Mukesh Gupta's Blog, page 41

Big Data, Automation and Cows Who Decide When they want to be Milked

I came across this interesting read on Quartz.com. The post is about a farm in Iceland where the entire barn is automated.

Here are some quotes from the article.

When one of their cows wants to be milked, she walks to the center of the barn to one of the three self-milking Lely machines. She enters the machine—a gated, cow-size booth—and first has her teats inspected and cleaned. Next, the robot attaches its equipment to extract her milk while the cow chows down on some cow candy: tasty corn...

The State of the Gig Economy

We have all at some point in time talked about or heard about the growth of the gig economy and how this could potentially be the future of work. While the number of people participating in the gig economy has been on a growth path, their ability to earn from their gigs alone to support them and their families has not been growing in proportion.

JP Morgan Chase Institute recently did a study on the state of the online platform economy. It tried to answer a fundamental question – “Has all the...

How to Help a Colleague Who Seems Off Their Game

When we think about productivity at work, we need to think beyond ourselves. As they say, as a team we are as strong or as productive as the weakest link on our team. This translates to the fact that if someone on our team is not doing their best work, we have a role to play in helping them back to being their productive best. This might not be an official part of our job but working with peers who are productive and doing good work has an impact on our work as well.

Most of the times, it cou...

Before Doing, There is Being

Last evening I was having trouble getting to sleep. So, I got up and went down to the swimming pool area and sat down on the chair next to the pool. I was not carrying my phone or a book or anything else with me. It was just me, nature and the sound of water flowing from the pool. There was something soothing about this soft noise of flowing water and moonlight.

I think I sat there enjoying the moon light, a light breeze and the sound of flowing water for about half an hour. It felt like fore...

How To Make Good Decisions

One thing that follows us all day around is the need to make decisions. Right from the time we wake up to the time that we go to sleep, we keep making decisions, one after the other. Some of these decisions are simple and don’t impact our lives much, while some of these decisions could have an everlasting impact on not only our lives but also those that live with and around us.

We also have learnt from research that

There are a lot of biases that are inherent in our thinking and can creep up...

Strategies for Avoiding Distraction and Increasing Your Productivity

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday (you know who you are) and the conversation steered towards how difficult it has become for either one of us to be able to do distraction free, focused effort to think deeply. About anything. We are constantly distracted. We keep switching tasks. We are continually distracted by our environments, our devices and our primal need for novelty.

Yes, you read it right. Our brain constantly searches for stimuli that can help it to fight, flight or freeze...

Rethinking Old Common Objects in New Ways

I came across interesting redesign of a few commonly used products and thought that the new designs were not only clever but were much better than the original designs. 

Here we go:

The Time piece: 

NU:RO Watch from Anton & Irene on Vimeo.

This redesign takes the hands out of the watch and inserts an hour glass instead. 

Chalk: 

One of the earliest memories that we have of our time in school is the touch, smell and taste of chalk. The good old chalk has remained unchanged for a long long time...

Progress Doesn’t Always Follow a Straight Line

In an interesting blog post for Strategy+Business, Adam Kahane shares his perspective about solving tough problems. Tough problems or wicked problems are difficult to solve precisely because there is no one right answer and there are multiple root causes and motivations at play. It is wicked for the precise reason that there are seemingly contradicting interests at play, which makes it difficult to solve these problems permanently. 

In the post, Adam talks about the fact that trying to solve...

Four Ways Projects Get Delivered

As part of my reading list, I always look forward to posts written by Mike Shipulski. He is very wise and has the ability to simplify complex things into easy to understand chunks that help us grasp the concept. He is an innovation expert and has more than 20 patents to his name. 

So when I read this post by Mike Shipulski on the nature of projects, I really had to share it with all of you.

If you are in the business of leading or managing projects, this is a mandatory read. You can find the...

PBTO S2E10: Things that Matter to being Successful with Anne Sugar

Who is on the show:

In this episode, we speak with Anne Sugar. She is an executive coach and speaker who has advised top leaders at companies like TripAdvisor, Sanofi Genzyme and Havas, She also serves as an executive coach for Harvard Business School Executive Education.

Why is she on the show: 

Dorie Clark recommended that we should host Anne and that she will have a lot of insights that can help us. Anne proved to be all that Dorie said that she will be. She shares a lot of great insights...