Showing posts with label social interaction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social interaction. Show all posts

Apr 3, 2016

Its good to be skeptical.

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

************************************************
Why individual and society has to be receptive and resilient. 

So how these individual idiosyncrasies which is sometimes projected as values and sometimes quoted as part of tradition, takes shape and gets reinforced forming an inseparable character of individual? 

Its a complete self gratification cycle backed by pseudo-scientific assertion as a social proof, which permits an individual to act in same way time and again and ultimately end up being an integral part of its persona, which neither they themselves question ever in their life, nor they allow others to do so, and when bitter life sometimes put them in a situation when their such idiosyncrasies are questioned they end up being emotionally sore and fragile and sometimes intellectually paralysed. 

In the process of evolution of mankind they seem to forget what differentiate them from animals, they forgot to pose questions to themselves and to situations before acting or concluding. They forgot that being skeptical and questioning was the only thing which differentiated them from primates and wild beasts. 

An individual and a society which shows the mindset to listen to new ideas and opinions and mobilises the courage to question their own opinions and idiosyncrasies grows by leaps and bound those who cant gets hurt and get perished. So how these individual idiosyncrasies which is sometimes projected as values and sometimes quoted as part of tradition, takes shape and gets reinforced forming an inseparable character of individual?

Feb 21, 2015

Scaling of opportunities, a bigger challenge than scaling up urban infrastructure!


Tackling immediate soft urban challenges through resource prioritization!

Infrastructure expansion is where the money and interest is and is a never ending process as well, so it will keep scaling up in background anyway and will be taken care of diligently, with or without much intervention. Public sector has more of a catalytic and mentoring role to play in that direction. Skill is what we need to focus on today.

Like they say “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him how to catch a fish and he will eat for his lifetime”.  Scaled opportunity is what an urban dweller needs irrespective of which Socio-economic strata they belong. More opportunity to masses means more involvement in the urban dynamics, and hence being more engaged in the process of building the very city which provided the new scale and dimensions of opportunities. Scaling of opportunity are less resource intensive and has higher ROR than scaling or urban infrastructure and might be more sustainable an approach!

Further scientific modelling and analysis will be required to validate and assert the idea.  

Join Anoop on Linkedin  
or follow on Twitter @urbanoregional

Feb 7, 2015

Urban development is contagious, keep an eye and let it spread!

One gear triggers other and whole machine gets activated.

Process of urban development is spontaneous, sometimes sluggish sometimes fast but always forward looking, if left on its own it will automatically morph and mutate and expand, to cater, to accommodate, by utilizing whatever little or more they have, by seeking and digging what and when they require. And we are not talking about another Squatter!

Left on its own city might sustain and prosper or it might entangle and be a mess, but it will grow for sure, that’s how we have made our journey from jungle to habitat spanning centuries. We need planning upfront today different from mud house age since our needs have changed and so the externalities, otherwise natural mutation of habitat or city should technically be sustainable a phenomenon.

Development has inertia of growth inbuilt we just don’t know in which direction, though we really don’t have to push is so hard we have to just push it to keep it rolling and have to give it a logical direction.

Upfront capital being a key constraint in urban development sector, an example of mutating self-sustaining habitat can be an additive model of shelter where you give only that much of infrastructure which is basic but with provision of ample spatial flexibility and assistance at disposal, and letting them build further on their own, based on their capacities, choices and needs. Creating some rules to play with and giving them an assistive hand when and where they require.

A favorable environment, assistive and vigil governance and a scientific approach are what we need to see this natural development phenomenon unfold and sustain.


Apr 1, 2013

Next time you are bullied tell them you are on an exponential learning curve!



Is it "the right time" for education system to introspect on its evaluation and certification process?

You see, you have been bullied every now or than for apparently no good reasons especially in your early growth phase as you can recall from your childhood memories and being bullied even today while you undertake every new challenge. Take a pause and rewind, being bullied for not performing as well as the next bright child in your class or neighborhood, not been able to memories the obvious answers to the obvious questions asked in the endless class tests, being bullied for not performing financially as well compared to people with similar background in life.

Let’s see what's the DNA of this bullying business and has it any significance in the light of the fact that learning and absorption capacity of a person is mostly independent of their childhood performance due to several unknown and very unpredictable environmental influences and opportunities available in one's life as they grow compared to limited and intentionally restricted options available/ provided to them in early childhood. Has it any significance at all in today’s rapidly changing world with emerging technologies, accessible and free resources of knowledge and why this business of bullying should fade away real fast, at least why its high time for the same to happen. Let’s see why the boundaries of education system should and will disappear very soon.

If you will closely observe the peripheral resources of learning available today while tracing the chronological changes in streams of information dissemination and future possibilities of technological infusion in informal learning process which all cumulatively presenting a new and broadened learning process, this informal learning process is getting so inclusive, so fast every passing day that it will make your head spin. These informal learning tools are mostly ignored in education process at present. 


Let’s look at the parallel growth in education system, which apparently seems way behind the real life real time pace of development when it comes to learning process - internet, smart phone, social networking just couple of examples though, you know! Unfortunately none of these wonderful tools of information exchange and knowledge transfer which have become core of everyone's everyday life are in the priority list of education system at all, and neither going to be an area of interest or exploration very soon for them, rather they will make sure that this plethora of life changing tools shouldn't get into the education system in the name of discipline, in the light of childhood vulnerability! Of course you need some kind of regulatory mechanism.

If we go with the current ideology of educational evaluation system then people in their life should be arranged in the exact same order of professional success as they were arranged in their school or graduation class, as evaluated based on their marks gained, based on their knowledge of the curriculum, but take a look around and you will realize it’s not true, it can’t be and it will never be true. The current evaluation system doesn't acknowledge the real potential of individual; they just care about the part of potential confined to their established boundary of curriculum, including peripheral limited activities like cultural and sports participation, ignoring the future environmental influences especially technological ones.

Present educational evaluation system seems somewhat flawed and bit dangerous as well; this whole process of establishing and certifying who has what capacity at the very early stage of individual's growth period while the growth of a person is directly proportional to what kind of opportunities he or she received in post schooling or later part of educational or personal life. Imagine a hypothetical situation in which an institution firmly establishes this fact that some particulate child has capacity of a D+ grade performance in primary or high school level, imagine if he or she could not get through selection process of a good school at secondary or higher secondary level and hence could not further got enrolled in a good university because of that D+ grade. Now imagine, what if that same child becomes extremely knowledgeable and efficient few years down the line after completing primary or high school education possibly due to new environmental influences, due to the latest learning tools and vast knowledge resources available today, what if he or she is the first one to grasped and master the latest tools of learning and research, what if that D+ grade student is technically the soundest candidate for higher secondary or university entrance but couldn't secure admission just because some institution had long back established and authoritatively certified the poor grade of student based on some skewed benchmark. A dream might get devastated due to early certification of knowledge on a discreet fragmented evolution system often within a limited bandwidth of educational framework. Couple of questions for you to answer - Can you justify assessment establishing poor performance of a geek child in cultural and sports activities or visa-versa? Can you justify assessment based on questions asked in class tests, answers of which you can find out in less than 20 seconds in Google? Can you justify bullying of that poor student who does not know the one word answer of that textbook question, when he or she can find out a precise and elaborate answer of that question within seconds while learning much more in the process only if you could have allowed him or her to use their smart phone? What’s the validity of asking such questions today and what is the validity of educational assessment based on such questions today at all? Don’t you think it’s the right time for the education system to introspect?

Mutation of educationsystem due to technological infusion is an emerging area of exploration which educational strategists should focus on. Learning is a constant process, and with the exponentially growing free and accessible resources of knowledge, learning process is bound to be an exponential phenomenon. So, if you are a parent or a teacher or educationalist think twice before bullying your child or student or to those supposedly less knowledgeable than you today, because they are going to come back tomorrow loaded with knowledge and laced with such innovative tools of precise knowledge acquisition which we can’t even imagine today. Today's comparison of two kids has no realistic relation or reflection at all with the actual success in their life in future when they will be at the highly accentuated curve of learning, the only deciding factor would be who shows how much interest in the emerging technologies and sources of learning, who familiarize himself or herself how much and who absorbs how fast and all of this is totally independent from the performance and potential assessment of today.

It’s not just the fault of education system which apparently fails to timely acknowledge the impact and possibility of technological development which has and will always outpace the development of educational system. Education system has its own constraints which we should also acknowledge, which is that they need to thoroughly investigate, assess and validate everything before letting it into the curriculum of education system, they can’t really merge the trending knowledge into the mainstream education without thorough understanding of the trend and its possible impact on the students, young or mature, and by the time they understand the trend and tame it down to the extent to be eligible for the mainstream educational inclusion, that trend becomes outdated, hence this constantly lagging process of chasing new knowledge and hence this outdated dissipation of knowledge through structured education system. And since the benchmark of assessment is outdated, there is grossly wrong process of assessment of students as well. For another example, no matter what and how extensively that particular student knows about some area of his or her interest, it is not going to help him get the good grade unless that knowledge is about one of the couple of subjects specified in the curriculum. That student is supposed to stick to the curriculum diet imposed on them by the institution; apparently every other knowledge is irrelevant in the eyes of education system at least that’s what they think is important to secure a good job at the end of the day. A fundamentally wrong notion of educational performance at least a highly irrelevant model of evaluation of talent in today's world when you are not just solely dependent on schools and universities for your learning, while you are learning wherever you are, whenever you want, in that very moment, learning on your mere wish. In spite of all this free and immense knowledge the existence of educators can’t be negated, what is needed is to have a holistic approach towards talent evaluation and fast inclusion of technological shifts.

This is "Learning on the go" generation and we can’t confine it in the predefined boundary of education, we can’t impose on others what they should learn, rather they should decide what they want to learn and it’s our responsibility to provide them the customized curriculum of their individual interest, education system will increasingly have to be much more flexible, it’s inevitable and its need of the hour. What needs to be done here is that to create a macro framework for the education system, flexible, fast and inclusive enough to quickly notice, sanitize and accommodate the changes occurring in technological field and otherwise, into the mainstream education system. A framework which makes the educational system sensible and smart enough to allow unlocking the true potential of unique individuals rather than mass production.


Oct 25, 2012

A to Z Satellitexted : Urban Planning Text

Satellite view or architecture and planning resembling English alphabet 

Its took one bright idea, couple of days, several dozen cities, hundreds of Google Earth rotation and thousands of zoom-in-out to compile this piece of work for you. Enjoy Satellitexted* urbanism!    

*Satellitexted : Building plan in satellite view resembling Alphabet!






























Oct 12, 2012

Early collaboration - The only sustainable way to a successful project!



Skewed focus on man hours shows lack of vision and macro level perspective.

We are trying to deal here two separate but overlapping subjects.
Apparently it will take another century for people to realize and acknowledge that amount of man hour invested for certain outcome has very less or at times has nothing to do with the outcome, except in a production environment. They have glamorized work rather than results because that’s what they have done throughout preliminary to mid evolutionary stage of their existence, it’s only recently that they have realized that they should pause and rethink, re-strategies their way of working, possibly that’s why there are so many managerial positions and functional hierarchy exists in any work environment, that’s why machines and automation today. In the bygone era when people used to rely on theirs hunting instinct and brute strength to gather food day and night just for their survival, at that point of time outcome was directly proportional to amount of man hour invested, but if we are carrying that same attitude in our present life even after countless centuries later whether its work or daily chores or educational environment, then there must be something wrong in our approach or mindset. Though all these novel mindbits are not going to change anyone since people have and will find out traditional or innovative ways to invest their precious time and resources in some not so productive or rather wasteful laborious works in the name of engagement, work ethics, traditional methodology and so on. Man hours are still essential today but is not and should not be monumental, rather than putting mindless hours of shear hard work on a certain issue or project one should engage there mind towards strategic intervention, re-intervention and resource-optimization regarding that particular issue or project for lesser hour of work per outcome which in turn will lessen the stress level, provide work satisfaction and give more hour of leisure time. 
   
Let’s take an example of project lifecycle. You start with an assumption or a vision, say we have to build a new state-of-art sustainable or something city. It is primarily driven by demand and project economics, you estimate and gather resources accordingly, you set a timeline, you of course have a template of timeline which you as a consultant or a developer apply everywhere because you see it’s a proven methodology or timeline. Construction and project management process has a time span with only marginal flexibility since it’s a production environment and it has its own time and technological limitations, so keeping that aside let’s see where is the scope of improvement in terms of saving work hours in a project lifecycle from the very beginning right from the moment when that bright idea first strikes somebody’s brain.  Project and business development you know also has its own pace of progress depending on which particular part or location of the world your client and project is located, but for the time being our focus would be planning and design process and understanding how much man hour and resources we usually apply for certain outcome and how to optimize that, whether there is even scope for optimization or not, though one feels there is, indeed. You quickly prepare a vision plan statement right or wrong but appealing, you allocate responsibilities; you start on a blank sheet with a mug of coffee to catch ideas out of thin air or relying on one’s experience and knowledge or understanding of the contemporary regional market or in some cases straight sanitized ideas from Google, bravo! After a quick brainstorming session one person or maybe two lays the broad outline of plan or design based on certain assumptions while rest of the workforce starts filling the intermediate details and ruthlessly keep on detailing only until they realize that something went grossly wrong in the broad outline or the assumptions, or may be client changed their mind or may be a new board of director or project leader with his or her own particular vision or idiosyncrasy has appeared either your side or on client’s side who wants everything to be re-done from scratch to align things to his or her vision, or may be market situation has changed or may be a new technology has surfaced and so on.   

What was wrong here? Putting ruthless countless hours of detailing is okay but only if the project framework is robust and logical enough to sustain any or most of the future dynamics, an outline and assumptions accommodative and smart enough to absorb and negotiate inevitable future changes as it proceeds ahead. What was wrong here is that when most of the collaborative effort was needed then only one or two people were deciding the fate of project due to their commanding position. In this exemplary case of new city vision plan, when it was the time where urban and regional planner, transport planner, economist, real estate expert, social scientist, environment planners, landscape experts, urban designers, architects, and public and community representatives had to be present at one platform at the beginning of the project to brainstorm and formulate an inclusive, sustainable and future proof plan with democratic consensus, at that vital point of time only one or two people where making the decisions according to their own particular idiosyncrasies, which was inevitably unsustainable. Hence, the several repetitive cycles of wasteful man-hours till the completion of project.  You should know when is the right time to collaborate; you can keep on detailing endlessly afterwards, if you want! Thousands of sincere man hours put in wrong direction is a serious toll on increasingly scarce resources which we can’t really afford if we want a sustainable future or even otherwise and all this thoughtless waste just because we didn’t collaborate when it was needed most.  

You see there are frequent cases when some projects of regional or national importance get stuck for infinite time even when they were just about to complete, only because community representatives were not part of the planning process irrespective of whether there is such provision or not, either they didn’t have proper say or they lacked motivation and incentive to join or collaborate early, such a waste of resource as a result!     
  

Apr 30, 2012

Do we need structural reform in education system?

One education does not suit all.

We have created a template of education system based on our own idea of what an ideal educational curriculum and growth path should be and we want everyone belonging to different economic strata of society to follow the same path. Whether they are kids of millionaires or underprivileged children they are supposed to go through the same education structure. This phenomenon of standardization is more visible at elementary and secondary education level. Sheer number of children to be educated makes an excuse for standardization of education.

What makes us think that educational needs of poor underprivileged segment is same as prosperous segment of society, while their priorities and their skill needs are way different from each other. Their average educational lifespan might significantly differ; they might need a different curriculum, different educational structure and different style of teaching. Are we trying to pave a path for children of a incredibly poor migrated family living in squatter of city up to the graduation and post graduation and doctorate level, can he or she afford to invest so much of their life time earning education while their parents are struggling for their livelihood throughout their life and searching for a descent place which they can call home? Isn’t it that the educational needs of these special kids are way different from the middle and higher income segment of society? Don’t they need a kind of education which will allow and help them earn some money to fulfill their personal needs and help sustain and support their family while they are getting educated? This is something which standard education system fails to provide. School’s prime focus has remained on providing knowledge while what these marginalized kids need is skills which they can immediately put into practice and help uplift their socio-economic profile, they can’t wait to get a job or start their own business till they graduate from an engineering college. They have to act now to get out of that mess; they can peruse their education at any point later in life in their area of interest to further enhance their skills.

Talking of middle class segment, look at the majority of first-generation entrepreneurs who choose to become an entrepreneur due to increasingly tempting business opportunities of modern world and technological advancements in-spite of any family history of business or entrepreneurship, but majority of them are apparently lost or clueless about how to move forward. What an irony, throughout the education ladder these kids were prepared for corporate job and they choose to become entrepreneur and found themselves struggling and lost in the big business world, dominated by family business houses, whether a business house of a small shopkeeper or  empire of well known business family. Take a case of any city in India, majority of middle segment business owners have only basic elementary education from generations to generations, and they are surprisingly doing well, they didn’t feel the need of further formal education so they voluntarily dropped out from the school, their parents taught them the skills they needed to run the business, they inherited the knowledge which was needed to run the show. They would have never learned these skills in the schools with present education structure, because present education system doesn’t treat them as a special niche group at elementary and secondary education level who need customized education. Hence the first generation entrepreneurs feel lost while business houses run their business smoothly.

Imagine the growth potential of individual and communities with the targeted education, imaging the growth potential of a kid who gets targeted training in his family business (whether its pottery, metal works, furnishing or anything else, at elementary to secondary education level which he is witnessing through generations, and compare it with the collective loss of potential due to flat “good for all” education structure. Loss seems to be monumental. It’s time that the fundamental structure of education need to be revived and should become increasingly skill oriented starting right from the elementary level. 

Mar 27, 2012

Walking down the memory lane of city

Walking down the memory lane, may be way different an experience now than actually walking down the old neighborhood lane you used to live decades back, while you were studying in that town, while you were on a social visit to your aunts place or on a vacation to that place, or the narrow street you use to travel to and fro from the school in childhood days.



City changes its form, experience; attitude like a person changes his appearance, philosophy and approach In course of time. Impression and impact of time can be seen on the city as we see in the human life. City reinvents itself and reflects contemporary life. Comparing present and past impression and memories of city is an emotional affair. Hence extra care needs to be taken in revitalizing and redeveloping cities because millions of memories and hopes are attached to these. 

Jan 4, 2012

Tracking morphological changes and development dynamics of a City

By - Anoop Jha

Reinventing landscape in the heart of Delhi – A case of Central Park, Connaught Place

Lively and green Central Park of Connaught Place is situated right in the of heart of Delhi, enveloped by colonial architecture and streets radiating from its centre. Above, it’s a ground for recreation, occasional festivals and celebration and below its transit hub with massive underground network of metro rail system.

”
Visible changes in Central Park character
This park has gone through several physical changes, adopted new landscape strategies to adjust to the social and infrastructural needs of time, as apparent from the changing views of satellite images captured at different time of last decade. Some of these landscape changes can be due to emergence of underground metro system and in view of recent Common Wealth Game as part of city revitalization projects. Though changes in any city are not mush apparent as experienced in day to day life, but these changes can be easily noticeable if observed for a long span of time.

Study of changing morphology and understanding the built dynamics of any city or part of it can be a very interesting subject as well as very valuable input for planners to project and decide the course of future development of that city. It can also enrich the knowledge of planners and will helps understand the nature, behavior and temperament of city. Fortunately there are many tools and much data is available for the study in this direction and will be available more abundantly in the future. May be its time to review and revise the planning course structures as well in the light of emerging technologies and data inflow which was not the case few years back. 

                                                       
                       

Dec 9, 2011

Participatory Planning: Interoperability of stakeholders for sustainable planning

By - Anoop Jha

Interoperability to fast forward urban and regional planning process

In a democratic setting, urban and regional planning projects are implemented through participatory process and evolves  many stakeholders including planners, individuals, agencies, NGOs, authorities, states and political fraternity and to hence presents a complex challenge to bring all these stakeholders at the same platform and consensus, in the set period of time. Success of project depends on the “Interoperability” of these stakeholders, lesser the friction faster would be the job done.    

Interoperability is a functional aspect of planning during project lifecycle and its operation and maintenance period. It can be defined as an index of interaction of different agencies working together for implementing and operating a planning project. There can be different issues in interoperability like, interstate resource dispute, disagreement on resource allocation, conflict of interest, environmental concerns over negative externalities of project. There is a growing need for strategic intervention at different levels of planning process for a consensus on interoperability for sustainable planning. It’s a tool for cohesive planning process and the need of time.    

Dec 7, 2011

Social media and its ignored role in planning process

By- Anoop Jha

Utilising Background noise of social media for better planning

There is always a resistance and hesitance to change, resistance to adapt to new technology, new methods, new thoughts. Same is the case of age old planning procedure. Take for example surveys and participatory planning. Surveys both primary and secondary play a very important role in any Urban and regional planning endeavor and project of any scale and nature, implemented through any agency whether private or Govt. or PPP. Also due to rigidity and shortsightedness of planning process we forgot to include the recently emerged but powerful segment of social structure called Social Media whose feedback and opinion matters a lot. Tech savvy active segment of population who emerged in recent past feel responsible as a citizen to express their feeling towards variety of issues including any particular development and planning issues and projects, some of these collective thoughts out of the massive online “junk opinions” can prove to be a very valuable asset if filtered, tracked, interpreted and incorporated in the project being discussed or for any planning issue in general.  

Social Media feedbacks for planning process and projects are either underestimated due to pre-determined age old procedural guidelines for planning process including, surveys, community participation and feedback, or are untapped due to shear abundance of it. Current situation is that a substantial number of people give their opinion and feedback and willing to share more on some ongoing project as well as project under pipeline, but planners and responsible authorities do not feel responsible even to listen to these valuable inputs coming from background noise of the social media. All these efforts of individuals and groups go into the vain in most of the cases.    

Enabling and channelizing the online focused planning communities like dedicated discussion forums, blogs, social networking sites and online professional communities in the positive direction to get a feedback on a particular project can radically alter the way projects being planned and implemented.