Shop Class as Soulcraft

nyone in the market for a good used machine tool should talk to Noel Dempsey, a dealer in Richmond, Virginia. Noel's bustling warehouse is full of metal lathes, milling machines, and table saws, and it turns out that most of it is from schools. EBay is awash in such equipment, also from schools. It appears shop class is becoming a thing of the past, as educators prepare students to become "knowledge workers."

At the same time, an engineering culture has developed in recent years in which the object is to "hide the works," rendering the artifacts we use unintelligible to direct inspection. Lift the hood on some cars now (especially German ones), and the engine appears a bit like the shimmering, featureless obelisk that so enthralled the cavemen in the opening scene of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Essentially, there is another hood under the hood. This creeping concealedness takes various forms. The fasteners holding small appliances together now often require esoteric screwdrivers not commonly available, apparently to prevent the curious or the angry from interrogating the innards. By way of contrast, older readers will recall that until recent decades, Sears catalogues included blown-up parts diagrams and conceptual schematics for all appliances and many other mechanical goods. It was simply taken for granted that such information would be demanded by the consumer.

A decline in tool use would seem to betoken a shift in our mode of inhabiting the world: more passive and more dependent. And indeed, there are fewer occasions for the kind of spiritedness that is called forth when we take things in hand for ourselves, whether to fix them or to make them. What ordinary people once made, they buy; and what they once fixed for themselves, they replace entirely or hire an expert to repair, whose expert fix often involves installing a pre-made replacement part.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/13/crawford.htm

Orkut: The Killer Wail

A perplexed Jai Arjun Singh whines about Orkut but also tries (very half-heartedly) to understand why it appeals to so many people?

A few weeks ago, shortly after I accepted an invitation to open an account on Orkut, the increasingly popular online forum run by Google, a female friend expressed annoyance about the many strange men who hit on her after seeing her profile (which, by and by, specified her status as "married").

There are random testosterone-charged alpha-males trawling this community, she tut-tutted; they put up photographs of their flexed biceps, seek out women of all hues and shapes and leave messages to the tune of "Hi! Wanna make fransip?" Or something equally ungrammatical but much more explicit.

A month on, with due respect to all ladies who dislike being harassed thus, I must play devil's advocate and proffer this observation: of all the people I've seen using the Orkut scrapbook to communicate, those desperate Romeos are easily among the most purposeful.

 

http://www.business-standard.com/search/storypage_new.php?leftnm=5&leftindx=5&subLeft=7&autono=263697

Globalising swadeshi management

Indian companies gobbling up competitors around the world is no longer news. So Bhupesh Bhandari turns the spotlight on the early acquisitions to see how well they've fared in their new environment.

The carillon is as far removed from India as the igloo. The musical instrument, composed of at least 23 cup-shaped bells played from a baton keyboard using fists and feet, has its origins in the Low Countries of the 15th century when it was mounted on churches as a token of civic pride and status.

But on this pleasant October afternoon, it was the Indian national anthem that Jo Haazen, the foremost carillonneur in the world, was playing at the town square of Mechelen, a small town halfway between Antwerp and Brussels. The mayor had thrown a reception for Gautam Thapar for saving the jobs of thousands in the town; Haazen and hundreds of others were expressing their gratitude.

In 2004, Thapar's Crompton Greaves had acquired the Pauwels Group for ¤28 million. Its mother plant at Mechelen (it has four others around the globe) had about 1,300 locals on its rolls and provided indirect employment to at least another 7,000 in the town. These people faced a bleak future with the company in financial distress and on the verge of closure — it had reported a loss on a turnover of ¤245 million in 2004.

 

http://www.business-standard.com/lifeleisure/sectionhome.php?leftnm=5&subLeft=0

IT.in has lost its zing

Mini Joseph Tejaswi & R Raghavendra | TNN

 

Bangalore: Karnataka's premiere IT expo, Bangalore IT.in, has lost the colour and the charm of its early years. Touted as the largest business-to-business tech exposition of Asia, the event is now being widely criticised for lacking in direction, and failing to draw any worthwhile participation from either domestic or foreign business.

 

"This show is no indication of Bangalore's IT prowess or its branding in the global market. It's our maiden involvement in IT.in. We were expecting a tech show like Systems in Munich or Cebit in Hannover. Frankly, coming here is such a waste of time, energy and money for us,'' said Hurtmut Ade of SAR Elektronic GmbH (Germany).

 

The quality of visitors and the stalls are a key concern for several participants. Says Felix Donoso of Barcelonabased Management Systems Solutions, "If this is Asia's largest IT show, why are big boys, IBM, Microsoft or Sun Microsystems missing? I think the realty, hiring, utility and travel desk kind of outlets outnumber tech stalls here. Also, the quality and flow of business and general visitors are very poor.''

 

At times, it appears as if finding takers for stalls seems to be the single biggest concern of organisers. "Government focuses only on selling and filling up the space. No one is worried of quality or value for money, time and effort. The show is a mela of students and janta,'' commented an IT professional.

 

Participating in an event of this magnitude requires months of planning, including travel and accommodation. "In this form and shape, the show is not worth all the trouble,'' said a senior official of a Delhi-based IT services firm.

 

Some note that the IT & BT secretary was changed twice during the year, disrupting the planning process for the event. Others point out that potential overseas participants plan their schedules often a year in advance. "But IT.in dates are finalised too late in the year for foreigners to accommodate it in their schedules," says a foreign country representative.

 

Organisers are well aware of the changing sentiments. "The show has been successful with special zones for intellectual property and semiconductors. But it needs improvement. We need to take certain precautions to make it a continued success,'' admitted B V Naidu, director, STPI.

 

Says state IT & BT secretary M N Vidyashankar: "I feel the whole initiative so far has been too governmentdriven. From the next edition, we would like it to be a market-driven affair. We are going to initiate a series of meetings with the industry to understand their needs and expectations from the event. The event also needs proper branding and marketing.''

 

Having seen the birth of this event, bureaucrat-turned-entrepreneur Vivek Kulkarni felt that the government could plan better. "More accountability can be brought in. It has to be a pure B2B event. Along with software and BPOs, hardware too should benefit from it,'' he said.

 

Infosys says it is proud to participate in the event. However, it is concerned about the way things have changed in the last two years. "Two years back, there were even boycotts by companies who then came back and participated. There is a feeling that the relationship between the government and the industry is not satisfying,'' said Kris Gopalakrishnan, COO & president, Infosys. So, if IT.in is not to become IT.out, the government needs to do some serious thinking.

 

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JQkcvMjAwNi8xMS8wMSNBcjAyMzAw&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom

Morgan Stanley's Recipe for Disaster

It had been a long day for Jeffrey Davidson. It was already past 5 p.m. on March 22, 2005, and the Kirkland & Ellis partner had spent hours questioning potential jurors. His client, Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc., was about to go on trial in state court in West Palm Beach, Fla., charged with defrauding billionaire Ronald Perelman. Perelman wanted $2.7 billion for being stuck with a bunch of worthless securities in Sunbeam Corp., the residue of a deal that Morgan Stanley had concocted. As the long day in court drew to a close, Davidson was surprised when his co-counsel from a local Florida firm stepped forward and handed the lawyers and the judge a three-page document. Davidson had not seen it before. It had been prepared in such haste that it was missing its attachments.

Davidson was stunned by what he read. Asserting that the trial judge had "lost all confidence in any statement" made by Kirkland, Morgan Stanley was firing the firm as lead counsel. Davidson kept reading, and it got worse. His client was also putting Kirkland on notice of a potential malpractice claim.

A man in the back of the courtroom stood to address Circuit Court Judge Elizabeth Maass. "Your Honor, I'm Don Kempf. I'm the general counsel of Morgan Stanley. Your Honor, I made this decision today. I didn't even talk to Mr. Davidson about it." Donald Kempf Jr. explained that he had no idea that the problems with Kirkland in the courtroom were so bad until he saw them with his own eyes. "There is nothing like real-time listening to the court and following the transcript, which I've been doing the last two days, to drive home reality in this situation," he explained.

http://www.law.com/jsp/ihc/PubArticleIHC.jsp?id=1149239119470