Dr. Bala Ramadurai | Professor, Executive Coach & Consultant in Innovation, Design Thinking, Intrapreneurship & Technology Forecasting

My Books

I have written a few books on various topics.

My Podcasts

I have recorded a few podcasts on topics that I am very happy to talk about.

Welcome to the Books and Stuff Podcast Series. Krishna likes to read books, but Bala doesn’t. Bala likes to write, but Krishna doesn’t. They both love to talk! So, Bala and Krishna decided to talk about what Krishna reads. And thus the idea of recording their chatter was born. The two friends will discuss books they love. This series of podcasts is for busy people. People who’d love to learn about a book without having to read one. And maybe the podcast will inspire them to get their hands on a book that interests them.
These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Parvathi Ramkumar and Bala Ramadurai discuss their favourite TV show of all times: Star Trek: The Original Series. They dissect the episodes in terms of story structure, character profiles and various other interesting tidbits. Live long and prosper!

Design Thinking

The learners get under the skin of the user/customer and solve problems for them. The approach is based on an age old theory (more than 2000 years old) postulated by Lord Buddha. The learners learn thinking tools from the design world, the TRIZ/ARIZ world, Indian arts, metaphors and the patent database. Finally, they utilize some tools from six thinking hats and Mr. David Snowden. They learn the course interactively through silence, videos, stories, inane jokes and interesting assignments.

Creativity and Innovation

This workshop module uses the ARIZ/TRIZ thinking methodology (You could say that this course is an offspring of the design thinking course). The learners bring in problems that they have been working on and I guide them to use ARIZ/TRIZ in detail. The learner brings in problems that they have already understood and are fairly certain about the problem to solve using the concepts in the course.

Executive Coaching

“How does one execute a large innovation project within my company? Do I get personally involved or delegate? Am I listening or telling? I am doing my best, what more can I do?” If these are questions that keep coming to your head (and you happen to be the head of a company or department), you have reached the right place. One on one coaching can work wonders in clearing out the fog around some of the issues you may be facing in your workplace.

Technology Forecasting

If design thinking is for the NOW, technology forecasting is design thinking for the future. The learner uses a methodology called FORMAT - http://handbook.format-project.eu, a result of a European Union funded (~$3 million) project. The learner hones their skill to think of a future timeframe of more than 10 years. They will consider the potential of the current technology, but also the alternatives and how strong or weak is their technology of interest in comparison to the alternatives. Imagination, intuition, analytics and data crunching go hand in hand in this course. The predictions from the forecasting exercise are not as important as the questions of forecast posed (first stage of the FORMAT methodology).

Intrapreneurship - A workout

Intrapreneurship is a conundrum of sorts, since it is making an entrepreneur out of an employee taking the risks of an entrepreneur with the friendly resources of a company. How did Mindtree achieve this in 2008-9? I introduce the participants to the company profile. I excite them with the remarkable history of a very different kind of company. How and why did they launch 550? Why is 550 a very different sort of program? How did the program bring out innovation and the creative entrepreneurial spirit of the company? The learners assume the role of innovation managers of companies of their choice to design and present an intrapreneurship program.

Client Speak

I have worked with many clients and I always like to hear that they come out from the collaboration happy and satisfied. Have a look at what the clients said about my work.

Your TRIZ class was engaging in the way you connected with us. It helped broaden the way we approached problems.

Nari Narendrnath

Director, MTS, AppliedMaterials
In addition to knowledge and experience in design thinking, problem solving, and technology forecasting, Dr. Bala’s teaching approach was a shift from traditional pedagogy to perfect blend of giving conceptual background, hands on experience, and team learning. This suits as a learning approach for andragogy (adult learning).

Tenzin Rabgay

MBA (I&E), SIBM, Pune
We reached out to Bala pretty much last minute to help us facilitate a one day innovation workshop with one of our teams. Bala, made sure he first introduced the team to the nuances of ideation and innovation, introducing them to a framework that the team can follow holistically developing an Idea into a presentable prototype. During the facilitation of the workshop, he brought in the required energy and systematically guiding the teams to arrive at a presentable form that we could share with our stakeholders. The team thoroughly enjoyed the workshop and left rejuvenated to take up their ideas and develop them further, giving us an edge with our customers. Thank you Bala.

Vishal Bhalerao

Principal Consultant, ThoughtWorks
The students simply loved your session and so did I. They were asking me to look at how we could have some more sessions in the course from you :). They also mentioned that it was like they had just experienced the tip of the iceberg.

Supriya Chouthoy

Professor, Marketing, ICFAI Business School
My sincere thanks to Bala sir and his team for providing a very enriching learning experience for Design thinking course. Through out the journey it was very smooth and comfortable, spaced out with scope for recapturing and practice. The approach was very humble and effective in such a way that learner like me ( at the age of 50) also can take it with confident. The way in which the exam was conducted, in such a pandemic situation, was also very safe and smooth. I am glad to be one of the toppers, having got 94%, and for which I am grateful to Bala sir and his lively team! This course has given me the confidence to do many more courses and continue my learning experience.

Ms. Jayanthi Ramesh

Author and Freelance Trainer, Cambridge International

Updates (News and Blog)

I write occasionally about a few things that are dear to me - writing about life, teaching tools and techniques, and learning about technology. I plan to write more about health and writing in general as well. Stay tuned. Please do subscribe to my blog if you like what you read.

Podcast Enterprise: S1E18 Arena

on 2023-05-24

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

Synopsis or summary of the episode
Story structure
Character analysis
Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis:

When this episode begins, you have Captain Kirk along with the landing party. They land on the earth outpost on the planet Cestus III.

And apparently they received an invitation of the commander Travers and all of them are looking forward to it. And McCoy especially wants some food that’s fresh. So they go get down there and it’s utter mayhem because the place is deserted. Everybody seems to have died and somebody’s firing shells at them and grenades, and they have to hide.

They have to take shelter and the Enterprise is also under attack from a ship out there in space in orbit. And Kirk orders Sulu to take the ship out of orbit so that it stays safe. When these guys down here, they try to defend themselves from these shells. And eventually Kirk finds a grenade launcher.

He fires it in a particular direction from where he thinks these shells are being fired and the firing stops for the time being. By then the Enterprise comes back. They be back there and they also find a couple of survivors from the earth colony and they discover that an an alien race that nobody knows anything about has been attacking them.

They attacked without warning. They listened to nothing the earth outpost said, and they wiped everybody out of that. Wiped everybody off. They people are dead. The buildings are destroy. Everything is in ruins and and then when he fires, The attack stop just briefly, and by this time the enterprises also come back. They beam back up. They have a couple of survivors with them and this, this particular survivor tells them that an alien racist attacked them for no reason apparently, and they will not listen to any please.

They will not listen to any treaties. They were told that there are women and children on that outpost, but they’re not going to listen. And they’re just fired and fired and fired and almost everybody’s. So Kirk decides to take revenge on these guys. He pursues them. They go up to war eight trying to catch up with these people.

However, both the Enterprise and the alien ship enter uncharted territory. Their ships are made to stop by an alien civilization. Neither of them know anything about, it’s a very advanced civilization. They call themselves the Metrons.

The Metrons, they’re not impressed that these two lesser civilizations are fighting each other. And so they transport both Captain Kirk and the captain of the Gorn ship onto a planet and tell them that you’re going to fight each other. And long story short Kirk with a little bit of ingenuity. He manages to win the dual. He allows the Gorn to live however, and the Metrons are impressed and they let them go.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

Podcast Enterprise: S1E17 Squire of Gothos

on 2023-05-10

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

Synopsis or summary of the episode
Story structure
Character analysis
Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis:

When this episode opens, the Enterprise is on route to the beta six colony and they have to deliver some supplies there. However, the way between where the Enterprise is and where beta six is a big, huge star desert. It’s a void. There’s nothing there. And approximately, I think it’s about 900 years from Earth and in a place where there shouldn’t be anything, the Enterprise runs into a very peculiar planet and this peculiar planet. It’s not supposed to be there. They know it’s not supposed to be there.

And Kirk, the captain decides not to go there at this time. He decides to go to beta six first and then come back. However, the navigator Sulu is not allowed to. Make those course corrections and he disappears from the bridge. Kirk tries to find out what happens. Kirk also disappears from the bridge forcing Spock to take temporary command of the Enterprise.

And while they’re figuring out what to do, because this planet, they can’t really penetrate it because their sensors have all gone haywire. They get peculiar messages on one screen. Stuff like Tali-ho and hip-hip hurrah and all sorts of weird things on the communication screen. And they also find that there’s a small patch of land on that planet, which is otherwise quite fatal For humans.

They find a small patch of land, which is almost exactly like Earth and Spock decides to teleport some people down there, they find both Sulu and Captain Kirk down there. They’ve been frozen and there’s a peculiar alien in human form, dressed in something like 18th century fashions playing the harpsichord.

And this guy is fascinating because he has recreated the entire room to look like an 18th or 19th century European sitting room. And Kirk and Sulu, they’re brought back to life. They don’t know what to do. Kirk somehow outwits him and destroys a machine that this alien has been using. And the alien who’s an absolute nightmare to deal with, somehow, let’s him go for a few minutes and then he brings them all back to the planet again and eventually, he’s somehow outwitted to the point where everybody gets back to the ship. And then this is where the episode really gets a bit scary because they’re not able to outrun the planet, it seems to be pursuing them.

The alien is after them. He’ll not let them go. And you. We’ll discuss it in detail, but however, what happens basically is that Kirk is supposed to go back and stand the farce of a trial. It’s all very strange. He has to face a trial, the alien wants to kill him. Kirk outwits him, and then it comes to be that this alien is not really an adult.

He’s a child and his parents take him over.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

Books n Stuff Podcast: S2 Episode 03 - Scarecrow Chronicles-Written and read by Pathik Mitra

on 2023-05-03

Welcome to the Books n Stuff Podcast.

Imagine you have 48 hours in a day and 14 days in a week. What all would you be able to achieve? Without changing your achievements, change the number of hours in a day and days in a week to the usual 24 and 7. Look through your list, you can achieve a lot more than what you think, correct?

This is the kind of thinking that Pathik Mitra seems to have taught himself. He holds an engineering degree and an MBA. He works in a company, has the same duties and responsibilities that each of us has, yet, he’s managed to generate those extra 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week to publish his book and direct several plays.

His secret sauce - he argues with himself using a 1 member WhatsApp group and irons out his ideas when he has to wait in line or wait for boarding a flight. His other succesful idea is to sacrifice sleep.

I spoke to him about his book “Scarecrow chronicles”, in particular and how to nurture your creative life, in general.

He spoke about some of the stories in his anthology, particularly “Roots” and “A1 Jaggery”

Enjoy the Books and Stuff Podcast!

Podcast Enterprise: S1E16: Galileo Seven

on 2023-04-26

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

Synopsis or summary of the episode
Story structure
Character analysis
Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis: Here in the Galileo Seven we find the Enterprise en route to Makus III. They have a cargo of medical supplies that they need to give there, deliver there, and their course leads them past Murasaki 312, which is quasar like formation and onboard the Enterprise, there is also high Commissioner Ferris, who’s overseeing the delivery of the medicines to Makus III. So what happens is essentially Captain Kirk decides to investigate that quasar like formation, Murasaki 312. And high Commissioner Ferris is very annoyed with this, but there’s not much we he can do at this point because there’s still a little bit of time between the delivery of those medical supplies and their rendezvous on Makus III.

So Kirk has a little bit of time to do his investigations and as part of those investigations. He dispatches the Galileo with Spock in command. There they find a planet called Taurus two.

This is where we see Spock assuming leadership of the shuttle craft and the other people on it. The other members on this shuttle craft include Scotty and Dr. McCoy and this episode essentially follows Spock as he attempts to attain leadership with his logic and only his logic, and that leads to all sorts of disastrous consequences. Basically, that’s what this episode is. It also reveals a very strange and violent race on Taurus II, that attacks their shuttlecraft.

And again, Spock is supposed to take logical decisions. It lands him in deeper and deeper and deeper trouble, and eventually he has to rely on emotion. And he is really, really, really upset with that.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!