Hundreds on indices and ranks exist in present complex world. However since writing an article on ‘The disruptive force called China’ last night; where I first time used Googling (names of major nations/regions as keyword and comparing search results to gauge relative influence on the world) Google News as a technique to justify the rising influence of China; I wondered on the feasibility of applying a similar technique on a dynamic basis to gauge the influence of major nations on the world for a period.
What do we call this index? Let’s say we call it ‘Influential Country Index (Relative)’ or ICIR. Or even Relative Influence of Global Nations (RIGN). Or (Relative) Index of Global Influence of Nations (RIGIN), or RIIN – meaning ‘Relative Index of Influencing Nations’.
From same relative index; we can also arrive at ranks of most influential nations in the world.
The name is important, but more important is the concept (broader methodology). How does it work on a dynamic basis?:
1. Identify most important online market place of News (one may also include blogs subsequently).
2. Search for keywords (like The U.S.; U.K.; EU, China, Russia, Japan, Brazil, India, South Africa, Australia, etc.). It need not be limited by country’s existing geo-political influence as Nepal or Haiti can also be included.
3. One needs to keep in mind following to get less error:
a. The exercise needs to be done regularly over the period as search results vary within hours (yesterday night U.S. was in around 650,000 article; this morning it’s in 536, 874 articles. Example of this can be at two times (GMT 12 noon and 12 mid-night) everyday for ‘annual relative index of global influence of nations’ (ARIGIN);
b. Identify the most influential nation globally
c. Find the ratio for subsequent nations. E.g. (China’s search result as a key word/ search results from U.S. as a key word) identifies China’s relative influence relative to the leading nation (The US).
d. Add all these values for one year and take average (mean).
e. Interesting insights are likely to come up.
How to minimize obvious errors:
1. Keep in mind the language one chooses to find RIGIN (one is expected to find relatively more ’China’ in searching China as a keyword in a Chinese News search engine vis-à-vis that of the US.)
2. For non-leading nations; any non-regular event (more on the disaster side)may cause significant error (like the earthquake in Haiti would see Haiti getting featured in global news over few weeks).
3. Including Blogs (using same search engine in selecting same time frame; in a marketplace of news/blogs; articles may remain for 30 days whereas another may keep it for 45 days) may further refine the output.
4. Carrying the result out simultaneously in multiple leading global languages and then taking the average may lead better results.
5. Removing the chaff from the grain; i.e. how many of these news articles deal totally with local or national news and therefore should not be included in search results is a difficult task (even doing country-wide news search). So is how does one remove multiple entry of same news/blog on many sites? However there can be programs that can address these issues; to an extent.
So; is the world ready to measure the RIGIN (Relative Index of Global Influence of Nations) or whatever one calls it? And are we expected to see big time release in its annual rank publishing? Can we expect subsequent analysis on how China may be closing the gap with the US over the years or vice-versa; and interpreting the ranks through multiple lenses in many subsequent articles?
I am sure something similar will happen sometime in near future…sooner.
One may think it will be kore appropriate for softpower; however deeper analysis may show that along with softpower (we don't know how the content views the nation); it will also measure overall influencing ability on a relative scale for nation-states of the world.
(c)Copyright: Ranjit Goswami
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Friday, November 27, 2009
Wikipedia and its stages of growth
A recent report on Wikipedia losing volunteers has generated much debate, starting from many even speculating on the sustainability of Wikipedia in the near term itself. In Twitter, Tim O’Reilly, originator of the term Web 2.0 (and the necessary debate – relevant or irrelevant, whether Web 2.0 is something different at all), asked a question: ‘Does anyone else wonder whether Wikipedia ought to reverse their more stringent rules for editors?’
Sometime back Encarta of Microsoft closed down as Encarta was the victim of a vastly popular non-profit Wikipedia. True, Google Knol made its debut in 2007, however its popularity is yet to be anywhere near Wikipedia.
As an academician, as a passive volunteer to the Wikipedia volunteer community, and as a researcher on Internet; I find that the recent trend to be something in quite expected lines, when viewed from well-established theories of adoption of new technologies/systems – be it by a business organization or any society at large. And therefore I find nothing severely alarming about it.
Having stated above, it no way implies that Wikipedia will be as it’s been over the last few years – synonymous with finding facts and truths fast about almost anything without the clutter, and thereby getting the crux of something without the short-sightedness of media, jargons of academics or hyped marketing of corporations. However, as others change, as newer sites emerge competing with segments of Wikipedia, or as Internet itself matures; Wikipedia will find newer challenges. And the decision on its editing policies, along with newer technological adoptions Wikipedia needs to make for integrating in a network era would determine its success and relevance in the WWW in the future.
Gibson and Nolan, in their 1974 work on Stages of Growth (‘Managing the four stages of EDP growth’ HBR 1974) highlighted how IT usage typically moves in four stages. Stage 1, as termed as ‘adoption’ is where early successes lead to increased interest and experimentation to same and other user groups. Stage 2 is the rapid progress of the typical ‘S’ curve, termed as ‘contagion’ when proliferation of the technology takes place. This stage also yields valuable feedbacks and learning on what worked and what didn’t work (and analysis of that to provide much needed insights). This is a stage which somehow may be similar to the ideas of Mao Tse-Tung when he stated ‘Let a thousand flowers bloom’. So people from different background and capabilities and sincerity and understanding played with Wikipedia as volunteers, and indeed a thousand flowers bloomed, creating islands of standards in terms of quality, credibility and standards.
Naturally the next stage needed ‘control’ to bring some much needed standardization – be it in format of content of articles in Wikipedia, referencing style, etc. I believe though the media sort of suddenly witnessed this reduction in volunteer-base in Wikipedia, the trend has been there for some time. So the control has been in place for some time now. The low hanging fruits have all been entered, now comes more complex, profound and current developments; and one needs different talent in managing future entries. True, editing existing millions of entries is another gigantic task as otherwise they all may become irrelevant soon (more so about facts and numbers).
IT is one such area where a lot of literature is available highlighting why projects fail. There exist sort of brief universal checklists (Andrew McAfee: ‘When too much IT knowledge is a dangerous thing’. MIT SMR, 2003). But the funny thing is, in-spite of such universal checklists, projects still fail. Wikipedia achieved tremendous success so far; however it does not deter Wikipedia to fail going forward. We have seen hundreds of similar stories in past where great successes at some point of time vanished in thin air at incredibly fast rate with upcoming challenges, be it external or internal ones.
I believe Wikipedia is now in the stage where it should move forward from control and enter the integration stage. These two final stages – which naturally overlap – play a crucial role in determining the future of Wikipedia. The current control stage (3rd in stages of growth model) as suggested by Gibson and Nolan (and where problems may lie for Wikipedia, as most analysts agreed about control being the cause of the reducing volunteer base) and the next stage, the integration stage (most important as I see), would determine how relevant Wikipedia remain years down the line. I would put utmost focus on the integration stage, as I feel happy that the control stage has so far moved quite well.
We have been living in a ‘Network era’, where the biggest network of network is the Internet (and WWW) itself. Within Internet (and WWW), there operates thousands of other networks – be it CIA Factbook, Economist Factsheets, UN/World Bank publications, reputed media (NYT, WSJ, etc.), credible academic publications, etc. Managing all the 14 million entries in 266 languages without a high-degree of automation, in terms of real time integration with other credible networks with full time manpower of less than 35, is indeed a complex task (or even with that shoestring budget!). Probably Wikipedia already has some of these integrating networking technologies already!
True Wikipedia has already made possible a task which so long looked impossible. As the challenges grow, the primary focus would shift from build (number of articles) to maintain and build (articles again).
I myself have tried editing Wikipedia since 2005-6 onwards and even tried submitting new entries lately (or correcting others). True, the stringent norms of control did beat my enthusiasm at times and I retreated. As a faculty of management school, vary lately I asked my students to enter/edit Wikipedia to (1) learn the process (and comment on it), and (2) contribute to the pool of knowledge as we seek from it at the same time. Lately I often realized that many of us (from countries like India) are not contributing to this great mission, and waiting for others (citizens from developed countries) to contribute/edit in platforms like wikipedia (or even to free web).
Wikipedia, with its own pluses and minuses, has helped me getting truth in many occasions (whenever I needed it!) when nationalism and other forms of biases suppress facts and thereby truth. It’s for the overall interest of the society that Wikipedia remains where it is with its present mission and strengthens further, maintaining due quality and credibility (at least as much as it owns now). In terms of analyzing content in other regional languages, more so for backward regions of the world, Wikipedia has always maintained a better ratio of non-English language content than overall web. If used properly, this can act as a developmental tool in educating/informing the underprivileged sections of people from linguistically diverse nations from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The bigger challenge, however for Wikipedia now is, to explore how it integrates with other networks (of online content). It has managed the control phase well so far; problem is Wikipedia has outgrown itself, and without systematic integration; the control phase may frustrate the increasingly smaller number of volunteers.
I am also encouraged to interpret this news of dwindling volunteer base of Wikipedia as an early sign that Internet finally is entering the maturity phase (Remember Bill Keller when he stated in 2007: The internet is a fox medium, that’s fox with a lower case ‘f’. It is perilous to get locked too firmly into one big idea’). And if that’s true, it will lead to lot more interesting developments (content for free or for a price).
In the end, one more appeal to certain quarters to donate generously for Wikipedia. In India, we often come across debates on quality of students (and faculty) that hamper the growth of various local industries. Employers of those students therefore have to spend extra effort in making them ‘employable’. Companies, more so IT companies have adopted various worthwhile strategies to overcome this problem. Internet, Google and Wikipedia increasingly play a very important cost-effective role in educating students (or even employees) anywhere, however students’ dependence on these are more where good faculty is lacking. These companies can definitely help students better when platforms like Wikipedia (rest all has a commercial business model) sustain itself. Therefore firms across the world that employs knowledge workers should come forward and help the cause of Wikipedia. As many Indian companies are most vociferous about poor employable-student quality, they too shouldn’t miss this chance. It must also be followed by multilateral agencies starting with the World Bank, UN, etc. Most of us believe that spending money with Wikipedia and foundations like it help the causes of various UN agencies better, and that too more cost-effectively.
Copyright: Prof. Ranjit Goswami is with Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Kolkata; and is the author of the book Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d. He can be followed on Twitter.
Sometime back Encarta of Microsoft closed down as Encarta was the victim of a vastly popular non-profit Wikipedia. True, Google Knol made its debut in 2007, however its popularity is yet to be anywhere near Wikipedia.
As an academician, as a passive volunteer to the Wikipedia volunteer community, and as a researcher on Internet; I find that the recent trend to be something in quite expected lines, when viewed from well-established theories of adoption of new technologies/systems – be it by a business organization or any society at large. And therefore I find nothing severely alarming about it.
Having stated above, it no way implies that Wikipedia will be as it’s been over the last few years – synonymous with finding facts and truths fast about almost anything without the clutter, and thereby getting the crux of something without the short-sightedness of media, jargons of academics or hyped marketing of corporations. However, as others change, as newer sites emerge competing with segments of Wikipedia, or as Internet itself matures; Wikipedia will find newer challenges. And the decision on its editing policies, along with newer technological adoptions Wikipedia needs to make for integrating in a network era would determine its success and relevance in the WWW in the future.
Gibson and Nolan, in their 1974 work on Stages of Growth (‘Managing the four stages of EDP growth’ HBR 1974) highlighted how IT usage typically moves in four stages. Stage 1, as termed as ‘adoption’ is where early successes lead to increased interest and experimentation to same and other user groups. Stage 2 is the rapid progress of the typical ‘S’ curve, termed as ‘contagion’ when proliferation of the technology takes place. This stage also yields valuable feedbacks and learning on what worked and what didn’t work (and analysis of that to provide much needed insights). This is a stage which somehow may be similar to the ideas of Mao Tse-Tung when he stated ‘Let a thousand flowers bloom’. So people from different background and capabilities and sincerity and understanding played with Wikipedia as volunteers, and indeed a thousand flowers bloomed, creating islands of standards in terms of quality, credibility and standards.
Naturally the next stage needed ‘control’ to bring some much needed standardization – be it in format of content of articles in Wikipedia, referencing style, etc. I believe though the media sort of suddenly witnessed this reduction in volunteer-base in Wikipedia, the trend has been there for some time. So the control has been in place for some time now. The low hanging fruits have all been entered, now comes more complex, profound and current developments; and one needs different talent in managing future entries. True, editing existing millions of entries is another gigantic task as otherwise they all may become irrelevant soon (more so about facts and numbers).
IT is one such area where a lot of literature is available highlighting why projects fail. There exist sort of brief universal checklists (Andrew McAfee: ‘When too much IT knowledge is a dangerous thing’. MIT SMR, 2003). But the funny thing is, in-spite of such universal checklists, projects still fail. Wikipedia achieved tremendous success so far; however it does not deter Wikipedia to fail going forward. We have seen hundreds of similar stories in past where great successes at some point of time vanished in thin air at incredibly fast rate with upcoming challenges, be it external or internal ones.
I believe Wikipedia is now in the stage where it should move forward from control and enter the integration stage. These two final stages – which naturally overlap – play a crucial role in determining the future of Wikipedia. The current control stage (3rd in stages of growth model) as suggested by Gibson and Nolan (and where problems may lie for Wikipedia, as most analysts agreed about control being the cause of the reducing volunteer base) and the next stage, the integration stage (most important as I see), would determine how relevant Wikipedia remain years down the line. I would put utmost focus on the integration stage, as I feel happy that the control stage has so far moved quite well.
We have been living in a ‘Network era’, where the biggest network of network is the Internet (and WWW) itself. Within Internet (and WWW), there operates thousands of other networks – be it CIA Factbook, Economist Factsheets, UN/World Bank publications, reputed media (NYT, WSJ, etc.), credible academic publications, etc. Managing all the 14 million entries in 266 languages without a high-degree of automation, in terms of real time integration with other credible networks with full time manpower of less than 35, is indeed a complex task (or even with that shoestring budget!). Probably Wikipedia already has some of these integrating networking technologies already!
True Wikipedia has already made possible a task which so long looked impossible. As the challenges grow, the primary focus would shift from build (number of articles) to maintain and build (articles again).
I myself have tried editing Wikipedia since 2005-6 onwards and even tried submitting new entries lately (or correcting others). True, the stringent norms of control did beat my enthusiasm at times and I retreated. As a faculty of management school, vary lately I asked my students to enter/edit Wikipedia to (1) learn the process (and comment on it), and (2) contribute to the pool of knowledge as we seek from it at the same time. Lately I often realized that many of us (from countries like India) are not contributing to this great mission, and waiting for others (citizens from developed countries) to contribute/edit in platforms like wikipedia (or even to free web).
Wikipedia, with its own pluses and minuses, has helped me getting truth in many occasions (whenever I needed it!) when nationalism and other forms of biases suppress facts and thereby truth. It’s for the overall interest of the society that Wikipedia remains where it is with its present mission and strengthens further, maintaining due quality and credibility (at least as much as it owns now). In terms of analyzing content in other regional languages, more so for backward regions of the world, Wikipedia has always maintained a better ratio of non-English language content than overall web. If used properly, this can act as a developmental tool in educating/informing the underprivileged sections of people from linguistically diverse nations from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
The bigger challenge, however for Wikipedia now is, to explore how it integrates with other networks (of online content). It has managed the control phase well so far; problem is Wikipedia has outgrown itself, and without systematic integration; the control phase may frustrate the increasingly smaller number of volunteers.
I am also encouraged to interpret this news of dwindling volunteer base of Wikipedia as an early sign that Internet finally is entering the maturity phase (Remember Bill Keller when he stated in 2007: The internet is a fox medium, that’s fox with a lower case ‘f’. It is perilous to get locked too firmly into one big idea’). And if that’s true, it will lead to lot more interesting developments (content for free or for a price).
In the end, one more appeal to certain quarters to donate generously for Wikipedia. In India, we often come across debates on quality of students (and faculty) that hamper the growth of various local industries. Employers of those students therefore have to spend extra effort in making them ‘employable’. Companies, more so IT companies have adopted various worthwhile strategies to overcome this problem. Internet, Google and Wikipedia increasingly play a very important cost-effective role in educating students (or even employees) anywhere, however students’ dependence on these are more where good faculty is lacking. These companies can definitely help students better when platforms like Wikipedia (rest all has a commercial business model) sustain itself. Therefore firms across the world that employs knowledge workers should come forward and help the cause of Wikipedia. As many Indian companies are most vociferous about poor employable-student quality, they too shouldn’t miss this chance. It must also be followed by multilateral agencies starting with the World Bank, UN, etc. Most of us believe that spending money with Wikipedia and foundations like it help the causes of various UN agencies better, and that too more cost-effectively.
Copyright: Prof. Ranjit Goswami is with Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Kolkata; and is the author of the book Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d. He can be followed on Twitter.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
e-Governance in India: You are right Mr. Ramadorai, but…
India’s largest business daily carried an article of Mr. Ramadorai, the CEO and MD of India’s largest IT company. Mr. Ramadorai is absolutely right; although I have some reservations about the 1st paragraph where he stated that there is not much ‘need to re-invent government processes and systems’. When one goes through the article, one understands Mr. Ramadorai didn’t rule out ‘fundamental changes in the way the government’ work.
One may read another article, nothing to do with ‘e’, but to do with governance, here (Poor paid Rs. 9,000 mn in bribes for water, basic services). The sample size, as PTI reported, comprised 22,728 households in all states and Union Territories, quite significant, to draw any meaningful conclusions.
It points out the age-old truth, that the function is more important than the format. If governance is poor, e-governance would magnify the glaring gaps in governance. And when governance is good, e-governance would again magnify the quality of that good governance.
Lately (post my article e-Governance in India: a status report), I did have very limited interactions with few officials engaged in middle or senior levels of governance, and e-governance. The sample size is too small to draw any meaningful conclusion; however the findings are as diverse as Indian diversity. The trend within this diversity isn’t easy to identify.
1st, you seldom receive an e-mail response to an e-mail from most of these officials, that even includes the PMO. You may be lucky to receive a phone call from the secretary of those officials against those mails, but they have problems in responding against e-mails. Irrespective of the possibility whether the mails are checked by officials or secretaries, Indian government is famous for not responding in writing to its citizens!
2nd, you will find most of these e-governance seminars (or conferences), important to generate the much-needed awareness campaign within levels of government, to be sponsored by private firms, and held in five-star environment. Government spends hundreds of crores (10-million is one Indian crore) on e-governance; however they don’t have funds to take it to different levels of governance or to the people, in a systematic manner. And the interest of those funding the seminars, with key government figures gracing the event, can be gauged easily.
As Mr. Ramadorai’s article pointed out, the parties sponsoring these events would love to ‘sale’ some products – hardware or software, in this large e-governance project to fulfill the ‘procurement-based’ approach of the government. Products can be bought or sold, not solutions. Though Mr. Ramadorai hinted at the possibility of ‘procuring IT services’, he elaborated partnering, thereby suggesting PPP-mode of operation for technology-part of non-core government activities.
IT, as a general purpose technology (GPT) like electricity, is used by business, society, government and individuals alike. Adoption of IT helps in improving efficiency, productivity and thereby leads to even higher GDP growths. Although the plug-n-play in IT has not yet simplified to the levels of electricity, more so for complex integrated systems, many free online simple tools offer many of those stand-alone solutions that government may still be buying as ‘products’, and then not deriving the services from it. However moving against the tide demands one taking initiatives of different scale, as we see later.
3rd, as one enters rooms of key officials involved in e-governance, one notices certificates/awards by many of these common sponsors. Surprisingly, what strikes is the absence of ‘Google’ from the list of sponsors, or any certificates/awards given by Google. Google does not believe in marketing, neither has it carried any program to award certificate. Google is the bigger representation of what’s available for free in the Internet, useful and increasingly turning out to be as reliable as products available for sale. People use Google because they found it useful – no sales, marketing, and training. When one examines the visiting card of many of these government officials, one often comes across a 2nd e-mail id, like gmail or so.
Positive sign! I must say. However, remember the 1st point. They mostly don’t respond on e-mail. It probably helps in reducing the mail-bounces. Government sends a better image of itself when one does not receive a response to his/her e-mail than when the mail itself bounces.
To drive e-governance, Mr. Ramadorai identified commitment at political levels as a prerequisite. Absolutely right again. However Mr. Ramadorai would be surprised to know that out of six large nationally recognized political parties (as recognized by the Election Commission of India), one does not have a website (or as given in wikipedia does not open), one’s web-site is in construction without any contact e-mail id, and one has a website (with one IT cell!), however mail to the political party bounces.
And I am not trying to be critical here; I am rather trying to understand why these parties don’t think a basic minimum functional website helps them. It could well be that our perception is wrong, and they are right. IT in India is still considered a medium for the classes and not for the masses. When one looks at the high-pitch Internet based campaigning for the US-presidential elections, and this plight of e-awareness by leading Indian political parties, one immediately senses this tectonic difference. And quality of e-governance mirrors that same gap!
While discussing the topic with a bureaucrat, he pointed out that in areas of revenue for government, e-governance has worked well whereas social sector like health, education or law-and-order has not seen much progress.
It’s easy to be critical, and it’s difficult to get involved and bring change. The best example and initiative of e-governance that I have come-across yet is this CEO blog. True, it does not have interface with end-citizens and it’s more of an example on how to use IT for faster, better and effective communications within a large government set-up. No IT service partners were needed in CEO blog, no money was spent, no extra manpower probably, no hosting/maintaining/updating expenses. Many a government department can extend this model with direct interface for citizens.
Contrarily what we see, some expensive launch of procured-services where calls from citizens mostly remained unanswered. Internet is about interactivity – it’s not a static poster! There are exceptions also within e-governance projects; however we want the exceptions to be the norms! Complex IT projects, even in best working environments, historically meet significant failures, primarily in its constraints in overcoming change management hurdles.
Mr. Ramadorai is right in his diagnosis; question is - can he help to improve the system? What can firms like TCS, Infosys, Satyam, Wipro, CTS, IBM, etc. do to ensure that they act as a catalyst of change that Mr. Ramadorai suggested? Would they continue to work as a ‘supplier’ in a ‘doomed-to-fail-e-governance’ project to satisfy their shareholders, knowing well from the beginning that chances of success of that project would be drastically reduced unless the prerequisite conditions are met and worked upon?
Or they can collectively walk-out from poorly designed e-governance projects, forcing the government to bring the much needed changes. Indian blue-chip IT firms can compete for e-governance projects; however they can also co-operate to help the government improve its understanding on most e-governance projects. These firms are globally respected for their contributions in the global IT movement; however it’s a sad reflection that India could not utilize their expertise to bring in inclusive growth through better governance, aided by right technologies.
The academic community would be too eager to play its due role to foster this much-needed change.
Copyright: Ranjit Goswami, author of Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d
One may read another article, nothing to do with ‘e’, but to do with governance, here (Poor paid Rs. 9,000 mn in bribes for water, basic services). The sample size, as PTI reported, comprised 22,728 households in all states and Union Territories, quite significant, to draw any meaningful conclusions.
It points out the age-old truth, that the function is more important than the format. If governance is poor, e-governance would magnify the glaring gaps in governance. And when governance is good, e-governance would again magnify the quality of that good governance.
Lately (post my article e-Governance in India: a status report), I did have very limited interactions with few officials engaged in middle or senior levels of governance, and e-governance. The sample size is too small to draw any meaningful conclusion; however the findings are as diverse as Indian diversity. The trend within this diversity isn’t easy to identify.
1st, you seldom receive an e-mail response to an e-mail from most of these officials, that even includes the PMO. You may be lucky to receive a phone call from the secretary of those officials against those mails, but they have problems in responding against e-mails. Irrespective of the possibility whether the mails are checked by officials or secretaries, Indian government is famous for not responding in writing to its citizens!
2nd, you will find most of these e-governance seminars (or conferences), important to generate the much-needed awareness campaign within levels of government, to be sponsored by private firms, and held in five-star environment. Government spends hundreds of crores (10-million is one Indian crore) on e-governance; however they don’t have funds to take it to different levels of governance or to the people, in a systematic manner. And the interest of those funding the seminars, with key government figures gracing the event, can be gauged easily.
As Mr. Ramadorai’s article pointed out, the parties sponsoring these events would love to ‘sale’ some products – hardware or software, in this large e-governance project to fulfill the ‘procurement-based’ approach of the government. Products can be bought or sold, not solutions. Though Mr. Ramadorai hinted at the possibility of ‘procuring IT services’, he elaborated partnering, thereby suggesting PPP-mode of operation for technology-part of non-core government activities.
IT, as a general purpose technology (GPT) like electricity, is used by business, society, government and individuals alike. Adoption of IT helps in improving efficiency, productivity and thereby leads to even higher GDP growths. Although the plug-n-play in IT has not yet simplified to the levels of electricity, more so for complex integrated systems, many free online simple tools offer many of those stand-alone solutions that government may still be buying as ‘products’, and then not deriving the services from it. However moving against the tide demands one taking initiatives of different scale, as we see later.
3rd, as one enters rooms of key officials involved in e-governance, one notices certificates/awards by many of these common sponsors. Surprisingly, what strikes is the absence of ‘Google’ from the list of sponsors, or any certificates/awards given by Google. Google does not believe in marketing, neither has it carried any program to award certificate. Google is the bigger representation of what’s available for free in the Internet, useful and increasingly turning out to be as reliable as products available for sale. People use Google because they found it useful – no sales, marketing, and training. When one examines the visiting card of many of these government officials, one often comes across a 2nd e-mail id, like gmail or so.
Positive sign! I must say. However, remember the 1st point. They mostly don’t respond on e-mail. It probably helps in reducing the mail-bounces. Government sends a better image of itself when one does not receive a response to his/her e-mail than when the mail itself bounces.
To drive e-governance, Mr. Ramadorai identified commitment at political levels as a prerequisite. Absolutely right again. However Mr. Ramadorai would be surprised to know that out of six large nationally recognized political parties (as recognized by the Election Commission of India), one does not have a website (or as given in wikipedia does not open), one’s web-site is in construction without any contact e-mail id, and one has a website (with one IT cell!), however mail to the political party bounces.
And I am not trying to be critical here; I am rather trying to understand why these parties don’t think a basic minimum functional website helps them. It could well be that our perception is wrong, and they are right. IT in India is still considered a medium for the classes and not for the masses. When one looks at the high-pitch Internet based campaigning for the US-presidential elections, and this plight of e-awareness by leading Indian political parties, one immediately senses this tectonic difference. And quality of e-governance mirrors that same gap!
While discussing the topic with a bureaucrat, he pointed out that in areas of revenue for government, e-governance has worked well whereas social sector like health, education or law-and-order has not seen much progress.
It’s easy to be critical, and it’s difficult to get involved and bring change. The best example and initiative of e-governance that I have come-across yet is this CEO blog. True, it does not have interface with end-citizens and it’s more of an example on how to use IT for faster, better and effective communications within a large government set-up. No IT service partners were needed in CEO blog, no money was spent, no extra manpower probably, no hosting/maintaining/updating expenses. Many a government department can extend this model with direct interface for citizens.
Contrarily what we see, some expensive launch of procured-services where calls from citizens mostly remained unanswered. Internet is about interactivity – it’s not a static poster! There are exceptions also within e-governance projects; however we want the exceptions to be the norms! Complex IT projects, even in best working environments, historically meet significant failures, primarily in its constraints in overcoming change management hurdles.
Mr. Ramadorai is right in his diagnosis; question is - can he help to improve the system? What can firms like TCS, Infosys, Satyam, Wipro, CTS, IBM, etc. do to ensure that they act as a catalyst of change that Mr. Ramadorai suggested? Would they continue to work as a ‘supplier’ in a ‘doomed-to-fail-e-governance’ project to satisfy their shareholders, knowing well from the beginning that chances of success of that project would be drastically reduced unless the prerequisite conditions are met and worked upon?
Or they can collectively walk-out from poorly designed e-governance projects, forcing the government to bring the much needed changes. Indian blue-chip IT firms can compete for e-governance projects; however they can also co-operate to help the government improve its understanding on most e-governance projects. These firms are globally respected for their contributions in the global IT movement; however it’s a sad reflection that India could not utilize their expertise to bring in inclusive growth through better governance, aided by right technologies.
The academic community would be too eager to play its due role to foster this much-needed change.
Copyright: Ranjit Goswami, author of Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d
Sunday, July 8, 2007
How Internet can help in correct diagnosis of rare medical cases
The 1st hand experience of a non-medical researcher
My wife had been suffering from chronic abdominal pains since last three years. However as there’s a tendency by women to ignore these symptoms till they grow, she first consulted doctor in February 2006. Multiple ovarian chocolate cysts had been found and were finally removed by laparotomy in May 2007.
But a post-operative Ultra-Sonography (US) again indicated, and I quote ‘Residual ‘grapes-like’ cystic vacuoles at both sides of lower abdomen with omental adhesion & pockets of fluid filled spaces at both adnexa & towards Pouch of Doughlas’ prompted the doctor to prescribe few more tests because the case was already complex, and not clearly diagnosed even before operation as it clearly suggested a recurrence.
Now why this delay in operation, and what treatment did she had in between and the post-operative findings make an interesting case. More so the post-operative developments based on US findings.
However what prompted me to take to Internet in a more structured manner were the words that the doctor with decades of experience had stated on 2nd July: ‘the case is quite unique. In developed world, the case would have by now raised an uproar and interest from medical fraternity to pursue active research into it. I have discussed with many of my colleagues here, sort of have an informal medical board also; but all seemed to be at a loss.’ When my wife, Mithu also went for the post-operative USG, the doctor was a bit irritated as she didn’t carry all previous records (a big file by now), and the doctor showed his interest to get all previous slides to write a case on her records.
And I happen to be a researcher – true without any understanding of medical or relevant world. But I knew from past experience that doing meaningful research in unknown areas is also not difficult. And then I probably had some luck with different types of keyword search (cyst, pain, recurrence, grape-like), advanced search and exact word searches based on the symptoms as within hours I found a paper with exact findings like our case. And once I found one similar but rare case, I found better keyword leads to do exact word search, more and more cases came up. And in two to three days, I collected some ten full papers from Google Scholar ("cystic mesothelioma of the peritoneum" in Google scholar yielded some 140 exact word matches), another some 60 case abstracts where full paper was under paid content. I took printout of all those (some 250-pages), highlighted them with a marker, made a one-page summary sheet and again visited this caring, loving doctor on 7th July.
I was becoming more and more certain, from a layman’s perspective although, that the tumor is Benign Cystic Mesothelioma (a rare case, difficult to diagnose and with at most 130-140 reported cases in literature); however I was also confused because the fine line of difference of this from Lymphangioma or other similar alternatives is not that a non-medical person can apprehend.
I also had the apprehension that our doctor may misunderstand my research-based findings, because a little learning can be a dangerous thing. So I had to choose my words carefully for the first few seconds; and as I shouldn’t take lot of his time, I need to present the right papers first.
And seeing those papers, the doctor also was sort of certain that the case is Benign Cystic Mesothelioma, within first couple of minutes. He was at times speaking to himself – yes, this was there…and this too…everything matches. And then observing my presence stated ‘you won’t appreciate these things as a non-medico; but the analogies are too strong’. Though he still suggested that we consult another pathologist with case history with the papers I presented him (as he commented that otherwise it may again be difficult in-spite of the credibility of this pathologist), I see a strong light of hope.
The doctor also asked me how I accessed the library, and I informed briefly. However our doctor being old, I am not sure whether he himself accesses net or not. My guess would be on the negative side. The belief is also based on the fact that had our doctor himself accessed net, he may have found this rare case. Still that’s a possibility only.
Thanks to Internet…and thanks to doctors & publishers, who shared their full papers or even abstracts online free of cost. And less is said about some other publishers who didn’t even share the abstract – the better.
A brief case background here:
The first doctor whom my wife consulted decided it’s a common open-and-shut case, as cysts normally are. A laparoscopy or laparotomy needs to be done to remove the cysts. He also gave few intravenous injections suspecting some infection prior to that. US reports confirmed the cyst in multiple exams before and after the injections.
However my wife, having undergone a cesarean earlier when our son was born (6 years old now) was against laparotomy; and wanted oral therapy or at best laparoscopy. Not being sure whether the size of the cyst can be removed successfully by laparoscopy, she consulted another doctor, with whom we were even more acquainted with.
Both these doctors are the same whom we consulted when she was pregnant with our son, and that time also we moved from the 1st doctor to the 2nd doctor for no apparent reasons. Wife of one of my friend is a gynecologist, she recommended the 2nd doctor and so did couple of friends of my wife. 95% of the time, she received treatment with this 2nd doctor for now and even when our son was born; and we are glad to get his expertise in our case. This 2nd doctor retired few years back, and was the head of the department of one of the best medical colleges, and probably of the best medical college in Kolkata in his career earlier.
Based on her wishes, and earlier records, she did undergo few more round of oral/intravenous medications. As my wife strongly desired one more issue, and the 2nd doctor also suggested that conceiving may naturally cure these ailments (as no permanent cure exists for most cysts). The objective was to facilitate conceiving and/or reducing the size of the cysts (maximum was around 10cm in one side) so that a laparotomy can be avoided.
However as most of the oral therapy and injections failed, a laparoscopy was needed in the end of April to remove the confirmed ovarian cysts. Confusion was about the mass-work of lesions other than those. In between, some 9-odd US (few of TVS type. During one such tests, the doctor even sounded tired of repeating the tests without any firm conclusions; and told us that the night before he sat on the net for hours to get some clues; unfortunately he didn’t.) were done; and lately all these USs confirmed presence of a wide-spread of interlacing septations) mass-work around the peritoloneum without being specific what it was, other than mentioning different sizes of the ovarian cysts of which the doctor was anyway sure of. Couple of the reports hinted at pseudomyoxoma peritineii, but didn’t confirm anything.
The agony of waiting for critical medical reports
And I remember on those days, when I returned from office, I saw tears in the eyes of my wife; because she collected the reports at times, & did some search on the net (as she did for pseudomyoxoma peritineii). She knew that pseudomyoxoma peritineii could be a fatal disease. I would try to do some more reading, but the terms being all Latin and Greek didn’t make much sense to me. I am sure my wife also visited many online forums where both patients and experts have meaningful dialogs for better medical and psychological therapy. A lot of words from many suffering patients with symptoms also do help.
So a laparoscopy was performed in 30th April 2007. However in-between the laparoscopy, rather than removing the ovarian cysts, the doctor advised us that things are not looking good due to the wideapread mass-work of unidentified lesions, collected small samples of the ovarian cysts and the many-grape like structures of the lesion; and advised we do biopsy before the doctor can correctly diagnose the problem.
(Subsequently even one of the paper that I accessed online also suggested that’s the best course as laparoscopy may be controversial here).
The same tense moments awaited us, more so to my wife (as I was having some engagement in office to put my mind off the case for some time at least), when the time to collect the biopsy report came for which I went to the pathology center. I was still not familiar with the term ‘benign’ by then; and the delivery of the report was delayed by almost an hour. Our doctor also said to call him the same evening as he was also anxious. My wife repeatedly told me to phone her as soon as I receive the report, I told her I won’t but was feeling some philosophical thoughts myself while awaiting for the report at the center. The center had a good culture where the patients/their family members could get a layman’s understanding of the case from the overall in-charge of the center. So as soon as I got the report, rather than trying myself to make sense of the microscopical examinations and summary impression, I rushed to the doctor.
And the doctor said – there are cysts. But it’s not serious. It’s NOT cancer!
In that one hour of waiting period, I received couple of SMSs from Mithu, and also answered them (unlike many young age couples, who love to use their cells, both of us feel mobile to be a nuisance mostly and don’t unnecessary call others) stating our report has not yet come to the dispatch center. And with that assurance of the doctor, I immediately called her, and said what the doctor told me. Well, by then I had a glance at the content of the report. And that same night, we informed the doctor also on the biopsy report.
As the report showed ‘benign’ material, a laparotomy was carried out on 20th May. Both the chocolate cysts and the grape-like substances were removed. During the laparoscopy, I saw the images of those grape-like substances from outside the OT. After the laparotomy, the doctor again showed us the identified chocolate cysts and the unidentified grape-like transparent substances in a small bowl, probably of more than 200 ml or even more.
Another round of biopsy (three samples) was carried out. The ‘tissue from cystic lesions involving pelvis and adherent to large gut’ had a gross finding of ‘multiple multilocuted thin-walled cysts’. Microscopical examinations stated ‘Multiple sections examined. The cysts and locules are lined by flattened endothelial cells. The locules contan pink homogeneous material (lymph). The walls of the cysts infiltrated by lymphocytes and few haemosiderin containing macrophages. No scolex and no laminated hyaline membrane of Hydrated cyst found’. And the impression was ‘Cystic lymphangioma, pelvis’.
However couple of US earlier for the retroperitoneum, and peritoneum and lower pleural space earlier observed that ‘no detectable evidence of enlarged lymph nodes noted’.
Then came the post-operative US finding (27/6/07) of recurrence of the grape-like substances within a month of their removal. (the summary one-page case history page is attached below).
We may still not be certain that the case is indeed of Benign Cystic Metholemia. Few more tests may have to be done. It’s not fatal, but serious and may demand repeat treatments – surgical or oral. The purpose of writing this here:
1. Sharing an experience where layman like us can also do meaningful research when doctors and experts may be at a loss. What must be kept in mind, with all due respect for doctors, is no one would explore and invest as much time as family-members of patient would do for rare doubtful cases.
2. Possibility of reaching out to doctors all over the world having research interest here (I have a lot of e-mails of authors who published papers here); and may share more findings.
3. Even patients who had this Benign Cystic Mesothelioma can share their experience of different treatments as, to my finding, no absolutely accepted remedy may be there. There are different treatments, and different results as given in literature.
Internet can save lives and even help in correct diagnosis…in many ways. Above is not yet a proven case for that. However the early signs as of now is good.
Never lose hope…try different searching for medical cases not clearly identified…it’s a rarity if something is not on the net.
Summary of Case History, analysis, diagnosis and possible alternatives (as found by non-medico professional through internet)
1. Sex: F Age – 33 Prior surgical record: Yes
2. Any other prior record: chronic abdominal pain worsening during cycle, excessive bleeding during cycle with bloodclots
3. Findings: - 10 USGs done from 2/5/06 to 27/6/07. Salient points are:
a. Septated cystic lesion in both ovaries observed from beginning. In the beginning, Adnexa, though was reported to be clear and no obvious mass lesion changed on the report of 09/02/07 when first it stated formation of tiny pockets of cystic spaces followed by wide-spread ‘mass-lesion’/mass-work. No lymph nodes were also noted in few USG reports. Lupride depot 3.75 mg course completed in end-August’06. And there’s been other courses for infections as well – both in the beginning and in between.
b. Surgical findings: Chocolate cyst and grape like structures. Biopsy report from the ‘grape-like’ lesion reported Multiple multolocuted thin walled cysts with flattened endothelial cells, and also noted presence of lymphocytes. It concluded it as cystic lymphangioma. All of the five samples were of ‘benign’ nature, CA-125 was 79.78, and test of Echinococcus IgG ( for Echinococcus cyst?) was also –ve.
c. Post-operation USG finding: Residual grapes like cystic vacuoles & pockets of fluid. No abdominal pain till now in patient compared to earlier pain, however surgical pain may be there
4. Possible alternatives:
a. Cystic Lymphangioma, as suggested in biopsy report – however occurs in predominantly in male children, and also USG reports failed to mention any lymph nodes
b. Tuberculous Salpingitis - almost always secondary to tuberculous (TB) infection elsewhere in the body (no case here), mostly in fallopian tube. However the main symptoms of genital TB are infertility, menstrual disorders (especially amenorrhoea) and pain do match.
c. Pseudo-myoxoma peritineii (suggested in couple of USG reports) – thick walls whereas biopsy reported thin walls; and case biopsy report indicated benign nature.
d. Benign Cystic Mesothelioma of the Peritoneum – a rare difficult to diagnose case was based on following commonalities, in almost all cases:
i. Age group and sex of patient – matches perfectly, mostly takes place on women of child bearing age
ii. Prior surgical record
iii. Extremely difficult to diagnose through USG/CT. rare case and therefore difficult to identify. Confirmation of mesothelial nature only through immunohistochemistry or electron microsocopic(from lymphangiomas).
iv. Grape like structure
v. Abdominal pain and mass work are most common symptoms –
vi. Flattened or cubodial structure - thin wall – fluid filled
vii. Non-Neoplastic (couple of literature however categorized it as Neoplastic)/neoplasm/cytoplasm/watery fluid filled
viii. Rare disease – 130-140 reported in literature all over the world
ix. Chances of recurrence very high unless complete resection done – from one-six months to many years (30-50%)
x. Couple of reports suggested Tamoxifen as remedy with various other oral or surgical alternatives – all experimental. Disease not fatal, but serious however can become malignant in rare cases. Our Patient took Danazol for couple of months. 100% positive for calretinin, but only a few cases are positive for estrogen and progesterone receptors.
Standard Disclaimer: The article is not written by any doctor or medical professional. The right context needs to be kept in mind; and all relevant net-based findings must be checked with doctor.
Copyright: Ranjit Goswami, author of Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d
The 1st hand experience of a non-medical researcher
My wife had been suffering from chronic abdominal pains since last three years. However as there’s a tendency by women to ignore these symptoms till they grow, she first consulted doctor in February 2006. Multiple ovarian chocolate cysts had been found and were finally removed by laparotomy in May 2007.
But a post-operative Ultra-Sonography (US) again indicated, and I quote ‘Residual ‘grapes-like’ cystic vacuoles at both sides of lower abdomen with omental adhesion & pockets of fluid filled spaces at both adnexa & towards Pouch of Doughlas’ prompted the doctor to prescribe few more tests because the case was already complex, and not clearly diagnosed even before operation as it clearly suggested a recurrence.
Now why this delay in operation, and what treatment did she had in between and the post-operative findings make an interesting case. More so the post-operative developments based on US findings.
However what prompted me to take to Internet in a more structured manner were the words that the doctor with decades of experience had stated on 2nd July: ‘the case is quite unique. In developed world, the case would have by now raised an uproar and interest from medical fraternity to pursue active research into it. I have discussed with many of my colleagues here, sort of have an informal medical board also; but all seemed to be at a loss.’ When my wife, Mithu also went for the post-operative USG, the doctor was a bit irritated as she didn’t carry all previous records (a big file by now), and the doctor showed his interest to get all previous slides to write a case on her records.
And I happen to be a researcher – true without any understanding of medical or relevant world. But I knew from past experience that doing meaningful research in unknown areas is also not difficult. And then I probably had some luck with different types of keyword search (cyst, pain, recurrence, grape-like), advanced search and exact word searches based on the symptoms as within hours I found a paper with exact findings like our case. And once I found one similar but rare case, I found better keyword leads to do exact word search, more and more cases came up. And in two to three days, I collected some ten full papers from Google Scholar ("cystic mesothelioma of the peritoneum" in Google scholar yielded some 140 exact word matches), another some 60 case abstracts where full paper was under paid content. I took printout of all those (some 250-pages), highlighted them with a marker, made a one-page summary sheet and again visited this caring, loving doctor on 7th July.
I was becoming more and more certain, from a layman’s perspective although, that the tumor is Benign Cystic Mesothelioma (a rare case, difficult to diagnose and with at most 130-140 reported cases in literature); however I was also confused because the fine line of difference of this from Lymphangioma or other similar alternatives is not that a non-medical person can apprehend.
I also had the apprehension that our doctor may misunderstand my research-based findings, because a little learning can be a dangerous thing. So I had to choose my words carefully for the first few seconds; and as I shouldn’t take lot of his time, I need to present the right papers first.
And seeing those papers, the doctor also was sort of certain that the case is Benign Cystic Mesothelioma, within first couple of minutes. He was at times speaking to himself – yes, this was there…and this too…everything matches. And then observing my presence stated ‘you won’t appreciate these things as a non-medico; but the analogies are too strong’. Though he still suggested that we consult another pathologist with case history with the papers I presented him (as he commented that otherwise it may again be difficult in-spite of the credibility of this pathologist), I see a strong light of hope.
The doctor also asked me how I accessed the library, and I informed briefly. However our doctor being old, I am not sure whether he himself accesses net or not. My guess would be on the negative side. The belief is also based on the fact that had our doctor himself accessed net, he may have found this rare case. Still that’s a possibility only.
Thanks to Internet…and thanks to doctors & publishers, who shared their full papers or even abstracts online free of cost. And less is said about some other publishers who didn’t even share the abstract – the better.
A brief case background here:
The first doctor whom my wife consulted decided it’s a common open-and-shut case, as cysts normally are. A laparoscopy or laparotomy needs to be done to remove the cysts. He also gave few intravenous injections suspecting some infection prior to that. US reports confirmed the cyst in multiple exams before and after the injections.
However my wife, having undergone a cesarean earlier when our son was born (6 years old now) was against laparotomy; and wanted oral therapy or at best laparoscopy. Not being sure whether the size of the cyst can be removed successfully by laparoscopy, she consulted another doctor, with whom we were even more acquainted with.
Both these doctors are the same whom we consulted when she was pregnant with our son, and that time also we moved from the 1st doctor to the 2nd doctor for no apparent reasons. Wife of one of my friend is a gynecologist, she recommended the 2nd doctor and so did couple of friends of my wife. 95% of the time, she received treatment with this 2nd doctor for now and even when our son was born; and we are glad to get his expertise in our case. This 2nd doctor retired few years back, and was the head of the department of one of the best medical colleges, and probably of the best medical college in Kolkata in his career earlier.
Based on her wishes, and earlier records, she did undergo few more round of oral/intravenous medications. As my wife strongly desired one more issue, and the 2nd doctor also suggested that conceiving may naturally cure these ailments (as no permanent cure exists for most cysts). The objective was to facilitate conceiving and/or reducing the size of the cysts (maximum was around 10cm in one side) so that a laparotomy can be avoided.
However as most of the oral therapy and injections failed, a laparoscopy was needed in the end of April to remove the confirmed ovarian cysts. Confusion was about the mass-work of lesions other than those. In between, some 9-odd US (few of TVS type. During one such tests, the doctor even sounded tired of repeating the tests without any firm conclusions; and told us that the night before he sat on the net for hours to get some clues; unfortunately he didn’t.) were done; and lately all these USs confirmed presence of a wide-spread of interlacing septations) mass-work around the peritoloneum without being specific what it was, other than mentioning different sizes of the ovarian cysts of which the doctor was anyway sure of. Couple of the reports hinted at pseudomyoxoma peritineii, but didn’t confirm anything.
The agony of waiting for critical medical reports
And I remember on those days, when I returned from office, I saw tears in the eyes of my wife; because she collected the reports at times, & did some search on the net (as she did for pseudomyoxoma peritineii). She knew that pseudomyoxoma peritineii could be a fatal disease. I would try to do some more reading, but the terms being all Latin and Greek didn’t make much sense to me. I am sure my wife also visited many online forums where both patients and experts have meaningful dialogs for better medical and psychological therapy. A lot of words from many suffering patients with symptoms also do help.
So a laparoscopy was performed in 30th April 2007. However in-between the laparoscopy, rather than removing the ovarian cysts, the doctor advised us that things are not looking good due to the wideapread mass-work of unidentified lesions, collected small samples of the ovarian cysts and the many-grape like structures of the lesion; and advised we do biopsy before the doctor can correctly diagnose the problem.
(Subsequently even one of the paper that I accessed online also suggested that’s the best course as laparoscopy may be controversial here).
The same tense moments awaited us, more so to my wife (as I was having some engagement in office to put my mind off the case for some time at least), when the time to collect the biopsy report came for which I went to the pathology center. I was still not familiar with the term ‘benign’ by then; and the delivery of the report was delayed by almost an hour. Our doctor also said to call him the same evening as he was also anxious. My wife repeatedly told me to phone her as soon as I receive the report, I told her I won’t but was feeling some philosophical thoughts myself while awaiting for the report at the center. The center had a good culture where the patients/their family members could get a layman’s understanding of the case from the overall in-charge of the center. So as soon as I got the report, rather than trying myself to make sense of the microscopical examinations and summary impression, I rushed to the doctor.
And the doctor said – there are cysts. But it’s not serious. It’s NOT cancer!
In that one hour of waiting period, I received couple of SMSs from Mithu, and also answered them (unlike many young age couples, who love to use their cells, both of us feel mobile to be a nuisance mostly and don’t unnecessary call others) stating our report has not yet come to the dispatch center. And with that assurance of the doctor, I immediately called her, and said what the doctor told me. Well, by then I had a glance at the content of the report. And that same night, we informed the doctor also on the biopsy report.
As the report showed ‘benign’ material, a laparotomy was carried out on 20th May. Both the chocolate cysts and the grape-like substances were removed. During the laparoscopy, I saw the images of those grape-like substances from outside the OT. After the laparotomy, the doctor again showed us the identified chocolate cysts and the unidentified grape-like transparent substances in a small bowl, probably of more than 200 ml or even more.
Another round of biopsy (three samples) was carried out. The ‘tissue from cystic lesions involving pelvis and adherent to large gut’ had a gross finding of ‘multiple multilocuted thin-walled cysts’. Microscopical examinations stated ‘Multiple sections examined. The cysts and locules are lined by flattened endothelial cells. The locules contan pink homogeneous material (lymph). The walls of the cysts infiltrated by lymphocytes and few haemosiderin containing macrophages. No scolex and no laminated hyaline membrane of Hydrated cyst found’. And the impression was ‘Cystic lymphangioma, pelvis’.
However couple of US earlier for the retroperitoneum, and peritoneum and lower pleural space earlier observed that ‘no detectable evidence of enlarged lymph nodes noted’.
Then came the post-operative US finding (27/6/07) of recurrence of the grape-like substances within a month of their removal. (the summary one-page case history page is attached below).
We may still not be certain that the case is indeed of Benign Cystic Metholemia. Few more tests may have to be done. It’s not fatal, but serious and may demand repeat treatments – surgical or oral. The purpose of writing this here:
1. Sharing an experience where layman like us can also do meaningful research when doctors and experts may be at a loss. What must be kept in mind, with all due respect for doctors, is no one would explore and invest as much time as family-members of patient would do for rare doubtful cases.
2. Possibility of reaching out to doctors all over the world having research interest here (I have a lot of e-mails of authors who published papers here); and may share more findings.
3. Even patients who had this Benign Cystic Mesothelioma can share their experience of different treatments as, to my finding, no absolutely accepted remedy may be there. There are different treatments, and different results as given in literature.
Internet can save lives and even help in correct diagnosis…in many ways. Above is not yet a proven case for that. However the early signs as of now is good.
Never lose hope…try different searching for medical cases not clearly identified…it’s a rarity if something is not on the net.
Summary of Case History, analysis, diagnosis and possible alternatives (as found by non-medico professional through internet)
1. Sex: F Age – 33 Prior surgical record: Yes
2. Any other prior record: chronic abdominal pain worsening during cycle, excessive bleeding during cycle with bloodclots
3. Findings: - 10 USGs done from 2/5/06 to 27/6/07. Salient points are:
a. Septated cystic lesion in both ovaries observed from beginning. In the beginning, Adnexa, though was reported to be clear and no obvious mass lesion changed on the report of 09/02/07 when first it stated formation of tiny pockets of cystic spaces followed by wide-spread ‘mass-lesion’/mass-work. No lymph nodes were also noted in few USG reports. Lupride depot 3.75 mg course completed in end-August’06. And there’s been other courses for infections as well – both in the beginning and in between.
b. Surgical findings: Chocolate cyst and grape like structures. Biopsy report from the ‘grape-like’ lesion reported Multiple multolocuted thin walled cysts with flattened endothelial cells, and also noted presence of lymphocytes. It concluded it as cystic lymphangioma. All of the five samples were of ‘benign’ nature, CA-125 was 79.78, and test of Echinococcus IgG ( for Echinococcus cyst?) was also –ve.
c. Post-operation USG finding: Residual grapes like cystic vacuoles & pockets of fluid. No abdominal pain till now in patient compared to earlier pain, however surgical pain may be there
4. Possible alternatives:
a. Cystic Lymphangioma, as suggested in biopsy report – however occurs in predominantly in male children, and also USG reports failed to mention any lymph nodes
b. Tuberculous Salpingitis - almost always secondary to tuberculous (TB) infection elsewhere in the body (no case here), mostly in fallopian tube. However the main symptoms of genital TB are infertility, menstrual disorders (especially amenorrhoea) and pain do match.
c. Pseudo-myoxoma peritineii (suggested in couple of USG reports) – thick walls whereas biopsy reported thin walls; and case biopsy report indicated benign nature.
d. Benign Cystic Mesothelioma of the Peritoneum – a rare difficult to diagnose case was based on following commonalities, in almost all cases:
i. Age group and sex of patient – matches perfectly, mostly takes place on women of child bearing age
ii. Prior surgical record
iii. Extremely difficult to diagnose through USG/CT. rare case and therefore difficult to identify. Confirmation of mesothelial nature only through immunohistochemistry or electron microsocopic(from lymphangiomas).
iv. Grape like structure
v. Abdominal pain and mass work are most common symptoms –
vi. Flattened or cubodial structure - thin wall – fluid filled
vii. Non-Neoplastic (couple of literature however categorized it as Neoplastic)/neoplasm/cytoplasm/watery fluid filled
viii. Rare disease – 130-140 reported in literature all over the world
ix. Chances of recurrence very high unless complete resection done – from one-six months to many years (30-50%)
x. Couple of reports suggested Tamoxifen as remedy with various other oral or surgical alternatives – all experimental. Disease not fatal, but serious however can become malignant in rare cases. Our Patient took Danazol for couple of months. 100% positive for calretinin, but only a few cases are positive for estrogen and progesterone receptors.
Standard Disclaimer: The article is not written by any doctor or medical professional. The right context needs to be kept in mind; and all relevant net-based findings must be checked with doctor.
Copyright: Ranjit Goswami, author of Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d
Friday, July 6, 2007
Why Citizen Journalism? Ask why Democracy, why Protests
‘How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do’
Masters of War, Bob Dylan
Citizen Journalism (CJ), still very much at its infancy if not under incubation, is drawing some attention from all quarters. Couple of days back I received a mail to participate in a feature on this area to be aired by one of the global TV networks. And the questions, definitely research based, showed many are yet to understand what drives citizen journalism. The program intends to do that, by talking with various entities and actors, I believe.
So the question is: What kind of animals these citizen journalists are. Why the hell do they do that when there isn’t any money into it compared to everywhere else as one sees, not much rewards, and not much of any recognition by mainstream society so far? Mainstream media, who make celebrities just because they love to make someone a celebrity for someone being a celebrity and not for his/her contribution to society, and for whom mostly and lately, following fashion and fad is more important than following general issues that involve the millions locally and globally has become more of a trend than an exception; CJ has the dangerous potential to become such a fad as a new phenomena to explore, and even to adopt when CJ in its present form can hardly be adopted by mainstream media having primarily commercial interests.
Hold on – and as that happens; that would surely degenerate CJ that I understand and believe in. I also know for sure that as more and more gets online; there would be more such degeneration – true one may call it evolution. Agreed, what’s degeneration for me is right for another. Evolution leads to new forms – many of them would be superior and many would degenerate as well as democracy had, as media is having now.
Before I get into the gene-structure of this CJ animals – because I am sure one category would not define them all, I do have a question to the people who ask who, why, what for questions on CJ.
Try to answer me before we, believers of CJ answer you – why democracy? Explain me why the hell we need a government? Why Judiciary? Why mainstream media? Why do we need the so-called pillars of our modern nations?
The way I see myself – if all of above do their job right, we don’t need a CJ. I also know deep in my heart that we can’t live in a Utopian world. So none of above can be perfect (and neither would CJ be perfect). However the question is how good can government, democracy, judiciary, and media can get; or till how bad of their status should we, citizens of societies, countries and the world tolerate them, without much of a protest.
I have never participated in any protest, never being an activist. Other than wearing the symbolic black ribbon in college during graduation couple of times; I myself viewed the protestors, the activists on the streets more as nuisance. I still do when I see their movements, protests, ‘bandh’ (strike calls), destruction of public properties in a poor country like India, which eventually again causes more sufferings to the ‘aam admi’ (the common man) than to those against whom the protests are actually targeted.
Protests in developed world have better forms, more discipline, are well recognized and do finally impact policies and outcomes, to some extent. We see in TV the hide and seek game played by protestors in G-8 or similar summit against the police and administrations.
And in-spite of having the will to be part of many of these protests or activism; one is always constrained by money, time, etc.
With Web 2.0, we can overcome the hurdles of all those protests and voices in the streets that come along with the forms of those protests. Activisim, protests and millions of voices on the street are also evolving to their 2.0 phase with online revolution.
Now let’s briefly analyze how good a job our democratic governments, our institutes to protect democracy, our watchdog media is doing – all for the broader interest of the society.
Let’s look at the country at which everyone always looks at for direction, and here I borrow from mainstream media, Bloomberg to quote President Bush: ‘``If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of.'' That was U.S. President George W. Bush speaking on Sept. 30, 2003, a time when more Americans took him at his word. Re- reading that statement (on 2nd July, 2007) shows how carefully Bush can choose his words when he really needs to.’
Examples of that are aplenty, and people now expect nothing more than Bush-Cheney administration. Cheney has successfully ended a much-awaited scientific debate on whether Extra-Terrestrial living orgasms exist or not by declaring himself as an ET in the executive branch of government, supported by the President himself. If there were true democracy all over the world, what global justifications one can have for the reaction that kills and displaces millions of innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan because of 3000-odd lives lost in 9/11. All loses of lives are bad, however their scale and feasibility of mission needs to be kept in mind in broader interest of global society.
And mind you – we have a watchdog institute called the UN.
Things have rotten so much in the U.S. that it has become fashionable for many Americans to start their introduction in overseas forum by saying: ‘Don’t blame me for the policies and destruction my country is doing to our world. I personally didn’t vote for President Bush’.
Has the judiciary in the U.S. done its job when President Bush can pardon a convicted felon? Doesn’t the result matter more than the mere words and systems? Don’t these acts prove that our ruling government, in the name of democracy, is continuously raping democracy; and we watch that rape helplessly because that’s how our democracy works?
Things are no better in my own country, the largest democracy of the world. In any overseas visit and interactions with academicians; the 1st question that comes up China-India comparisons; and then the comment of criminalization of Indian politics. Well, we, the ‘aam admi’ have been used to getting raped in the name of Mahatma Gandhi et al by the ‘so-called’ followers of Gandhiji in present day Indian politics. And now the same breed of politicians won’t spare the symbolic head of India – the President. The candidate likely to win has her records, both as per mainstream media and more expectedly as per the opposition, that would put many politicians from Bihar also to shame.
But that’s India – we have democracy and a Prime Minister, who is supposed to be the head of the executive branch. But the fact, which everyone knows but no one would like to admit openly, is this Prime Minister can’t even move a fly sitting on his very own nose without the consent of another bigger-than-Prime-Minister image which effectively controls everything in India today. And this Presidential candidate is like the almighty God’s command that none in India can meaningfully challenge – not even the confused communists of India.
So Governments – in both these two largest democracies have degenerated. True mainstream media of the west have been critical of Bush-administration since the coffins from Iraq started pouring in. In India – it’s more of a playing with words, and mainstream media, always being a beneficiary of Government largesse in some form or other won’t allow any to speak something against the government in a frank and honest manner.
So every time our Prime Minister opens his mouth, he proves himself more stupid than what he was known for, but media shouts ‘Kudos, Kudos’. True, may be old age also has its impact; and I don’t like to be unnecessarily harsh. However he makes himself present for customary speeches to corporate lobby groups; or to private events more often than understanding the needs of the farmers, workers, the common man on the road or being available publicly. Still no problem with that, many times he does not even know the organizer of a private event; and thanks the organizer of the event – to ‘ICI Bank’ in-stead of ‘ICICI Bank’ as he recently did in an event, with live broadcast going on. Matter of fact is everyone on stage made themselves look so stupid, but no one spoke about that. Because they were all in the same boat!
The point is, in-spite of his entire clean image, he does not know what he is doing or speaking. And as long as he is the Prime Minister; so called freewheeling capitalists influence his office to accumulate more wealth at the cost of the ‘aam admi’. He is being used more as a person for policies for which he seldom has any control – starting with SEZs to genuine economic reforms.
Examples like that are aplenty. Farmers, after years of suffering due to imbalances in global trade and local infrastructure don’t get any viable support from government whereas exporters or industries; at the prospect of any unfavorable loss of profit garner enough influence to extract unviable government aid as a rescue package. Rescue package for whom – for the industrialists, capitalists. And today we have a situation when the billionaires in India have three times more money than the government earns as tax revenue, a unique case in the world. So it’s no surprise that the influence of the billionaires in our policies is much more than the influence of the true government voice, which is never heard.
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain
Masters of War, Bob Dylan
Again, that’s what we in India or elsewhere are used to. Neither the world, nor we Indians expect a politician in India with some amount of brain to have his independent thinking that feels for the country and its 1.1 billion people, barring some exceptions. That’s why we rank much worse than Sub-Saharan Africa in many of the socio-economic parameters in most of the World Bank studies.
India: Development Policy Review, a recently released World Bank report highlighted
1. 2/3rd of the children in government primary schools can't read a simple story'. It also highlighted. That’s for a country that has official literacy rate at 65 odd percent can be cancerous; however no one cares as the middle-class and affluence present as big a market potential as the U.S. has. Those 400 million+ people live in census figures only with another utility - they can be easily manipulated to come back to power again during election times.
2. Poverty levels across states range from better than Mexico to worse than Malawi (incidentally 53% of people below poverty line in Malawi, literacy same as India officially)
3. Bangladesh has lowered infant mortality rate faster than India with much lower expenditure.
And had it been a report by Goldman Sachs that Indian economy would be higher than that of Japan by 2025 or more than U.S. by 2050; our media would have loved to gloss those projections in front-page headlines for days. We love to hear good things about us; and magnify that many times to boost the standing of India and thereby feel good about our self confidence.
Unfortunately that does not help us as Indians in competitive global world – we may be able to fool a few some of the time; but not many for the longer term.
Coming back to the more important question on why CJ, why democracy, why media question; the hard to accept fact today is that capitalism has been put over democracy, over media and everything else. It’s also true that after the initial ages of success of capitalism with productivity and innovations, today many of those appear to be more of propaganda than hard truths. In the earlier days, we were forced to obey the words of our monarchs, irrespective of them being right or wrong; today unfortunately democracy to media worships capitalism.
Let’s see what Schumpeter stated (The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics) about capitalism and understand why today democracy to media is on their knees before that capitalism: 'Can capitalism survive? No. I do not think it can." Thus opens Schumpeter's prologue to a section of his 1942 book, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. One might think, on the basis of the quote, that Schumpeter was a Marxist. But the analysis that led Schumpeter to his conclusion differed totally from Karl Marx's. Marx believed that capitalism would be destroyed by its enemies (the proletariat), whom capitalism had purportedly exploited. Marx relished the prospect. Schumpeter believed that capitalism would be destroyed by its successes. Capitalism would spawn, he believed, a large intellectual class that made its living by attacking the very bourgeois system of private property and freedom so necessary for the intellectual class's existence. And unlike Marx, Schumpeter did not relish the destruction of capitalism. He wrote: "If a doctor predicts that his patient will die presently, this does not mean that he desires it."' Is his views of 1942 is becoming relevant with too much success of capitalism (inequality with abject poverty) in 2007...I am not sure.
Today, with the rampant printing of fiat money, it’s well proven that more the access one has to that fiat money; richer one gets. Grameen Bank of Bangladesh has proven that model with people who don’t belong to merely ‘have nots’ but more aptly to ‘have nothings’. Rising asset prices, income divergence everywhere, conspicuous consumerism in the name of freewheeling capitalism when nearly ‘across the world, 1.3 billion people live on less than one dollar a day; 3 billion live on under two dollars a day; 1.3 billion have no access to clean water; 3 billion have no access to sanitation; 2 billion have no access to electricity’ looks ridiculous and shows us poorly to future society. (source: James Wolfenson, The Other Crisis, World Bank).
So the interest of the Halliburtons of the world comes as a priority from the U.S. to India to everywhere at the cost of these billions of people. Markets, trade nowhere is free though some claims them to be free; starting with money supply to exchange rate to government policies – all are manipulated at the name of so called ‘free market’ and ‘capitalism’. Today, I believe, capitalism has come to such a degeneration where it should be destroyed by its successes. And Schumpeter could sense that back in 1942.
Nowhere in the world Mainstream Media talks about those three billion people for their due share – they should get nearly half of all media coverage, isn’t it? No government directs half of its effort and resources for those three billion people living below two dollars a day; doesn’t democracy demand so? Because media needs money and those three billion don’t have any; people behind the government needs black money and other favors too; and industrialists are too keen to grant that in return of favorable policies.
And here comes the power of CJ as I see it. Internet made it possible that we also get a platform to express our views; and we grabbed that without being on the streets, shouting slogans and facing the water-guns. One citizen journalist in Nepal did upload images of protests under the last monarchy in streets on YouTube; there were thousands of people protesting on the road. And millions saw it in YouTube.
Or take for example Avaaz.org; an online global civic advocacy group that encourages us to express our views on global issues and tries to influence policy-decisions by global leaders. And in many cases, it presented millions of collective online voices to the G-8 leaders when there were thousand of protestors on ground.
Are they protests on ground not necessary? Yes, they are for the right cause and in the right manner. And millions scattered across the world now also can be a part of that protest, not for the sake of a protest but for the sake of the right causes – through such involvements. Till now, those thousand voices received more media coverage than the millions of online voices. However those millions of online voices also silently observe the developments – be it the physical protestors, or the leaders and their actions, and express themselves as democratically and as influentially as the protests on the street. So long, though both have been working in most cases for the same causes, the online voices have mostly been ignored.
Going forward, however, the writing is on the wall - all need to pay more and more attention to the online voices – from China to the U.S. to India.
We, with our little capacities, individual biases, try to make a society that we believe is better, sustainable. We are the watchdog of democracy, society, free markets, capitalism, media – everything. We work solely from our respective consciences; are not intimidated by editorial interventions, are not paid by any to speak for ‘their’ interests. We see the society as ‘one’, the country as ‘one’ and the world as ‘one’.
I believe I have answered why CJ by now – as confusingly and as clearly as our democracy today stands for democratic values, and our mainstream media stands for its rightful media roles.
Many from mainstream media also feel that they have lots of resources – research expertise and people on the ground. I believe that’s a stupid notion. Because when that research expertise are there with many and all are online; when those people on ground are many and again their stories are online; we read them as soon as they are out, if not faster than the mainstream media. We access all research without any bias and don’t rely on one source of research, we source our information from multiple mainstream media based on merits; and therefore CJ has all the numbers (because we can potentially number in millions) and advantages.
And therefore CJ (or all its other variants of Web 2.0), in its right form, is better; and have better credibility too. So my request to the so-called democratic leaders, the mainstream media professionals, the campaigners of propaganda, and to the believers of freewheeling capitalism - get used to it for the forthcoming changes. It will take time; however you can’t ignore these pests called Citizen Journalists.
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
Masters of War, By Bob Dylan
We are the conscience keepers of our society, with credibility, as of now.
Copyright: Ranjit Goswami, author of Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do’
Masters of War, Bob Dylan
Citizen Journalism (CJ), still very much at its infancy if not under incubation, is drawing some attention from all quarters. Couple of days back I received a mail to participate in a feature on this area to be aired by one of the global TV networks. And the questions, definitely research based, showed many are yet to understand what drives citizen journalism. The program intends to do that, by talking with various entities and actors, I believe.
So the question is: What kind of animals these citizen journalists are. Why the hell do they do that when there isn’t any money into it compared to everywhere else as one sees, not much rewards, and not much of any recognition by mainstream society so far? Mainstream media, who make celebrities just because they love to make someone a celebrity for someone being a celebrity and not for his/her contribution to society, and for whom mostly and lately, following fashion and fad is more important than following general issues that involve the millions locally and globally has become more of a trend than an exception; CJ has the dangerous potential to become such a fad as a new phenomena to explore, and even to adopt when CJ in its present form can hardly be adopted by mainstream media having primarily commercial interests.
Hold on – and as that happens; that would surely degenerate CJ that I understand and believe in. I also know for sure that as more and more gets online; there would be more such degeneration – true one may call it evolution. Agreed, what’s degeneration for me is right for another. Evolution leads to new forms – many of them would be superior and many would degenerate as well as democracy had, as media is having now.
Before I get into the gene-structure of this CJ animals – because I am sure one category would not define them all, I do have a question to the people who ask who, why, what for questions on CJ.
Try to answer me before we, believers of CJ answer you – why democracy? Explain me why the hell we need a government? Why Judiciary? Why mainstream media? Why do we need the so-called pillars of our modern nations?
The way I see myself – if all of above do their job right, we don’t need a CJ. I also know deep in my heart that we can’t live in a Utopian world. So none of above can be perfect (and neither would CJ be perfect). However the question is how good can government, democracy, judiciary, and media can get; or till how bad of their status should we, citizens of societies, countries and the world tolerate them, without much of a protest.
I have never participated in any protest, never being an activist. Other than wearing the symbolic black ribbon in college during graduation couple of times; I myself viewed the protestors, the activists on the streets more as nuisance. I still do when I see their movements, protests, ‘bandh’ (strike calls), destruction of public properties in a poor country like India, which eventually again causes more sufferings to the ‘aam admi’ (the common man) than to those against whom the protests are actually targeted.
Protests in developed world have better forms, more discipline, are well recognized and do finally impact policies and outcomes, to some extent. We see in TV the hide and seek game played by protestors in G-8 or similar summit against the police and administrations.
And in-spite of having the will to be part of many of these protests or activism; one is always constrained by money, time, etc.
With Web 2.0, we can overcome the hurdles of all those protests and voices in the streets that come along with the forms of those protests. Activisim, protests and millions of voices on the street are also evolving to their 2.0 phase with online revolution.
Now let’s briefly analyze how good a job our democratic governments, our institutes to protect democracy, our watchdog media is doing – all for the broader interest of the society.
Let’s look at the country at which everyone always looks at for direction, and here I borrow from mainstream media, Bloomberg to quote President Bush: ‘``If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of.'' That was U.S. President George W. Bush speaking on Sept. 30, 2003, a time when more Americans took him at his word. Re- reading that statement (on 2nd July, 2007) shows how carefully Bush can choose his words when he really needs to.’
Examples of that are aplenty, and people now expect nothing more than Bush-Cheney administration. Cheney has successfully ended a much-awaited scientific debate on whether Extra-Terrestrial living orgasms exist or not by declaring himself as an ET in the executive branch of government, supported by the President himself. If there were true democracy all over the world, what global justifications one can have for the reaction that kills and displaces millions of innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan because of 3000-odd lives lost in 9/11. All loses of lives are bad, however their scale and feasibility of mission needs to be kept in mind in broader interest of global society.
And mind you – we have a watchdog institute called the UN.
Things have rotten so much in the U.S. that it has become fashionable for many Americans to start their introduction in overseas forum by saying: ‘Don’t blame me for the policies and destruction my country is doing to our world. I personally didn’t vote for President Bush’.
Has the judiciary in the U.S. done its job when President Bush can pardon a convicted felon? Doesn’t the result matter more than the mere words and systems? Don’t these acts prove that our ruling government, in the name of democracy, is continuously raping democracy; and we watch that rape helplessly because that’s how our democracy works?
Things are no better in my own country, the largest democracy of the world. In any overseas visit and interactions with academicians; the 1st question that comes up China-India comparisons; and then the comment of criminalization of Indian politics. Well, we, the ‘aam admi’ have been used to getting raped in the name of Mahatma Gandhi et al by the ‘so-called’ followers of Gandhiji in present day Indian politics. And now the same breed of politicians won’t spare the symbolic head of India – the President. The candidate likely to win has her records, both as per mainstream media and more expectedly as per the opposition, that would put many politicians from Bihar also to shame.
But that’s India – we have democracy and a Prime Minister, who is supposed to be the head of the executive branch. But the fact, which everyone knows but no one would like to admit openly, is this Prime Minister can’t even move a fly sitting on his very own nose without the consent of another bigger-than-Prime-Minister image which effectively controls everything in India today. And this Presidential candidate is like the almighty God’s command that none in India can meaningfully challenge – not even the confused communists of India.
So Governments – in both these two largest democracies have degenerated. True mainstream media of the west have been critical of Bush-administration since the coffins from Iraq started pouring in. In India – it’s more of a playing with words, and mainstream media, always being a beneficiary of Government largesse in some form or other won’t allow any to speak something against the government in a frank and honest manner.
So every time our Prime Minister opens his mouth, he proves himself more stupid than what he was known for, but media shouts ‘Kudos, Kudos’. True, may be old age also has its impact; and I don’t like to be unnecessarily harsh. However he makes himself present for customary speeches to corporate lobby groups; or to private events more often than understanding the needs of the farmers, workers, the common man on the road or being available publicly. Still no problem with that, many times he does not even know the organizer of a private event; and thanks the organizer of the event – to ‘ICI Bank’ in-stead of ‘ICICI Bank’ as he recently did in an event, with live broadcast going on. Matter of fact is everyone on stage made themselves look so stupid, but no one spoke about that. Because they were all in the same boat!
The point is, in-spite of his entire clean image, he does not know what he is doing or speaking. And as long as he is the Prime Minister; so called freewheeling capitalists influence his office to accumulate more wealth at the cost of the ‘aam admi’. He is being used more as a person for policies for which he seldom has any control – starting with SEZs to genuine economic reforms.
Examples like that are aplenty. Farmers, after years of suffering due to imbalances in global trade and local infrastructure don’t get any viable support from government whereas exporters or industries; at the prospect of any unfavorable loss of profit garner enough influence to extract unviable government aid as a rescue package. Rescue package for whom – for the industrialists, capitalists. And today we have a situation when the billionaires in India have three times more money than the government earns as tax revenue, a unique case in the world. So it’s no surprise that the influence of the billionaires in our policies is much more than the influence of the true government voice, which is never heard.
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain
Masters of War, Bob Dylan
Again, that’s what we in India or elsewhere are used to. Neither the world, nor we Indians expect a politician in India with some amount of brain to have his independent thinking that feels for the country and its 1.1 billion people, barring some exceptions. That’s why we rank much worse than Sub-Saharan Africa in many of the socio-economic parameters in most of the World Bank studies.
India: Development Policy Review, a recently released World Bank report highlighted
1. 2/3rd of the children in government primary schools can't read a simple story'. It also highlighted. That’s for a country that has official literacy rate at 65 odd percent can be cancerous; however no one cares as the middle-class and affluence present as big a market potential as the U.S. has. Those 400 million+ people live in census figures only with another utility - they can be easily manipulated to come back to power again during election times.
2. Poverty levels across states range from better than Mexico to worse than Malawi (incidentally 53% of people below poverty line in Malawi, literacy same as India officially)
3. Bangladesh has lowered infant mortality rate faster than India with much lower expenditure.
And had it been a report by Goldman Sachs that Indian economy would be higher than that of Japan by 2025 or more than U.S. by 2050; our media would have loved to gloss those projections in front-page headlines for days. We love to hear good things about us; and magnify that many times to boost the standing of India and thereby feel good about our self confidence.
Unfortunately that does not help us as Indians in competitive global world – we may be able to fool a few some of the time; but not many for the longer term.
Coming back to the more important question on why CJ, why democracy, why media question; the hard to accept fact today is that capitalism has been put over democracy, over media and everything else. It’s also true that after the initial ages of success of capitalism with productivity and innovations, today many of those appear to be more of propaganda than hard truths. In the earlier days, we were forced to obey the words of our monarchs, irrespective of them being right or wrong; today unfortunately democracy to media worships capitalism.
Let’s see what Schumpeter stated (The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics) about capitalism and understand why today democracy to media is on their knees before that capitalism: 'Can capitalism survive? No. I do not think it can." Thus opens Schumpeter's prologue to a section of his 1942 book, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. One might think, on the basis of the quote, that Schumpeter was a Marxist. But the analysis that led Schumpeter to his conclusion differed totally from Karl Marx's. Marx believed that capitalism would be destroyed by its enemies (the proletariat), whom capitalism had purportedly exploited. Marx relished the prospect. Schumpeter believed that capitalism would be destroyed by its successes. Capitalism would spawn, he believed, a large intellectual class that made its living by attacking the very bourgeois system of private property and freedom so necessary for the intellectual class's existence. And unlike Marx, Schumpeter did not relish the destruction of capitalism. He wrote: "If a doctor predicts that his patient will die presently, this does not mean that he desires it."' Is his views of 1942 is becoming relevant with too much success of capitalism (inequality with abject poverty) in 2007...I am not sure.
Today, with the rampant printing of fiat money, it’s well proven that more the access one has to that fiat money; richer one gets. Grameen Bank of Bangladesh has proven that model with people who don’t belong to merely ‘have nots’ but more aptly to ‘have nothings’. Rising asset prices, income divergence everywhere, conspicuous consumerism in the name of freewheeling capitalism when nearly ‘across the world, 1.3 billion people live on less than one dollar a day; 3 billion live on under two dollars a day; 1.3 billion have no access to clean water; 3 billion have no access to sanitation; 2 billion have no access to electricity’ looks ridiculous and shows us poorly to future society. (source: James Wolfenson, The Other Crisis, World Bank).
So the interest of the Halliburtons of the world comes as a priority from the U.S. to India to everywhere at the cost of these billions of people. Markets, trade nowhere is free though some claims them to be free; starting with money supply to exchange rate to government policies – all are manipulated at the name of so called ‘free market’ and ‘capitalism’. Today, I believe, capitalism has come to such a degeneration where it should be destroyed by its successes. And Schumpeter could sense that back in 1942.
Nowhere in the world Mainstream Media talks about those three billion people for their due share – they should get nearly half of all media coverage, isn’t it? No government directs half of its effort and resources for those three billion people living below two dollars a day; doesn’t democracy demand so? Because media needs money and those three billion don’t have any; people behind the government needs black money and other favors too; and industrialists are too keen to grant that in return of favorable policies.
And here comes the power of CJ as I see it. Internet made it possible that we also get a platform to express our views; and we grabbed that without being on the streets, shouting slogans and facing the water-guns. One citizen journalist in Nepal did upload images of protests under the last monarchy in streets on YouTube; there were thousands of people protesting on the road. And millions saw it in YouTube.
Or take for example Avaaz.org; an online global civic advocacy group that encourages us to express our views on global issues and tries to influence policy-decisions by global leaders. And in many cases, it presented millions of collective online voices to the G-8 leaders when there were thousand of protestors on ground.
Are they protests on ground not necessary? Yes, they are for the right cause and in the right manner. And millions scattered across the world now also can be a part of that protest, not for the sake of a protest but for the sake of the right causes – through such involvements. Till now, those thousand voices received more media coverage than the millions of online voices. However those millions of online voices also silently observe the developments – be it the physical protestors, or the leaders and their actions, and express themselves as democratically and as influentially as the protests on the street. So long, though both have been working in most cases for the same causes, the online voices have mostly been ignored.
Going forward, however, the writing is on the wall - all need to pay more and more attention to the online voices – from China to the U.S. to India.
We, with our little capacities, individual biases, try to make a society that we believe is better, sustainable. We are the watchdog of democracy, society, free markets, capitalism, media – everything. We work solely from our respective consciences; are not intimidated by editorial interventions, are not paid by any to speak for ‘their’ interests. We see the society as ‘one’, the country as ‘one’ and the world as ‘one’.
I believe I have answered why CJ by now – as confusingly and as clearly as our democracy today stands for democratic values, and our mainstream media stands for its rightful media roles.
Many from mainstream media also feel that they have lots of resources – research expertise and people on the ground. I believe that’s a stupid notion. Because when that research expertise are there with many and all are online; when those people on ground are many and again their stories are online; we read them as soon as they are out, if not faster than the mainstream media. We access all research without any bias and don’t rely on one source of research, we source our information from multiple mainstream media based on merits; and therefore CJ has all the numbers (because we can potentially number in millions) and advantages.
And therefore CJ (or all its other variants of Web 2.0), in its right form, is better; and have better credibility too. So my request to the so-called democratic leaders, the mainstream media professionals, the campaigners of propaganda, and to the believers of freewheeling capitalism - get used to it for the forthcoming changes. It will take time; however you can’t ignore these pests called Citizen Journalists.
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
Masters of War, By Bob Dylan
We are the conscience keepers of our society, with credibility, as of now.
Copyright: Ranjit Goswami, author of Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d
Monday, July 2, 2007
Citizen Journalism – in the crossroad of business models
Internet changed everything. The power of reaching out – be it your customers, suppliers, community, society, advertisers other than the obvious stakeholders like shareholders and employees was never so democratic, so egalitarian.
Genesis 1:14-19 stated ‘And God said, Let there be lights [luminaries] in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night’. That was on the 4th day of the proverbial creation of the world. And the end of the last century, if we can have any parallel, God said ‘Let there be Internet. Let Internet be the light of the day’.
I have just been back from the OhmyNews International Citizen Reporters’ Forum 2007 experiencing 1st hand the great hospitality of OhmyNews and of broader Korean people and society. And yes, there was the people behind this Forum - its participants from 26 countries – platforms like OhmyNews in different parts and in different languages, the people behind those Citizen Journalism (CJ) entities, the actors who narrated their stories in these CJ forums, the academicians who wanted to explore this evolutionary model and find different angles of this still emerging phenomenon. It was mind-boggling, indeed.
Citizen Journalism, Web 2.0, User Created Content (UCC), Blogs, e-media, e-business, Internet and convergence – fortunately none of these are new to me. I worked with e-business firms, two of them being global leaders in their respective fields and one being a casualty of the dot-com bomb for five years to know first hand what works in Internet and when (timing is critical); and also to know, more importantly what doesn’t. Working now in academic research, I follow most trends of this ongoing evolution; and the numbers and statistics associated with them. Couple of my earlier articles ‘It’s e-media, stupid’, and ‘Relentless upheaval in the media’ focused on those findings.
I actively took part as a Citizen Journalist myself in few sites. The driver was from within to express my opinion and analysis in global issues. We academicians are not astrologers, and we don’t publish papers merely to get published, and citations thereafter. What we intend to make, more so in practicing fields is to influence policy-making and educate societies on what lies ahead, and whether they bode well or not for the society. When things go fine, we keep quite; and when we see dangerous curves ahead; we ring the alarm bells. And it’s no surprise that almost nothing goes fine anywhere anymore in our local and global world.
Let’s also admit that many times we raise false alarms. However like terrorist attacks, it’s better to be safe than certain in many of these areas; and false alarms don’t cost lives. We aren’t atrologers; and we can’t state what’s in the future. What we rather do is analyze the trend with a holistic approach; and identify the drawbacks that are likely to hurt society – locally or globally.
To bring clarity, an example can help us. Many of us as the millions of nameless people have invested in some financial instruments somewhere relying the brokers’ call of some so-called financial experts; and more often than not we have burnt our fingers. After burning our fingers many times; we realized that those so-called financial experts may not be any better than you and I; and the ‘buy’, ‘hold’ or ‘sell’ calls may not be based on neutral unbiased positions as well.
Similarly, when we read global news reports, opinions and analysis; we realize many a time that the reports may be factually wrong or one-sided; the opinion may be biased and not holistic; and the partial analysis focused on few numbers or facts, deliberately or mistakenly ignoring other numbers or facts to come to a conclusion.
Suddenly the masks of the so-called experts were falling apart as we not only could see the drawbacks in their reports, analysis and opinion; we could let others also see the correct picture.
That’s how I started writing my opinions and analysis for sites like OpEdNews, Peacejournalism, OhmyNews, Bloggers’ News Network, Desicritics, thespoof, Associated Content, New Asian Times, etc. And I know their models as well. I also know many of my friends and students who make some money through Google Ad Sense, without much of an effort.
The eternal debate of any content is the debate that the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal adopted in the beginning of so-called dot-com boom days – that of advertisement based model and the subscription-based models. Internet advertisement has since then grown phenomenally, and one estimate puts that number to be $43 billion in another two years time. The online ad market is growing at a rate of about 20% a year, phenomenal in any standard, and still being at single digits of the overall ad-spend. So there is no doubt or denying where the future lies.
In-spite of the future of online content, no one could still say to be making enough money from it. The NYT still hardly makes 10% of its revenue from online presence; true online growth rate is much better than the otherwise declining circulations and revenues.
The people behind the CJ sites in OMNI forum said above; and added the other challenges they faced. Oh Yeon-ho, the man behind this phenomenon called CJ and the forum talked about revenue of $ 6 million, 70% of it coming from advertisement and 20% from sharing content. 10% did come from subscriptions/donations; however that showed stagnation since SoftBank funded $10 million for the Japanese venture. And with his experience, beliefs and strong ethics; he correctly highlighted the challenges ahead for a non-profit CJ site vis-à-vis a commercial organization.
Many are facing the heat, and closing down. I knew about Peacejournlism from my own experience, and Rostislav Vylegzhanin of Realno.info; a Russian experiment also highlighted that in the forum. Yossi Saidov of the Scoop in Israel expressed the dilemma and fitness of Ad Sense; and expressed his frustrations over commission that middle-men networks demanded to bring in the much needed ad-money for these start-ups. However there were the brighter sides as well – as mobile networks demand original content, and are ready to collaborate and advertise; and then there was the enormous market for Israel-specific content from the U.S.
Few adopted the easier model of tying up with a larger mainstream media network; as did Serhiy Danylenko of Highway Online of Ukraine. Against obvious question of editorial independency under such an arrangement, Mr. Danylenko expressed satisfaction on independency as of now; however I would doubt that arrangement once Highway Online grows big or take positions.
The presentations and insight of Michael Tippet of NowPublic was excellent. He asked a very relevant question – to whom should media (mainstream and alternate) and CJ be accountable for – to society, to advertisers, to government…and when one picks the answer to be the society; it should be no one’s prerogative to think his/her opinion is best for the society. Mr.Oh Yeon-ho of OMNI highlighted that CJ should work as a watchdog of developments of society, including that of mainstream media.
And at the same time, many Citizen Journalists also expressed their need for more money for their contributions; as most sites don’t pay at all or make some meager payments (barring OMNI). It’s going to be a perfect situation where there would be millions of consumers, thousands of citizen journalists, hundreds of such sites, and thousands of advertisers.
In that set-up, the idea of Jean K. Min of OMNI where he stressed following the Boeing 787 Dreamliner model where through outsourcing from suppliers all over the world, one gets the same country as a stakeholder in that firm (Boeing here). And 70% of 787 work is outsourced from all major markets, wings from Japan and so on.
The only concern here is, as research says, there is no customer loyalty over the Internet. The Boeing example has some switching cost, both for Boeing and for the supplier – however for both the citizen journalist and the end-consumer of the news; there aren’t any switching costs.
And therefore the pursuit for the ideal business model for CJ, Web 2.0 and UCC continues – not in business boardrooms and in OhmyNews International Citizen Reporters’ Forum 2007 alone, but more so across the online space of the world.
Copyright: Ranjit Goswami, author of Wondering Man,Money & Go(l)d
Genesis 1:14-19 stated ‘And God said, Let there be lights [luminaries] in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night’. That was on the 4th day of the proverbial creation of the world. And the end of the last century, if we can have any parallel, God said ‘Let there be Internet. Let Internet be the light of the day’.
I have just been back from the OhmyNews International Citizen Reporters’ Forum 2007 experiencing 1st hand the great hospitality of OhmyNews and of broader Korean people and society. And yes, there was the people behind this Forum - its participants from 26 countries – platforms like OhmyNews in different parts and in different languages, the people behind those Citizen Journalism (CJ) entities, the actors who narrated their stories in these CJ forums, the academicians who wanted to explore this evolutionary model and find different angles of this still emerging phenomenon. It was mind-boggling, indeed.
Citizen Journalism, Web 2.0, User Created Content (UCC), Blogs, e-media, e-business, Internet and convergence – fortunately none of these are new to me. I worked with e-business firms, two of them being global leaders in their respective fields and one being a casualty of the dot-com bomb for five years to know first hand what works in Internet and when (timing is critical); and also to know, more importantly what doesn’t. Working now in academic research, I follow most trends of this ongoing evolution; and the numbers and statistics associated with them. Couple of my earlier articles ‘It’s e-media, stupid’, and ‘Relentless upheaval in the media’ focused on those findings.
I actively took part as a Citizen Journalist myself in few sites. The driver was from within to express my opinion and analysis in global issues. We academicians are not astrologers, and we don’t publish papers merely to get published, and citations thereafter. What we intend to make, more so in practicing fields is to influence policy-making and educate societies on what lies ahead, and whether they bode well or not for the society. When things go fine, we keep quite; and when we see dangerous curves ahead; we ring the alarm bells. And it’s no surprise that almost nothing goes fine anywhere anymore in our local and global world.
Let’s also admit that many times we raise false alarms. However like terrorist attacks, it’s better to be safe than certain in many of these areas; and false alarms don’t cost lives. We aren’t atrologers; and we can’t state what’s in the future. What we rather do is analyze the trend with a holistic approach; and identify the drawbacks that are likely to hurt society – locally or globally.
To bring clarity, an example can help us. Many of us as the millions of nameless people have invested in some financial instruments somewhere relying the brokers’ call of some so-called financial experts; and more often than not we have burnt our fingers. After burning our fingers many times; we realized that those so-called financial experts may not be any better than you and I; and the ‘buy’, ‘hold’ or ‘sell’ calls may not be based on neutral unbiased positions as well.
Similarly, when we read global news reports, opinions and analysis; we realize many a time that the reports may be factually wrong or one-sided; the opinion may be biased and not holistic; and the partial analysis focused on few numbers or facts, deliberately or mistakenly ignoring other numbers or facts to come to a conclusion.
Suddenly the masks of the so-called experts were falling apart as we not only could see the drawbacks in their reports, analysis and opinion; we could let others also see the correct picture.
That’s how I started writing my opinions and analysis for sites like OpEdNews, Peacejournalism, OhmyNews, Bloggers’ News Network, Desicritics, thespoof, Associated Content, New Asian Times, etc. And I know their models as well. I also know many of my friends and students who make some money through Google Ad Sense, without much of an effort.
The eternal debate of any content is the debate that the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal adopted in the beginning of so-called dot-com boom days – that of advertisement based model and the subscription-based models. Internet advertisement has since then grown phenomenally, and one estimate puts that number to be $43 billion in another two years time. The online ad market is growing at a rate of about 20% a year, phenomenal in any standard, and still being at single digits of the overall ad-spend. So there is no doubt or denying where the future lies.
In-spite of the future of online content, no one could still say to be making enough money from it. The NYT still hardly makes 10% of its revenue from online presence; true online growth rate is much better than the otherwise declining circulations and revenues.
The people behind the CJ sites in OMNI forum said above; and added the other challenges they faced. Oh Yeon-ho, the man behind this phenomenon called CJ and the forum talked about revenue of $ 6 million, 70% of it coming from advertisement and 20% from sharing content. 10% did come from subscriptions/donations; however that showed stagnation since SoftBank funded $10 million for the Japanese venture. And with his experience, beliefs and strong ethics; he correctly highlighted the challenges ahead for a non-profit CJ site vis-à-vis a commercial organization.
Many are facing the heat, and closing down. I knew about Peacejournlism from my own experience, and Rostislav Vylegzhanin of Realno.info; a Russian experiment also highlighted that in the forum. Yossi Saidov of the Scoop in Israel expressed the dilemma and fitness of Ad Sense; and expressed his frustrations over commission that middle-men networks demanded to bring in the much needed ad-money for these start-ups. However there were the brighter sides as well – as mobile networks demand original content, and are ready to collaborate and advertise; and then there was the enormous market for Israel-specific content from the U.S.
Few adopted the easier model of tying up with a larger mainstream media network; as did Serhiy Danylenko of Highway Online of Ukraine. Against obvious question of editorial independency under such an arrangement, Mr. Danylenko expressed satisfaction on independency as of now; however I would doubt that arrangement once Highway Online grows big or take positions.
The presentations and insight of Michael Tippet of NowPublic was excellent. He asked a very relevant question – to whom should media (mainstream and alternate) and CJ be accountable for – to society, to advertisers, to government…and when one picks the answer to be the society; it should be no one’s prerogative to think his/her opinion is best for the society. Mr.Oh Yeon-ho of OMNI highlighted that CJ should work as a watchdog of developments of society, including that of mainstream media.
And at the same time, many Citizen Journalists also expressed their need for more money for their contributions; as most sites don’t pay at all or make some meager payments (barring OMNI). It’s going to be a perfect situation where there would be millions of consumers, thousands of citizen journalists, hundreds of such sites, and thousands of advertisers.
In that set-up, the idea of Jean K. Min of OMNI where he stressed following the Boeing 787 Dreamliner model where through outsourcing from suppliers all over the world, one gets the same country as a stakeholder in that firm (Boeing here). And 70% of 787 work is outsourced from all major markets, wings from Japan and so on.
The only concern here is, as research says, there is no customer loyalty over the Internet. The Boeing example has some switching cost, both for Boeing and for the supplier – however for both the citizen journalist and the end-consumer of the news; there aren’t any switching costs.
And therefore the pursuit for the ideal business model for CJ, Web 2.0 and UCC continues – not in business boardrooms and in OhmyNews International Citizen Reporters’ Forum 2007 alone, but more so across the online space of the world.
Copyright: Ranjit Goswami, author of Wondering Man,Money & Go(l)d
Friday, March 23, 2007
Internet and Academic Research
Web 2.0 and Academic Research
We, academicians, more so from India (and I believe it’s true for similar socio-economic countries) happen to be a strange sub-species within Homo sapiens – we preach in class and outside class, in broader societies on what’s right and what’s wrong and therefore what should be done and what shouldn’t be, discuss management cases similar to real life corporate challenges in B-schools and castigate decision makers whenever their decisions go wrong by doing post-mortem analysis, start any class by saying ‘change is the only constant in this universe’ and again end by repeating that…without following much of that ourselves.
I happen to be from academics now, after seeing the world in my different earlier avatars, none being too significant and none again being too insignificant when I retrospect at those avatars. And in academics, the undisputed measure of research still remains to be peer-reviewed publications one has in his/her credit in journals of reputation, and next by number of times those were cited by other researchers again, which further provides more credibility to the original research paper.
However the view remains, again from academics itself, that if the librarian of any reputed university plays a prank by sealing all the journals (or half its pages) thro’ a tape and thereby makes those pages inaccessible without tearing the tape apart; and wait for days for any complain; probably none would come. When the librarian checks back those journals again, disappointed as s/he may be, after few weeks, he may find those in same sealed conditions.
No wonder that we see efforts by world’s largest libraries to put their collections online in Google Books, and most reputed journals now are available online, true many for a subscription. Publishers’ complaint without being sure of revenue model, as the fight here again remains same on the search of the ‘right’ business model as it’s been distinctly followed by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) for years now– one focusing on ad-revenue and another on subscription-based revenue.
True, things are changing fast as at times I see WSJ articles in Google News that can be fully accessed without the subscription (along with many others with a ‘teaser’ and reserved for subscribers as well). During recent dispute of Google News showcasing articles from Belgian Newspapers without paying for that, which had a legal angel too, it’s been reported that online readership of these papers declined in double-digits when Google was refrained from showcasing them.
I believe Belgian Newspapers could even think of that fight up against Google News (here I am taking Google News to be synonym with Internet News, which should have legitimate and/or interested objections!) because of probably less online content generated in that language (predominantly Dutch). And that advantage may not be sustainable over the longer term again.
So the debate is nothing new for all online content generation companies; as they increasingly find themselves between the devil and the deep sea; and don’t know how to collaborate with the monster called Google – is it a friend or an enemy (and thereby many see it as ‘frenemy’ in this rapidly changing scenario). Google on the other hand seems to be too happy with another type of race to the bottom that content generation companies now indulge (take for example, upstart Web 2.0 sites are too happy to hit headlines in Google News) as they don’t generate any content. So they thereby have the cake and eat it too.
And legitimately content generation firms, more so old, giant ones, don’t see it to be fair as Google, with its position as the gatekeeper of the Internet world, makes most of the money. As if that was not bad enough, The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, by favoring content violators as the responsibility of finding violation remains with content generator (and therefore an impossible task for generator to manage and warn with Web 2.0 mushrooming all over), that too without significant monetary penalty as of now in reported disputes. The responsibility of the alleged copyright infringer has so far been simply to remove the material as soon as it has been notified, and again time period from reporting to its removal is yet to be clearly quantified.
True, efforts are on from Google family to assure content generation companies in their joint pursuit of the elusive win-win model.
And that debate goes on allover on what can be a better, practical solution. A different type of imbroglio lasted over TV in 1930s to 1950s before advertisers’ could ascertain to some extent that spending money on TV pays off. Probably that would happen with Internet as well, as it moves on in its mesmerizing evolution (Relentless Upheaval in the Media) when everybody in this process sees enough ad-money on the table.
Taking examples from Web 2.0 impacts now when historically OMNI was influential in 2002 Presidential elections in South Korea, a similar debate is on with morality of citizen discourse over recent Phil de Vellis video in YouTube that showcased Democrat U.S. Presidential aspirant Senator Barrack Obama representing a new breed of politics at the cost of Senator Clinton, another candidate.
The point to be made here is Internet and its present Web 2.0 changed most of the things so far, be it for right or for wrong. The good news (or the bad news depending on which side of the table one is), the balance things that Internet hasn’t yet impacted is getting impacted continuously, right now and that would also change soon.
Coming back to research-based academic publications in that context, and assuming readerships of offline journals and online paid research paper sites not being too encouraging as of now (may be a valid assumption, one sees McKinsey Quarterly ads online in the NYT now-a-days, many are waiting for Harvard Business Review ads to hit online sometime soon to declare victory), how should researchers reach out to its target segments. True there is Google Scholar again for that, however many online research-based papers/articles available online (thro’ Google search) aren’t there in Google Scholar. There must be reasons best known to Google for that.
And increasingly the fine line between a research paper and a research-based article is getting more confusing that demarcates entry in Google Scholar and general Google crawler. Peer review makes less sense, because most academicians would love to concentrate on their own research rather than ‘clearing others’ shit’ as it’s termed by many reviewers.
And over Internet, wherever it be, users can post comments on agreements or on points of contentions.
Many famous academicians do blog, more so in the west and in the U.S. Countless names can be given – Niholas Carr of Harvard (and author if ‘IT Doesn’t Matter’, adjudged best HBR article for 2003 that raised a lot of controversy, starting from the level of Mr. Bill Gates of Microsoft), famous economist DeLong from Berkeley (‘Slouching Towards Utopia’)…list can be too long.
Many write for OMNI too, and in similar sites giving their insights to present world affairs. It becomes easy for researchers as research findings can always be interpreted in light of global affairs, without the quantitative and statistical jargons that may be of interest again to academicians only. Qualitative researchers always believe that any amount of quantitative research, if can’t be qualitatively explained, is as good as thousand times zero.
The question that emerges than: are the contents of these Web 2.0 sites any worse than their peer-reviewed journals? The answer is again yes and no based on the credibility of the author and the site. The good thing in Web 2.0 is they can be real time research, rather than post-mortem analyses as peer-reviewed publications take time. And in present dynamic world, in many sectors and in much of emerging nations, things change fast.
As a research scholar, I know I need to have similar peer-reviewed publications as per advice of my Doctoral Advisory Committee. The problem is, other than the process being too bureaucratic, the good reputed ones are unlikely to accept my papers; and at the same time, any researcher worth his/her salt won’t prefer to publish research findings anywhere just for the sake of publications.
That’s why many researchers from academics prefer to write in OMNI and other similar sites. True, this way we may be competing with journalists (more on opinion and analysis than on reporting per se), however I see it to be a good sign when, in same line, any business journalists tracking financial markets over years take classes on portfolio investments in a B-School.
However when above competition is combined with the broader self-learning opportunity that Internet offers (the fact that many faculties, while struggling a bit to explain any concept in classroom discussions, find many students with Wi-Fi facilities immediately refer to Wikipedia, even by drawing ire from that faculty), we academicians may soon have to find new career opportunities.
On the other side, as a researcher-and-writer in alternate media, it looks good when one finds his/her articles having been cited in other academic research works, or they even get debated in online forums.
As a researcher, that is inspiring because one knows his/her views are being read, moreover being debated as well. However the inevitable question an academic puritan from old school would ask: (1) Does the work follow fundamentals of research methodology? And if that’s there, the next question follows (2) Is the audience who is reading or debating over these in Web 2.0 media capable enough to debate on them, which may invariably demand academic insights in those target audience again?
We know in Internet, a tiger can superficially be mistaken to be a cat and vice-versa. With deeper probe in Internet again, the real virtual image anyway comes out, probably even better than real life images.
No one is sure on impact of Web 2.0 on academic publications. As researchers from academic community, we ask these questions on future of academic publishing; find academic sites that try and address these challenges (Teachlearning blog discusses ‘the Future of Academic Publishing’, there are many more) that’s evolving in line with other content generation and distribution organizations.
However why many young researchers are optimist is because, just as academicians have earned the rightful right to comment on politics to business management to economic issues because of their expertise; people who are working in corporate world, in politics, framing policies should also have the right to comment on quality of academic work. Expertise is never exclusive to any, and Internet happens to be most democratic here. Many from other domain don’t go through offline hardcopy publications, however they still may have a say based on their expertise.
Before I conclude, let me state quality of academic publications in India as of now and their accessibility. I happen to be a product of IIT-system (graduation, post-graduation and now research, IIT stands for Indian Institute of Technology); and to the best of my knowledge, at least my earlier departments didn’t have regular academic publications, and that’s been the practice even now with my present department. Indian Institute of Managements (IIMs), known more for their management focus do have their quarterly publications, now various new generation B-schools have lot more publications. The former, known for their quality, is too less for a country of India’s size; and quality of the later may be debatable.
One of my friends from corporate world, to attend an interview for PGDX (Post-Graduate Dimploma for Executives) program as launched by few IIMs lately, wanted an academic publication of one of the faculty members who was in selection committee. The objective was to improve his chances of selection in the interview round against stiff competition. My friend worked in IT area, but when he wanted to access it online, he was advised online/offline to make an account payee demand draft, courier it to the authorities of IIM and then probably he would have been sent a hardcopy of the paper by courier again.
Mo doubts my friend could not make it to that prestigious IIM.
OMNI talked about Web 2.0 and Global Reform, no doubt we need an academic reform all over before that happens
We, academicians, more so from India (and I believe it’s true for similar socio-economic countries) happen to be a strange sub-species within Homo sapiens – we preach in class and outside class, in broader societies on what’s right and what’s wrong and therefore what should be done and what shouldn’t be, discuss management cases similar to real life corporate challenges in B-schools and castigate decision makers whenever their decisions go wrong by doing post-mortem analysis, start any class by saying ‘change is the only constant in this universe’ and again end by repeating that…without following much of that ourselves.
I happen to be from academics now, after seeing the world in my different earlier avatars, none being too significant and none again being too insignificant when I retrospect at those avatars. And in academics, the undisputed measure of research still remains to be peer-reviewed publications one has in his/her credit in journals of reputation, and next by number of times those were cited by other researchers again, which further provides more credibility to the original research paper.
However the view remains, again from academics itself, that if the librarian of any reputed university plays a prank by sealing all the journals (or half its pages) thro’ a tape and thereby makes those pages inaccessible without tearing the tape apart; and wait for days for any complain; probably none would come. When the librarian checks back those journals again, disappointed as s/he may be, after few weeks, he may find those in same sealed conditions.
No wonder that we see efforts by world’s largest libraries to put their collections online in Google Books, and most reputed journals now are available online, true many for a subscription. Publishers’ complaint without being sure of revenue model, as the fight here again remains same on the search of the ‘right’ business model as it’s been distinctly followed by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) for years now– one focusing on ad-revenue and another on subscription-based revenue.
True, things are changing fast as at times I see WSJ articles in Google News that can be fully accessed without the subscription (along with many others with a ‘teaser’ and reserved for subscribers as well). During recent dispute of Google News showcasing articles from Belgian Newspapers without paying for that, which had a legal angel too, it’s been reported that online readership of these papers declined in double-digits when Google was refrained from showcasing them.
I believe Belgian Newspapers could even think of that fight up against Google News (here I am taking Google News to be synonym with Internet News, which should have legitimate and/or interested objections!) because of probably less online content generated in that language (predominantly Dutch). And that advantage may not be sustainable over the longer term again.
So the debate is nothing new for all online content generation companies; as they increasingly find themselves between the devil and the deep sea; and don’t know how to collaborate with the monster called Google – is it a friend or an enemy (and thereby many see it as ‘frenemy’ in this rapidly changing scenario). Google on the other hand seems to be too happy with another type of race to the bottom that content generation companies now indulge (take for example, upstart Web 2.0 sites are too happy to hit headlines in Google News) as they don’t generate any content. So they thereby have the cake and eat it too.
And legitimately content generation firms, more so old, giant ones, don’t see it to be fair as Google, with its position as the gatekeeper of the Internet world, makes most of the money. As if that was not bad enough, The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, by favoring content violators as the responsibility of finding violation remains with content generator (and therefore an impossible task for generator to manage and warn with Web 2.0 mushrooming all over), that too without significant monetary penalty as of now in reported disputes. The responsibility of the alleged copyright infringer has so far been simply to remove the material as soon as it has been notified, and again time period from reporting to its removal is yet to be clearly quantified.
True, efforts are on from Google family to assure content generation companies in their joint pursuit of the elusive win-win model.
And that debate goes on allover on what can be a better, practical solution. A different type of imbroglio lasted over TV in 1930s to 1950s before advertisers’ could ascertain to some extent that spending money on TV pays off. Probably that would happen with Internet as well, as it moves on in its mesmerizing evolution (Relentless Upheaval in the Media) when everybody in this process sees enough ad-money on the table.
Taking examples from Web 2.0 impacts now when historically OMNI was influential in 2002 Presidential elections in South Korea, a similar debate is on with morality of citizen discourse over recent Phil de Vellis video in YouTube that showcased Democrat U.S. Presidential aspirant Senator Barrack Obama representing a new breed of politics at the cost of Senator Clinton, another candidate.
The point to be made here is Internet and its present Web 2.0 changed most of the things so far, be it for right or for wrong. The good news (or the bad news depending on which side of the table one is), the balance things that Internet hasn’t yet impacted is getting impacted continuously, right now and that would also change soon.
Coming back to research-based academic publications in that context, and assuming readerships of offline journals and online paid research paper sites not being too encouraging as of now (may be a valid assumption, one sees McKinsey Quarterly ads online in the NYT now-a-days, many are waiting for Harvard Business Review ads to hit online sometime soon to declare victory), how should researchers reach out to its target segments. True there is Google Scholar again for that, however many online research-based papers/articles available online (thro’ Google search) aren’t there in Google Scholar. There must be reasons best known to Google for that.
And increasingly the fine line between a research paper and a research-based article is getting more confusing that demarcates entry in Google Scholar and general Google crawler. Peer review makes less sense, because most academicians would love to concentrate on their own research rather than ‘clearing others’ shit’ as it’s termed by many reviewers.
And over Internet, wherever it be, users can post comments on agreements or on points of contentions.
Many famous academicians do blog, more so in the west and in the U.S. Countless names can be given – Niholas Carr of Harvard (and author if ‘IT Doesn’t Matter’, adjudged best HBR article for 2003 that raised a lot of controversy, starting from the level of Mr. Bill Gates of Microsoft), famous economist DeLong from Berkeley (‘Slouching Towards Utopia’)…list can be too long.
Many write for OMNI too, and in similar sites giving their insights to present world affairs. It becomes easy for researchers as research findings can always be interpreted in light of global affairs, without the quantitative and statistical jargons that may be of interest again to academicians only. Qualitative researchers always believe that any amount of quantitative research, if can’t be qualitatively explained, is as good as thousand times zero.
The question that emerges than: are the contents of these Web 2.0 sites any worse than their peer-reviewed journals? The answer is again yes and no based on the credibility of the author and the site. The good thing in Web 2.0 is they can be real time research, rather than post-mortem analyses as peer-reviewed publications take time. And in present dynamic world, in many sectors and in much of emerging nations, things change fast.
As a research scholar, I know I need to have similar peer-reviewed publications as per advice of my Doctoral Advisory Committee. The problem is, other than the process being too bureaucratic, the good reputed ones are unlikely to accept my papers; and at the same time, any researcher worth his/her salt won’t prefer to publish research findings anywhere just for the sake of publications.
That’s why many researchers from academics prefer to write in OMNI and other similar sites. True, this way we may be competing with journalists (more on opinion and analysis than on reporting per se), however I see it to be a good sign when, in same line, any business journalists tracking financial markets over years take classes on portfolio investments in a B-School.
However when above competition is combined with the broader self-learning opportunity that Internet offers (the fact that many faculties, while struggling a bit to explain any concept in classroom discussions, find many students with Wi-Fi facilities immediately refer to Wikipedia, even by drawing ire from that faculty), we academicians may soon have to find new career opportunities.
On the other side, as a researcher-and-writer in alternate media, it looks good when one finds his/her articles having been cited in other academic research works, or they even get debated in online forums.
As a researcher, that is inspiring because one knows his/her views are being read, moreover being debated as well. However the inevitable question an academic puritan from old school would ask: (1) Does the work follow fundamentals of research methodology? And if that’s there, the next question follows (2) Is the audience who is reading or debating over these in Web 2.0 media capable enough to debate on them, which may invariably demand academic insights in those target audience again?
We know in Internet, a tiger can superficially be mistaken to be a cat and vice-versa. With deeper probe in Internet again, the real virtual image anyway comes out, probably even better than real life images.
No one is sure on impact of Web 2.0 on academic publications. As researchers from academic community, we ask these questions on future of academic publishing; find academic sites that try and address these challenges (Teachlearning blog discusses ‘the Future of Academic Publishing’, there are many more) that’s evolving in line with other content generation and distribution organizations.
However why many young researchers are optimist is because, just as academicians have earned the rightful right to comment on politics to business management to economic issues because of their expertise; people who are working in corporate world, in politics, framing policies should also have the right to comment on quality of academic work. Expertise is never exclusive to any, and Internet happens to be most democratic here. Many from other domain don’t go through offline hardcopy publications, however they still may have a say based on their expertise.
Before I conclude, let me state quality of academic publications in India as of now and their accessibility. I happen to be a product of IIT-system (graduation, post-graduation and now research, IIT stands for Indian Institute of Technology); and to the best of my knowledge, at least my earlier departments didn’t have regular academic publications, and that’s been the practice even now with my present department. Indian Institute of Managements (IIMs), known more for their management focus do have their quarterly publications, now various new generation B-schools have lot more publications. The former, known for their quality, is too less for a country of India’s size; and quality of the later may be debatable.
One of my friends from corporate world, to attend an interview for PGDX (Post-Graduate Dimploma for Executives) program as launched by few IIMs lately, wanted an academic publication of one of the faculty members who was in selection committee. The objective was to improve his chances of selection in the interview round against stiff competition. My friend worked in IT area, but when he wanted to access it online, he was advised online/offline to make an account payee demand draft, courier it to the authorities of IIM and then probably he would have been sent a hardcopy of the paper by courier again.
Mo doubts my friend could not make it to that prestigious IIM.
OMNI talked about Web 2.0 and Global Reform, no doubt we need an academic reform all over before that happens
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© Ranjit Goswami. Ranjit is a research scholar with IIT Kharagpur and the author of the book Wondering Man, Money & Go(l)d.
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