My experiments of truth with iPad and my son

Late Steve Jobs in his wildest imagination would not have thought how his invention would spell trouble for upwardly mobile, well-to-do parents all over the world. Keeping kids away from iPad is as difficult as keeping magnet's north pole away from south pole.

We found this out hard way on my 3Xth birthday, when my wife got an iPad as a surprise gift. That was the first and last day I could hold it for five full minutes without my son snatching it from me. My access to iPad diminished by week and soon I had to ask my son about whereabouts of the iPad. We started off with child friendly applications and story books but soon car racing games, gun fights filled all iPad pages. He figured out how to get on youtube and find his favorite episodes of "Tom and Jerry" and preferred to watch them on iPad rather than on TV.

We tried to put a passcode to iPad. He would try to crack it. Once he found the iPad unlocked, he started playing with it without asking for any permission. We tried to limit his time to use iPad, that made the matters worse. We said finish your homework / dinner / any other work that he didn't want to do first, then we can give iPad. He would hurriedly finish it and get his prized iPad time. He would be cranky and irritable in all activities preceding and following iPad time.

In short, it was a mess. We had a great learning tool in our hand but it was not effective. Me and my wife sat down to think on how we can reverse the situation.

We realized that our enemy was not usage of iPad but our son's obsession with iPad. We found that even when he was playing at playground or we were in a mall he would be thinking about iPad. By saying "finish this and then take iPad" we were unknowingly telling him that the thing you finish first is not so important and the prize of doing that is iPad. Our first step was to kill his obsession with iPad. "If he is obsessed he would crack every code, bend every rule or find every loophole", we thought. To beginwith, we lifted all restrictions on iPad usage. He could use it whenever he wants and for how much-ever time he wants. No passcode, no screen time restrictions nothing. Our risky move paid off, soon the special status of iPad as a toy vanished. Ipad became as available as other toys, iPad time was not anything to look forward to. He would get bored with it after sometime and start playing with other toys. He would insist on going to friend's place or playground for physical play.

We figured out that he used to spend maximum time watching videos on iPad and not playing games. He used the iPad in the same way as we use TV. Switch off the brain, watch the screen and call it entertainment. We decided to de-bundle active and passive entertainment. We removed youtube or any other browser application from iPad and told him to watch his Tom and Jerry on TV. Now iPad ceased to be passive entertainment. He had to play some game or do something actively to stay entertained. That naturally reduced the time he spent on iPad.

We limited the number applications / games to one iPad screen. We told him that is all he could have. If he wanted another game he had to get rid of one of the games from the screen. This helped us to limit expectations on what iPad can offer him. Soon it became a limited entertainment rather than a toy with endless possibilities. He learnt the trade-off. He learnt to forgo familiar but boring games to unknown and exciting ones. He started choosing games more carefully.

Buoyed with initial success, we implemented another rule - if he wanted a new game he needed to abstain from iPad for one complete day. This was tough to implement but soon he got habituated to this. He would plan his new game purchase and keep iPad away for a day. He really started valuing the games he had. We also told him that keeping the iPad charged was his responsibility, which he gladly accepted.

Initially we had kept all educational, brain development applications and car racing type games in different folders. That was all lose proposition. My son was smart enough to realize that the folder with racing games was more entertaining than the other one. We corrected our stupid move by mixing games with quizzes, memory games, mathematics apps, brain development games. With no artificial classification he explored all applications with an open mind as if they were games. He started liking logo quiz, flag quiz. He would do some simple sums and spellings as a part of the game without realizing the distinction.

My son is just 6 and we have a long way to go in our parenting journey. We have a lot to learn, re-learn to manage iPad and kids. But with these initial simple steps we have attained equilibrium with iPad. Although, my son has iPad at his disposal he chucks it away when his friend comes over. Playground time slots are back. Whats more, he learnt elementary chess on iPad, he learnt solar system on iPad app, he knows flags of over 60-70 countries, he can do simple sums.... And still counting.

At least for now, we breathe easy as my son treats iPad as just another toy, albeit the most favorite one.

Species in panel discussion

Panel discussion is a specialized event within the conference. All speakers are invited together on the stage and a moderator asks some questions about the topic under discussion. These questions are perhaps a step forward from the original speech and usually involves specific opinions of the panelists. The questions may sound like , "in your speech you mentioned that so and so trend looks promising, what do you think will happen by 2015?"

This is where the problem lies. You can prepare very well for your speech but you can probably never prepare well for a panel discussion. Delivering your speech is like acting in a movie, panel discussion is like acting on stage. Its all live, no retakes, no second chances. You have to think on your feet. Express your opinion without hurting other panelist - who may well be your clients. If countered and cornered, you should be able to retreat graciously. All this needs to be done live with no time to think or contemplate. This complexity brings out a different array of "species".

Speech ++ : This category of panelist have a strong hangover of their own speech. Either they have prepared so well and thought about the speech so much that they are unable to think about anything else or they are genuinely unable to think of anything else. Whatever is the reason, their response to any question starts with , "As i mentioned in my speech earlier....." They use this prelude for answering any question, even if it is not related to their presentation. Somehow they see a continuum between what they presented and rest of the world, which others fail to appreciate.

Time-machines : This panelist typically is on the wrong side of fifties or more. Thats the defining characteristic. They quickly realize that they are the most "experienced" among the entire lot of panelist and that becomes their foundation of anything they say. They claim to know who's who across the spectrum due to their associations earlier in their careers. Even if you are 40 something they address you as young generation, making you feel like a teenager. They talk passionately about companies that may not exist or may be on their way down. Somehow they claim to be present in or even claim to be the brains behind situations that redefined the history or caused a serious breakthru'. Their anecdotes sound like , "In 198x, when so and so company was on the verge of collapsing, the MD Mr. Who's who called me / came to my office/ called me for a drink and that's when I gave him this idea, which made sure company is still live and kicking today." They share breakthroughs that the "young generation" around fails to relate to or appreciate. But I must say, their memories and stories are astonishing by any yardstick. Their typical response to any question raised during panel discussion sounds like "in 1964 when me and MD of so and so company were discussing, I mentioned to him so and so which he implemented in his next launch" You can't help but wonder, if he is such an influential person and if he has caused so many historic moments, then why haven't you heard about him before and how the hell has he managed stay below the media radar for so long. Since I belong to "young generation" I may never find a good answer to this.

Patronizing Panelists: Some panelists I have come across are more interested in patronizing or attacking co-panelists than responding to the questions or stating their opinions. They may have strong opinions and disagreements with other panelists, given a chance they want to shred their opponents to pieces. But they wear veil of nicety and bearing of a gentleman. They start their answers with a smile on their face - which is on the borderline of a smirk - "With due respect to Mr. So and so opinion...." Or "I almost agree with you on this...." Or "that is a great alternate theory about what is happening". All these sentences respectively mean "Mr. So and so is an idiot and does not deserve any respect" or "I completely disagree with you but it is politically incorrect for me to accept it. " or "you have no clue about what is happening, what you have mentioned does not make sense at all". God forbid, if you have to join such a panelist. There is no sure shot way to deal with such panelist without looking bad. The only thing which had once worked for me was pre-empting. During a coffee break and other interactions throughout the day, I had spotted a patronizing panelist who was supposed to be on the same panel. I would append my answer with a sentence tag - "I am aware that Mr. Patronizing panelist may disagree and present his alternative view but let us not forget three important aspects that determine the outcome". If those three important aspects were considered no logical alternate view was possible. This effectively took wind of the sail from Mr. Patronizing panelist.
One wonders why such disruptive, abrasive personalities get included in the panel at all. Because organizers love them. They make the debate lively, crack some jokes, ensure that the topic under discussion sounds important. That is extremely compelling reason! For me, I must say, I almost like them.

Gubugubugubu : When I was a child and I used to visit my grand parents town, there would be an unique visitor. We used to call him "nandi bail" or bull named nandi. This bull named nandi was supposed to have powers. He could predict the rains, how would the crop yield be or whether the challenges facing the town would vanish. The drill went like this : the man with the bull would ask the bull ," Nandi tell us whether it would rain on time" then his drum would go "gubugubugubu" Then Nandi would nod affirmatively. Then the onlookers would hand over some change to the man for giving the good news.
At age 7, I figured out that Nandi can only nod affirmatively and all the questions and the Nandi-man coins the questions to ensure affirmative answer is the most desirable one. Well, I have come across so many panelist who are waiting to agree to other panelist. It saves them the effort of having their own unique opinion and having to defend it. They are also weary of Patronizing Panelist - one of the best ways to deal with them is also to join the forces and agree with them. These panelists have rather forgettable existence in the panel only exception being those who vehemently agree with both opposing opinions causing deep rooted confusion among the conference delegates about what their real opinion is.

But that does not matter, conference is an event for making contacts, network and make friends, if you can. It is not an event for radical opinions, incisive scrutiny and defining ideologies. Conferences have their own charm. They make me feel important, wanted and knowledgeable. It boosts my alter ego and keeps up my motivation up and going. I have met some very interesting personalities during conference. What's more, I could pen down 3 blogs on it. Thanks all those who invited me to their conferences!

Speaker "Species" at Conference

As a part of my job I have to go and speak at various conferences and demonstrate thought leadership of our company at a public forum. There is a fine balance one needs to attain. On most occasions the organizers would have paid a paltry sum to cover for expenses, which essentially means whatever content you give out is free. You don't want to give away too much at the same time you need to convince the audience that you know enough about the subject.

However, all speakers don't have these constraints. For some speakers it is an excellent opportunity to explain their product, service or solution to an informed audience and they might have paid an handsome sum of money to get that speaking slot. For some others it is industry obligation, for some others it is ticket to networking and for very few others it is an excuse to get a sponsored trip. This assembly of well dressed, well prepared presenters who have gathered to do the same activity but with completely different intent makes the whole experience very comical. So after presenting some species among delegates in my last blog, here are some species among speakers.

Last Speaker of the day : Networking session after your speech is your magic moment. You get a stage for yourself, to proclaim your expertise on the subject and irrespective of whatever you speak, it works like a magic on the audience. Networking starts after their speech. Whatever is your intent one does enjoy the attention, flattering comments and limelight moments after the speech. Delegates start flocking around and congratulate on the speech.
This is where the last speaker of the day suffers the most. The problem with Last Speaker is he knows he may not get such an opportunity. He is not even sure whether these delegates would stay back. In his mind he is kicking himself for accepting that speaking slot and is also mildly jealous of fellow speakers who hog limelight one after another. So he starts campaigning for his speech since morning. He does not take any conversation to its logical end. He initiates it, when the debate heats up, with a vicious smile he says,"I would like to answer this in my speech".

Unable to lose the bearing : Some speakers are really very passionate. They deliver energetic speeches. They may come from a company who does need that stage to communicate to the world eg. some start up working on a new idea or company that is knocking doors of the big league or some i dustry association propagating a new concept and gathering industry participants etc. . Invariably, they have some aspect of their speech that is debatable. During the networking fellow speakers or Aspiring Speakers may flock around politely give them another perspective. Actually, there is an obvious way to handle such situation during off-stage disagreements. The speakers can just listen to someone who presents a contrary point of view. Then give a nice and polite answer which sounds like ,"great point. I will think about it more deeply now. Thank you". But Unable to lose bearing speakers are different. They continue debating in during off-stage with the same passion and try to convince off-stage audience. If they run into an equally passionate Aspiring Speaker sparks start flying, temperatures rise and tempers show up. Despite their great speech and interesting thoughts they make more enemies than friends, their speaker feedback rankings suffer and they themselves go back frustrated, just because they were not able to lose their bearing.

The Surprised Speaker : Very often you run into a comical situation in which the speaker appears genuinely surprised at his own slides. They have a strange, mystic expression on their face which can arise out of the situation which goes something like this. Just imagine, you are going about doing your errands in a market with your partner. Your partner says, "Honey, (or sweetie or Baby or whatever your calling card might be) i will be right back." Soon you run into a common friend and your partner turns up. What would your facial expression be if your partner's looks are completely changed and he/she is looking straight of the fashion show ramp or like a movie star? They have similar expression on their face. They are familiar with the content but are completely bowled over by looks of the presentation and have no time to react. My hunch is the speaker might have approved the draft version of the presentation and sent to graphic designers. They may keep the content but jazz up the presentation beyond recognition. The presentation goes from graphic designer to his secretary and then to organizers. Secretary confirms that organizers have loaded the presentation so this poor speakers ambles around confidently till he his faced with his own presentation. For some of these speakers to shock is so much that they almost forget their speech. They admire their own slides but eventually start reading out the content. Their good speech is killed by their own graphic team.

The reluctant speaker: Walking up the stage and talking to room full of people is considered to be among top 5 dreaded things in the world. It is evident when you come across the reluctant speaker. Either due to genuine stage fright or due to reserved personality or lack of preparation time , every now and then you run into a speaker who hates to be there. He does not like the lime light, does not like approaching delegates. He tends to take a coffee break when other speakers are speaking and goes thru their notes during the coffee break. They act very nervously, finish off all the water bottles they can lay their hands on and then keep visiting rest room to balance the situation. They may present reasonably well but find it hard to accept any compliments. There is a sea-change in their body language after their speech. They become very friendly, may start of the discussion left half way during the day. Very early in my public speaking career, I was on this boarder line. So I have complete sympathy and understanding of what they might be going through. I do hope that one day they overcome this dreaded fearful event.

The travel bug: invariably, you run into speakers who have accepted to speak at the conference to get their trip to this destination sponsored. What is even worse, they don't hesitate to make it obvious. I have met some speakers of who have gone so far down this track that they make a convenient assumption that all other speakers are also here to do the same. They are completely oblivious to any other reasons for speaking at the conference. The conversations with such speakers can be really funny. If you strike a conversation with them they may start asking personal details about you such as where do you live, for how long, where all you have travelled, whether you are vegetarian or not, what are your hobbies etc. Initially, you don't know where the conversation is going, then you start feeling that they are genuinely interested in you but the real reason is they want travel tips. If you are from the same city, the conversation can derail into unusual places of interest, obviously because they are thorough on usual places of interest. They may ask for favorite local food haunts, local dishes, pubs etc etc. The conversation soon derails into travel habits, tips to get complimentary upgrades in airlines and hotels, which airlines are the best etc. These speakers can get along only with reluctant speakers. For the Last speakers or Unable to lose bearing speakers, these guys are a big waste of time. They may permanently away from travel bugs through out the conference. But The Travel Bugs don't care. They exist in the conference for a difference purpose. They don't waste even one minute after their speaking slot at the venue. They get very upset if the schedule is delayed or their speaking slot is preceded by the unstoppable speaker. It may put their entire schedule in jeopardy, a situation that they are not willing to accept.

The Unstoppables : I suspect that in earlier days this was the most common type of speakers at the conference. Because most of the conference organizers have elaborate systems to prevent time overruns at the conference, largely caused by the unstoppables. Conference organizers review length of the presentation, keep 5 to 10 minutes after each presentation to cover for the overruns, they have a dedicated timekeeper sitting in the last row, away from public eye, with placards showing "5 minutes left" "1 minute left" and "time up". But the urge to speak and share their experience and perspective with the educated, qualified audience for these speakers is simply unstoppable. They may have limited number of slides but somewhere in the middle of the presentation they may take a wrong memory lane and wander in woods. Good eloquent speakers may entertain the crowd with their anecdotal nostalgic experiences, but it would cause a major delay. The timekeeper on last bench may start waving his placard vehemently but they will pretend to look elsewhere. The master of ceremony or chairman of the session may switch on their mike suggestively. The nervous next speaker may queue up but these unstoppables are lost in their nostalgic memories, unable to find their way back to rest of the presentation. It is cruel on them, frustrating for organizers but a moment to be amused and chuckle a little bit for all others.

In my next blog, I plan to write about species in panel discussions. Stay tuned.

Delegate "Species" at Conference

One of the important elements of my job is to speak at conferences. Typically, conferences are events centered around a topic, with speakers lined up for the whole day - some of whom flown in from overseas and delegates who attend primarily for networking but some of them may also be interested in acquiring the information about the central theme. There are speeches, panel discussions lined up for the day with sufficient time around coffee breaks, lunch breaks for delegates and speakers to network. I have attended a lot of such events and observed some peculiar "species".

What I have realized is irrespective of the topic and venue of the conference there are several commonalities. Organizers have the same facial expressions - caught between making sure all lose ends are tied and appear in control and courteous. The registration desks are always (wo)manned with impeccably dressed good looking girls, who always have trouble finding my name tag. They invariably mistake me for those MBA students who are encouraged to attend such events to get industry perspective. I can confidently say that the tea, coffee and sandwiches in all conferences taste the same.

But what is perhaps most striking is the "species" whom you meet at these conference. These are a group of people who show similar characteristics, talk and act in same way and you are likely to meet them at every conference.

Let us look at some species among delegates first.
Business card crusaders : "My name is XXX from YYY company", a small built, busy looking, not-so-impressively dressed delegate spoke to me, holding his business card for me. I accepted the card, reached out to mine, handed it over with my introduction. both of us said, "nice to meet you." as I started inspecting his card. "what is your company......", I asked as I looked up, but I had no chance to complete my sentence as Mr. XXX had vanished. I could see him in an adjacent cluster, introducing himself. I knew I had just met a Business Card Hunter.
Sole aim of this species is to collect as many business cards as possible. Everyone in the conference wants to collects business cards but these guys are different. They are not interested in anything else other than the business card. You can see them jumping around from one group to another making sure they don't get stuck into any lengthy and meaningful discussion. They strike early to make sure they reach everyone before their cards are over. During the speeches they pull out their attendees list and keeping ticking names of delegates whom they have "covered". I am sure specimen of these species would be catching up with each other to understand trends and passing tips "go to so and so guy, his cards are getting over" or "dont waste your time on so and so he the "Lost types" ". Lost types is our next species.

The Lost types : "I am Vivek from Frost & Sullivan", I introduced myself as I held my business card for my fellow speaker. He shook hands and said "nice to meet you" and suddenly his face turned very apologetic. He had forgotten his business cards and was feeling very stupid. (rightly so). He was a knowledgeable person but unable to continue the conversation as he had forgotten the simple basic thing. Surprisingly, I meet at least one such person in every conference.
The primary objective of organizing and attending any conference is networking. Carrying a stack of business card is as essential as wearing your tie. Yet in every conference I meet up with couple of lost type specimen. For some reasons these guys don't have realistic idea of what they are getting into. They have a lost look on their face or they are not dressed appropriately or forgotten to shave. But the most striking characteristics of these species is they have forgotten to bring their business cards. They feel majorly apologetic about it, they are not able to engage in any discussion and keep assuring you that they will keep in touch thru' email. The business card hunters stay away from their meaningless existence in the conference. However, if you find a confident looking "Lost type" person either he has done it very often and has made peace with this fact or he is a "Targeted Card Distributor". This is a sub-species who are very selective about whom to hand over their cards, mostly because they have limited business cards. If they meet an important enough person they may shamelessly flash the card and go on with their business as if nothing has happened.

The Foody types: Different things appeal to different people, to these species food is the most important part of the conference. They are characterized by extended breaks, overflowing plates and multiple serving. They may leave a speech early to beat the queue at coffee breaks and lunch breaks. They can be solitary or place themselves in a discussion groups. In discussion groups, they tend to be very good listeners - for obvious reasons. Lunch epitomizes the moment of truth for these species. If the lunch is too bad, they may be very disappointed with the 'content' of the organization and decide to leave early. They may also leave early, if the lunch is significantly better than their expectations - due to overeating. The existence of this species as helped immensely in solving the puzzling phenomenon of dropping attendance for post lunch sessions. In every single conference.

Aspiring speakers : You always find couple of delegates who are really disappointed with the content and quality of speakers. They are kicking themselves in their minds for not attempting the speaker slot or for paying the full delegate fee for such an ordinary conference. They can be seen discussing and debating vociferously in the networking sessions. They try to capture the public sympathies and win popularity that helps them to corner the speakers or get approvals for their "out of the box" views. Although, they are not happy with the conference, they are one of the last ones to leave the conference. Their enthusiasm and concentration level seldom drops and they leave the venue with determination that they will turn up as a speaker, one day.

Speaker hunters: These species is perhaps the most visible after speakers on the stage. They specialize in asking difficult questions to speakers on stage. They may be Aspiring Speaker species or may belong to some NGO who is working against the topics being discussed in the conference or may be a related to academic sector and been on the receiving end of such difficult situations. Their questions may sound like , "on your slide number 15, the third number in your table does not appear to be accurate." If they are from NGO they may pose a question that questions the whole basis of organizing this conference. In one of the electrical vehicle related conference, after I made a presentation about how EV companies are concerned about safety of battery in EVs, one Speaker Hunter asked me about my opinion on hazards of recycling the Lithium Ionian battery. God forbid if you come across a Speaker Hunter and Aspiring Speaker rolled into one. Once I was asked if cellphone companies can innovate to make telephony wireless why can't power generation companies innovate to transmit power wireless! Its a valid question in some sense but nothing to do with original topic of batteries for electric vehicles.
Only silver lining to this dark cloud as a speaker is most of the Speaker Hunters are not really expecting an answer. They get their kick out of asking a difficult question. They have got their attention, their limelight, their moment in the history. One of the gracious ways of exiting this situation is to appreciate their thought process behind the question. Thank them for bringing in out-of-the-box views to the table. Also praise the organizers for having such a high quality topics and delegates and do this long enough for the audience to forget the question and organizers to call it timeout. Trust me the you will win top rating from Speaker Hunters with this strategy.

In next blog, I will talk about some species among the speakers.

The Classic role reversal

I was born in 70s. I grew up in a household where black and white television and landline telephones were considered luxuries and a vespa scooter was good enough to flaunt your wealth. I also grew up watching my mother busy cooking and my father always out on some work. Father not being home was the default situation and we were quite close to mom. We used to confide in mom, share all our situations, take it easy, bend some rules. We could not do so when father was around. Father was the hero and disciplinarian. Mom would often say ,"clean up the mess, father is about to come". Sound of his scooter or his footsteps was good the cue for us to switch on that "good boy" mode and start to study hard or switch off the television or pretend to sleep. Whatever we needed had to be asked to father, who needed fair bit of convincing and negotiations to get it. Mom would be the undercover supporter. She would ask key questions at important moments to help us build our case and eventually get us what we wanted. In short, our father was disciplinarian and mother was confidant. We would take it easy with our mother but never take our chances with father. Father was the decision maker and mother was undercover ally.

Fast forward 20-25 years. I have a son. My wife is busy in the household, cooking, cleaning, shopping, ironing and managing the paraphernalia. I am busy in office for minimum 12 hours a day, when in station. Missing for entire working week, when I am traveling. On the face of it, situation is quite similar.

But if I scratch the surface I realize, that something has changed. By 180 deg. Is my guess.

When my son needs something he comes and makes a demand with me. Then me and him devise strategies to get it past his mom. He is not afraid to throw his things around rather than being orderly, when he is with me. But the moment he hears his mom, he would pretend that he was always cleaning up. Very often I hear my wife saying that the discipline slackens big time when I am around.
I checked this out with my friends and colleagues, the situation is quite similar.

Broadly, I can say that roles have reversed. For current "screenagers" father is the confidant and under cover ally and mother is the decision maker and disciplinarian.

Is it because fathers have started shouldering more responsibilities than their fathers and have found an easy way out?

Is it because all moms have seen softer approach of their moms not working on them and have shunned it?

Or is it because son's are trying to emulate their mothers and daughters are trying to emulate their fathers, thanks to their natural attraction and role modeling?

I really don't know the reason. I would like you guys to share your views. Feel free to share your thoughts on my blog. Would be a great discussion!!

Let the thoughts flow!!