On changes

On crossroads – keeping quiet and stuff!

Heavy Metal blues

Reached Bombay. Is quite different from the silence back home.

Listened to Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin on my old CD Walkman and the CD collection. Got back the rechargeable batteries too. Heavy Metal works even in 2009. Was fearing I might grow over those Audio CDs.

Just a cool pic of Ozzy.

When do you matter

Seth Godin has come up with a list of things which says when you matter…

When you love the work you do and the people you do it with, you matter.
When you are so gracious and generous and aware that you think of other people before yourself, you matter.
When you leave the world a better place than you found it, you matter.
When you continue to raise the bar on what you do and how you do it, you matter.
When you teach and forgive and teach more before you rush to judge and demean, you matter.
When you touch the people in your life through your actions (and your words), you matter.
When kids grow up wanting to be you, you matter.
When you see the world as it is, but insist on making it more like it could be, you matter.
When you inspire a Nobel prize winner or a slum dweller, you matter.
When the room brightens when you walk in, you matter.
And when the legacy you leave behind lasts for hours, days or a lifetime, you matter.

Totally awesome! I am touched. I am convinced. Hail Seth!

How to connect your society and the social media

I have been tripping major on social experiments.

Ever since late 2007 when I moved into online advertising, people all around are going major gaga over ’social media’. The Facebook way of doing your thing, the iphone way of seeing your thing and the Twitter way of saying your thing. A big huge bunch of keywords and people revolving around it.

Somehow, this strikes an idea that social media is a mirror of the society around you. 300+ friends on facebook is a sign that 300 people trusts you and you are somehow or the other responsible for these 300 people with the little things you say and you do. Just like everyone else, one may find himself / herself (i know) in sticky situations once in a while. This is the time when you could use some help from your friends and then come clean.

1. Try creating a sticky situation – could be one that existed before and you have not really come out 100% clean. There are chances that you might find yourself back in the situation if not checked / controlled.

2. Make use of your friends in an offline way – I tried SMS. Its good, its easy and no use of vocal chords.

3. Come online and push it – Use Facebook messages, email, Twitter, personal blog (I use this one) etc. to clean yourself out.

I see results in terms of numbers on the internet. I also see results in the form of an easy, quiet, non-sticky mind.

Definite winner!

Alternative productivity

I have been tripping recently on productivity, efficiency, improvements and such things. Got some friends who are heavily into it.

Zen Habits is a rather non technical approach to this issue. Its a recommended read.

Productivity is not just work related. Plus it is not used only get things done fast. Productivity dates back several centuries when we had just figured out spears and fire.

Human bodies have been designed to throw things around – spears, sticks, stones etc. Hence, the most “productive” human being is one who can throw things better than others. Re-Start with soft squeeze balls and throw it around – do remember wrist action, aim, trajectory, bouncing off a wall, catching the ball and such. Do try making your other hand (left hand in my case) as good as your good hand (right hand for me).

You might end up more productive at the end of this exercise – increased alertness, entertainment, eye to hand co-ordination and focus are by products

Spending time offline – case study

Spoiler: This is a very ‘Me Me ME’ post (the capital ‘E’ on the third me is intended).

I have spent one complete month without access to internet. Looks like I would be “unaccessed” for a bit more.

However, I do realise a sense of zen around me. Got out of home and reached Bombay a month ago. No job, no scenes still. But sure I am seeing things in a light.

1. Today I happened to release a genie from a bottle (literally – the bottle cap was jumping up and down for two days and never understood why. I opened the bottle and then the cap never jumped only). This is a plastic bottle kept for water and when the incident happened there was no water in the bottle! Aladdin Power!

2. Too much of web comics consumption during my highly online days has given me a huge sense of art. Making it a point to sketch or paint shit that appears in my head. People say I suck at it though. That makes it extra cool!

3. Gave an interview at a company – a real company with a receptionist, designer coffee cup, red and black seats, LCD TV, glass boards, permanent markers etc.. They even asked me about my ‘family background’ on a questionnaire before the interview. Very “ambitious”. I thought I cracked the interview – very punk rock ‘give it to the man’ types. As expected, they never called only!

4. I am right now designing something very interesting – it is quite interesting and I am still figuring out a lot of angles to this really cool thing. Will let people know once the deal strikes high. Would be cool if it clicks and would be much cooler if it doesn’t. Nothing dies really – things evolve!

5. I went to two shopping malls and spent time this time I was in Bombay. The crowd is thinning out and I like the look and feel. Remember Happy days with Fonzie? It feels really cool to be in an empty mall.

6. People who suck at painting – take that pencil and sketch things. You would soon learn to make neat cuts and transfer home delivered food without spilling! Art that suck has such possibilities.

7. Exercise and moving your body is very important. Keep things far away and fetch them often. Try this with water bottles (which may have genies), ciggie packets, keys, headphones, plates, spoons, ketchup etc..

8. Listen to people when they have something to say. They may not speak later!

The alien paradox

There is so much talk about aliens and SETI on TV and the net and so many intelligent souls looking for aliens and stuff.

Alien stuff is certainly interesting. “Intelligence” in a planet is more interesting. However, I think this is just a human thing for being social and wanting to be in a group – like the group of “intelligent life forms” (me and my intelligent friends). The same reason why Social Media is something these days.

If you are really too much into MIB and wish it was true, I could be from Jupiter!

“Multi – role” guy

I was having a conversation with an old school Fauji and suddenly this idea popped into my brain.

Any person in the online medium calls himself a word – marketeer, developer, designer, search engine optimizer etc. based on how they spend their time at their agencies / startups. And a lot of pro startup blogs and people keep throwing this idea of sporting different “hats” – the idea is to be a master of few and a jack of lot of trades. So, it would be better to call a true blue startup dude in a “multi-role” way.

You could be a 50% marketeer, 20% developer and a 30% designer – all in one. Meaning at a particular point in time, you are best at marketing (SEM, SEO, Biz Dev, Client Servicing etc.), not so good at design and yet attempt at making some and pull up your sleeves and open up the code and fuck around with the syntax – could range from changing your Div padding to hierarchy in C++.

Why Kids can be much more evolved than us?

I have heard people say kids can do stuff. A friend of mine (Appu – Apurva – ex Chutney) once actually showed me why kids can be a “major trip”. I have stopped ignoring kids since and try get their game.

• Stop ignoring kids and the things they do. There is no “kiddie stuff”
• So sad if you have grown up. You are missing all the fun
• The energy levels of kids are unbeatable. Can you be on the run for 2 hours non stop with just a plastic junk
• Ask a kid to frame a story. Can you make such a trip?
• Ask a kid about crows, pigeons, lizards, dogs and such urban / suburban forms of fauna. You might figure out why these things are not extinct yet. Probably you might just land up with some “anti-extinction” plan for yourself
• Kids have more developed right brains and less developed left brains. How much I wish for the same. Well we got computers and calculators for the intricate calculations.
• If you can make a kid understand what you mean by Web Develpment, you probably know it well. And how do you know if the kid understood it? If you can understand what the kid means by web development and if that understanding is correct. Mere usage of words may not be helpful here. Try pictures, stories and such. Web Development can’t be more interesting than a Tom and Jerry show. Can it be?
• If you think kids are innocent, you are dumb. Kids have no mercy and no limitations. They live constantly on the edge.
• Try answering a kid when watching a movie. That can be more interesting than the movie itself.
• Cartoons made for kids are much more engaging than the soap operas made for adults

If you have plans to make something more creative and stuff, listen to kids. Plus, if whatever you make is not creative (that includes Dal rice, a website, a piece of music, a presentation, a document, a spread sheet, a sexual act) its not worth it!

how much? how often? how little?

How do you always be part of a winning cause?

How often are you comfortable with your superiority and uber coolness?

How little are you “OK” with things going as bad as possible?

How often do you accept things as it is?

How much do you understand the opposite sex?

How different is business A from business B?

How far is point A from point B?

How do you see yourself 5 years from now?