Comments on: It’s the Small Stuff, Stupid

By: Atanu Dey on India’s Development » And the Address

Atanu Dey on India’s Development » And the Address — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 09:21:55 +0000

[...] r Sai Krupa Building Opp. Liberty Cinema Gandhi Chowk Residency Road Sadar Nagpur 440013 It’s the small stuff, stupid.

Stumble it!

[...]

By: Anand Matam

Anand Matam — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 17:41:04 +0000

I agree that it would take a while, may be a decade or even half a century, for the people to adapt to standardization. But just a taste of it would accelerate the same.

But, however small this stuff is, it is the key to utmost convenience in land-development, management and location. Indian Postal Service(IPS) holds the key to standardization owing to the PIN code system for sorting and delivering mails.

The key is in using dual systems, old system for the common man and a new standardized system by agencies like IPS on a test basis for a type area.

Why standardization is utmost important is: using Navigation Systems(GPS navigators in your car) is impossible unless there is standardization. Getting driving directions is almost impossible although impressive attempts have been made. Unlike typical hindi movies police and firefighters can reach a destination on time and help in redung disaster and crime.

Educating the younger generation in schools and colleges about the new system on incorporation can revolutionize the phase-wise reconstruction of the address standardization. Slowly but steadily people would definitely accept the new system.

May be we could make a difference. It is just in making an attempt. Beauraucracy is always there but the quest for convenience can be attempted through beauraucracy too. There is something called lobbying.

By: Samy

Samy — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 16:44:05 +0000

As long as there are people around to ask the address.. and there are always a lot of them – believe me.. I dont think Indian way of writing the address will change. Even if you put the street number, people will still ask everyone else – its so typical of a place like Bombay!

And I think the problem with the telephone system is that we keep buying discarded/obselete telephone switches from other countries – some come with 6 digits and some with seven or more.. it stays OK for a while and then they have to add one more digit because of the population growth.

All our politicians have been traveling all over the world for generation – don’t you think they have observed uniform address system and telephone numbering system in different parts of the word! But then either they are stupid or they just do not want to act on it so the life in India continues….

By: Kent Smith

Kent Smith — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 09:04:16 +0000

In the city to which I’ve recently moved, Genoa, Italy, an attempt was made 130 years ago to make sense of the chaotic and duplicative addresses by renumbering the entire city. While they were at it they renamed many streets, as those too were often duplicated. The government soon discovered that it had made a calamity — documents going back centuries, both in Genoa and around the world, referred to the old addresses, and they realized those mustn’t be lost. So houses were required to post both the ancient and the modern addresses, which gave a license to people to refer to either one (and many preferred the old addresses). To this day the system is in chaos, and finding an address in Genoa is a near impossibility.

By: Atanu Dey on India’s Development » “GPS for the common man”

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 08:08:16 +0000

[...] dibly complex and terribly urgent problem. Some time ago, I had written in a piece called It’s the small stuff, stupid:I just went out to lunch in the neighborhood of [...]

By: Atanu Dey on India’s Development » Adopting Innovation (from the archives)

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 10:38:46 +0000

[...] doption of innovation rather than the causes innovations. This is from one of the earlier It’s the small stuff, stupid posts: I could go on and on ad nauseum about li [...]

By: Atanu Dey on India’s Development - Deeshaa » Blog Archive » Adopting Innovations

Thu, 30 Jun 2005 03:16:07 +0000

[...] on India’s Development

Deeshaa

« It’s the Small Stuff, Stupid
Enlightened Reformation »
[...]

By: Arun Anantharaman

Arun Anantharaman — Unknown, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The ability to adopt innovations

That is a very good point. But one of the reasons that does not happen as well as we would like it to is because of “vested interests”.

There are people who benefit because of the status quo, and I think that, unfortunately in India, they do a very good job of hindering this ability to adopt. Or conversely, maybe we have not learn to deal with them strongly enough

By: Anand

Anand — Unknown, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I think one day, people are going to say, I don’t care whether you are pro-OBC, pro-SC/ST, secularist, psuedo-secularist, or non-secularist. Just build me some darn roads, and make it easier for me to call up a couple of folks, and get from place A to place B, and I will vote for you.

Another way to put it : infrastructure development is a shared resource, whose efficiencies are realized by all, but which may not be a derivative of open markets. Effective political systems are called for to promote the growth of such infrastructure. Political action ought to be aimed towards securing such efficiencies.

By: Arun Varadarajan

Arun Varadarajan — Unknown, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Again lookign at the sample address.. makes me come back to the point of standardization.. how do you standardize the address.
Another solution would be … have a service like 1-800 . In the US there is a service ( i do not think in all cities) by which people can call up to recieve directions. Might sound slightly out of the world but feasible…
If not do what anyone would most likely do… Ask the autodriver of taxidriver!!!!
A crude solution but maybe sounds practical.
Also there is the Hi Hi tech solution… GPS… or Microsoft Roads and maps or something like that whoch has maps that can be loaded onto GPS systems and become a map for everyone but way way off the common man’s reach…

Arun Varadarajan

By: Nitin

Nitin — Unknown, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Japanese addresses are quite complex too. Probably more non intuitive than the Indian ones But I digress…