Death by Power Point

Couple of weeks back I attended a conference. As the key note speaker we had an expert from one of the top notch institutions in the world, who had recently relocated from London. As the topic was close to my heart, I parked myself in the front seat. The speaker had a distinct western accent as he had been out of the country for a long time.

As expected from any expert speaker today, he had a power point presentation to support his talk. The slides started moving one by one. Extremely colorful, quite complex diagrams with wide variety of shapes and colours linked and interlinked using arrows and lines flowing in and out and very densely packed text. Quite visually impressive!

Even front row, I found it difficult to read most of the text. The message that was expected to be understood from the various cubes, pyramids and animations were too complex for me to follow; especially when I attempted to follow the speech. The speaker expected me to quickly assimilate each slide in milliseconds and then connect it to the pearls of wisdom that came from his mouth.

The audio and the visuals were impressive; but, failed to communicate to the audience. This is a phenomenon that has become quite common these days. Power Point presentation is a killer utility that Computer revolution has contributed to the modern day manager. With more and more functionalities and features Power Point has become more important to corporate executives than even food and water. (The only other killer functionality that can beat this is the is ‘copy paste’ function)

A good Power Point presentation can be a powerful tool to make penetrating communications; especially in presentations. It can help the presenter as cue card to help in keeping a structured story line, it can pictorially present some difficult concepts, it can help the audience to quickly refer to the broader context of what is being presented so on and so forth

But overuse of the funky features is making this to a tool that kills effective communication. Power Point helps in building excellent visual presentations and diagrammatic representations.

The diagrams pie charts we use as a part of a written document can afford to be a bit complex and dense (though I would not recommend overdose of it). This is because the reader has the flexibility to read the text, look at the model, ruminate and go back to the text and the model again if he feels the need. In this case he sets the pace. Even when we provide an electronic copy of the presentation and the receiver can view it at his pace, we can afford to have some element of complexity.

But if we are using our PPT as a complement to our oral presentation we cannot afford such complex and dense slide show. If our presentation is to a small audience who are very much clued on to the topic we are presenting (say our department colleagues, our board, our client) we can get away with some of these gimmicks.

But if we are making a presentation to a larger audience then these colorful animations dampens the effectiveness of the presentation. Very often when we make presentations and the speeches to a large audience, the level to which most of the people are clued into the topic will be to a much lesser extent. In such circumstances, if we make our PPT and speech complex and heavy, it will fail to communicate though it may appear erudite. The complex slide deck will then become a distraction. Human beings cannot listen, read and assimilate complex messages in real time as his working memory have limited capacity and has limited duration, especially when it comes to new and novel information. The visuals could act as an intuitive complement; but, if it is anything more, it can be very frustrating and ineffective. What is worse is the presenter referring to the slides all the time taking away one of the most important component of oral presentation; the eye contact.

The new breed “MBA” varieties (I can vouch for that. I am one too) who are computer savvy (A very critical skill these days) get carried away by everything the computer can do without assessing how useful and how relevant they are in the context. The slide deck for them becomes a tool to intimidate, a means to prove how smart they are and not an aid to communicate and to relate. But in reality they become crutches to the speaker and not an aid to the audience. Should we consider banning power point presentation? Absolutely not; if we do that there will be many more (like consultants) to join Dodo as an extinct species.(don’t deny me my daily bread)

"If your words or images are not on point, making them dance in color won't make them relevant." - Edward Tufte Professor Emeritus, Yale University

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Don’t do me a favor; Grant me the right to demand

Depository’s act of India provided for one of the highest level of service level commitments to the account holder. It required that the depository should indemnify any losses to the investors resulting out of negligence from its part or from the part of its agents namely depository participants. Thus it gave the account holders the right to demand safety of their investment. At the time of enactment of this act, when about 25% of all settlement in the stock market used to have problems associated with paper and there were innumerable instances of investors losing their investment on account of frauds relating to share certificate, this stringent service level requirement appeared utopian and impossible to sustain.

This put enormous pressure on the new depository that was set up, registrars who were hitherto not used to respecting investor’s right and the brokers and bankers who were used to service on good effort basis. This Damocles Sword ensured that systems, processes, checks, balances and audit trail are built and maintained to meet this service level. In the last 15 years since first depository was established, the market intermediaries managed to live up to this service level with practically insignificant instances of breaches which necessitated the service providers to pay up.

What did the magic was the right given by the act of parliament to demand a certain service level without being felt as if we are being offered a favour. In the recent past the government has extended this principle in a number of areas; right to information, right to food, right to education and right to electronic service delivery.

All these are attempts to empower the citizen. Right to Information which was the first of such initiatives has been there for some time. The results have been very encouraging. As more people get to be aware of this right and learn to exercise it, the pressure for performance will build up. It was heartening to see that even children are learning to use this powerful tool. I was impressed by the Class 8 student Kavana Kumar from Karnataka who used this tool to get the garbage dump next her school cleaned by the municipality. These may be anecdotal evidence as of now. But these have potential to grow to stronger tools. Similarly when we give the citizen the right to demand and not stand in supplication for what is due for him we are triggering a paradigm shift.

Instead of being armchair critics who bemoan the degeneration of the society and the level of corruption with little compunction in using the same means to push our own agenda, we need to learn how to use these tools to make a difference. We should also encourage and support enactment of more such laws placing rights into hands of the citizen/consumer, to bring in more service orientation; especially from the people in positions of power both in private and in public sector. Then may be we will learn the meaning of "service with a smile" if not a grimace:-)


Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.” Kahil Gibran

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Caveat Emptor ?

The bank was taken aback by the order of the IT secretary of Tamilnadu as the adjudicator under the Information Technology Act, when he directed the bank to pay Rs 12.85 lacs as the compensation to an Abu Dhabi based NRI for the loss suffered by him in a “Phishing Fraud” . (1)

“Phishing” is a security risk that many computer users are getting to be familiar. In this case the account holder received an email that appeared genuine, which asked him to provide the use rid and password for his internet banking account to avoid his account getting closed. He parted with these details and he lost about Rs 7,00,000 from his account.

The bank took a view that the loss is on account of the carelessness of the account holder and refused any compensation as they had advised all account holders not to part with their userid and password to anybody. How could he be so irresponsible and give away his password and then claim that the bank should compensate him? But the adjudicator did not agree to this point of view.

This is an interesting dilemma for all entities like banks and depositories that provide online service to their clients. Where does their liability end for the loss suffered by their clients? Under what circumstances will they continue to be liable even if the loss was the outcome of a failure by the account holder?

Similar issues have been there with respect to offline transactions too. For example the loss suffered by credit card holders on account of misuse of their card details or loss of money from the bank account by fraudulent instructions.

One of the accepted doctrines in legal theory is that the entity that is best equipped to manage the risk should be liable to the loss arising out of such risk. This doctrine has been followed not just in online transaction. It has been used in fixing liability in terms of workplace accidents, accidents in amusement park and and so on.

For many this may look very unfair. Shouldn’t the responsibility of the service provider end when it has put in place risk containment measures and warned the users about the potential risks? Why should it bear the brunt of a fraud when ingenious souls manage to find a way around the protective walls?

There are studies comparing the incidents of banking frauds between the countries that placed the primary responsibility on the service provider and on the customer. These studies showed that when the legal structure supported the above doctrine the extent of fraud was much less. The service providers continuously upgraded their risk containment systems as they could not hide behind “fine prints” in the forms that they make their clients sign and the disclaimers that they publish. They cannot limit their risk with firewalls and dematerialized zones in their data centers. They have no option but innovative in saving their clients from their own foolishness. They are forced to look for patterns, trends, exceptions, track locations from where the transaction originate, raise alert when exceptions occur and so on. But if still a client is faced with a loss, he is compensated unless they can prove the customer connivance or involvement. We can’t just declare “Caveat Emptor”.

Risk mangment therefore becomes a managerial decision, may be more than technical solutions. (Read on Digital Security – Business, People and Economics for some more thoughts on this)

Ref: (1) https://indialawnews.org/tag/human-rights/

"Customers don't expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong." Donald Porter, British Airways

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Matter of Right

Government of India had put out a draft bill on Electronic Service Delivery (ESD) for public comments. The key features of this scheme are

i) Every department of the government should mandatorily make its service to citizen available through electronic mode.

ii) This ESD should be made operational within five years of enactment of this bill. Extension for another three years will be allowed if there are valid reasons for this delay.

iii) Within six months of enactnment of this bill, every department should publish the list of services which will come within the ESD commitment.

iv) As in the case of the Right to Information Act (RTI), the proposed ESD act provides for Commissions at center and state level to ensure that the expectation under the act is delivered and failure is met with punitive action.

This right for ESD proposed to be guaranteed under an act of the parliament can be seen as maturing of various e-Governance initiatives that the government has been taking in a variety of fields for more than a decade. India is considered to be a powerhouse in the field of ICT and we practically run the back-office operations for the whole world. With this, this should be an easy target. But is it?

World e-Government ranking undertaken by United Nations gives India a rank of 119 out of 192 countries it surveyed in 2010. As my friend Neel pointed out, “How come even after more than a decade of e-Gov initiatives at the highest level, we still want six months for all departments to publish the list of services they can make available electronically and we need five to eight years for this to be fructify?” Reasons are many; but the following appear to be the most fundamental of them.

i) Many of the e-Gov initiatives are computerization of existing operations of the departments, heavily accented to MIS reports for internal consumption and upword reporting.

ii) Processes were not fine-tuned with a citizen focus. Committed service levels or actual performance levels were seldom benchmarked or published

iii) Solution implementation was more activity based than outcome based. Often vendors saw their role as software developers or as hardware suppliers and not as service providers.

iv) More attention was given to the automation of front end without getting the back-end streamlined and automated. In many instances sufficient consideration was not given to building electronic repository of the records and masters or ensuring high data quality which are the foundation blocks for electronic service delivery.

This problem is not unique to government computerization efforts. In many private sector companies also the computerization took this route. To begin with computer was a perk and status symbol for the boss. Then it became a department initiative. It was much later an integrated corporate wide strategy got evolved in progressive companies.

Similarly, in government initially it started as a privilege for the big bosses. Then it became a department initiative left to the interest of the head of the department. Integrated service delivery is still a dream. (read on "India gets a CIO- Part II")

Now when we attempt to make electronic service delivery a matter of right we have to give more attention to the lacuna highlighted above else we will not be able to live up to our promise or the expectation of our citizens and the commissioners will end up inundated with grievances.

Picard: Come back! Make a difference!
Kirk: I take it the odds are against us and the situation’s grim.
Picard: You could say that.
Kirk: If Spock were here, he’d say that we are irrational, illlogical human beings for going on a mission like this... Sounds like fun!

-Star Trek: Generations
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Even Elephants Can Dance

My friend Zakir Thomas is a revenue service officer; but he is more comfortable in developmental work than being an enforcement officer. At present he is the project director for Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) a unique initiative by Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and is personally mentored by its DG, Dr. Samir Brahmachari.

Though concept of Opens Source development has been in practice for a long time (though not in this name), it has become quite popular with the advent of internet, more so with the availability of collaboration tools (now referred to as web 2.0) which has enabled communities across the globe to work on solutions to complex problems.

Internet itself is product of such collaboration and Linux, the Operating System, is one of the most known open sources software. There are hundreds and thousands of such initiatives out there today in a variety of fields. Sequencing of human genome can be seen outcome of such a participative effort. However, in fields like Pharma where the cost of research, testing and regulatory approval can be phenomenal, collaboration is considered suicidal. On account of such high cost Pharma companies have least interest in working on development of drugs for ailments which particularly affect the poor (TB, Malaria etc) or which affect few people are very limited. They are keener on development of drugs for lifestyle ailments like Blood Pressure and Coronary Diseases

It is in this area the model of open source development is attempting to play a role. Today there are only few such initiatives in the world like Tropical Drug Initiative (Participants from University of California Berkeley, Dukes University, University of Sydney), Institute of One World Health, TB Alliance etc.

OSDD initiated by CSIR is an initiative attempting to provide affordable health care to the developing world, presently focusing on development of drug for TB which today kills two people every three minutes in India. OSDD has taken of well with participation from about 4500 scientists/ students from 130 countries. It has completed mapping of TB bacteria genome a record time. It already has two molecules for TB in the pipeline. CSIR hopes that they will be able to bring out at least one drug for TB in the near future.

I asked Zac what has made this possible. “A few People with commitment and Tools that made collaboration possible” he replied. He introduced me to two fellow scientists who were with him then who is working from Institute of Genomics & Integrative Biology(IGIB). Sridher Sivasubbu is a PhD in fish genetics and Vinod Scaria a medical doctor who is equally comfortable with computers. Both of them are young and highly qualified to have picked up high paying jobs in private sector in India or abroad. But they have decided to dedicate at least few years of their life to this initiative. Their energy level, enthusiasm and commitment for bringing multidisciplinary skills through collaboration to develop better drug for TB is awe-inspiring.

There are more of such dedicated scientists across the labs who share this passion. Zac suggested that I read the book “Geek Nation” by Angela Saini in which she has dedicated an entire chapter (titled The impossible drug) on this collaborative effort of a number of committed professionals from multiple labs across India to find a cure for TB. (This book is worth reading as it gives an interesting perspective on the dream, hope and possibility of India becoming a scientific super power).

What OSDD has done is to make the platform available to for these professionals to collaborate among each other and with the best around the world who are willing to join. I hope that OSDD is able to build on this momentum and don’t get ossified to a white elephant when the pioneers move on.

It is a commendable achievement for a government institution to work on such revolutionary models. We see such islands of excellence in many parts of the government. What is unfortunate is that often there is no mechanism to sustain this momentum. When the pioneers move on there is no planned succession. Successors are not selected keeping in mind the requirement of such exceptional institutions; but following a process which is meant to manage routine operations. And that is the tragedy of governance we face often.

Elephants can dance; so long as we play the right music…

"It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed." - Charles Darwin

Related Readings

Competitive Advantage - A case for blogs and wikis

If wishes were horses

Dare to Differ

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“It is elementary my son” (humour)

One of my friends mailed me this funny story. Once upon a time on a cold wintry morning a sparrow was out from his comfortable nest looking for few morsels to fill his stomach. It was too cold and the wind was so harsh, that the sparrow fell down almost frozen. He was lying there helpless. Then a bull passed by and pooed on him. The hot manure warmed the little sparrow and he felt very comfortable. He was happy and he started to sing. A cat heard the song and it found the sparrow relaxing in the warm poo and it pulled the sparrow out of the poo and ate him up.

There are four morals we learn from this story.

i) Those who shit on you may not be your enemies: In our life and career, there will be many instances when the action of somebody will harm, belittle or demean us. Very often it may not be intentional; but just coincidence or matter of his survival. If we look from the other person’s point of view, there may be extenuating circumstance if not genuine reason. Sometimes it could be their revenge or they could be absolute a--holes. Whatever be the reason we suffer and we feel hurt.


The important thing is that we need to survive this assault, this insult or this harm. If we get caught up in the anger and spent our time in planning for revenge, we waste our time, our effort and our health which otherwise could be channelized for towards more fruitful end.


If we are in a situation where we have to deal with with unadulterated a—holes, it is better to kick them out or get out from such a place. (The book “No Asshole Rule” by Robert I. Sutton makes an interesting reading on this topic)


On the other hand, if we hurt somebody (specially their ego) we need to keep in mind that most humans love to get back and take revenge. If we want to avoid escalation of this conflict, we should either try to patch up or make sure that we are not in the line of fire of they won’t dare to react :-).


ii) Those who take you out of shit may not be your friend. When we are down and out, many of our old friends may not take a second look at us. Then we come across somebody who is keen to deal with us. We feel thankful and obliged. May be they are good Samaritans; maybe they are trying to take advantage of our plight or weakness. Even if it is genuine good will, don’t overstay our welcome; else he may not remain our friend

We need assess the situation dispassionately. The temporary setback should not make us succumb to any deal. The failure or loss in one arena does not diminish our value in all spheres; there is no need to feel defensive and no need to negotiate from an area of weakness. We negotiate based on what we are good at and more so based on our faith in ourselves.


iii) When you are in deep shit, keep your mouth shut: Some of us are very trusting, which is very good if we mix it with prudence. When the chips are against us, we need to be more careful about what we share, what we complain about, what we cry out loud about, or what challenges we broadcast or whom we trust. Discretion becomes all the more critical or else we give us away.

iv) Eventhough it may provdie some comfort shit is still shit:  Very often when we indulge in actions that are illegal, currupt, unfair or unscrupulous we may derive certain money, fame, pleasure and comfort. But if we decide to wallow in this shit, one day it is going to catch up. Remember the big cats know where to look for.
“I consider it a mark of great prudence in a man to abstain from threats or any contemptuous expressions, for neither of these weaken the enemy, but threats make him more cautious, and the other excites his hatred, and a desire to revenge himself” Niccolo Machiavelli

Taming the Corruption Tiger

Corruption (‘private gain at public expense’) has always been a matter of concern for the mankind since time immemorial. Many people love to eliminate this completely; but this is a disease which we may never be able to eradicate totally.

We see wide disparity in the level of corruption across the countries. Transparency international undertakes an annual survey and publishes Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of countries. No single country has ever got the perfect score of 10. Only five countries out of 182 get score above nine, 23 above seven and 47 above 5. India with a score of 3.3 has a rank of 87 which falls in the middle.

One of the interesting revelations of the CPI is the strong correlation between human development, economic progress and CPI. Is it that the economic progress reduces the incentive for corruption or the low corruption facilitates economic progress? It is both. There is a strong mutual dependency between economic progress and CPI. Chile is one of the few countries  that has managed to move from being a developing country to an almost developed country in the last few decades. Chile is also one of the very few developing countries with a high CPI score (7.2) giving it a rank of 21, which a level USA.

Corruption is a part of human nature. What can control it are the mechanisms in place to restrict it. The legal infrastructure and the strength of enforcement determine how easy it is to get away with corruption. (I don’t deny the influence of culture in corruption. But I strongly believe that this culture of corruption is not hardwired into the brain of certain class of people making them more corruption prone. Some people may find it easy in comparison to others to behave with less civic sense and in more socially unacceptable manner. Strong enforcement and an environment that is conducive can limit this cultural bias and bring about better discipline. Denmark today with a CPI score of 9.3 is the world topper. Remember the famous quote from Hamlet "there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark". Another example from home is the extent of cleanliness and efficiency Delhi metro has managed in its trains and stations which is significantly of higher degree compared to any other public utilities)

We in India have been struggling to manage this high level of corruption. The Anti Defection Law and the Right to Information (RTI) Act definitely help in this direction. The Jan Lokpal Bill has been struggling to get acceptance by the parliament for more than four decades (The recent high profile initiative by Anna Hazare of Civil Society was an attempt to force the government to take a definite action on this) We still don’t have a proper whistle blower protection act.

Legal enablement is definitely a necessary requirement; but, it is not a sufficient condition. Strong Judiciary can ensure justice; but, today we have a serious problem of a large number of pending cases blocking the judicial machinery. “Justice thus delayed is Justice denied”. RTI is an excellent tool to bring about transparency. But the resource constraints can prevent this from scaling up.

When we look at the disparity in the level of corruption across countries, the major differentiator is the extent of corruption and inefficiencies in the areas that affect day-to-day life of the citizens, whether it is to get some clearance, approval or certificate or to run their business. Corruption in high places and in areas with high stakes is the most difficult to control anywhere in the world. But if we manage the former, 90% of the irritant value may be removed for the society as a whole. When we take care of this petty corruption, it may also help to bring to open high-end corruption because  the dealing hands have all the incentive to blow whistle as they do not benefit from corruption anymore and thus no more are they partners in crime.

Today the progress in information Technology provides us with significant opportunities to improve governance processes. IT enabled Governance (IteG) can help improve process efficiency, it can help in bringing about better transparency, it can measure performance efficiency and publish the same, it can provide analytical support for risk management, it can reduce leakage and so on which are all elements that can bring about improvement in governance and reduce opportunities for corruption.

It will also help easy outsourcing of service delivery without loss of control enabling government to focus on policy making and policy administration. The income Tax Department’s outsourcing of PAN issuance, the Ministry Company Affairs online initiative and the Ministry of External Affairs initiative of Passport Processing etc are examples of successful implementation of this model. In each of these case we have witnessed significant improvement in turnaround time and elimination of petty corruption.

The IT enabled Governance (ITeG) is still in its early stage. It was not so far away when we could observe the PCs in a typical government department placed at the boss’s cabin with secretary using this as a word processor. Those days are gone. But we still have a long way ahead. Even when a catalytic role is played by some central authorities, it is often limited to budgetary control by purse holders with limited appreciation of the larger role of technology enablement. This is akin to what happens in the corporate sector when the controller (Finance and Administration) is in the driver’s seat as far as computerisation is concerned. What we need is to evolve a nationwide strategy for ITeG and develop a framework for managing ITeG Projects with respect to people, process and technology.


The accomplice to the crime of corruption is frequently our own indifference ~ Bess Myerson

Related reading

Amateur’s tips on e-Governance
Give us the Facts
To be or not to be (Part 1) - The Art of Cooking
The art and ethics of lying - Part II

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