris Anderson, is married to Jacqueline Novogratz of Acumen Fund officially making them the ultimate power couple to me.

Of the 22 or so speakers from Sunday’s event, many of them were unfortunately not worth spreading (or have been spread so far, it’s not worth repeating like “use LED lightbulbs to help the environment”) but these five really captured my attention. I look forward to hearing what ideas emerge from TED 2010 in Long Beach, CA this week.

1. Nagesh Kukunoor talked about the “unexplored zone”: Nagesh is a famous Indian film director who used to be an environmental consultant in the U.S. The dramatic career change is enough to pique my attention, but his approach to movies is even more intriguing. While he made a few interesting but unoriginal points: “naïveté lets you do things you don’t know you shouldn’t do” and “the unexplored zone is not always new, just twisting the old,” what most fascinated me was his seeming obsession with not being slotted into a genre. While he thinks movies should be entertainment first, and that a message is a nice to have, he is such a purest when it comes to story telling and letting the audience do the interpretive work, that he rejects the Bollywood mold of heavy makeup or songs, trying to be as “real” as stories can be. For this, some of his movies have been hits and others not so much. His takeaway message: keep exploring.
2. Dr. Neeraj Raj’s talk was Heads – Malaria…Tails – Jaundice: As in many parts of the developing world, illegal medicine practicing is a problem in India. Roughly 80% of India still lives in rural parts of the country and many (if not most) of these people have no access to a trained medical professional. At the same time, 50% of common medical problems (like diarrhea) don’t require a doctor but instead someone with an ability to point to over the counter treatment and recognize danger signs that do require a doctor’s attention. He argues that if we can digitize medical education such that we can more efficiently teach fact-based learning, then we can begin to address the problem of illegal rural medicine and also focus more on skill based education. While I didn’t quite capture how he wants to bring digital medicine to rural India (since I don’t even have internet at home), the idea of capturing teachings of the best instructors around the country, combining it with interactive multimedia, and adding note taking and direct question submission functionality is brilliant. The tool is called SmarTeach and currently has 750 active teaching professors on the site.
3. The best presentation of the day was Karuna Gopal on the truth about Indian Cities: She combined analogy and vivid photography to make the case that city planning should be a top priority for India, as poorly planned cities and rapid growth lead to extreme poverty and wealth, serious health problems, and the kind of civil unrest that can influence terrorism. She was refreshingly blunt in her message: Indian government doesn’t have project management capabilities, doesn’t know how to work in teams, doesn’t coordinate processes and lacks creative, persuasive communication to get people to pay attention or take action (there are lots of billboards and newspaper ads with a million words and only faces of politicians). She argued that business leaders need to begin to inject their skills and talent to teach and encourage government bodies to adopt better practices. Her take-away: Business cannot succeed in a city that fails.
4. Prosenjit Ganguly’s presentation was called Flowers do fly: An independent animation designer, screenwriter and media educator, PJ is slowly transforming Indian education through small workshops that teach children how to express themselves and tell their stories through multimedia. He showed one of his videos about how Indian schooling is about repetition, listening not talking, discipline and learning right/wrong which earned the largest applause of the day - clearly it resonated with the ISB students. The philosophy behind his work is that education should, instead, be a “tool to express what’s going on in your mind” and to reflect on what we see. He said that what moves us is our story line, and in inviting people (even little people) to tell these stories, the result is consequence and mission. I loved this message.
5. Similar to Karuna, Kanthi Kannan posed a question: Walking, is it a fundamental right? In a previous post, I mentioned the lack of sidewalks and danger when walking. If I had to say my number one challenge with living here, it’s easily my inability to walk where I want to go. She shared that 5 pedestrians die each week in Hyderabad and 40 get injured, despite the fact that 40% of the Hyderabad workforce walks to work. Why is this? People who walk don’t make decisions and people who make decisions (or have influence) don’t walk. Interestingly, it’s not just sidewalks that cities need, but walking needs to be marketed as cool.  Right now, walking generally means you don’t have money for transportation. Her take-away: The single biggest difference between a developed nation and an underdeveloped nation is footpaths.

Photo credit: TEDxHitechCity on flickr

Anyway, I thought that was pretty coincidental until this first story happened last week. (The three others are included because my India small world story needed company.)

1. My roommate and colleague picked me up at the airport and on the ride home I learned she is from Hull, MA where my parents live. For the last ten days, two of her friends have been visiting who are from Hingham, the town next to Hull, where I grew up. When they arrived, her friend walked into work, took one look at me and said “yes, you look just like your mom.” Apparently, she was in my mom’s babysitting coop when I was little. Later that evening I was chatting with her other friend and discovered that she currently lives in my best friend from childhood’s old house.
2. Speaking of Hingham, when I was interviewing for a job at Grassroots Enterprise in Washington, DC, I told the CEO that I was from Hingham, something that I am rarely asked and rarely share since I usually say Boston. He mentioned it to the COO in our San Francisco office who was not only from Hingham but lived in my neighborhood and played street hockey with the same guys we did growing up.
3. While at Grassroots, I was at a conference in New York City and, in an ambitious attempt to network, I approached a woman whose badge had the name of a women’s organization. In sharing that I was living in DC, she said she was from Texas but on her way to DC after the conference to visit her daughter who worked at an organization called Systems Planning and Analysis. “Oh SPA? Yes, I know it and have a couple friends that work there,” I said. She said her daughter’s name (her mom has a different last name) and I replied, “You’re kidding? That’s my friend!” Now when she comes to town, I try to go over and say hello.
4. And finally, DC is notoriously small so I have a lot of stories here. But last fall, I was getting to know my new roommate and in small talk we got to chatting about the Peace Corps. She mentioned her college friend was in Mongolia and I said my good friend’s brother is there too when it dawned on me that she went to Brown and so did the brother. Turns out my roommate dated his best friend in college and had met my good friend a few times.

Ok now if you’ve gotten this far and I haven’t confused or bored you, what is your best small world story? And if you’re reading this and you are one of the people in those stories, maybe you could just say “hi Ali. I remember that.”

On Tuesday night in honor of Republic Day, the day India officially adopted their constitution, we watched Gandhi. While I had not seen it, apparently he’s seen this movie a couple dozen times because it plays on TV each of the 3 national holidays, one of which is Gandhi’s birthday. Shobhit grew up in India until he was 15 and moved to Long Island, so is the perfect blend of both countries in terms of cultural awareness. He can add things like “…during the partition [of India and Pakistan], Hindus like my parents had to leave the Pakistan region but those who were Muslim had a choice about whether to leave India…” I had no idea that some estimate that nearly 1 million people died in the religious battles that ensued following Gandhi’s over three decades of preaching non-violence.

While some of the movie was new to me, two prominent themes have emerged for me in more than a handful of places recently, even before I came here. This is very likely because I’m living in the birthplace of Buddhism and carrying around a Moleskine notebook consciously looking for opportunities of enlightenment (yes, I admit it with mild discomfort). Is it just me who is hearing these messages?

1. What defines “happiness” doesn’t seem to change across time or culture. Consistently, a sense of purpose, or acting on behalf of something bigger than oneself, seems to be the key to sustained happiness. I’ve heard this in a number of places recently including from Martin Seligman’s TED talk in which he shares that the meaningful life is using one’s strengths in service of something larger. Research shows that volunteers live longer, healthier and more satisfied lives, perhaps explaining why so many celebrities - like Madonna (Raising Malawi) and George Clooney (Not on Our Watch) - turn to social change work. We can also see evidence in the rapid growth of the social enterprise sector and the existence of sites like TakePart, Change.org, Changents, and Social Actions (a culmination of some of these) providing outlets for those seeking to give time or money. Gandi, while arguably not totally “happy” from his accomplishments, is but one example of a life’s pursuit devoted to something outside himself. (This is, of course, not dissimilar to arguments in favor of religion and can be seen in Rick Warren’s success.) I’m curious if others ponder their sense of “greater purpose”?
2. To act for a cause and make a real impact, one has to understand the issue, the people impacted and the source (irrespective of whether you can effectively address the source). To paraphrase Nicholas Kristof, to care is to understand, not just oppose, or as an astute blog commenter, Alex Thompson-Bocek put it, “it is ineffective to apply a business solution to social injustices without understanding the root cause.” Gandhi, as I’m sure you know, lived as the people among the people (hence the minimalist garb) after traveling the country to learn as much as he could. Personally, I’ve been pleasantly surprised how much communications with my coworkers is non-verbal, however there are serious limitations to my understanding and making an impact simply because I can’t speak to our primary customers – the vendors that mainly speak Telugu. There are lots of examples of well meaning social change efforts that fail largely because they don’t quite have the whole picture. Which brings me to my Indian business idea #6: an implantable language chip for the brain, or I suppose I could just go everywhere with Shobhit.