Pitch Invasion

There is a memorable scene in "Jerry McGuire" where Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.) tests Jerry's (Tom Cruise) resolve through a very long telephone conversation, which culminates in the famous "Show Me the Money!" telephone yelling match between Rod and Jerry. Among other things, this scene effectively depicts how sport became so full of money.

Barbara Smit's book " Pitch Invasion"(also published as Sneaker Wars) is the amazing story of how the rivalry between two brothers Adi and Rudi Dassler turned sport into an industry. Adi and Rudi Dassler started a shoe business in a small German town in 1920s, which was an instant success, but soon rivalries began to pull the two brothers apart, and by the end of the Second World War it was outright warfare. Forced to split the company between them, Adi and Rudi not only split their family and their hometown, but went on to divide retailers, sportsmen and countries for the next five decades with their rival brands: Adidas and Puma.

Today, Adidas and Puma are two of the biggest global brands, paying stars, clubs and competitions to wear their label, dominating everywhere from football pitches to magazine pages. Pitch Invasion charts the story of how Addidas and Puma revolutionized the world of sport - exploiting advertising, influencing fashions and following the money at every turn.

"Pitch Invasion" also has interesting tales of some of the greatest controversies and sportsmen :

The Black Salute - At the 1968 Olympic games at Mexico, Tommie Smith (winner of 200m) and John Calros, made a stand for the rights of black Americans by standing on the podium in black socks, with black scarves draped around their necks. As the American Anthem was sounded, they dropped their heads and each raised their fists which were covered in a back glove. This gesture shocked the established and Smith was banned from atheletics. Apart from his political commitment, Smith also kept his sponspors in mind,as he had laid down a single Puma spike carefully on the podium.
The Pele pact - As part of a peace agreement between Adidas and Puma, they agreed to stay away from a bidding war for Pele's sponsorship. Due to this pact, at the begining of 1974 World Cup, one of the greatest players was without a contract. But, Puma could not resist in the end and Pele gave his name to several Puma products. This event further escalated the rivalry between Adidas and Puma.
There are also interesting tidbits about Addias and the Ali Shuffle, Boris Becker's unfortunate contribution to the decline of Puma, about how FIFA and IOC courted sponsors and the wheelings and dealings in the world of sports.

A very interesting book, which not only captures the raise of money power in sports but also details events like the Second World War, Olympic movement and the Soccer World Cups through the years.

Dhoni and the art of leadership

The first edition of IPL was a rousing success with a fitting finale. The best performing team won, though initially, no one thought much of Shane Warne's team. In the final, the teams were led by two contrasting captains: one a colorful character who is a bundle of energy on the field and the other, calm but nevertheless a charismatic person. Though Dhoni ended on the losing side, he motivated his side well, used the talent to potential and above all, played very well himself.

Dhoni's raise in the Indian cricket establishment has been meteoric. For a player who debuted in December 2005 to reach an icon status by 2008 is no mean achievement when you have the likes of Sachin, Dravid, Ganguly still around.

As described by Rosabeth Moss Kanter in her book, Confidence, Team sports are a great source of metaphors for leadership, because they are good microcosm for examining patterns of winning and loosing and seeing the elements of exceptional leadership and teamwork. The qualities that most distinguish ideal leaders are their exceptional capacity to articulate a plan and lay out a way of achieving it. Effective leaders have an unswerving support for and pressure on those who can solve problems.

If you observed Dhoni's captiancy, it is evident that his leadership style is to build the confidence of everyone else. Dhoni's confidence in the ability of his teammates to come through in difficult situations often pays off. It is evident that his endeavor is to create a positive emotional climate to inspire and motivate people.

Irfan Pathan’s anecdote about Mahendra Singh Dhoni shortly after India had won the tri-series tournament in Australia gives some insight into Dhoni's leadership style. “During my last over,’’ Pathan told the ESPN commentators, “Dhoni walked up to me, patted me on the back and said with a smile, “You’re not such a bad bowler to give away three boundaries now!’’

Whatever subsequent events will reveal, it is clear that Dhoni's leadership style is based on grounded optimism- positive expectations based on specific facts that justify the optimism. But, as Ayaz Memon mentioned in his column, the unorthodox and the unexpected are still the essential constituents of Dhoni’s cricketing persona. Who would have tossed the ball to Joginder Singh to bowl the last over in the Twenty20 World Cup?

Prosumers and their impact

Futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler coined the word “prosumer” to describe people who consume what they themselves produce. Prosuming takes forms as varied as helping in a fund raiser or writing a shareware program. One tribe of prosumers who have exploded in the last four or five years have been in the web world of social media. The likes of MySpace, Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Orkut are all products of the prosumer economy. Social Networks offer people new ways to meet and exchange information, forge alliances and relationships, exchange pictures and music, make friends, share ideas and activities. All of us contribute to this economy by checking upon each other on social networks and expressing our views on blogs

Will prosumers run the world? They might not. But, as shown by the tremendous impact of Linux, (which originated from the unpaid work of Torvalds and a large network of prosumer programmers) on the business world, they are going to shape the emerging economy.

What about the profit potential of the Social Sites? Facebook has been valued at $15 Billion courtesy the Microsoft stake, Google bought Youtube for $1.65 Billion, NewsCorp bought MySpace for $588 Million. Then, you have tech entrepreneurs like Marc Andreeson, backing new sites like Ning. In spite of the Venture funds racing to fund them, the business plans of most of these sites are hazy. Even biggies like MySpace and Facebook are struggling to figure out their revenue streams apart from online ads.

Will the Social Networks bubble bust like the .Com bust? Yes, it might, but the impact of social media on individuals, society and business will only grow!

Black Swans in your life

Just had a "Black Swan" event in my job, which has a big impact on what I do.

What's a Black Swan? Let me explain..

Nassim Nicholas Taleb author of bestselling "Fooled by Randomness" writes on problems of luck, uncertainty, probability and knowledge. He also wrote on the phenomenon of "The Black Swan" which is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: its unpredictability, its massive impact and after the event has happened, our desire to make it appear less random and more predictable than it was. Taleb argues that a small number of Black Swans explain everything in our world and that their effect is ever increasing. While the effect of Black Swans is growing, the ones we try to predict have increasingly become inconsequential. Taleb concentrates on our blindness with respect to randomness, particularly the large deviations. As per him, a handful of cumulative shocks make our lives what they are. Still we concentrate on the minute and miss the large events.

As examples of the Black Swan phenomenon, Taleb refers to the astonishing success of Google and the tragic 9/11 event. We do not acknowledge the phenomenon of the Black Swan as we are unable to estimate risk. We take the shorter route to simplify, narrate and categorize events rather than opening ourselves to the 'impossible'.
Hence large events continue to surprise us and shape our world, like one has just done to mine.

On Turning a year older

Birthdays are a handy guideposts to stop, reminisce and look ahead. As you turn older, you are plagued with a question: am i too old for this and that? Fact is, it’s probably not too late for anything, really. But it certainly feels that way, sometimes.
A long time ago, i decided that for my birthday I'm going to ask for things I know I can't have so that I won't be disappointed when I actually don't get them. Here is this year's list:
1. My company's stock hitting $100
2. Free moving traffic in Bangalore
3. Corruption free government
4. High Tolerence levels for all Indians, especially drivers in bangalore
5. My Boss agreeing to whatever i say or do!

Today's Google doodle made me realize that i share my birthday with Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (May 18, 1883 – July 5, 1969) who was a German architect. Along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, he is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of "modern" architecture. Gropius designed his famous door handles, now considered an icon of 20th century design and often listed as one of the most influential designs ever.

“And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.”

Dance of Democracy

It is election time in Karnataka and the code of conduct has ensured that the usual hullabo is missing. Candidates have been forced to do more of door to door campaigns, SMS and email campaigns and Ads in Newspapers. This time too, the unpredicability of the democratic process will manifest in the results. All of us have to keep in mind that bad governments are elected by good citizens who do not vote. Not that we have much of a choice.

The Mediocrity Trap

Are all people created equally?? Are we equally innately good? Are we equally creative?

The fact of life is that people are not created equally nor are they equally good or creative. Society prods us to fall in the trap of mediocrity by teaching that everyone is equal and
to stifle those few who do have higher or lower potential (intelligence/drive/contextual consciousness) so as to fit them into the equality (mediocrity) mould.

With a whole universe to learn from if one has an attitude of humility (and encouragement and inspiration from another), succumbing to the peer pressure of ignorant, arrogant self-gratification is the ultimate waste of spirit.