Will Zoom Survive?

 In case we all revert to life as in February 2020, what will happen to Zoom and Teams? There may be occasional use by some, and a regular use by a few, but the bulk of users may forget the online and move on to the face to face paradigm again.

By the way, even at the start of the online/WFH movement, whatever happened to Skype? Did it morph into Teams, or is it dead and gone? It was too complicated for most, I thought.

So maybe the lesson-another one- is that the better designed service will win. Zoom over Skype and Gmail over Yahoo earlier, are cases in point.

The Year 2021 in Photographs

 Well, that's one way to look at 2021.

IMTian Anshita organised this one above..

From the earlier IMT get-together at Orchid.

NMIMS Bangalore alumni.. at Salvatore's and Salt.

A student performs a dance for Independence Day, 2021, from home.

Anushka and I at 13th Floor.

Below, Chasha sent this pic of his family from NZ. He was my classmate at IIMB.

Some fun and games online, with first year MBA students (above)

Culinary art- mine (above) and not mine (below)

Summer delight!

Deepak and Neelima at an FDP-inhouse, NMIMS Bangalore.

Batchmate Zoom (Kusum) gets an award- she's a marketing prof.

Two beautiful ladies- Alums of PES and KIAMS.

NMIMS party (above) and Avinash and Medha (below)

Shailaja and IIMs alumni above, and Graduation Day honours at NM, below.

Birthday, wife's. Below, the Placement Team of 2020 at Deja Vu.

Musical minds, at Lalbagh (above)- an online event of HR Club, below.

Bangalore Club, above, and meeting Rajiv Krishnan from school, after 40 years

Events, above and below. Manuja compered for the Virtual convocation.

Nagendra shenoy saw through my mask (above), and a party for Christmas with Sangeeta.

Golf at NMIMS with students, and partying with Varun and Shatakshi of IIMI.

Grandmama's Cafe with Nishka and with Li and Lee and Lonavala.

Another li, Chaithu Gunapali, above, and Student of the Year 2021, getting her award -Manasa Bharathi

Dhanapal and I, and his son and DIL.

V for Vijayakumar.

Timing and Technology

 Why is it that Zoom became the big new thing (Cisco and videoconferencing had been around for ages)? Or Netflix? Or before them, Facebook, Or Google Search, Yahoomail? In India, Rediff.com and mail?

There is this matter of correct timing. Technology is usually available somewhere, but the timing has to be right. One day, there will be electric cars everywhere, though today they are not.

You may call it luck, but evolution, word of mouth and circumstances like COVID may push everything by a few years. Like Work From Home. I heard about this concept from IT companies around 25 years ago, but it happened only last year on a large scale, and may stay on in some industries at least.

Will humans be replaced by robots? Could be if the time is right! I might buy a few in the meantime, to massage my aching feet or do my laundry.