The Hindu Business Line : ‘Switch off those annoying toys’

Switch off ‘those annoying toys,’ instructs an infuriated Liew Mun Leong in Building People: Sunday emails from a CEO ( www.wiley.com). His anger is directed at ‘the wonderful technology of handphones and the BlackBerry,’ which can unwittingly become ‘a serious addiction among us.’

These gizmos, are “unconsciously, but obnoxiously, overused or misused while we are attending meetings or ostensibly engaged in a conversation,” he frets. An increasingly common delinquency, as he sees this, “especially among our senior colleagues who should know better, may be quite annoying and indeed unforgivable as it depicts a ‘couldn’t-care-less’ attitude and a lack of respect for others.”

Liew doesn’t omit to mention the many pluses of tech tools. The handphone, for instance, is easily one of the greatest communication tools of the last decade, he declares. “We can now reach any part of the civilised world at any time.”

When travelling, BlackBerry serves as ‘an effective, all-powerful ‘time killer’ and ‘time saver’ at any place where one has to wait, acknowledges Liew. “I can whip out my BlackBerry and clear most if not all of my incoming e-mails while standing in the agonisingly long immigration line. For example, I crafted this e-mail while flying back from Moscow and stored it in the save box to be sent later.”

His anguish, however, as the chief of CapitaLand Ltd, South-East Asia’s largest listed real-estate company, is about the senior employees who are addicted to ‘these two little powerful yet demanding electronic devices’ and who can’t live without reaching for them 24/7.

“Frequently, they are seen using their handphone and/or BlackBerry during meetings (or worse, even during serious negotiations), reading or sending SMSes or e-mails, blatantly and disrespectfully ignoring the ongoing discussion.”

Some are ruder, finds Liew: they conduct a separate telephone conversation while sitting at a live meeting! “Speaking in a very soft whisper on the phone will still disrupt the meeting.”

If you are not interested in the discussion, then leave the meeting, he advises. “It is unproductive to stay on if you have no interest there!” An exception can be made, allows Liew, if you “need to be contacted urgently, like waiting to close a billion dollar deal”!

Can you impress people by hugging your handphone or BlackBerry and appearing very busy with it right in the midst of an important meeting? Certainly not, Liew counsels. “I, for one, wouldn’t be very impressed with your demonstration of multi-tasking skills.”

Wise words.

GPS and satellite navigation

The GPS (global positioning system) satellite navigation system was declared fully operational in July 1995, informs Lorenz Schröter in Skylarks and Scuttlebutts: A Treasure Trove of Nautical Knowledge ( www.landmarkonthenet.com).

“It is a US military system, but has been made available free for worldwide civil use. It now provides users anywhere on land, sea or air with highly accurate position, speed and time data continuously, under all weather conditions.”

Two-dozen satellites orbit the earth at an altitude of more than 20,000 km and each satellite has four atomic clocks as the system depends absolutely on precise timekeeping. GPS fixes are generally accurate to about 10-20 but the GPS receiver may need to be adjusted to the chart datum in use if different from WGS84 (World Geodetic System 1884), explains the author.

“The proposed European Union system, Galileo, is behind schedule and is unlikely to be operational before 2012.”

GPS is a pearl beyond price for navigators who previously would have had to rely on inertial systems, sextant fixes, radio direction finding and dead reckoning, writes Schröter. “However, the US could switch off civil use at any time or satellites could be damaged, destroyed or jammed, so wise seafarers still keep the old-fashioned backup methods in reserve.”

Wealth of information.

Telecom revenues

Access to telecom is the foundation for ICT (information and communication technology) use, say Rohan Samarajiva and Ayesha Zainudeen in ICT Infrastructure in Emerging Asia: Policy and Regulatory Roadblocks ( www.sagepublications.com). Telecom, and perhaps radio and TV, constitute the total experience with ICTs in many developing countries and among the poor, they add.

To the government too, telecom is important as a revenue source. For instance, in Sri Lanka, telecom is one of the largest contributors to growth of GDP (gross domestic product), the authors observe.

“This happens in two principal ways. First, the Sri Lankan government obtains substantial revenues from the sector, directly in the form or returns on its 49.5 per cent investment in the incumbent and in taxes from telecom users (approximately 20 per cent of every rupee spent on telecom services goes to government.”

Secondly, government gets higher revenues from other sectors that find productivity gains through better telecom. “Prior to liberalisation, the telecom sector was a drag on the rest of the economy; now, it is a driver.”

Important work.

Lifecycle thriller

Chapter 33 in Anil Goel’s Release 2.0: The Bangalore Imperative ( www.undercoverpro.net) opens in Mauritius, May 2008. ‘Analyse, design, build, test and deploy.’

The coloured boxes depicting these stages of software development life cycle were on the plasma wall, ‘almost identical to the ones that featured on the opening page of the methodology for custom software development, which he taught to his students…’

Similar but not the same, he noticed. “What he beheld before him was actually a highly specialised version that had extensively been customised for SAP right here, in this very island. In the war-room.”

When customised software applications are developed from scratch, business users get to design and tailor the software to their specific functions and operations, so that training and maintenance become easier, explains Goel. “When commercial, sometimes called ‘shrink wrapped’ applications are used, instead, by a business for a specified solution, the solution may just create more problems; things like expensive licensing agreements, complex training and changes to their business to accommodate the software.”

A good methodology helps reduce the amount of time required to estimate, plan and mobilise a task, the author reasons. “It also provides deliverable templates and job aids to assist in executing the work…”

Then comes ‘the man from Mauritius’, who taps a button on the plasma screen. “The boxes displaying the methodology and a map of the European continent filled the screen…”

Thriller for the holiday reading list.

Tailpiece

“Our boss stopped sending e-mail pep talks when he found….”

“That your performance was not going up, in any case?”

“Plus, he shockingly discovered that we had put his id in the ‘blocked sender’ list!”

dmurali@thehindu.co.in