It is always great fun to meet people in their own setting. One of our customers manufactures and sells capital equipment that generates steam. Steam, as you know, is an energy and motive force in process industries. Our customer, therefore, deals with some of the largest process industries in the country.

A recent article of a municipal doctor “forgetting” to renew fumigation contracts in my city resulting in a rise of the dengue fever and a consequent rise in deaths (http://www.punemirror.in/pune/cover-story/Civic-bodys-silenced-smoking-guns-lead-to-dengue-outbreak/articleshow/37338867.cms) set me thinking.

Am writing this in the backdrop of the horrific Malaysian Airlines tragedy. Suddenly I hear colleagues and friends scared of being up in the air. These are extremely intelligent, rational professionals. There is enough research out there to show that flying is safer than driving. So why the fear?

The social conditioning biases we carry make themselves apparent at the most interesting of times. I was at a Croma – electronic goods retail outlet, observing their sales guys make a pitch to prospective customers. It was that section of the store where TVs of all hues, sizes and price points are sold and I noticed an extremely interesting pattern.