How? Therein lies a story that has interesting elements. The place: Bhupindra Kothi, Patiala, one of the minor palaces in the city. Time: 6 pm. Dramatic personae: A man with a large turban and a youngster wearing an under-turban or a patka. Scene: The man fuming and fretting, and uttering the aforesaid words repeatedly.

I was wary, since I thought that the words were directed at me. It was to my immense relief that I realised that some unnamed others were the target. The gentleman had come home to meet my parents, and while they were out for a walk, I was trying to entertain him. His angry demeanour notwithstanding, there was something that attracted the 10-year-old me to him.

“How dare they say that the Sikh icon was cyclothymic,” he thundered. I ventured to ask him what cyclothymic meant. “Don’t you know? Get the dictionary!” I scurried away to the nearest bookrack. I thought the world was too big for the small ELBS dictionaries we used for school and thus picked up the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, which despite its name, was quite hefty. I went to the right page to find out that the word meant “a mental state characterised by marked swings of mood between depression and elation.” In the meantime, the gentleman spoke about words, linguistics, philosophy and history, and I just sat listening, mesmerised.

By the time my parents came, he had inculcated in me a deep desire to know more about things in general and the beginning of a habit to consult the dictionary when in doubt. Nowadays, instead of thumbing through the pages, I tend to use my fingers to type out my query, just as, instead of writing in longhand, I input my articles straight on a computer. I thus tend to see the online editions of various dictionaries, although I must confess that I am not one of the many subscribers who pay around Rs 14,000 to access the digital version of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the largest and most comprehensive of the dictionaries published by Oxford. It gets 20 lakh hits a month. The many free online dictionaries widely available on the Net serve my needs.

OED takes many years to compile. The latest print edition came out in 1989 and is in 20 volumes. It will take many years for OED’ s new edition, which is still being compiled, to be published, but even then, the news that when it is finally completed, it may only be online, disturbed me.

I still use a fountain pen to write, and consult print dictionaries, especially when offline. On the Net, you type the word and get its meaning. However, when you open a printed dictionary, you look for the page, and then the word nestled among others…there is something to be said for meandering that happens, which often takes you a pleasant detour.

With this memorable encounter, and many that followed, Sirdar Kapur Singh, ICS, ignited my mind. He put on the path of lexographic discoveries and set me off on a journey that I still enjoy, although a bit more while thumbing through the pages of the dictionary than by accessing it online.

The article by Roopinder Singh was published as a Middle in the Editorial page of The Tribune on September 3, 2010.

A file photo of when Sirdar Kapur Singh visited our home in Amritsar. I am in the extreme right hand corner, and he is standing next to me, second last from the corner:

From Giani Gurdit Singh

The numbers are just too big to ignore and the company is in the process of launching its office in Hyderabad. This will be the social networking giant’s 10th international office, which will provide support for sales and multi-lingual operations.

Not so social after all

As the Facebook blog said: “The new offices come at a significant time in our international growth. Seventy per cent of the people using Facebook are outside the US and are accessing the service from more than 70 languages. In India alone, we’ve seen rapid growth and now have more than 8 million (eighty lakh) people there actively connecting on Facebook with their friends, family, and other people they know, both within India and around the globe.”

You could say that Facebook has truly arrived in India when a friend narrated a story of how his sister had sent him and her other brothers Rakhi greetings, not by calling, or otherwise, but on Facebook!

I am on both Facebook and Orkut. When I first became active, there was the flush of connecting with friends who had moved away and discovering much about their lives. Eventually came the realisation that many had moved on. Of course, the shared memories were wonderful to cling on to and revive contact, but soon I realised that I was spending too much time on these sites and I cut it down. Ironically, since I was an early user, this came at a time when the site was gaining popularity among people I knew, and they used to get upset that I had not responded to their friend requests or commented on their status. It took time, but now my friends have got used to my sporadic presence on these sites.

While researching on chatting at the start of this century, I logged on to a chat site and within days I found that I was just glued on to my commuter and ignoring other things, trying to dismiss people fast when they called on me and behaving in various other obnoxious ways. I soon realised that this was because I had started missing the high of being connected, and was well on a fast road to chat addiction. Within a week, the article finished, I logged out, and stayed logged out.

The downside of the “anywhere, anytime” mantra adopted by the communications industry has resulted in a deluge of data that affects how people think and behave, both individually and collectively. Today’s smart phones are virtually computers, with good processing power, high-speed Internet connections and cameras. Earlier this month, Yujuan Bao, a Facebook engineer, wrote in his blog that 30 per cent of the more than 500 million Facebook users are using a mobile device to access the site.

I recently met a young mother who said that she would “die” without her Facebook. At a dinner where we were together, she checked out her phone and updated her status on Facebook frequently, much to the annoyance of her mother, and irritation of the other guests.

All this tires the brain of the person who is deluged with data. A recent article by Matt Richtel in The New York Times quoted a study at the University of Michigan, USA, which “found that people learned significantly better after a walk in nature than after a walk in a dense urban environment, suggesting that processing a barrage of information leaves people fatigued.” Even though people feel entertained, even relaxed, when they multitask while exercising, or pass a moment at the bus stop by catching a quick video clip, they might be taxing their brains, according to scientists. “People think they’re refreshing themselves, but they’re fatiguing themselves,” said Marc Berman, a University of Michigan neuroscientist.

There is an incessant urge to “stay in touch” and it takes its toll. A friend recently narrated a conversation with his daughter. While travelling back from a party, she wanted to check her mail and used her father’s phone. “Look, how easy technology has made our life,” she said. “See, how it has shaved off our 10 minutes of the time we would have been conversing as a family,” replied the father.

How often do you walk into a coffee shop or a restaurant and see someone alone, just sitting and waiting? He or she would be fidgeting with a mobile phone, checking on e-mail or updating a status. Even during theatre performances, you will see the bright blue batons of those who find it impossible to enjoy something they have paid for, and fail to see the anti-social nature of action.

When you try to do too many things at the same time, you lose focus. Now, this should be a no-brainer. Try to tell that to someone who is texting while watching TV, or answering an e-mail while talking to another person, and someone who is juggling many, many tabs on his browser, trying to soak in information from everywhere. We have the multi-tasking myth. We believe that we can multitask, and that women are better at it than men. But are we doing some tasks well, or just doing more things badly? I, for one, feel that it is the latter. So, I love Facebook, but slot out my time on it, and when I am on Facebook, I concentrate on what I am doing. I feel that this makes my activity more meaningful. Would you agree?

This article by Roopinder Singh was published in the Lifestyle section of The Tribune on September 1, 2010.

By Daman Singh
HarperCollins.
Pages 237. Rs 200.

Reviewed by Roopinder Singh

ASHWIN is smart, young, opinionated, and confused-a bundle of contradictions, that is, a teenager of today. He lives in a small town, and is the son of a ‘big’ man, the district collector. As for his mother, we are soon informed that he is expecting. Soon after she realises that she is pregnant, she goes about “as thought she has been dropped from the Indian cricket team,” says the first-person account of the youngster.

The Sacred Grove by Daman Singh

Welcome to the world of a 13-year-old, as envisioned by Daman Singh. The author, a student of mathematics, now writes works of fiction.. Ashwin’s world revolves around his parents, servants and friends, in that order. Like many children, he doesn’t see his Papa much during the day. “He was asleep when I left for school. I was asleep when he came home from office.”

He aims to master ‘Counter-Strike’, a video game in which players join either the terrorist or counter-terrorist team. “Of course, we (his best friend Ravi and him) decided to be terrorists.” Both teams try to complete their respective missions while getting rid of the other team. The game has been gifted to Ravi by his parents for Children’s Day.

“Naturally, my parents gave me nothing,” says Ashwin who cracks the game in three hours and becomes a hero in the eyes of his classmates, his victory telegraphed over the grapevine with such efficiency that he starts receiving congratulatory calls by the time he reaches home.

While he can crack ‘Counter-Strike’, he needs help in cricket, which the staff at home is ready to provide, by bowling to him all the time so that he can bat. His driver, Rafiq, puts him in place and among the fielders for the first time. Rafiq also helps him with the game. They become friendly, and this results in his playing a major role in Ashwin’s growth.

Ashwin’s cocooned existence unravels as he grows up and spends more time with his friends, his visiting aunt and even his driver. Obviously, while solving mathematical equations and building statistical models, the author retains a keen sense of awareness about her surroundings, and thus there is an authentic feel about the book and its description of a small town. The main characters are wholesome and we tend to identify with them quite easily. Rafiq, Ravi, Ganesh, Soma, Gloria, Sadhna Ma’am, Ram Singh, Mishra the SP, we have met them all in our lives.

The author introduces us to the mysterious Sacred Grove, which Ashwin sees for the first time in the company of his friends. It becomes a school project for them and soon thereafter a flashpoint of violence for the local administration, which means his father, and the new SP.

How the idyllic setting of the town in which Ashwin is the crown prince is disturbed can well be a metaphor for the nation as the venue of an innocent excursion into the wild becomes a communally charged hotspot, which is exploited cynically by the politically ambitious. Along the way, some lives are lost, much property is burnt and looted, and the lives of many are scarred. Rafiq’s brother, the physically-challenged Rehan, who had also become Ashwin’s friend, is also killed in the subsequent violence.

When Ashwin seeks to understand the riot that has taken place, his father tells him: “Some people believe that other people are different. They consider themselves better than the others. They think that they deserve more than others. And they need to prove this to everyone, especially to themselves. A small problem between the two sides becomes a big problem. And then things like this happen.”

In the book, we see Ashwin as a rebellious and caring son, a loyal friend with streaks of pettiness, an indifferent student with flashes of brilliance, a nerd with love for cricket-in short as the kind of a youngster who we are all familiar with.

Ashwin’s tantrums and how his parents deal with them, the secret hideout, jealous friends, boring elders, the coming-of-age story of the book has it all. What raises it above its genre is the substratum of social tension that runs through it. Through the protagonist, the author says a lot as she explores relationships, inter-religious interaction, and the working of the bureaucracy.

The 13-year-old can see a lot of that is going on around him, and through his eyes, we see a lot. Spending a few hours with Ashwin is a good idea. You may even want to visit his world again. I do.

The review was published in the Spectrum section of The Tribune on August 22, 2010.

Please click here to read a review of Daman Singh’s earlier book Nine by Nine.

Since the morning we have been receiving calls and people as Mrs Inderjit Kaur, my mother, celebrates her 88^th birthday today. Many of our friends spoke about the article, written by Niranjan Singh Sathi, that was published in the Punjabi Daily Ajit, today. I will be putting the article “Jagdi Jot Bibi Inderjit Kaur Sandhu” online shortly.

Doordarshan Jalandhar is also running the Punjabi documentary they had made on her in the “Dhian Punjab Dian” series. Please click here to see the film, which was been broadcast many times over the DD Jalandhar and DD Regional channels since it was originally telecast in July 13, 2009. TV critic Randeep Wadhera wrote about the programme and its subject  in the Saturday Extra section of The Tribune on August1, 2010.   Please click here to read his comments.

As many of my friends know, my parents have figured prominently in my consciousness for long. I am attaching some links to previously written articles where they figure prominently:

Darpan comes alive

Mother’s day out

My companion, the compendium

Documentary on Inderjit Kaur

Excellence among Sikhs

Punjabi Univeristy, Patiala

Article in Ajit

Forward with care

How the time has changed. Today, at the top of the list of things that I just don’t want others to share with me are e-mail forwards. It’s not that I have something against them as such. We all get forwards and often we send forwards to others, but I am acutely conscious of the how much of a waste of resources they can be.

Some forwards are cute, but many make assertions, which are at unverifiable and often malicious. Heard about the latest offer from Microsoft that sounds too good to be true? It is. I also take exception to mails that say: “Please FORWARD to everyone you know”. Sometimes, bad grammar and spelling is enough to alert me to Google it and find out more about the mail.

Got a mail that says, “This is not a hoax?” I would not bet my money on it. When I get a forward, I am curious to know if it is true. I want to test the claims being made by an anonymous stranger who sent the mail to my friend and me. Often when a mail makes a claim that I suspect, I go to one of websites that track down such things.

Snopes is a common default. Searching the content of the mail on “Snopes” often exposes a fake email as an urban legend. Another site, “Truth or Fiction” also exposes latest hoaxes, as does “Hoax Slayer”.

Why do I go through this exercise? Because sometime I like a mail, I want to forward it to my friends, but I want to ensure that what I am sending is true. They will believe that because I sent it, the information must be correct, and thus my credibility is at stake here.

Now that I have found that the mail is OK, and I want to forward it, I still have some precautions to take. I click the “Forward” link in my web mail so that I have full editorial control over the mail and clean it before I sent it out.

What does that mean? Well, it means that I first change the subject and remove FW:….. automatically comes when you forward any e-mail. Sometimes, you see FW: FW: FW: which shows how many times the mail has been forwarded. On such a mail, the information is also repeated. I delete all that is not required so that my friends do not have to waste their time.

I also remove all the email addresses of other people who received the mail before me. I do not want their addresses circulating on the Net. I then send the mail to myself and use the BCC: (blind carbon copy) field for listing the e-mail addresses. This way those who receive the mail don’t see other addresses, and I preserve the privacy of my friends.

What is it that I never forward or reply to? Chain letters, including those which portend to be about a cause, the email petitions. Why? An email petition talks about an issue and asks for your support by forwarding it to your friends. You do so, and thus add to a chain letter that contains hundreds, at times thousands of addresses, which can be harvested by spammers and others with malicious intent. Email petitions do not work and they just are a great scam.

My friends Gupi and Mandy send me forwards. They are often interesting and I like going thought them.

Recently, Gupi asked me: “How did you like my forward?” I happily admitted that I enjoyed it. “I knew you would,” he retorted, “I only send you selected ones, which I know will be of interest to you.”

Now, that’s the kind of sharing I love, in which the person has taken care of your interest and protected your privacy. That’s what we should all be like.

This article by Roopinder Singh was published in the Lifestyle section of The Tribune on April 17, 2010

Is nothing private online any longer? I am sure there is, but two major blows were struck to the perception of online privacy recently, and we should all take note of these events because they have, rather should have, a lot of impact on our lives.

Wikileaks came online in 2006. An Australian, Julian Assange, runs this international organisation that publishes leaks of documents that are not available otherwise. This Sweden-based body preserves the anonymity of its sources. This year, it has been in the news twice. In April, it posted a video titled “Collateral Murder” which showed an American helicopter shooting down what turned out to be Afghan civilians. Last week, it released the “Afghan War Diary”, in which more than 90,000 documents were opened to the general public about the war in Afghanistan.

The American government is incensed at the leak, the FBI is looking into it, and the US Secretary of State has condemned Wikileaks for ‘endangering the lives of soldiers’, but Wikileaks promises to post more documents in the near future.

Another event that shook the online world was the release of personal data of more than 100 million Facebook users. This accounts for 20 per cent of the members of the world’s most popular social networking site. Facebook announced on July 21 that it had 500 million users, up from 150 million at the start of 2009, and the question is not if it will have a billion users one day, it is when this will happen.

A company called Skull Security released the file that has publicly accessible information of the users, including their names and profile addresses, to point out vulnerabilities in privacy controls of the site. No doubt the private information of these individuals was not compromised, however, Facebook is being disingenuous when it says: “Similar to the white pages of the phone book, this is the information available to enable people to find each other, which is the reason people join Facebook.”

According to experts, the data “takes one massive step out of the equation for advertisers-finding and aggregating the data of millions of users who are searching for information on younger people,” who, incidentally, are a vast majority of Facebook users. And Facebook founder and boss Mark Zuckerberg has defended the sharing of data with advertisers on the grounds that it keeps the site free for users. It is safe to assume that few, if any, of the users of Facebook would have thought that even the public data that they posted could be valuable to advertisers, and could thus be trolled.

Soon after the announcement, I asked my son if he had changed his password. “We all knew about it in school and my friends and I changed the passwords. I have also deleted all the mail in my inbox,” he said.

At one point, I had seen his profile and those of some of his friends, and found that most of them had fairly strict privacy settings, something that is rare on Facebook. Many people tend to go for the default settings on Facebook, and don’t bother to change them to more private ones. Also, there is a widespread perception among youngsters that they are anonymous, since no one would be interested in them anyway.

They are wrong. What they do, how they go about it, what interests them, all is valuable information for marketers and others whose livelihood depends on identifying new trends and feeding them.

Many people are unaware of the amount of information that Facebook shares with others. When they enrol for various forums or games, or gifts, etc, they should be careful about letting the applications that they use access their data. Also Facebook, when it updated its privacy settings, did so without due caution, as a result of which some users’ settings reverted to the default ‘public’ options.

Just how powerful is Facebook? Here is what The Economist said recently: “A couple of months or so after becoming Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron wanted a few tips from somebody who could tell him how it felt to be responsible for, and accountable to, millions of people: people who expected things from him, even though in most cases he would never shake their hands.

“He turned not to a fellow head of government but to…Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and boss of Facebook, the phenomenally successful social network…. In a well-publicised online video chat this month, the two men swapped ideas about ways for networks to help governments. Was this just a political leader seeking a spot of help from the private sector-or was it more like diplomacy, a comparison of notes between the masters of two great nations?”

As of now, this comparison is a cyber illusion, but it is illustrative of how the overlap between cyberspace and real human interaction is growing. Thus, to get back to my favourite theme, cyber space is an extension of the real world, and actions in cyber space have real consequences.

Cyber users must be careful about what they put online. Please remember that anything you post can be public. Therefore, you must be careful about what you let out in the public. What goes online has a life and a momentum of its own. It can turn up at the most awkward of times, say when you are about to get job, or your potential (cyber-savvy) father-in-law is checking you out.

In the real world, what you do is often forgotten after a while, especially if it is something stupid and momentary. Online, everything that you do is there for people to see, and most often, it is your friends. Sometimes friends too turn into enemies, and you really don’t want to empower them, do you? If you think that something you are doing online is embarrassing, then don’t do it. For God’s sake, don’t post anything unless you really want it to be public. Online privacy is not quite dead, but actually, it is not quite there too, as the recent Facebook episode shows.

The article was published in the Lifestyle section of The Tribune on August 3, 2010

IN an exclusive off-the-record briefing in which he demanded anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, a senior official of the Punjab government stridently sought to put to rest all speculation regarding the visit of the state’s legislators to the country known for all things scotch. “It is not only desirable but also necessary that state legislators continually educate themselves,” he said.

He strongly refuted the allegation that the honourable legislators had gone on a pleasure trip. “This is a serious attempt to examine and understand the process with which scotch whiskey is manufactured”, he said, adding that the team would visit various facilities with a view to drawing lessons which would be of immense help to such endeavours in the state.”

When asked if it was desirable that the public exchequer’s money be used for such trips, the official came back with the following argument: “Look at all the liquor shops in Punjab. Even in Chandigarh you have many shops in a single location, like the Sector 9 market. We need quality products for such up-scale showrooms.”

In response to a pointed question about the honourable members’ dietary excursions, he said that scotch egg was a staple with many members in the morning and scotch pancake’s at tea time. Some members had even tried the scotch pie. He pleaded ignorance about whether the members imbibed the more potent drinks that Scotland is also associated with worldwide.

His PA, who had been hovering unobtrusively in the background, taking notes and doing the things PAs do, however, pointed out that it would be rude to refuse traditional scottish hospitality and the members would be expected to do all they can to further the strong fraternal bonds between the scotch and Indians.

The issue of whether the ground water around Punjabi distilleries was polluted (as claimed initially) or not (as the state pollution control board later said), was dismissed off-hand. “How does it matter? We must be prepared for all challenges, extant or anticipated. Pollution is a global phenomenon and we must go globe-trotting to study it,” the official, who is a figment of this writer’s imagination, said.

Talking of global ramifications, a request has just been received for a high-powered committee to study the designs of the scottish kilt. “There is a remarkable similarity between the tartan design and the Madras check. “It is also not a coincidence that the kilt and the lungi are used to cover the lower part of the male torso. “We must examine if there is any patent violation involved in this, and while doing so we can also explore the possibility of manufacturing scottish kilts in Ludhiana,” said the official.

“Brilliant Sir”, said the PA, “other honourable members who have been complaining of being left out. We can take care of them now”. Scotland, here they come.

This middle was published on the Editorial page of The Tribune on July 21, 2010

Here are links to middles that I wrote, one in 1992 and another in 1994, which you may also find interesting. Please click on the headings given below to read them.

Civil action in uniform

What will we do without TADA?

Bits about Bytes

When we learn, we generally use a step-by-step progression and this process of thought is known as linear thinking. We progress in a single direction through regular steps or stages, sequential. In our pursuit of knowledge, there are times we want to take detours, learn more about things that we come across and take the road less travelled…we want to indulge in non-linear learning.

Hyper card, an Apple software programme that allowed you to connect cards linking various pieces of information was the rage near the end of the 1980s. It was such an exiting time, since the programme allowed information to be presented in a way that was not linear, and thus added depth.

The Internet is the best example of the use of hyperlinking, since it allows a reference to a document that the reader can directly follow. The hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text with hyperlinks.

As we progress in the world of knowledge, we learn that it can’t be compartmentalised into neat little subjects, but is actually interconnected in ways that often astound us. Recently, Chandigarhians were treated to a unique event, (courtesy the Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi and Arun Nehru, the son of the late Mr B K Nehru), Professor Bulent Atalay’s lecture on ‘Leonardo’s Universe’.

Professor Atalay is the author of Math and the Mona Lisa and Leonardo’s Universe. He is, the Washington Post says, ‘a true Renaissance man - an artist, archaeologist and scientist’. His education includes BS, MS, MA, PhD and postdoctoral studies, completed at Georgetown, Princeton, University of California-Berkeley, and Oxford University.

He is a professor of Physics at the Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia, deeply interested in art. The focus of his particular attention is Leonardo da Vinci, whom he calls a transformational genius. Like many ancient men of knowledge, Leonardo (April 15, 1452 - May 2, 1519) was a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. He was an Italian polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer.

Leonardo’s unbound curiosity matched his powers of invention. Although only a few of his paintings survive, he is considered to be one of the greatest painters the world has seen and is regarded as the most talented person ever. His notes have design of a helicopter, submarine, and a telescope - hundreds of years before anyone else conceived them.

Prof Atalay’s lecture was a fine example of a non-linear experience in which anecdotes, algorithms and art were played out in various measures. He had the standing-room only audience at the Government Art Museum eating out of his hands, even when they didn’t fully understand him… like when he spoke about Fibonacci numbers, where every number in the sequence (after the second) is the sum of the previous two numbers: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, …. Eventually, the Fibonacci numbers lead to the Golden Ratio: ? = 1.618 033, which has been used by architects and artists to produce objects of great beauty.

For many in the audience, the Fibonacci numbers needed some explaining. An art student sitting next to me Googled it on her mobile phone, and soon we had the answer, we, because she let me have a look at it too. It was great, because the experience became richer.

Time flew by and the lecture lasted longer than we expected. Prof BN Goswamy gave an Indian perspective in his lucid comments and I came back with a copy of Professor Atalay’s book. As he autographed it, I told him: “Your lecture will stay in our minds for a long time, and this book will refresh it.”

The book, brilliantly produced by National Geographic, became my companion that night and the next day, but after I read it, I wanted more, and guess what, I Googled and another world of information opened in front of it.

Since this was browsing in the real sense of the term, I went of excursions, hopped from one site to another, from one facet to another fact about the genius that was Leonardo Da Vinci. As often happens, Wikipedia became an important starting point, of a journey that lead through the Web Museum, Paris, Professor Atalay’s website, which is a fine multi-media experience with sound  and a blog in the National Geographic website . For those who missed his lecture, please catch them at YouTube.

I am determined to go on more such journeys. The clicks of the computer’s mouse, and a hyperlinked world of the Internet often come together to give me a sense of exploring the thrilling universe of knowledge, which is both empowering and invigorating. All thanks to hyperlinking.

This article was printed in Lifestyle section of The Tribune on July 21, 2010.

By Rod McQueen. Hachette. Pages 320. Rs 495.

Reviewed by Roopinder Singh

BlackBerry: The Inside Story of Research in Motion

THE meaning of a word should be understood by the way in which it is used within its social context, said the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. When we speak of BlackBerry these days, we have not ‘Arundhatised’ the world with an unconventional capitalisation, but changed its meaning from that of a berry to an object that is the centre of a cult, in fact, the one that has become one of the defining symbols of business in action.

Research In Motion, the company that makes BlackBerry devices, calling them phones is too prosaic, is the best known and arguably the richest Canadian company, a trans-continental empire. It models, like Pearl, are considered to be the top mobile e-mail devices.

Talk about celebrity endorsement, President Barack Obama used his BlackBerry device for communication during his 2008 presidential campaign and became the first President of the United States to use mobile e-mail despite security issues. Marketing evaluators place this endorsement’s value between $25-50 million.

What is it that makes BlackBerry special? Rod McQueen had unfettered access to the people and facilities of BlackBerry and he spent four years meeting people. He gives us many answers in the book that proceeds in a fairly linear fashion as it describes how Mike Lazaridis family had to move out of Istanbul. The Greek family migrated to Canada. The author traces the school and college teachers, and fellow students of the founder and co-chief executive, of the company, and gives us their reminiscences as well as glimpses of the genius in the making. The University of Waterloo, Canada, became the incubator for many of his ideas and innovations. It was also an early proving ground and confidence builder for Lazaridis.

Right from the beginning, you get a feel of how the participants have collaborated with the author to narrate various episodes in their lives that have made the book readable. Research in Motion was incorporated on March 7, 1984. Over the next eight years, Lazarides hand-picked software specialists and the company worked on contracts for others, picking valuable experience and expertise.

Behind any successful entrepreneur is his finance person. Jim Balsillie, a graduate of Harvard Business School, did the financial engineering required to take the company forward after he joined in 1992 as vice-president of finance and business development.

BlackBerry’s ubiquitousness and reliability get another dimension as you explore the effort of the people who are truly gifted, daring and ambitious-the founder and his team. How did the BlackBerry name come about? A brand consultant came up with the idea, and the second B was capitalisation for symmetry! Not the most convincing of reasons, but it clicked. And so did the device.

Leapfrog, a wireless e-mail device was launched in 1998. It was launched as BlackBerry and since it was optimised for e-mail, it became a gadget that every corporate executive wanted desperately. That set the trend, and what fed it were good word-of-mouth endorsements from users, advertising, good service and innovative ideas.

The focus on the consumer is evident as we read about how the BlackBerry range has sold 7.5 crore devices used in more than 170 countries. However, along the way, there were problems, financial vicissitudes, a patent battle which is given in detail and accounting issues with the Canadian securities regulators. Both times the firm paid major sums of money to settle the issues.

Unprecedented access has given the author a remarkable insight into the people that have shaped the life at RIM and this is a fascinating read. A person with a right idea who knows that he alone can’t deliver it is very rare and Lazarides is a truly remarkable man who has turned his vision into a remarkable reality. How he and his co-CEO, Jim Balsillie, work together is truly a partnership to be cherished, as is the company’s democratic culture where much effort is made to listen to employees’ voices. Giving back to society is important and led by the twin CEOs, many company employees have funded meaningful projects around the city of Waterloo which continues to be the headquarters and the main recruiting ground for RIM.

As BlackBerry faces challenges from such powerful rivals as iPhone, and other smart phones powered with Google Android or Windows mobile operating systems, the company will need to continue to sharpen its innovative edge and deliver the best to users who increasingly expect multimedia experience from their BlackBerry devices.

Technological battle lines are drawn afresh ever so often and the army of techies at Waterloo prepares to win the battle, no matter who leads the charge of the Charge of the Light Brigade. But then, they have the advantage of having not one but two generals.

This review was printed in The Tribune on Sunday, July 18,2010