Posted by Ross Hall on January 27, 2002 at 04:15:50:

In Reply to: Re: KM-research topics relevent to India posted by Jefferey Bridges on January 26, 2002 at 10:38:57:

Not so much research, more experience. My wife is Indian and a fair few years ago, having looked at a map and seen where Bombay is, my boss at the time sent me to Pakistan!

While there all manner of Lotus Notes applications were considered for deployment in the business I was working with. At one point a system that would allow security guards to log trucks and their contents was considered by the Western team leading the project. This, it was argued, would cut down fraud.

"Can the security guards read English?" I asked the Pakistani's prroject manager.

"No," he said.

"Urdu?"

"No," he said.

And thus the gate logging system came to a grinding halt before anything was written.

After all the years I've worked, been to and worked with people and businesses in the sub continent I would draw the following conclusions about KM:

1. The high levels of illiteracy contribute to the need for tacit knowledge exchange in many (but by no means all) exchanges;

2. But... the high levels of illiteracy lead to a feeling of superiority amongst the literate, so they tend to ignore the illiterate anyway;

3. Even amongst the literate there can be variances, such as people who can write Marathi or Gujrati, but can't write in English or Hindi;

4. The Stormin' Norman approach to project management - any plan is bound to succeed if executed with extreme violence - rules due to the cheapness of even skilled labour, leading to brute force in numbers rather than skillful deployment of intellect.

Generalities of course. However, simply wacking US/UK/EU models on top of the Indian economy simply fails to acknowledge the very different philosophy that underpins the culture.

That's my 2p worth!

Ross ;-))

• Ross Hall - consultant, writer and speaker

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Follow Ups:

• Re: KM-research topics relevent to India Akhil Shahani 23:48:25 01/28/02 (4)
  • Response to all the comments Ross Hall 13:17:19 01/29/02 (2)
    • Re: Response to all the comments Akhil Shahani 02:10:40 01/30/02 (1)
      • Re: Response to all the comments Ross Hall 03:58:37 01/30/02 (0)
  • I agree, but be aware of stereotypes... Riva Gianluca 08:31:04 01/29/02 (0)
• Re: KM-research topics relevent to India - Corrections and Clarifications Jefferey Bridges 07:44:52 01/28/02 (3)
  • Re: KM-research topics relevent to India - Corrections and Clarifications rajesh jain 08:43:33 02/03/02 (0)
  • Well done!!! Riva Gianluca 08:18:26 01/29/02 (1)
    • Re: Well done!!! Gay Gordon 08:01:33 03/01/02 (0)

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