The King and I. (Well, almost.)

I could not believe my eyes. The Honourable Finance Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (the authentic one as I found out by checking at http://tinyurl.com/5zthre) had taken the time and the trouble to write personally to me citing belief in the rule of law and transparency of the President of the Republic (also the genuine one as I found out by checking at http://tinyurl.com/2mcalf) and apologising for the damage caused by the previous government to me and my company vendours (sic) and asking me to verify the authenticity of the Power of Attorney, et cetera, et cetera and so forth. http://tinyurl.com/5vxwwa. Here's the truth, the whole truth and nothing but brought to you verbatim:

PAYMENT NOTIFICATION: PLEASE RESPOND URGENTLY

Wednesday, August 20, 2008 9:28 PM

From: Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman" shamusfmf2@live.com

To: undisclosed-recipients

Dr Shamsudeen Usman
The Honorable Minister ofFinance,
Federal Republic of Nigeria
http://www.fmf.gov.ng/

Hello,

Be informed that the report on your payment file this morning stated that so many people were interested on your payment and that was what brought about the confusion and all the attempts to divert your fund. Now, every thing regarding the tenure of our corrupt ex President Olusegun Obasanjo have been cancelled.

The new president Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar'adua is a man that believes so much on the rule of law and transparency. We sincerely apologize to you and your company over all the damage caused by the government of Obasanjo to you and your company vendours. This is to inform you that MR. KHALED SAMIR and his Nigeria partner, MR. SADIQ ABDUL came to my office with a "POWER OF ATTORNEY" signed by you and a new bank account as stated below.

JINNING BRANCH BANK
CHINA INNER MOGOLIA JINNY
7 NUMBER 5, ROAD
ACCOUNT # 1-277-0084
BANK ROUTING#:102000021A.

The "POWER OF ATTORNEY" requested for a change in the receiving bank account particulars and the federal ministry of finance is surprised because you did not inform us officially of the sudden change of the new beneficiary. Interestingly, they brought the "POWER OF ATTORNEY" and the charges for the change of bank account totaling US$550.00 (five hundred and fifty United States Dollars) only. But we rejected the money pending our clarification. On this note, we acted professionally and in accordance to the laid down rules and regulations of this ministry, I interviewed them but unfortunately I was not satisfied with the answers they gave which was not in line with the rules and regulations of this ministry as regard to change of account or beneficiary. I want to state here that the conduct of the two men became suspicious due to the unsatisfactory information they provided concerning this transfer, and as a result, I decided to give them (14 working days) appointment ahead to enable me make necessary verification from you and the appropriate authorities in the release of your fund. We have resolved to do that to avoid making wrong transfer. Please, kindly advise us appropriately whether the two men are acting on your permission and instructions or not. I am anxiously looking forward to receive your urgent response.Thanks for your anticipated co-operation.

Dr Shamsudeen Usman
The Honorable Minister of
Finance, Federal Republic of Nigeria

NOTE: Please make sure you include your contact number in your response.

Need I say more? By the way, I found no mention of the above quoted email received by me in my Yahoo mailbox as scam here: http://tinyurl.com/6hqktc.

Talking pictures.

I can’t believe my eyes. Or, my luck at finding it. Here’s this simply written book by a successful practitioner from the retail space with gumption and courage of his conviction. He believes in doing things his own way, His credo is non-elitism, simplicity, thrift, transparency, trust, risk-taking, humility and rewriting the rules to suit the Indian reality. I had heard glowing things about him from my friend, Deep Bisen. Reading his It Happened in India was something else altogether, though. I liked the way the book is 'packaged' with an autobiographical narrative punctuated by "real people" commentary. The most fascinating part of his story is about the use of design thinking in communication. Talking in pictures, in other words. One of the earliest uses of this technique in India was by MK Gandhi. He shed his earlier Western garb to dress himself like the lowest common denominator of India. Believing as he did that India lived in her villages, he chose to dress like the villager. No wonder the aam janata took him to their hearts and followed his lead so readily. (Never mind Winston Churchill's "naked fakir" taunt, boys and girls.) The other interesting stuff I found in Kishore Biyani’s seminal textbook about retailing is his exposition of memetics. Gandhi’s “Quit India” was one powerful meme, for instance. (Meme is ”an information pattern, held in an individual's memory, which is capable of being copied to another individual's memory”. Memetics is “the theoretical and empirical science that studies the replication, spread and evolution of memes”. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/MEMES.html.) Being the bania that he was, Gandhi is believed to have said the following: "A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so." http://quotations.about.com/b/a/029356.htm. [Also cited here: http://www.gandhi.ca/gandhi/quotes/service.php.] Gandhigiri anyone? That’s exactly what Kishore Biyani has been telling us. Indeed, his 2-step test to gauge the suitability of wannabe Pantaloon franchisees is based, chapter and verse, on the Gandhian precept. P.S.: Biyani is a Hindi film buff and has two feature films to his credit. It’s interesting to speculate what would have happened had he been associated with the Munnabhai series. Would he have included the above quote in the script? You may want to read an excerpt (‘Family Values’) here: http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.aspx?page=article&sectid=5&contentid=20070420024335640e8268c46&pageno=1. Another excerpt (‘Early Life’): http://www.business-standard.com/lifeleisure/storypage.php?leftnm=5&subLeft=6&chklogin=N&autono=282781&tab=r.