From nobody to somebody

The first step in trying to make a mark for yourself is to realize that one actually is a nobody :) Everything else post that is easy. We all want a lot of things but what is it that we want the most. There is not always a trade-off but one can start with making the most of what one has. Single minded focus and you are done... Well that is what I hope for. Forget everything else.... FORGET... Does this sound weird... It may but I guess the best route taken... easiest of all.

life at a Research Institution / think-tank

Goes without saying that wherever you are, how much you gain from your presence over there depends entirely on you, also, unless you have had exposure to more than one kind of work-environment, difficult to judge or give a comparative analysis but my two cents on this would be that research institutions are great places to be at and your work is just one aspect of it. The fact that you get to hear from some of the best researchers makes it all the more fascinating. At least that is what I believe :)

Million Dollar Ideas

I can never understand why research, innovation and being a millionaire are seen as ideas completely alien to each other. I still don't understand why profitability, profits earned ethically or even the thought of it is seen as being money-minded. Money and Profits have still not ceased to be bad words in common parlance.

I love the fact that American researchers, those involved in Behavioural Economics, those who have even won Nobel for Economics have come up with business models that form the basis for business ventures that have gained phenomenal success. Why is research in US considered way beyond what everyone else is doing? My belief is that it does not remain confined to the esoteric. It becomes a part of everyday life. It is like a real-time experiment that doesn't look down upon profitability but demonstrates how the two ideas can be reconciled. Research ideas do take years to come to fruition but I do not believe one needs to give up research just because one thinks it does not pay enough. Never think of your ideas as useless. Never think of your talent as useless. Just keep doing your work.

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow is amusing and intriguing at the same time. Amusing, because human behaviour can be moulded through slightest of changes in one's surroundings, as per the incidents narrated in the book and intriguing because you will find it hard to believe that the aspects of one's behaviour that one takes for granted could have some explanation based on scientific reasoning. It is not something random but something that can be observed repeatedly for a varied set of people. A lot of disciplines have data oriented research but this book is simply extraordinary in terms of the author's approach to explaining different behavioural aspects of one's personality. It may get you hooked to Behavioural Economics and you would want to explore more. Truly Exceptional :)
No wonder he got a Nobel Prize!

The Wide Realm of Economics

Economics by itself is a diverse field encompassing aspects of disciplines that we perceive to be strictly delineated from the others. Those aspects may seem interdisciplinary yet they build on the most basic of the principles of economics. It does not just relate to financial aspects of the globalized world, the kind of things that we read about on a daily basis in newspapers. Why the oil prices are rising or falling? Why India is doing better than China in terms of GDP growth rate? These are questions that have been known to be associated with Macroeconomics and a closer look delves on the Microeconomics involved in it too if we move on to the consumer level and firm level aspects of the economy's functioning but the students of economics or anyone who has even a passing interest in economics needs to know, It isn't only Finance. It is not just about how the global economy functions as a whole. That covers a broad picture, an aggregate, a sum of the parts but studying what makes the total can be extremely intriguing; the smallest of aspects of the biggest of phenomena you know! There is some rationality even there, if not rationality then a behaviour that may be predicted and quantified in terms of its consequences. Research work in recent years, work that has gained recognition, that has been used as the basis for a successful business model points to the areas one can study and make a difference in. The possibilities are endless. One just needs to go beyond one's general understanding and thinking. What one is thinking at the beginning of one's career in research is just the basic amalgamation of what one has learnt over the years. This is where you start to go beyond that. Using the knowledge you have to decipher a different aspect of the phenomena that you have known to be explained in a particular manner. There is a lot that can be done. You just need to think beyond what you know and learn beyond what interests you. As you learn more, you may just find something more interesting than what you always believed to be your core area of interest.