Structure of the handbook for the family

This structure is to highlight areas of work. I may be able to complete some areas quickly and have some skills for some others. However, I might be completely at loss in some others. There I would invite guest writers or try to "outsource".

Financial wellbeing
Psychological wellbeing
Physical fitness
Pursuit of happiness

Further break up as detailed below
Financial well being
A family should be well fortified against financial disasters, should have a robust current finance status and should be able to fund its dreams.
To this end following specifics emerge
1. Living within its means - the calculation related to lifestyle and income sources
2. Outlining goals, milestones and dreams - collectively - and prioritizing
3. Comprehensive planning and execution of the plan over time
4. Fortification - life and general insurance, indemnities, hidden risks and protection against them
5. Degrees of freedom - what all can a family do and how? The trade-offs into psychological wellbeing
6. Long term wealth building - creating assets for the next generation or large projects

Connected within family domain to
Psychological wellbeing: dreams, conflicts
Physical fitness: Diseases
Pursuit of happiness: Costs of leisurely activities, charity

Psychological wellbeing
This means the family needs to form an environment of security and comfort for its members. These are hygiene factors. The family where it can afford should also try to promote its members to transcend themselves.
On the other hand, the family also needs to ensure lack of mistrust, control of envy, management of dissent and conflicting aspirations. In a sense the family needs to have informal or formal institutions to address these. Hence the following elements seem to emerge
1. Conflict management - short term and deeper conflicts of aspirations and personality types
2. Environment building - security and comfort, development of support systems for members
3. Transcendental drive - ability of the family to enable its members to discover themselves
4. Institutionalization - mostly to manage conflicts but also to enable growth

Connected within family domain to
Financial wellbeing: dreams, conflicts
Physical fitness: Sex life, diseases
Pursuit of happiness: Impact of the pursuit on the environment


Physical fitness
The family members should be fit barring the congenital diseases. These should also be planned for appropriately. The family needs to be proactive in ensuring its members are free from diseases, disease-provoking lifestyles or habits and that its members build robust physical health. This can thus be listed as below
1. Healthchecks
2. Controlling destructive habits and building good ones - special reference to smoking and drinking
3. Exercise and maintenance of momentum
4. Managing diseases
5. Healthy sex lives of members

Connected within family domain to
Psychological wellbeing: Sex life, diseases
Financial wellbeing: Diseases
Pursuit of happiness: Constraints on activities, time allocation to physical fitness and pursuit

Pursuit of happiness
A family should promote its members to discover themselves. However, it should also promote collective activities and actions which will enable collective pursuit of happiness in addition to the individual projects of its members. This involves the following areas.
1. Leisure activities - short duration
2. Vacations and time off - few days
3. Daily life activities - routines which are delightful for all
4. Projects undertaken collectively
5. Ceremonies and functions
6. Charity and charitable activities

Connected within family domain to
Psychological wellbeing: Impact of the pursuit on the environment
Physical fitness: Constraints on activities, time allocation to physical fitness and pursuit
Financial wellbeing: Costs of leisurely activities, charity


The above attempt is of course deductive and analytical in nature and thus is not likely to capture the synthetic and inductive part of the discussion on wellbeing. In other words, the above analysis deals with parts of overall wellbeing of the family in isolation. At best there is an attempt to understand the interconnections amongst these basic elements. What this analysis will leave out is the interconnection of these elements with the social, economic, and political context of the family. On the personal side it also overlooks the individual aspirations and the tradeoff between these and the family's priorities. Lastly on a subtler level, it also ignores the effect the environmental stimuli have on the various sub-elements.

Thus the analysis will remain imperfect. Probably that is for the better. The handbook is not a prescription. It is a provoker and guide to structuring of thoughts. It is also expected to serve another purpose. It is taking out one thing at a time from the overall context, analysing it and placing it back. In doing so, it is expected to at least understand the elements. Once such understanding is mastered, the synthsis can be attempted with renewed vigor. One might object to the approach and claim that the analysis may not add any value whatsoever to a synthetic approach. That however is a conceptual dead end. The whole of the study of wellbeing is so highly complex that one can only get overwhelmed and stop further study. The hope of this analysis is that in the units outlined in the introduction to the handbook project (social, family, individual, state, markets, global cooperation) are large enough for allowing their own study while temporarily ignoring the effects from other elements. The final synthesis will then deal with the entire system whose parts we understand better than earlier.

The handbook of wellbeing

I was discussing this concept with chhavi the other day. It occurred to me when i was looking at maps of various continents. If you know a bit of history and geography, it is a very good exercise to look at the maps. With sufficient imagination you can almost see the soldiers moving across the lines, ships and pipelines getting built and so on.
I looked at Asia - and saw south east asia on one side, south asia on another, central on third, west on forth, east on fifth! How diverse are these regions! The south east with its new found vigor, the south with its renewed claim for the place under sun, the east with the growth that looks like it will change the global order and the further east which has already done so in the past. The central which looks really lost if you ask me. And the west which is not lost but definitely not the beacon of hope for the the future of humanity either!
Africa is depressing if you look closely enough. The straight lines of the borders in the northern africa smack of the imperial past and the atrocities then as now. The collection of small nations near the western belly of the continent is at best unnerving, one can only relate football or civil wars or blood diamond to it! Central Africa is no better - with nations you would never prefer to find yourself in. South gets a little better but only little.
Russia to me is a continent in its own right! Weird country, now it was there now it wasn't. It seemed like it challenged the amroos successfully, and then not quite and maybe again so!
Europe is the starkest example of how differences can exist so near each other. Europe is ironically a better showcase of capitalism and its virtues (i dont believe in it fully, this is just for those who are looking for showcases) than US. The east is so much behind the west, and the north inspires intrigue in its prosperity and egalitarian society. The mighty blood suckers UK and France and the confused Italy, those of glorious past but average present namely spain and portugal and those of even more glorious past but better than average present namely greece and turkey.
North america is a straightforward affair - quite linear in its ideology especially seen in the context of the confusion all over the world - india, japan, china, europe, west asia, africa and so on. Unlike these, for better to worse, US is very clear in its liking of domestic capitalism, hatred for free trade and an aspiration to lead the world, predominantly militarily and financially (not necessarily economically).
South and central america is quite interesting and a bit puzzling. Their imperialism was so much different and older than asia's or africa's. Their orientation in life is also that much more different. They are neither oriental nor occidental. Their cultures are affected by the imperialists but still maintain a strange halo of the past! Higher prosperity than asia or africa even if it is lower than US or western europe.

That survey provokes several emotions in one's mind. The primary one that i was left with was a sense of difference in achievements of various people. The prosperity levels differ so very widely that it is almost puzzling for an alien observer. There is another layer of social stability which varies as much and at times at odds with prosperity - e.g. middle east! Then there is intellectual sophistication and cultural evolution - which is at times more marked in otherwise poor places like India. Where does that leave us?

This propelled me to think that wellbeing can be sought by all human beings - in different walks of their lives - by starting to study and emulate the more advanced ones on their own planet! To their credit, many are doing it already. China is learning from the west on capitalistic growth, US is learning from India Yog and spiritual well being. The project i wish to undertake is a step in similar direction. Since my strength lies in masterminding a project than in executing it, i am going to focus on outlining what needs to be done. If i have sufficient money in the latter part of my life, or at least access to such money, i would try to set up a think tank which will carry the work forward. Else i will have to rely on the collective wisdom of human beings in evaluating it and taking it forward if found worthy of it.

The Project thus has following elements
.Handbook for the welfare state - economic growth and human development
.Handbook for the individual - spiritual upliftment and cultural refinement
.Handbook for the family - financial security, growth and pursuit of happiness
.Handbook for the society - culture, its evolution and maintenance
.Handbook for the markets - benefits and limits of various models of development
.Handbook for the police state - containing destructive element in the long term
.Handbook for the global conglomeration of states - beyond arbitration

The orientation of The Project will be experimental and fact driven. The topics related to states and markets will be dealt with using secondary data and in future primary interviews. The topics related to individuals and families will be dealt with largely through experimentation and primary interviews. The experimentation will be on my own family.

idea - 2 : incubator v2

this is not so much of a new idea. Just a thought on doing the seed funding and start up management better. What does a start up require? Money, concretization of idea, recruitment support and infrastructure at low cost.
Is there a way of creating an incubator (over and above the b-school or IIT ones) which is professionally run by a light administration and which helps start-ups build businesses.

This incubator can take either the form of the sourcing mechanism for one large VC or a general place run by third party which is not into funding businesses itself. Considering VC firms tend to prefer lean organizations, the latter seems more likely. The business model is to get money from the funded startups, get fees from them for using the infrastructure, taking equity into them for the support.

If such an incubator is stationed in an Andheri business centre with 5000 sq ft place it will cost Rs. 5 lakh per month to run. Then there is some admin staff which is paid Rs. 10 lakh a year between the 3-4 of them (secy-cum-receptionist, general office infra manager, office boys etc). On top of all this there is a team of 2-3 in-house principals who oversee the entire work. They are paid cash salaries of 20 lakh a year and given equity into the firms supported by them (or in main firm; whichever).

These principals are very well networked people. They bring in advisors on part time or favor basis from time to time for the start-ups. They themselves have consulting, VC background and hence add value in their own regard as well.

In house the place can support nearly 8-10 early start-ups (3-4 people teams). If the start-ups pay a fee of Rs. 50,000 a month, the rent can be recovered from this. In addition, they will pay in equity between 2 to 5% till the first round of funding. Assume 1 of 10 start-ups succeeds and is valued at 100 Cr in year 3, it will generate Rs. 2 - 5 Cr for the first year effort. On an annual basis, this can become a Rs. 5 Cr income enterprise from year 3 onwards. Subsequently, it can start advising and supporting more than 10 start-ups beyond its own base. With each principal, 10 more start ups can be handled. thus Each principal has a revenue potential of 2-5 Cr in steady state. Not bad for a professional of that qualification and experience.

idea-1

my favorite theme regarding micro-finance has always been connecting the vast pool of risk capital in the financial markets with the huge needs of funding the millions of small and micro enterprises. Something of the VC fund equivalent for the field of microfinance. It does not work in the same manner as a regular vc fund. That would be tough to imagine.
What we need instead is a mechanism which evaluates the feasibility of proposed micro enterprises effectively and a related mechanism which ensures payback on time and at low collection cost. Once these are in place, the missing link is availability of capital. This is easy to to get once the loan obligations from the micro enterprises are packaged into a manner similar to the mortgage backed securities. This of course assumes existence of a third mechanism which does the job of packaging the loans and selling them. But any NBFC can do this fairly easily.
The NBFC sells the concept and gets the capital. The distribution mechanisms evaluate and fund enterprises as well as get money back. This need not even happen in under the same roof in terms of a company. There can be an NBFC doing the job of simply funding a variety of microcredit companies. It has the job of aggregation and ensuring source of funds.

A Market For Ideas

Can ideas be treated as assets which can be bought and sold? Why not? If an idea can have tangible impact on something real and lead to savings or additional revenue or a whole new profitable business, it can be valued. What is open to valuation is also open to buying and selling.

But why the question? I am asking that because I think just as capital has found a way to flow seamlessly from those who have it to those who need it the most and can make the best use of it, ideas if given a proper platform can move freely from those who generate it to those who have some use for them.

This may not have been so crucial in the past. Of course lot of ideas were generated in-house by those who needed them. Also it looked unlikely that someone on the outside of a group (company, organization, government etc) can indeed provide an idea valuable enough to be paid for as also do it before someone from within does it. There is added complication of the politics of the entire modality of taking an idea from without and applying it within a given context where established interests might oppose it with tooth and nail. Let’s face it – even great ideas generated internally within companies find it hard to be translated into reality for want of adequate support. How can an idea purchased outside have a chance?

Fair points all. My thought comes from a different angle. I was speculating if the new business value chain can be further deconstructed. As of now, the presence of venture capitalists and angel investors makes sure that those with ideas get sufficient funds to make it into a business. I was wondering if we can go a step forward and take the idea from a third source. I have often met people who want to start something of their own but don’t have a clear idea what. I have also met lot of other people (myself included) who have quite a few interesting ideas which unfortunately can’t be taken to conclusion because either lack of risk appetite or simply the leverage to make it happen (e.g. improved power plant for example) or a general lack of interest in the allied logistical activities of taking an idea to fruition.

The assumption is that there is a group of people who is interested in being on their own. There is another group of people who is interested in generating ideas and expounding on them. Also, the former don’t always have a great idea to start with. And above all, the latter do not always want to take the idea from blueprint to bluechip. How would it work? The to-be entrepreneur contacts the ideas market for potential candidates. She is showcased some ideas (to the extent can be done without divulging the entire idea). She chooses a few candidates that fit the bill. There are investors already aligned with the ideas or are shown the business plan after expounding on the idea. If the investors like it, they fund the business and the idea generator is paid in cash or in stock of the company or a combination. She can be involved in the early stage development of the idea as well.

There is of course an obvious variant. This is where a large company replaces the VC and the entrepreneur. The large company looks at an idea in its domain or one it is keen on entering. It allocates the responsibility of taking it through to an entrepreneurial employee within the company (or one recruited for the purpose). It gives her a budget and asks her to make a plan in collaboration with the idea generator. Payment can be either stock or cash or both. Though in all likelihood in this case it would be cash. If so, the idea generator can go shopping about subject to certain rules.

This decouples the modern enterprise further amongst the source of idea, entrepreneurship and capital. The entrepreneur is someone who likes a certain mode of working and takes pleasure in the all-or-nothing fortune of the business whereas the capital owner want to make a big buck for the risks undertaken. There is still space for the idea generator who has a bright idea but not either the willingness or the wherewithal or both to take it forward. I am making a fine distinction between the entrepreneur and the idea generator. That is from my personal experience. I have indeed come across individuals who do not mind the risk of entrepreneurship on account of several factors e.g. high employability even in case of failure of business, high enough savings to last a while without job, willingness to try out something adventurous for the right reward, quest for a more challenging career. But not all of these are people who have a very convincing or solid idea. Often enough I have heard of people who are waiting for the right idea. I have also come across our batchmates who started a specific business after contemplating on several different ones and having taken at least one other business to an investor as well. They in fact quit their jobs without having finalized what to start.

On the other hand, I have also met some people (this list is admittedly smaller) who keep coming up with interesting ideas regularly. Myself and my business partner Akhilesh have been writing, discussing ideas on and off without any intention to start up with one of them. We did indeed start up with two more partners on one specific idea/set of ideas. But the point remains that even before we were thinking along the lines of starting up (to be precise from IIMA days itself) we have been talking of ideas which can be profitable businesses. We were quite clear that we would not be keen on taking the idea to fruition ourselves. But we could have definitely invested more time and energy for the appropriate remuneration and ability to exit after the idea is handed over to the entrepreneur or company.

The other source of ideas is the previous generation experts in various fields. They keep coming across interesting business ideas explicitly or implicitly all the time. They themselves rarely have the enthusiasm, risk appetite or even risk taking ability to start up on their own. They informally pass on the thoughts to someone else who might be interested.

A centralized marketplace for ideas would bring together idea generators and potential users from across the country (and even the globe) who would have otherwise never met each other. Once this marketplace become vibrant enough for the start up businesses, the other not so willing participants can join the fray. There is no need to restrict the ideas exchange for only the start up ventures. Ideas can be smaller as well. And ideas also do not need to originate in thin air and then try to locate the buyer. The buyers can indicates what kind of ideas they are looking for and thus give a direction to the generators. To be fair, this latter thing does happen informally in certain settings. People have used this marketing gimmick at a very preliminary stage to get people excited about a certain movie (“name your movie yourself” or “draw the plot of the serial” etc). But these efforts were mostly marketing stunts. A genuine request for ideas (RFP of sorts) has not become the accepted practice yet.

And as expected, this would happen probably after the easier territory of start-up ideas is conquered. In the much evolved stage, I can imagine a steady pool of requests for ideas which are dealt with by various idea generators – young and old alike across the globe. On the other hand, there will be a pool of free-style ideas of various types on offer. These would include start up ideas, cost cutting ideas for businesses and governments, ideas that some local businesses have gotten right and do not mind sharing for a price with a far-away similar business which is very unlikely to be competition. So if I am a small business owner, I can go online to the ideas exchange and check under the head of office stationary and find out some sort of an organization technique that reduces waste. That is on offer for Rs. 500 and I buy it. Next day, I come up with something interesting myself in the domain of multiplayer gaming. I put up a rough picture of the idea for sale and get an RFP from Ensemble Studios. Some large company is looking to launch a new drink product and looking for the appropriate packaging idea for the same. It floats an RFP for the same and a few young enthusiasts reply with their versions – of which one the company likes.

How useful would it be? Internet can certainly enable the coming together, RFP process, general pooling with limited disclosure. The larger question is how comfortable would the prospective entrepreneurs be in taking someone else’s idea and pushing it to the next level? How comfortable would businesses be in asking for ideas from without when they are paying good money to their employees who are supposed to be doing that? The bigger question is whether the free flow of ideas is warranted at this stage and if so, are we attitudinally prepared for it?

Swapnil
Wadala
19 August 2007

Introduction

Ideas exchange is a concept i have been carrying in my mind for a while now. The general idea is to bring together the creators of ideas and the potential users of them as also bring together diverse groups to brainstorm ideas with or without a well defined final user. The process can eventually involve commercially viable selling of ideas as well. In addition, there can be an attempt to solve some burning issues through discussion.

Global Ideas Exchange is not a discussion board. It does not promote opinion sharing. It is not looking to promote discussion on issues being right or wrong. GiDeX is about action oriented thoughts and ideas. It also includes futuristic ideas with no feasible action possible in the present. However, the spirit is one of exploration and not one of judgment.

What will happen to ideas. People will come and post ideas. Others will comment on how good or bad the idea is (in terms of its feasibility, not morality). Some ideas may have commercial value for potential buyers. In that case, the originator may sell the idea to the buyer. If there are multiple buyers, there can be bidding.

What is the end purpose?
1. To promote more ideas amongst those who are fond of creating them and evaluating them
2. To bring together the creators and potential users of the ideas. If possible in a commercially viable manner
3. To catalog the general thinking of our times in terms of the ideas we have thought of. Maybe for study during a later time!

Happy ideating!