Of Embracing Constraints and Driving Innovation

Not so long ago, I was speaking with one of the talented engineers (lets call him John) who was involved in a high visibility project as a part of Innovation Program that i was leading. His team had done extremely well to be selected among 5 ideas out of 100+ submissions that came in from diverse set of employees. His had made impeccable, convincing pitch presentations about his idea during the evaluation rounds.

The way this innovation program worked was that the selected employees usually get certain percentage of their time to work on the project. What i have experienced is, even with a strong

management support, the selected teams has to spend far more time than what is allocated to realize the potential of their idea. While not really an ideal situation but that's how most corporate innovation programs function. One could call it a stretch for the participating employees but what good has ever been achieved by staying within the confines of one's comfort zone.

So what John was asking me was that he finds it extremely difficult to manage the innovation project and the regular work he has and the fact that he only has limited time at hand to be making a meaningful contribution. I had a long conversation with him to understand what the root-cause of his condition was. Could it be misalignment with manager ? Could it be an issue with managing time ? Could it be that the theme of innovation project being totally different from his core work ? Could it just be an issue with not being able to multi-task ?

As i delved deeper, i figured out that the core cause leading to the effect he has facing was quite different. To cut the story short, he was finding it very difficult to deal with situation of extreme constraint. The constraint that he was faced with was lack of time. And my analysis of this situation suggested that rather than embracing constraints, he just chose to conflict with the constraints put forward by prevailing situation. And this conflict was stressing him out.

In this insightful article, Ash Maurya makes a compelling point when he says-

We all hustle, struggle, and fight to acquire more resources for our projects. But ironically, when we have these resources in excess, we don’t become efficient. We become wasteful.

At the heart of Lean Start-up approach, that became a sort of gold standard for building successful start-ups, lies a theory which when put into practice teaches us how best to respond to an ultimate constraint of our life. Time.
Start-ups need to find that elusive product-market fit before they run out of time or money or both. 

The of the main reason the Lean Start-up approach became popular was because it taught its followers how to deal with constraints a start-up face. Many facets of Lean Start-up approach like iterating quickly, validating the idea, collecting data before making decisions and going through the build-measure-learn cycle ensured better preparation against the constraints.

In the book 'Disrupt Yourself' that i was reading recently, i found this profound mention:

In 2007, Entrepreneur magazine compiled a list of the five hundred fastest-growing companies in the United States. I was intrigued by the various ways these companies had funded their growth, rather than taking outside cash. Only 28 percent had access to bank loans/lines of credit, 18 percent were funded by private investors, and 3.5 percent received funding from VCs: as many as 72 percent of these successful businesses were pulling themselves up by their boot straps. I believe these companies were successful not in spite of, but because of, their constraints.

And also the book introduces you to this successful case of Pluralsight, which i reproduce below:

A prototype for bootstrapping is Pluralsight, an online training library for developers and information technology professionals. In 2004, Aaron Skonnard and three software developer colleagues launched Pluralsight on a shoestring budget of $20,000. Growth needed to be funded through cash flow, so they were highly incentivized to get the business model right. By 2007, they had grown the company to $2.5 million in revenue. After they pivoted from classroom to online training in 2008 and demand exploded, Pluralsight finally took in outside money in 2012, raising $27.5 million to fund future growth. In 2014, they generated revenue of $60+ million, and CEO Skonnard was recognized as an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

There is a common theme emerging from these examples:
1. Constraints are not really the enemy of progress and if dealt with well, can be the cause of progress. Lack of finesse in managing constraints can well be damaging to the project in a short term, and to the business in a longer run.

2. Bootstraping (get into or out of a situation using existing resources) is painful in a short term, but successful in a long run. Short-term discomfort should be embraced in favor of long term gains.

3. Constraints comes in many flavors but mostly wrapped under the covers of knowledge, time and money. Much like less time at hand can improve our focus, less knowledge can be our license to think differently than our incumbents. 

I wrote this article up just so that I meet a John in near-future, I can effectively show the light at the end of tunnel.

What are your secrets of dealing with constraints ?

Images Source:
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/55b65626e4b0d3dd13b3b383/55b68b97e4b0c3dfa580cd86/57ea79a55016e19cf41302a8/1475497425148/BIZZ.png?format=1500w
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51nRGy9lBSL._SX334_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Things I Learned From Intuit Fasal Story

As few days back, i wrote about a 16 year old India shooter Saurabh Chaudhary's achievement at winning the world cup gold. Saurabh overcame daunting constraints to emerge victorious at the world stage. In every walk of life, we face constraints that seemingly come in the way of our success. How we think about these constraints eventually becomes a difference between success or half-success or failure.

Recently reading the book- 'Disrupt Yourself', I came across this riveting story recently on how the

product Intuit Fasal came to life.

Intuit's VP of Product Development was given a mandate to change the life of 1.2 billion Indians. Unlike many other initiatives of such magnitude, this project didn't get laden with resources.
Despite the open ended nature of the project driven by a grand vision, it had to start somewhere.
Intuit got three engineers of the job and gave them the directive to 'figure something out'.

As they started chatting with farmers, they figured out that farmers had an information access problem. They were mostly growing perishable food and were mostly at the mercy of mandi (Indian farm market place) owners and had to agree to the price they were quoting. While making the decision pertaining to selling their produce, they didn't have access to the prices being offered by other mandis and also didn't have any knowledge of changes in prices. Due to this, farmers were selling the stuff orders of magnitude lower than what they should have got.

So what did the engineers do, after they had qualified the problem? They didn't go and start coding the solution. They rather adopted a low cost, highly iterative approach by manually seeking the prices and texting it to the farmers on their mobile.
They eventually came with up an easy-to-use, text message-based platform that uses complex matching algorithms to help the farmers get the best prices.
Fasal has more than two million active users in India who enjoy a 20 percent increase in their bottom line.

Embracing Constraints:
I started this article with a mention of constraints and how our attitude towards them plays a part in

determining the eventual outcome. Intuit Fasal's story is a great case in driving innovation in midst constraints. Working in organizations, the constraints can come in different shapes and sizes. They can be in different forms- be it knowledge based constraints, time based or money based. In case of Fasal, the VP of Product Development offered minuscule resources for an outrageous vision.
Alternate approach could have been for them to put in large budgets in anticipation of the results.
But the scarcity of resources helped them create a sense of urgency and likely drove the engineers to maximize on the most important, non-perishable resource, time.







Shunning Analysis Paralysis:
As wikipedia defines:
Analysis paralysis describes a moment where over-analyzing or over-thinking a situation can cause it to become 'paralyzed', meaning that no action was taken therefore a solution is not reached.

One unintended consequence of having too many resources is that it leads to tendency of spending resources on over-planning i.e. to cover all the bases before taking action. The team at Inuit Fasal realized that only way they could achieve progress was to hit the ground running and reach out the rural areas to identify problems causing significant pain to the citizens.
Quite often, the lure of arriving at a perfect solution keeps us locked in the meeting rooms far away from the ground realities of the situation.

Low Fidelity Prototype:
Intuit Fasal team didn't in product development till they qualified the magnitude and relevance of problem they were looking to solve. They followed judicious approach to product development and actually didn't even start building the solution in a big-bang way till they qualified their approaches to solution.
The invested in what is termed as low fidelity prototype. As defined in this interesting design blog:

Low-fidelity (lo-fi) prototyping is a quick and easy way to translate high-level design concepts into tangible and testable artifacts. The first and most important role of lo-fi prototypes is to check and test functionality rather than the visual appearance of the product.

Intuit Fasal's team first prototype was a manual text based system where they sent the market rate based info to farmers after manually matching the type of crop. They invested in a solution only after qualifying that it really solved the identified problem.

What did you learn from this inspiring story ?

Story source:
Book: Disrupt Yourself
YouTube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuMpnWxblVY

Image source:
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*xwAg16Mhmj2NRPmmhNGjBQ.png
https://3jd8gl2iires146kaw2hgqy9-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Political-analysis-paralysis.jpg

How to find your distinctive strength ?

I am currently reading the book- 'Disrupt Yourself' by Whitney Johnson. The book is based on the application of Clay Christensen's world renowned theory of disruptive innovation for managing

individual careers.

One specific aspect of disruption it talks about is playing to one's distinctive strengths. Marcus Buckingham's books and body of knowledge covers the notion of strength based thinking in-depth. Too be honest, earlier in my career, i didn't quite believe in the concept of playing to one's strengths, or not to overly focus on eliminating weaknesses. The main reason i argued with myself was that human beings are among the most malleable species around and they have infinite capacity to mold themselves. I see multiple examples of this playing around me. Recently, i was reading a book on Ripley's Believe it or not and some stories of the participants really amazed me. It was not just the act that was described. The common thread in many stories was the fact that people practiced deliberately and became better at their act.

With time, experience and knowledge, i have softened my stance on not just playing to one's strength but i still believe that we as humans are extremely capable of dealing with our weakness only if we are willing to set our focus to changing anything within us. In a larger scheme of things, it's more about where we want to set our priorities.

It was this context that really made me read through the chapter in the book 'Disrupt Yourself' with interest. The part that i liked was the analogies used by author to drive home the point e.g. sharing the story below:

"Think about the cuddly little koala, sleeping up to twenty hours a day. One might have serious

doubts about its ability to survive. However, the koala can
do something that almost no other animal can: it use eucalyptus leaves, which have minimal nutritional and caloric value, as a food source.'

Nature has it's powerful ways of ensuring that the each of the species were born with unique strengths and these strengths make them survive and differentiate themselves from the rest of the us.

Then's there a mention about Charles Darwin's experiment on finches:

When Darwin gathered numerous specimens of these birds. He analyzed these and presented to a ornithologist. At first these seem like similar specimens but careful analysis revealed that each one

was an evolved species of finches. In their evolution, most distinctive part was their unique beak structure that allowed it to exploit different types of food.

In summary, our strengths evolve with time and with practice. This is quite common in the world of sports. Quite often the sporting talent is identified in the early ages but the ones that make their mark eventually are the ones that hone their talent with hardwork, sweat and putting in hours of practice. One's strength isn't really a constant and with a dose of effort and with time, it can evolve into something significant.

So how can one find their distinctive strength ? The book offers some advise that resonated with me. It shares the advise in form of questions and that allows you to do some soul searching to find the answers:

1. What skills have helped you survive ?
2. What makes you feel strong ?
3. What exasperates you about others ?
4. What made you different as a child ?
5. What compliments do you shrug off ?
6. What are your hard won skills ?

I found these questions eye opening as they allow you to look at the word 'strength' not in unidimensional sense but genuinely opens up different avenues to articulate your strengths to yourself.

How would you answer these questions for yourself ? or you have better ways to find your strengths. Please share by commenting.

Images source:
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51nRGy9lBSL._SR500,500_.jpg
https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/sites/default/files/2016-11/animals_hero_koala02%20copy.jpg
https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/xJKggxhrEM9sJsVxLu3d9Cz1jI0=/800x600/filters:no_upscale()/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/40/36/4036d112-76e8-45f8-bcaf-83a121f49fe6/finches1.jpg

#KoalaStory #FinchesStory #Darwin #Strengths #PowerofQuestions

What's Your Excuse Today ?

Saurabh Chaudhary is 16 year old, but he is quite unlike teenagers in his tender age group. He recently won a gold medal in 10m air pistol in the  shooting world cup held in Feb 2019.

 Saurabh not just won in senior category (being a teenager!) but shattered world record by an unbelievable margin. His reaction post winning got everyone talking in awe. He simply remained calm sans any emotions, truly presenting a sight of a man possessed- someone who has his eyes set on something big in life.

The point of my post is not only to celebrate incredible victory of his but also to drive home a point that occurred to me on seeing the side tweet.

The picture in this tweet shows the shooting range at Saurabh's home. Apparently, it was a cowshed that was converted into a shooting range with almost minimalist equipment.

I am not an expert at knowing all the nuances of the sport of shooting. But having read Abhinav Bindra's biography and through my association with OGQ and listening to stories, i do understand that equipment, conditions plays a big part in training for this sport. Any sub-par equipment can be a contrast between a Gold medal and 20th place in the medal table.

In such a thoroughly competitive sport, Saurabh winning at the highest levels with minimal facilities during his formative year is simply superlative. Of course, he now has access to the best of equipment and the coaches but that doesn't take away anything from his humble beginnings and how he rose.

I am also reminded of the message in this tweet from Vala Afshar. The message in it is profound and the way it is expressed nothing but touching.

'Some people would love to have your bad days"


When kids of Saurabh's age, living in big cities would have demanded greater facilities or used lack of facilities as an excuse for not training hard enough, Saurabh chose to do the opposite. He embraced his constraints and even turned his constraints into his strength. While others complained of a rainy day, Saurabh was busy figuring how to make best use of the moment at hand and find ways to take that small step towards eventual expertise.

Whitney Johnson in her book 'Disrupt Yourself' says:
"Whether we create or impose constraints, having a plan for how to make constraints work for you- asking not 'Why did this happen to me?' but 'How did this happen to help me?'- is the difference between bracing yourself for a lesser version of you, and moving at a breakneck speed up your personal learning curve."

Champions are not made in a day, it takes a toil, dealing with acute moments of despair, hopelessness, dealing with unimaginable constraints to emerge as one- much like the sacrifices a piece of coal goes through before becoming a diamond.

Saurabh Chaudhary, What an inspiration! Take a bow, Champion!

So, What's your excuse today- for not doing what you ought to be doing ?

Tweet source:
https://twitter.com/mihirsv/status/1099908190072983552
https://twitter.com/ValaAfshar/status/946096069212913665

What is your least popular but deeply held opinion on personal productivity?

One of the recent trends in twitter conversations that i am impressed about is that influencers on the platform starting meaningful threads and the followers sharing their perspectives and experiences.

One such thread that i was fascinated about was the one started by Andrew Chen, a16z partner. Andrew asked a question on twitter: 
What is your least popular but deeply held opinion on personal productivity?

I found this thread relevant and hence sharing some of the responses to this thread that i found useful.

Should i be organized all the time ?
- Being super organized is a bad thing. Means there's no room for serendipity, deep thought, can make you overly passive on other peoples' use of your time, as opposed to being focused on outbound. (Sorry to all my super Type A friends) (Andrew Chen)


Procrastinate or not ?
- The ideas on which I make my most money were the result of procrastinating and being interrupted. (James Bach)


Should i manage energy or time ?
- The secret to productivity is managing energy not time. You can get more done in less time using the mental equivalent of high-intensity interval training: alternating between eustress sprints (hyperfocus, high arousal) and recovery (inward focus, low arousal) to prevent burnout. (Dr. Cameron Sepah)- gave me the idea: "print out your calendar every week, highlight everything that gives you energy in green and everything that takes away energy in red. trim the red" can be tough, but leads massive improvement in productivity & general happiness (Jordan Gonen)

How should i speak in meetings ?
- In meetings: I try to hold off on saying something as long as possible. Speaking up only when something *needs* to be said increases productive communication by 10x.
By speaking *every time* I have a thought, I reduce my impact when I finally have something important to say. (Ben Erez)


Pen/Paper or Digital To do list ?
- TODO list apps never work better as much as a pen and a paper (doesn't matter how bad the handwriting is 😆) (Sethu Venai)- 1. Intensity over volume.
2. Journal as you work. Feels like extra work, but 10x your mindfulness.
3. No notifications. Everything on your own time.
4. One thing that matters > Ten things that just feel urgent (Coach Tony)

Information nutritionist- i like this term:
- Everyone should hire an information nutritionist. We spend more than 30% of our lives browsing the Internet now and a lot of it is consuming junk info. (Cameron Sadler)


Never defer call from family:
- If an immediate family member or a loved one calls
- No matter how important the task you are accomplishing is on your list (presentation, board meeting, pitch on stage) step out, pick up the phone, or respond back. Make sure to let them know you are there for them. (Montasir Adams)


Exercise helps you clear your mind like no other tonic does:
- Taking time off to work out. Whenever I’m stuck on a problem or project and I have no time to go to the gym, I can just feel my efficiency slipping through my fingers. (Paige Sandhu)


Credits:
mentioned in parenthesis against each point

#productivity #twitter #ideas

Ageless wisdom from Novak Djokovic's victory speech

This week Novak Djokovic won the Laureus World Sports Award for Sportsman of the Year. He made a stunning comeback in 2018 by winning 3 out of 4 grand slam events. His 2017 rankings had plummeted to 12, which is not bad by any standards but below par for a man who has been ranked in top 3 in world tennis since 2007.

He gave a remarkable speech after winning the award. His ~4:30 minute speech can be found here.

I found the speech quite relatable, authentic and without any airs. Novak appeared completely vulnerable yet grace personified. In other words, Novak appeared entirely human almost distinct from his super-human image of a person who has a machine-like consistency and is almost unbeatable on tennis court.


Reflection #1:
Novak said, I live by philosophy: "Expect Nothing"

Steven Covey shared these ageless lines 'Begin with the end in mind'. Most of us humans- in pursuit of something big, are always driven by an end-goal in mind. There is nothing wrong in having an
end-goal, infact we all should have one. But the problem happens if we let our minds get dominated and bogged-down by the distracting thoughts about what will happen if we achieve the end-goal.
'Expect Nothing' philosophy releases the unnecessary pressure that we put ourselves in pursuit of extravagant outcomes. It also prepares us well for the eventuality in case the outcome is not achieved. Detaching oneself with the fruits of the outcome can help our minds focus sharply. Eventually, its a choice: a mind loaded under the weight of our own expectations works much less efficiently than a free mind that expects nothing but excellence in what is being done at that moment.

Reflection #2:
Journey is the destination

Novak said, 'In Roland Garros 2016, when i achieved the ultimate goal in tennis to hold all 4 slams at the same time- I felt a huge relief. I did not feel the fulfillment to be honest. I tried to understand why. I think it was because i didn't leave the process, the journey as much as i needed and wanted that destination. When i reached the goal, i realized that the goal would be nothing without that journey. Then i understood the concept and philosophy of life of being present and being in the now  because that's where the power lies.'

It recall a phrase from Geet Sethi's  book 'Success vs Joy' where he says, concentration is simply remaining in the present. Probably one of the most effective definitions of concentration and focus that i found. Novak's realization after winning all 4 slams really makes us wonder about one of the most underrated, yet most effective but most difficult to master human trait 'Staying in the present'.

I am also reminded of story (i think from Steve Waugh's biography). Before 1999 World cup, Australian Cricket captain Steve Waugh's address to his team said that no matter what the outcome of this world cup would be, i would like you to take this as 'No regrets' tour.
What he was alluding to was that irrespective of the outcome of the tour, none of the team members should have a iota of regret that they could have delivered better efforts, could have shown-up more.
In summary, he was hinting to his team to enjoy the journey, stick to the processes that made them successful thus far and expect just the high quality effort but not the shiny world-cup as an outcome.

Since they managed to stay in this zone day-in and day-out, Australia were able to lift not only 1999 world cup, but also 2003 and 2007. They were virtually unbeaten in world cup for more than a decade before being beaten by India in 2011 world cup quarter-finals.
This is what 'Expect nothing' and 'Journey is the destination' does to you!

(update on 25th-Feb)
A couple of days back Saurabh Chaudhary, a 16 year old shooter from India created history by winning senior world cup gold in 10m air pistol. Saurabh not just won the gold medal but completely dominated the field with a huge lead of 5.7 points and bettered the world record by more than 1 point. Such margins are unheard of in a sport of shooting.

Saurabh comments post this victory-
'There was a little pressure of playing in the senior's final, but I did what my coach had asked me to do. He said 'shoot as you do in practice' and I did that. I never thought about the record or quota place. I didn't even look at the monitor to check my competitor's scores during the final.' 

What Saurabh achieved is remarkable and it won it Olympics quota. If we dissect his comments, there is a clear indication that he detached himself from the eventual outcome. It is evident when he says he never thought about record or did he check his competitor's scores. All he did was achieving self-mastery and remained firmly rooted in the moment, on the ground. In short, he expected nothing, just nothing. But this thinking helped him achieved all that was on platter- the gold medal, a world record and Olympic quota place.


Image source:
https://www.tennisworldusa.org/imgb/70785/novak-djokovic-2008-ao-title-gave-me-huge-boost-and-propelled-my-career-.jpg
https://www.abc.net.au/news/image/9595544-3x2-940x627.jpg

#expectnothing #noregrets #journeyisthedestination #focus #concentration

Three reflections from David Heinemeier's recent interview

I went through this interview article with David Heinemeier yesterday with much interest and anticipation. Before i get to the reason around my interest, here's an answer to 'Who is David Heinemeier?', just in case you didn't know:

David Heinemeier Hansson is the co-founder of Basecamp and NYT bestselling coauthor of Rework and Remote. He’s also the creator of the software toolkit Ruby on Rails, which has been used to launch and power Twitter, Shopify, GitHub, Airbnb, Square, and over a million other web applications.

Reflection #1:

What caught my attention in this article was the below paragraph, which I also tweeted about:

'I’ve realized that the hard part about most books is not reading them but recalling their knowledge or insight when you need it the most.'
This is very succinctly put up sentence. When I took up reading big time almost a decade back, I

was driven by this quote from Prakash Iyer's article:

"If you read for just half an hour everyday, you could finish a 250 page book in just two weeks' time. That's twenty six books a year. A hundred books in next four years. Just think, what difference would that make to the quality of your mind, your career, your life ? Just thirty minutes a day can do the trick, so stop giving excuses about not having the time to read."
I almost found unparalleled joy is reading as much as possible. During productive years, i might have read close to 70-75 books (a year).


The reading habit helped me in groove and helped me utilize my time well, gain unique perspectives that i leveraged in my work time, personal time, in my writings. But I have to also admit that i sometimes felt overwhelmed with continuous reading. This feeling stemmed from the fact that i had filled most of my white-spaces with reading. I had a book with me all the time so even while waiting in queues, in flight, while driving (audio books)- i was trying to extract something from the books. Gaining knowledge helped but not leaving some white-spaces free didn't.


In my quest to find solutions, i found this piece from Tanmay Vora quite relevant. In this post, Tanmay argues that unidimensionally consuming content without focusing on creating stuff, creates an imbalance in learning. One got to focus on applying what's learned than merely applying all the energies on learning just for the sake of learning.

That shifted paradigm a bit for me and helped me focus not just on reading but with the intention of applying the thoughts through the mediums such as applying in work situations (which was happening earlier too, but sub consciously), writing about it, teaching to someone etc.

That's why when i saw David's quote, it made me reinforce that:
"Unless learning is retrievable at this time you need it, it's not of much use."

Reflection #2:

David also said during the interview:

"You can get really good at most things, even if you start “late”, if you know how to learn."

This resonated well with me as i consider myself being a sort of a late starter in some sense. I started running quite late in age and ran my first full marathon (FM) at an age when people are so content with their body type and routines and eventually ended up doing 17 FMs till date. I started sketch noting just last year and managed to get good reviews of my sketchnotes. I tend to pick up a new hobby every year and have ventured into doing magic, handwriting analysis to name a few things.

I do believe that age has hardly anything to do with your creative pursuits. On the contrary, i feel its our obligation to learn more, learn new stuff as we age, just for our own sake.


Reflection #3

In responding to the question- What is your proudest achievement?, David responded:
Being able to live an authentic life where I feel neither too good or too intimidated to share my raw impressions of the world or the lessons I’ve learned along the way. I feel like I’ve found this magical sweet spot where on the one hand I’m insulated from worries about what a boss might say (or fire me for saying), and on the other hand living in enough obscurity that I don’t have to worry much about what others might think.
I don't think i have achieved equanimity to the extent David has but i do fully resonate with what he

says here and try to follow here.

One of my idols, the cricketer Rahul Dravid is supposed to have said this while describing Virat Kohli, current India cricket captain:

"While Dravid admitted to cringing at some "outrageous" things Kohli says on occasions, he also defended him by saying that so long as he was true to himself, and it helped get the best out of him it shouldn't matter. I think the game is still about performance. So let's not take that way from someone like Kohli," Dravid said at the Bangalore Literature Festival on Sunday. "That's his personality. People have asked me, 'Why didn't you behave like that?' But that's not what got the best out of me. I would have been inauthentic to myself if I had tried to put tattoos and behave like Virat."

Dravid rightly argues that authentic to self is very, very important. This is especially true in today's world where we try to 'fit-in' other's expectations while grossly compromising who we are.

Rahul Dravid's Image Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc_spTXnXRs

#learning #unlearning #retrieving #authenticity #agenobar