Power of Forums-Siemens Automation

Siemens did an experiment in their forum for their industrial automation from 8^th April to 5^th May.(https://www.automation.siemens.com/WW/forum/guests/conferences.aspx?language=en) .I too participated in it and also managed to come within the  most active 30 members. The most active 30 members is a special because Siemens had promised a gift for these members. The forum was good example on how support services can be extended by a company by bringing in together all the experts. Industrial Automation is one place where such a forum is very essential. The problem faced by most programmers and engineers in this field is that the upgradation of both hardware and software products is nearly continues. Everyday you have a new product , update or service pack or hot fix or new firmware coming up. A typical programmer in this field has to be well versed with atleast some of these products and this should be a dedicated followup. Following up all items is impossible. But then when a programmer is at a plant site he is expected to solve all the problems then and there and causing no production loss to the customer.  it is then such a support forum helps. The siemens forum has been functioning already since 3 years. I have used it a number of times and also provided support through this forum wherever I could. But the biggest change i saw I when this Siemens announced this campaign with gifts. All of a sudden you could see so many engineers and programmers eager to reply to every question. Even “I did not know that” comments were quite often used, clearly to get to the top of the list. Many problems posted were getting solved immediately and sometimes even before I had finished typing I found few posts already up.

This shows how much a small encouragement could motivate people to participate in such “experience sharing” activities.   I am sure Siemens gained a lot of name and reputation out of this campaign. How much this contrasts from the campaign of Rockwell another industrial automation supplier did out of their forum. In 2002 their forum was completely free and accessible to everybody. But since then they have restricted it to contract based and not allowing all to participate on it. But which one makes better business sense?  My guess is that Siemens model should win. But for that Siemens should not only publicise these features and facilities. They should also go deep into the forum to understand their clients needs and problems.

Science Study(or the lack of it) in India and its long term implication

I was trying to look for an equivalent study of the PISA Study for Indian Education. All I could find was this study http://www.insaindia.org/India%20Science%20report-Main.pdf . It appears this was a study in response to an article written by Garg, K. C. and Gupta, B. M.,  in the Current Science .Vol 84,   2003, Pg 1198–1201 about the fall grass-root level decline in Science education. It appears the final report though does not refute the original paper it tries to maintain a bureaucratic balance  by saying..”yes..there is something..but it is not a big thing”. But the numbers when looked in depth show that there is definitely a drop in support and enthusiasm in Science once the job -secured engineering and medical profession splits out into a separate curriculum. Worse is in the tertiary level education. The fact that 62.8% of the post graduate science students are unemployed should be a reason enough for the loosing any interest in further education in this line.

Most agree that the innovation is the main driver for a country´s continuous growth. China has recognized it and has been trying hard to catch up with the developed countries in these areas. But there seem to be no sign of any action from the Indian government or Education Policy makers. Everybody seems to be content in being “the cyber coolies” and think that based on this fact alone  India will maintain its current growth rate and will catch with the bigger economy within the next generation. It takes a generation to bring about a change in mindset and to realise benefits on educational investments. But for English speaking countries  with low wages(like some in Africa) to catch up in the “cyber coolie” business they need very less time. Also service industry in which India excels does not need much investment and can be rapidly developed if a country decides to go into it. All Foreign Investors will directly jump up to support them. Also China , Russia and many Eastern Bloc countries are pushing English a lot and with that India can loose its competitive edge.   

Work-Life Balance

For me, work is life and life is work and I am not alone here. For most Asians it is true. Koreans, Indians, Chinese and Japanese have all this same attitude. Atleast Japanese take some time out to go on holidays. So putting in long hours at work is not just an option. It is a must. In an environment where competiveness isvery high and where a strong heirarchysystem prevails, one hasto put up a show of long hours. Normally the hours put in extra do not bring benefit to self or the organisation. But it is a lovely bragging point. The women are very proud to say that their husbands come back home at midnight. Vice versa is of course not applicable.

 Well, Frank Bauer, Hermann Groß, Gwen Oliver, Georg Sieglen and Mark Smith  have written a well reasearched piece on “Time use and work–life balance in Germany and the UK” on the website http://www.agf.org.uk/pubs/publications.htm. It makes an interesting reading on how subtle difference show up between these two countries in the Work-Life Balance. For those who want a summary http://www.agf.org.uk/pubs/pdfs/ES1453.pdf and for those who would like to go into details the link is http://www.agf.org.uk/pubs/pdfs/ES1453.pdf. I wish somebody could do the comparison with an Asian country like Korea or Japan and an European country (which have more or less same standards of living).