Blog Catgeory

Social Media: An important part of our life!

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Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn…. imagine waking up one day without these Apps on our phone! For some, this would be a scary thought, for others it may be a sigh of relief!! One thing is certain….. it is a big part of our lives since it helps us to communicate, interact, keeps us updated or even helps us express ourselves better. Let us honestly ask ourselves a question, how many times we pick up our phones to check these apps, to see what others have posted, to check the number of likes we have received on our posts, to read the comments….. I am sure we all know at least one person who is addicted to social media!

Social Media came into existence in 1990s but over these years has gained popularity across the globe and across all segments of the society. Every individual wants to communicate, irrespective of the era they belong to. Communication too underwent drastic changes from pigeons, light signals, postal systems, telegraph, telephone, letters and emails to social media. Social media has in true sense changed the landscape of communication. Nowadays, gestures and body language have got replaced with acronyms and emoticons! Social media has evolved from just being a medium of entertainment and communication to a platform being used by businesses, entrepreneurs and organization that aim to gain recognition and identification at economical prices.

In today’s dynamic environment, people are all the time hard pressed for time. In such a scenario, the advantages of social media cannot be denied. Marketers too are making full use of the power of social media. Videos, blogs, articles provide innovative ideas that capture the attention of the viewers and also keep the customers engaged. Five to seven minutes of reading an article or blog and the customer is all set to clink on the link and make a purchase…. That is the power of Social Media!! From big giants like Apple, Microsoft to your local grocery store around the corner, are all on social media in order to reach out to their customers in the most convenient way. In a nutshell, whether we like it or not, we cannot ignore the power of Social Media and its importance in our day to day life!!

 

Critical Thinking: tool for a concrete judgment.

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Critical thinking could simply be defined as – evaluation of a problem to find the solutions
rationally but with novelty. It is what is applied to all forums despite of its nature of tasks and
execution, educational fields and employment settings. Preparing our students for future
employment, World Economic Forum has identified “Critical Thinking” as world’s important
dimension to promote futuristic learning and innovation. Hence it is mandatory to necessitate
the inclusion of this component.
The most challenging and debatable question in the present world is whether or not our
students are tuned to give logical judgments and critical solutions that are developed through
reasoned course of action. Quite contrary to what is expected the easiest way chosen by
students nowadays is to provide and subside for readily available solutions to problem
without scratching their creative minds. This could be either because of their inability or lack
of positive engagement to enable them to tap on their critical mind thus deterring them to
think of multiple solutions to arrive to a problem which is otherwise answered by them in a
singular pre existing manner.
All this makes the importance of brushing critical thinking component in the young mind
most vital. Fostering creativity, innovation, exploration can further lead to the nurturance of
critical thinking which can help them arrive at multiple solutions to the problem and then
evaluating while arriving at the best solution.
Many education institutions are constantly ensuring to brush upon this component by actively
engaging and encouraging students to think out of box, promoting and recognizing creativity
via projects and assignments tapping novelty. Recognizing the importance of the component
in employment world, higher education bodies are tuning the students and preparing them
well for futuristic job which involves the component of critical thinking along with leadership
skills, interpersonal skills with sound technical knowledge all making up to desirable
“Employability skills” looked by the employers during recruitment and promotion time
periods.
Why critical thinking is important?
APA defines critical thinking as- “ purposeful, self-regulatory judgment that uses cognitive
tools such as interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, and explanation of the evidential,
conceptual, methodological, or contextual considerations on which judgment is based.”

While we all agree that change is the only constant element of the world, it is not wrong to
say that with every minute change in the existing element new complexity arises and when
new complexity arises it is important to attend to it differently. If we were to attend to it in
the same manner then newness, creativity, exploration and innovation will be hindered. Thus
it is very important that we constantly switch directions, rethink and adopt creative problem
solving strategies to ensure that we enable divergent thinking to reach to convergent way of
reaching to solutions.
It is increasingly essential for Young minds who are also the future nation builders to explore
their creative minds and develop diverse strategies to apply new knowledge to current
complex situations of the world with the prerogative of coming to the finest of solutions.
Where knowledge institutions promotes critical thinking and suggests students to engage in
problem solving technology has massively created a constant stoppage by readily providing
the pre existing knowledge and solutions resisting students to think beyond the limits and
come up with novel ideas. While this seems to be challengeable issue, teachers in present
century are devising curriculums that promote critical thinking and are taking immeasurable
steps to prepare the futuristic nation builders to act purposefully. Not critical thinking is being
included in all courses where students are encouraged to use their problem solving ability to
identify, analyze, evaluate and derive solutions using their competencies. Teaching pedagogy
is now essentially incorporating it in the study plan through projects to ensure it gets
manifested in students while preparing them for professional world.
Following teaching strategies have been adopted to help promote critical thinking amongst
students:
1) Assessing the students on the basis of the learning outcome after every class either in
written or oral form so as to understand the extent of their learning and
comprehending the same in their own words.
2) Promoting group learning by presenting problems and helping them to argue ,
brainstorm and come out with multiple ways of arriving at solutions to the presented
problems.
3) Using the discussion oriented method students are encouraged to discuss and reach to
a potential viable solution of the case presented which is led by the student.
4) Utilizing peer group interaction to come up with innovative project inducing novelty,
team work and collaboration

Hence critical thinking is important in today’s world as it helps us in the process of reaching
conclusion. While it is important for all to harvest this trait to logically arrive at solutions
involving low to high risk matters.

Questions to reflect upon:
 Can students really benefit from strategies listed above to imbibe critical thinking?
 What are different unidentified errors that can bring inconsistencies in reasoning?

ADOPTION OF A NEW – AGE TRANSFER OF LEARNINGS

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As India becomes the country with the world’s largest workforce in 2020, there is a need to implement a robust, well-developed and modern education system.  We know that the thinking and temperament of our current generation is rather different from what stems through a traditional system of education. Teaching through textbooks and knowledge that is classroom-confined are not acceptable by the current generation. In the next 20 years, an educational institution will be a very different place. The decision-makers and those who think about reforming education have already worked on new learning techniques and a pedagogy that focuses on liberal education and a multi-disciplinary approach to move away from traditional teaching that encourages only remaining confined within stifling boundaries.

Higher education in India has been regarded and appraised for its multi-disciplinary approach. The objective is to foster learning and growth amongst the student population so as to nurture its roots well. With a mission of adopting, adjusting and adapting, the education system is expected to move forward with an inclusive approach thus providing flexible boundaries, so as to ensure that the young minds be equipped with the sort of immunization that can help them deal easily with the world’s changing and progressive demands.

Teaching patterns have now become more structured than they were earlier. Rather than train students massively with a collective approach that negates individual needs, the education system today is expected to moderate and modify teaching methods to make it students-centric that will obviously aid all competency levels of students. Advanced teaching methods have enabled students to not only procure a degree in the respective area of choice but have also enabled them to earn credits in other areas of interest. Facilitators or teachers have now become far more compassionate and professionally trained to anticipate student-specific demands and concerns early enough to bring into existence changes in teaching patterns. Thus, adopting asymmetric teaching patterns makes learning more interactive and experientially relevant. Students have a chance to engage experientially and practice what they have learned.They are able to observe the application of the theoretical concepts in practice, process that application and make learning relevant.  Experiential learning provides a deeper understanding of subject matters, an ability to engage in a life-long learning and makes handling ambiguous situation critically and electively so much easier and effective.

Even breaking through the conventional means of evaluation and teaching methods, the unconventional system of grading, recurrent assessment through practical & internship, frequent professional visits and training session by experts has facilitated the practical shift of education system. The idea is to prepare them to become a professional right from the beginning and be intuitively close to the society they will be serving.

The base of the education system lies in the idea of providing sound and good quality education to the entire student population so as to produce excellence in professional and research fields and to ensure that the future nation-builders are enabled to contribute efficiently in sustainable growth of the world. Adding on to this is the report on Gross Enrolment Ratio which has seen steep increase from 20% to 24.5% in 2016.

The vision of Indian higher education system is to decrease disengagement and produces commitment and dedication toward careers so as to provide reciprocity in learning. Professionals who can help in nation building are what the new trends in education aim to create. Regardless of the challenges afore-mentioned, it is vital to look for solutions that can analyse the threads of disconnect by connecting threads by praising and communicating the efforts and methods of all institutes and colleges that have students claiming to benefit from these new forms of learning and engaged teaching. Institutes contributing to provide sound higher education need to join hands with all other institutes that think on similar dynamic lines and have a shared vision and mission to take education to new heights.

The challenge for liberal educators is to design learning environments and instruction so that students will be able to use what they learn in appropriate new contexts, that is, to enable a relevant and new-age transfer of learning.

 

Our behavior shapes our economy – Stay calm amidst dire situations – COVID19

Blog Catgeory, Faculty, General Blog, IILM University

COVID19 has been termed as an unparalleled dire situation; though the world has experienced pandemic earlier, the one actual and big difference between this pandemic and the others in the past is the volume of information at the click of a button. We are being poured 24/7 by broadcast news around the globe and social media. Mass media is serving our qualms and inhibiting us to think rationally creating shared panic and forcing people to take emotional irrational decisions. In a historic period of excessive loss and distress, today is the necessity of more than ever discipline, civic sense, and calm attitude.

Stocking the mind with overpowering questions drains our energy leading to wastage of time as well. We ought to silence the mind, not letting it go on with opinions of criticism, feeling like a quarry, condemning or denying the situation.

  • Situation Proofing Yourself

Life without critical situations is similar to living a life in an imaginary unreal world, detached from reality. There are two kinds of people. One will see the situation as trivial by having positive insights or optimistic way of looking at it. The other will see the situation as severe by having negative perceptions. How much control do we have on our thought process, to what degree is this human mechanism and state of mind in our hands? A calm mind, according to some, working a full day at the office, with demanding deadlines and different people with their different ways of working and opinions and simultaneously looking after the household responsibilities is next to impossible. But then, a calm mind with a robust intellect can certainly face all these dire situations. Moreover, practices like meditation will assist us in doing that.

  • Constructive Use

We are constantly learning a lesson at each step of our survival. The real-life circumstances are our hidden learnings which in a way impart us something or the other during a short span of time. All of us ought to be wary but then there is no need to fear or get panic. Instead, let’s not have complacency either. Receive this challenging situation and comprehend how you can make use of it in a constructive manner.

  • List down and evaluate the pros and cons

 It is easier to let our emotive side form our choices however as an alternative, create an unbiased list of pros and cons once confronted with a demanding situation. Contemplate critically and stick with unprejudiced principles concerning the situation.

At any time a difficult state is trying to affect you or you feel that you are fairly distressed due to a negative occurrence, look for positivity within in order to upkeep yourself emotionally and mentally. Likewise, hunt for signs of goodness outer in everyone and the entire thing, which will help in keeping you calm, composed and powerful. Possibly, nature wants everyone to slow down a little from the haste and hurriedness they are in.

Stay stable, calm and gratified!

Dr. Rachna Madaan

 

Being Optimistic in times of Pandemic- Corona 2020

Blog Catgeory, IILM University,

Being Optimistic in times of Pandemic- Corona 2020

In the year 2000 Dr Toshihiko Maruta of the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, USA, reported that optimists have a longer life span than pessimists. Maruta found that people with a positive outlook on life live on an average 19 percent longer than those who are miserable.

Twenty years back Dr Maruta did not anticipate what the world would be facing and with what intensity. Maybe a scenario where a potentially harmful virus affecting all countries alike and spreading like a pandemic was suited more for a thriller movie than one’s reality today.

People with their routine lives have been warned and coerced to stay at home and worse work from home. World over, barring some professions, everyone has to now get used to this transition in work while carefully balancing work-life balance which everyone knows is a delicate harmony often difficult to achieve.

Uncertainty of events and overload of  information is not letting peace within, so the question is can we be optimistic in time of Pandemic the one that we are going through- CORONA 2020?

I think while going through stream of messages and newspaper articles, we are actually living through a moment in history- something we grew up reading in books and always wondered how people back in those days did it. Their trials, tribulations and finally achieving a little more than success- they became die hard optimistic who later guided others of what life really means.

Optimism is something we are born with like a disposition and something we cultivate over the years with experience and endurance to life.

To be honest it can be very difficult but not impossible to keep your head focused on end goals when there is so much uncertainty and constant restless news that keeps shaking our faith that it will all be fine one day.

With the help of theory on Optimism by Snyder, I could technically help readers to stay aloft this crucial time of despair and keep it going.

  1. Goal– (What we want to happen?) To be safe from Corona Virus
  2. Pathways– (How are we going to get there?) To social distance, keep hygiene at all times, self-isolation for some days as directed by the government knowing it’s in our best interest
  3. Agency– (How much motivation do we have in going after that goal?)
  • Rigorous self-isolation and hygiene to be followed at home, with self and others
  • Thorough planning of keeping work and home life balance which could falter given kids and spouse being at home- look for quick fix solutions and plan your day in advance,
  • Allowing moments of letdown- nothing beats stress like exercise even at home,
  • There is a difference in snacking and mindless binging both in spreading news and eating. Avoid Junk from everywhere, munch on something healthy(apple and a book) once in a while
  • Genuinely look within on doing things you always wanted to do but couldn’t because of lack of time; to start with spending least five minutes in silence (sit in one place and focus on your heartbeat),

It is possible that we won’t get everything right step by step as explained in theory, but even if we reach halfway in that attempt, we bring back some satisfaction of making that honest effort to hold self and significant others steady at times when we needed our selves the most.

Optimism is not only a theoretical construct, it is something we need right now, we need to be more hopeful to return back to that normal life’s madness because we have lost ourselves somewhere there. This Pandemic will change us (hopefully) for better, pause and think how we can transform ourselves when we got to spend the maximum time alone with self.

“Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out“

John Wooden

Globalization at Peril?

Faculty, General Blog, IILM University

With buzz like ‘Just-in-Time’, ‘Comparative Advantage’, ‘Outsourcing’ disrupted the supply chain in the name of profits and efficiency. No doubt the effort taken paid back well for the last few decades. But in the wake the outbreak of the virus, the entire supply chain has crippled and all major industries and economies are facing the brunt of over-dependence. China a manufacturing hub of the world and it gets most of its machinery from Germany. As China is unable to set in the manufacturing cycle, demand for new machinery from Germany has reduced. Germany is the major player in the EU, the impact of slumber in trade is felt in all EU countries. Such a phenomenon is called a domino effect wherein the fragility of supply chains is exposed, a major concern of globalism. The worst-hit industries are automobiles, electronics and more importantly drugs and medical supplies a crucial element for fighting the pandemic.

Scholars cite that the current situation of over-dependence and interconnectedness has reached an inflection point. They predict that from now the process of globalization may change its course and multilateral organizations may have to restructure their bargain. Certainly, nations like India and its neighborhoods will be the worst hit as they have always accrued the benefit of globalization in terms of employment, investments, etc. Countries may have to revamp their strategies to adapt to new realities keeping in mind the stakes on the economy at large.

Though globalization is inevitable, going back to its business as usual form post-pandemic recovery is highly unlikely. However, a sudden exodus from multilateral cooperation will certainly have greater ramifications that need thoughtful consideration. On the contrary, instead of fallback, it will be pragmatic for economies to restructure and prioritize. Targeted restructuring can reduce over-dependence and push for better control in stabilizing economies. Globalization is no doubt a necessary evil however the question is are we playing the right cards with it? Our focus was only to channelize factors of production across borders which is proving very dangerous.

The Power of Poetry

General Blog, IILM Institute for Higher Education, IILM University, , , , ,

Poetry has survived and survived really well…It is one of the finest and powerful forms of writing. In short, poetry is creativity in disguise. It teaches us to communicate in a compelling way, thereby enhance learning. Poetry is about expressing those thoughts and emotions we keep the most suppressed. An integral part of writing poetry is to be honest with ourselves about what we feel in order to write anything worth reading. It’s about connecting our hearts and our minds to ourselves and our environs. It’s about finding peace.

Poetry is one of those skills that will remain in use for your entire life no matter what you end up doing professionally. It gives us a salubrious outlet for pouring our emotions. Reading original poetry aloud can foster trust and empathy in a community, while also accentuating speaking and listening skills. There are many of us  who don’t like writing essays but may like poetry, with its dearth of fixed rules and its kinship with rap. For such people, poetry can become a doorway to other forms of writing. All forms of writing benefits from the powerful and succinct phrases found in poems.

Additionally, poetry can help us to learn how to utilize grammar in our own writing by studying how poets do—and do not—abide by conventional writing rules in their work. Poetry can teach writing and grammar rules by showing what happens when poets strip them away or distort them for effect for example; Dickinson often capitalizes common nouns and uses dashes instead of commas to show sudden shifts in focus in his poetry, similarly, Agee uses colons to create dramatic, speech-like pauses. The more we read different poets, the more we can carve out our own style. The point of reading a poem is not to try to decipher it. Still, that quantifiable process of elucidation is precisely what needs to be encouraged often in lieu of curating a powerful experience through literature.

So, don’t wait…reach for the pen, and let go of those things that have been encumbering your freedom. Read poetry with your heart and let it affect you in one of the most defining ways.

 

 

 

CASHLESS TO CONTACTLESS PAYMENT: COVID-19 SPREAD

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In this era, where the entire world is suffering from COVID-19 pandemic, cash is no longer a king. According to WHO (World health organization), the novel corona virus may spread through cash payments, debit Card and credit card payments. As per a scientific paper published, the virus outbreak found the virus can live on cardboard for up to 24 hours and up to three days on plastic and stainless steel. Banknote avoidance is happening in the U.S., South Korea, Japan and Iran. Germany is the cash loving economy and it has also switch to contactless payment. In India when the corona virus is still in the early phase, this is the right time to adopt the contactless payment as compared to cashless payments. Hence, it becomes essential to promote contactless transaction as compared to currency notes or cashless transactions.

CASHLESS VERSUS CONTACTLESS PAYMENT: 

Mostly people take cashless and contactless payment as interchangeable term. But there is lot of difference between cashless payment and contactless payment.

Any type of payment that is made without using cash is considered as Cashless payment methods. The examples are credit card payments, Bank transfers, debit card payments, mobile payments, and digital wallets. To complete the cashless purchase, the customer doesn’t need to have any cash.

Contactless payments are those where debit cards or credit cards that either use near-field communication (NFC) or radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. In contactless payment, no PIN or signature for card is required to make the payment — you can simply tap and go. One needs not to do swiping or inserting your card in any POS machine or ATM, you simply can just wave the card near the reader to complete your payment.

RBI INITIATIVE FOR CONTACTLESS PAYMENT:

In our dream to build a feasible digital world and to come alive, wireless technologies always have a critical role to play. In India, we have reached to the next level of innovation in fintech domain. Any full proved payment method should have following three features:

Accessibility and interoperability: Accepted anywhere and offers multiple uses

Convenience of transaction: Clutter free smooth gesture, like tap and go

Speed of transaction: local secure processing with batch synchronization.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) took the first step in 2019 to promote contactless payment. Now for transactions less than Rs 2,000, the customer can do a payment within a fraction of seconds.

CONTACTLESS CARDS IN INDIA

  1. Mastercard Tap & Go: Mastercard offers Contactless Credit  card or Debit Card partnering with almost all Indian Private and PSU banks.
  2. Visa payWave: Visa PayWave also offers Tap & Go contactless payments and the card also globally accepted.
  3. Rupay Contactless Card: Developed by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), It is an Indian alternative of global card issuing brands such as Visa or Mastercard.
  4. Paytm- Contactless Card: Paytm also offers a Contactless payment card, named as Taptopay. The card can be issued at designated venues at the time of ticket purchase or online tickets on Paytm.
  5. National Common Mobility Card (NCMC): The NCMC card is a Debit or Credit card that can be used to make payment for transport anywhere in the country, like Metro, Bus, sub-urban railways, toll-plaza, parking, etc. Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has released Contactless smart card launched on 4 March 2019. NCMC is maintained by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and it is also Rupay Powered. The RFID reader is developed by Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and NCMC is also partnering with Indian Banks.

CONTACTLESS PAYMENTS APPS IN INDIA

Contactless Payments Apps work similarly to contactless Debit or Credit card, where you don’t have to carry physical cards, instead your smartphone works as your Contactless Payment Card. Currently, Samsung Pay is technically the only App operates using the near-field communication (NFC) Payment technology. However there are few more Contactless Payments Apps in India you can install on your smartphones.

  • Samsung Pay
  • Google Pay
  • Pockets by ICICI Bank
  • Ultracash
  • PhonePe
  • Mobikwik
  • Yono by SBI
  • HDFC PayZapp
  • BHIM Axis Pay
  • My FASTag App

Contactless Payments can turn the face of India’s Digital Payment Systems. The question comes that how will you know that your card is supporting Contactless Payments or not. In order to identify, you will find a symbol similar to Wi-Fi at any side of your Debit or Credit Card. Indian are still depending on physical cash for doing Low-Value retail transactions. With the acceptance of several Contactless Payments Apps and Govt. of India’s thrust on the “Digital India” campaign, we definitely expect a low spread of COVID-19 in our nation through currency.

Design Thinking : The 5 Stages

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Uncertainty abounds nowadays- wars, oil prices, pandemics, start-ups – acting as challengers and disrupting businesses; during such times, being conscious of sustainability and ‘Design Thinking’ redefines business models.

The uncertainty constantly challenges businesses to review and rethink their focus, their business, and most importantly their survival. In such a state of complexity, there is possibly a need to question the basics and revisit the obvious, and that is where design thinking comes in. It offers a thinking approach to redefine all of this in a more human-centric manner.

So what is design thinking? It is purely being more humane and empathetic with the belief that the end-user is at the heart of all decision making

Design thinking is a process which integrates critical thinking, cross functional collaboration, empathy, iteration, & curiosity to deliver breakthrough-outcomes. Companies are increasingly leveraging design thinking to achieve quantum growth.

The thought process while starting with a consumer centric approach also has to pass through the test of technical viability and business feasibility.

The 5 stages of design thinking are-

Stage 1 Empathize – Research the Target Group-User (TGU) needs

We have to set our assumptions and biases aside when we investigate the possible problem that is being attempted to be solved. We have to immerse ourselves in the context of the problem and possibly talk to TGU, who faces it, and speak to the possible experts and even look at similar challenges faced by, and solutions of, diverse businesses.

There are ways to understand the same, namely, FGD, Focus Interviews, Storytelling and Empathy maps. Empathy maps are particularly useful as they map what people say, do, think and feel in the context of the problem. “Observe & Hear Closely”. It allows us to understand how people feel, behave, and experience the problem and possibly how they might see a solution.

Stage 2 Define – The needs & problems of the TGU need to be defined

The insights gathered need to be summarized in a “human-centric” problem rather than business goals. This can be done by identifying the frustrations and challenges that people face through empathy maps, and how people are solving problems and what we need to do for them to find newer and easier solutions to overcome their frustrations.

To exemplify, rather than defining how to get a 20% increase in online sales of juice in Gurgaon, maybe we need to understand the consumption pattern of a health-conscious consumer, which could mean that consumers looking for healthy food may need to be educated on the meaning of ‘health’.

Stage 3 Ideate – Challenge the Assumptions & Evolve ideas

Once the problem/pain-points are identified it is imperative to start ideating and brainstorming the possible alternatives and evolve ideas. Prioritize the breadth rather than depth while developing ideas, as we need to solve a larger range of challenges. The focus needs to be on developing ideas which lead us to formulate prototypes & test the hypotheses.

So basically ideate and evaluate, and sketch your ideas and brainstorm in order to develop possible metrics against which to assess them. A good way to evaluate is to put ideas on the table and ask for a vote.

The ideas post evaluation with maximum votes are put through a prototype test.

Stage 4 Prototype – Start by Creating Alternate Solutions

This is when the idea identified gets a physical form. The same is defined and put through a paper test where a ‘what-if’ analysis could also be done. This helps to ensure that significant gaps are debated on and plugged before the prototype is put through a test. The prototyping stage should be a realistic discussion on what will work and what will not and changes are incorporated in a circular and iterative process, until there seems to be a workable structure. Maybe at this stage it is a good idea to put multiple test cases in discussion as that allows the breadth of possible solutions.

Stage 5 Test – Test the Solutions you feel are the best in ground situations, simulations, pilots

This stage could be considered to be an extension of the empathizing stage .This stage helps to understand in more detail the pain-points of the TGU and explore if the possible solutions being offered are really giving the desired outcomes, those which really help TGU change their behavior or take different decisions towards finding solutions. The answer to gauge is whether a significant impact has been made. It is important to get a feedback; there are various ways in which companies seem to be doing it – simulations, pilot test markets, test groups.

The objective is to put the best possible ideas forward and be open to critical feedback towards finding the right possible solutions. In fact this stage may even reveal that the problems identified and/or solutions proposed were not determined correctly.

Design thinking is an intimate way to get to know the TGU and problem definition better, so that the possible solutions to identified problems have a higher chance of success.

Questions to reflect

  1. Do companies succeed with design thinking ?

-Yes they do. Some examples of successful deployment of design thinking are listed below-

https://hbr.org/2015/09/how-indra-nooyi-turned-design-thinking-into-strategy

https://www.bbva.com/en/airbnb-design-thinking-success-story/

  1. But do companies nowadays “really” use this approach and do they spend enough time in each stage before formalizing a launch or a solution?

-We see a lot of initiatives-launches which did not work due to incomplete efforts in stages of ideation, prototyping and testing…(discuss)

  1. Maybe design thinking approach is one of the reasons why Reliance Retail and Jio are hyper growth platforms?

A Ray of Hope amidst the COVID – 19 Crises

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The world is witnessing and fighting its worst pandemic from past 3 months. Public is scared, policy makers are looking for desperate regulations and measures, basic service providers are doing extra time and doctors are exhausted completely. We have no other option but to lock down ourselves and the entire community.  Everything around us look pessimistic, gloomy and sans hope. But wait are we humans not the species who can find silver lining in the most dreadful situations? Yes we are and there are silver linings in the Corona Virus as well.

Back to Human basics

The virus has clearly shaken us however, ensures we must appreciate the luxuries we got, abundance of products, freedom and health which we were taking as granted. We all were lost in mundane busy-ness and have no time to appreciate the most basic things. This corona virus made us realized the relevance of actually important possessions of human life- the love of family, the stories of elderly, appreciating the moments shared with our partners, the role of community and most important a time to reevaluate and reinvent ourselves. We are also reaching to our basic habits of washing hands and feet when coming from outside, changing immediately the clothes once we are back home, greeting people with the famous Indian Namaste.

Healing the Nature

The whole world is witnessing the healing process- when humans are retreating nature is returning.  Institutions and entertainment places are shut, tourist spots are without people, fewer vehicles on roads – Sounds bizarre but the results are great. Pollution level across the world has come down in many metropolitan cities. The Air Quality index is below 150 in Delhi, water bodies are cleaning, dolphins are returning to the coast in Venice, swans can be seen in canals instead of Gondolas, otters are roaming freely in Singapore, Egyptian geese are on tarmac in Israel, penguins taking strolls in aquariums of Chicago, coral reef healing in Australia, deer and monkeys coming back to streets in Japan and Thailand. Nature is thriving when humans are quarantined. The indications are clear -mother earth is sending us the signal which we must understand that humans do not own earth, they co-exist here. Cohabitation is important and humans cannot put life of other living beings on earth at stake. The corona Virus made us thinks that we must preserve our natural habitats, do not overuse the resource and if we cannot do the same on our own then, nature have its own extreme means.

 Corona Virus must be thanked for making us undermine every material aspect of this world and giving us a chance to build the world from inception. It could be observed around us that we are connected not only physically but yogically as well. The time has come to view the world and our existence from a newer perspective and the survival is based on the perspective we will choose.

Associate Professor Economics and International Business, IILM University