Latest effective quotes on Innovation

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Why NASA collaborating with ISRO could be a good idea ..

Collaboration is always welcome ..

Space is an expanse not for all countries of the world to play around. Only very few deserving and scientifically advanced countries of the world have been able to make it beyond the confines of the earth's gravitational attraction.

Adding to this is the technical capability of some nations to launch satellites for other less scientifically developed countries of the world to low earth orbits.

Earlier NASA-ISRO collaboration on NISAR,  detected water on lunar surface, (in spite of numerous Apollo Missions to lunar surface). NASA had to be handheld by India to jointly discover water on lunar surface.

There are different reasons, some very clear and some clandestine, this time around, on why NASA after getting ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) to launch four private US micro satellites (< 100 kg) successfully through ISRO in 2015 is again depending on India to do the honours for NASA a second time, this time with 12 satellites.

NASA has not yet publicly recognised India's potential threat as a low cost innovator in the space race .. Low cost launches offers ISRO great advantages, it can for instance, undertake ten MARS missions for every one that NASA undertakes, (given that Mangalyaan cost just $75 million compared to Maven costing $670 million) or it can launch 10 satellites for every one NASA launches.

India has so far launched 57 satellites for 21 countries of the world. The biggest individual customer is no doubt NASA, for whom 16 satellites would have been launched using ISRO rockets by the year end of 2016.

The reasons why NASA gets ISRO to launch NASA's small satellites are the following. (the satellites are small, < 100 kgs, and can ISRO match with NASA on pioneering space missions to outside the solar system like the Pioneer, Voyager etc. ? ).. Given that NASA' initial lunar missions in late '60s are still under a shadow, the world is very much sceptical of US' tall claims..

Let us not forget that every great journey starts with a small step. With ESA being the only credible challenger to India in outer space, that day is not far when India will call the final shots !

The Journey of a thousand miles begins with one step - Lao Tzu

The collaboration between NASA and ISRO is beneficial to both countries and the world, let us list some of them..

1. NASA is too busy with bigger missions like reaching the outer confines of the solar system that it considers launching to be so silly and wants to outsource it to ISRO

2. ISRO has launched four satellites last year successfully and so NASA can depend on ISRO as a reliable launch service provider to launch satellites to low earth orbits

3. NASA cannot launch satellites at the cheap rates which ISRO is offering for reliable, accurate launches of low earth orbit satellites.

4. NASA wants to understand and replicate how ISRO is able to launch satellites with great precision, accurately to low earth orbits at very low rates - to understand how ISRO's low cost innovation works..

5. NASA would like to know what is the future direction ISRO will take, is it planning to reach out to the outer confines of the solar system, an association will always help NASA kep track of Indian developments and restrain them , when need be.

6. By knowing Indian capabilities and weaknesses, NASA can plan to thwart India from the space race in future.

7. ISRO can learn from the NASA level of preparedness, experimentation, and extent of deep space exploration plans.

8. India can try to get some of the brilliant minds powering the NASA space programme back to India if we also can offer great challenging opportunities to them.

9. US' can help a friendly country earn additional revenue by launching satellites for other countries

Many may scoff at the statement that ISRO could indeed be a great challenge to NASA and of India's standing as a low cost innovator in the space race, but ten years hence, space equations will be rewritten, as to who will lead the space race then, ISRO or NASA ? India has slowly started flexing its muscles and spreading its dreams outside the solar system ..

Considering how US space missions costs are galloping, (the reason why they had to abandon the Apollo and Space Shuttle Missions), in ten years it may so happen that NASA may not even exist in the space mission exercise .. in all likelihood it would have been wiped out and would still be a force to reckon with only in the entertainment field, helping shooting high budget films like Gravity etc in space for entertainment ..

It may also be possible that by then, the futility or otherwise, of space missions would have been established. That may be the reason why China, the present global economic super power does not think it worthy of space explorations, and has not even crossed the moon !

Get a downloadable version of this case with questions to enable classroom discussion .. ( Alliance University Bangalore may be the first University in the world to discuss the strategic impact of NASA-ISRO collaboration..)

george..

Kerala - Best governed state in India ..

Here is the Hindu newspaper link .

Matter of great honour that former Chief Secretary of Kerala, Jiji Thomson IAS, is equally proud as CM Oommen Chandy to get the award for Kerala as the best governed state in India ..

George ..

Are Lean operations and Innovation closely linked ?

Lean House

Lean Process

To answer this question better, we need to properly understand and differentiate between lean and Innovation.

What is Lean Operations or Lean Management or Lean Philosophy ?

Innovation, in simple terms ..

Lean is an operational philosophy which believes in improving value to the end customer by removing wastes in all aspects of production. 

Innovation taken up by organisations or individual is a process of converting an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value for the end customer.

Let us try to differentiate between Lean and Innovation.

Are all innovations lean or on the other hand, are all lean operations innovative ?

Can all innovations become lean ? Need not necessarily, but in most of the cases, innovations are lean. Innovations come from all walks of life. More often than not, it involves less application of effort, less application of energy, less wastes, less waiting, less carrying out of any operation that  adds the same final value to the end product.

Click on this link  for more details ..

All innovations need not necessarily be lean but all lean operations can be effectively innovative .. An initially lean operation can be a standard operation after some time, leading to more lean operations, which can be innovative.

Lean Operations are understood to be operations where the main focus is to attack wastes and reduce it. As an after effect of reducing wastes, we get improved value on offer to the customers. A Toyota car during manufacture through lean operations reduces wastes and hence gives better value to the customer by way of longer service life, better riding experience to customer and low cost of maintenance.

Innovation on the other hand is a change in the process of manufacture or use of the product or service that brings better value to the customer.

Both lean and Innovation target the end customer, by way of more value. The what exactly is the fine difference between them ?

Top 32 entrepreneurship quotes from Forbes Magazine ..

Starting a company is a riveting roller coaster of emotions with tremendous highs and at times, difficult lows, but one thing that always helps me through the ups and downs is to connect with some of the greatest minds. Below are just a few of my favorite quotes:

1. "The best way to predict the future is to create it."- Peter Drucker

2. "Winners never quit and quitters never win." - Vince Lombardi

3. "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." - Steve Jobs

4. "My biggest motivation? Just to keep challenging myself. I see life almost like one long University education that I never had — everyday I'm learning something new." - Richard Branson

5. "Every time you state what you want or believe, you're the first to hear it. It's a message to both you and others about what you think is possible. Don't put a ceiling on yourself." - Oprah Winfrey

6. "It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure." - Bill Gates

7. "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently." - Warren Buffett

8. "One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don't choose your passions; your passions choose you." - Jeff Bezos

9. "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." - Thomas Edison

10. "Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere." - Albert Einstein

11. "As long as you're going to be thinking anyway, think big." - Donald Trump

12. "Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. - Winston Churchill

13. "Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration." - Thomas Edison

14. "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

15. "The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand." - Vince Lombardi

16. "If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way." - Napoleon Hill

17. "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." - Bill Cosby

18. "Success is not what you have, but who you are." - Bo Bennet

19. "Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won't so you can spend the rest of your life like most people cant." - Warren G. Tracy's student

20. "To win without risk is to triumph without glory." - Corneille

21. "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." - Mark Twain

22. "There is only one success- to be able to spend your life in your own way." - Christopher Morley

23. "Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve." - Napoleon Hill

24. "Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." - Albert Schweitzer

25. "What is not started will never get finished" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

26. "When you cease to dream you cease to live." - Malcolm Forbes

27. "Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune."
- Jim Rohn

28. "The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake- you can't learn anything from being perfect." - Adam Osborne

29. "A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way." - John C. Maxwell

30. "The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers." - Ralph Nader

31. "Choose a job that you like, and you will never have to work a day in your life." - Confucius

32. "Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." - Bill Gates

I am sure the above quotes from Forbes, best entrepreneurship quotes, will motivate you to achieve great things..

george..

32 lean manufacturing tools

If these tools can be discussed with enough examples in the class, there is no better way to lean principles .(pic credit NewCastle Systems)

Alice Vaidyan, top woman business leader

8 March '16, Times of India.

Harvard trained Alice Vaidyan is one of the top 5 most powerful woman business leaders of the country. TOI..

A matter of great pride and at the same time one of great responsibility to the nation !

Taking India to the forefront of nations of the world, there's nothing more sacred and blessed to do .. TOI, 9 March '16.

Alice' interview in Malayalam with Manorama News TV ..

Alice' interview for Taipei news agency ..

A fact to note here is that only Arundhati and Alice are heading the boards of the respective organisations as Chairpersons which control these large financial PSUs, all others are CEOs or MDs , not chairpersons ...

Alice Vaidyan is the only person from the top 5 who hails from Harvard Business School at Boston, US !

George..