Who Moved My Cheese

I recently read this wonderful story: Who Moved My Cheese. It takes just 15-30 minutes to read the story and is like a kid’s story. Actually, it is a kid’s story. This story consists of 2 mice Sniff and Scurry and 2 little people Hem and Haw. Sniff is good at sniffing change in the cheese, scurry scurries to action, haw is a human who can laugh at himself and adapt to change slowly while hem remains hemmed in, in the old cheese station. Well, if you did not get the above line’s meaning, its time to read the book!

The book is about “change”. Somebody made this supposedly witty, ironic quote with an obvious play of words: “The only thing constant in this world is change”. The quote is correct in essentials. We live in a constantly changing world. Consider some examples:

1. Today’s hindi music looks more like English Rap and Rock Music. Consider “SuperChor” song from Oye Lucky Oye, it is such a good rap, I think these guys can seriously give competition to Eminem and Akon. Why did they change? Well its simple, with Internet, people got access to English songs and developed a taste for this new variety of music. Our music industry responded.

2. Another example from Cinema. The cinematography of today’s films with intense blending of scenes, new camera angles, better background sounds, slow and forceful lines by actors [Ok, all copied from Hollywood Films] has changed the hindi Cinema for good.

3. Consider the changing face of Marketing. Today’s marketers make new witty ads (no more reliance on silly rhythms), put ads on Internet, billboards in new places such as Metro Stations, Railways, Multiplexes etc. They are not just signing up a cricketer as a brand ambassador and hoping to sell their product through them. They are trying to make better ads, trying to start a conversation.

4. Consider the extinction of Comic Books. When I was a kid (ok I am still one) I used to read all the latest Comic Books. But within a matter of years, they have vanished from the market. Why? Because they hemmed in the same business model making the same old drawings. People left them as TVs came with cartoons which were better as they were moving.

5. Consider the changing face of public sector banks and telecom providers. With the opening of this field to private sector, these guys were given serious competition. Now, they provide better service, offer new services and are even beating the new players handsomely. I was talking to an MTNL Guy who came to fix my internet, he told me that although at first, the private sector took all the customer base from MTNL, but when MTNL guys pulled up their socks, they are now expanding their customer base like never before. Consider this, it took nearly 10 years after registering for a phone in the old times to actually get one. Now-a-days, MTNL offers new connections for free within 10 days.

And you know I can go on and on and on. I have not even started on my favorite topic: Software. In Software, changes occur even faster. In 95s, desktop based apps were a craze, 2000s saw the rise of webpages with dynamically moving ads (which took up half of the webpage), 2003s saw the introduction of web apps with Ajax and now we are seeing the rise of cloud computing and mobile computing.

The programmers who do not adapt, well they become extinct. Similar is the case with all the other professions in the world. And this is all the more relevant in the world of Recession. With all the companies laying off people, if you want to start into a new job or hold onto your old one, remember this: Sniff changes and then scurry into action. I repeat, sniff changes early and then scurry into action.

Comments Welcome……