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!

What you are not!

Spoiler: Moral Science-ish!

1. You are not your twitter handle
2. You are not your Gtalk status message
3. You are not who you are “in relationship with”
4. You are not your professional summary
5. You are not who you follow on Twitter
6. You are not who follows you on Twitter
7. You are not your blog
8. You are not the blogs you read
9. You are not your “5 things”
10. You are not your feed
11. You are not your shared items on Google Reader
12. You are not your job

13. You are not always a team leader even if the company calls you a team leader
14. You are not performance appraisal
15. You are not the college you attended
16. You are not the school you attended
17. You are not the number of your facebook friends
18. You are not your Orkut fans
19. You are not your email sent items
20. You are not your email received items
21. You are not your phone
22. You are not your laptop / computer
23. You are not your motorcycle
24. You are not your car
25. You are not the city you live in
26. You are not Tom Cruise (unless you really are Tom Cruise)
27. You are not your boss (unless of course – he he)

Then WTF are you?

The good word

We see a lot of quizzes and pick my five stuff at Facebook these days

A voice in my head tells me, however advanced our technology gets, people still like someone (something) to tell them good things (which may not always be true) all the time.

The voice also says that these people want the good words to spread also. This formula has survived the test of millenniums.

Thank “God” for all the religions!

“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++.

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?

Show me the money!

Indie Music artists and neat bloggers – they have something in common.

Giving away stuff (amazing-kick-ass-really-cool-I-can’t-believe-it) kinda stuff for free on the web. Looking at revenue models and business development and such terms which has a very close connection to money does not apply to these really cool characters.

“Long tail” – that word can be used here in a lot of ways! Still, don’t they need money to make these creations or maybe they don’t or maybe they have saved enough for life or I can’t really get it!

OK! The indie artists can hold shows and make money for living that ways. At least some dudes might have listened to them or Last.fmed them. But still!

Bringing out the funk on Paint

Popmundo – high on rock and roll

and the strings to keep company

the man grew old

to mind his own business

MS PAINT ROCKS!!!!

Market predictions for the future – how exactly?

I have been following a few market research articles since July 08. Used to think how these guys come up with predictions for future – like for five years in the future.

“Online spends will increase by 20% in 2013″
“Email usage will go up by 75% by 2012″

One tight recession slap and suddenly the double digit figures still remain – “Online spends in 2009 to increase by 0.16%” – we still have two digits post the decimal mark.

I believe most of these numbers actually stand for the present stage of the economy. All predictions stand on the present. I don’t really know if we stand on March 2009 and look back at the predictions made in June 2004 about the future of Online Video (well in 2004, there was no online video – except for a lot of Porn maybe).

So, if you are actually in the business of making predictions for the future – like for five years in the future based on the present set of technologies that is available, what exactly is your game?

Death of Branding and Life of branders

We shall never see a Nirma Dancing girl or a Close-up smile again. It seems no single brand has ever taken off on TV, Radio, Print or even online (for all you care) in the past decade like it has before.

The late 90s ended the big brand making it big. Metallica is making a mistake by quoting being #1 with Death Magnetic. Reason – people don’t care anymore. Chris Anderson points out in The Long Tail that the last album that ever “reached the numbers” is by N’Sync. I refuse to do the Google exercise to get the exact name.

However, good brands are not dead yet. Good music will never die, as long as good human beings survive and we humans will always find ways to keep ourselves alive.

Craziest lyrics from a mainstream trashy band

Crazy Town – yeah that Butterfly song band.

Crazy Town - Butterfly band

I guess I have heard the best love lyrics from these guys here. Some snippets below-

Fierce nipple pierce you got me sprung with your tongue ring
and I ain’t gonna lie cause your loving gets me high
So to keep you by my side there’s nothing that I won’t try
Butterflies in her eyes and looks to kill
Time is passing I’m asking could this be real
Cause I can’t sleep I can’t hold still
The only thing I really know is she got sex appeal

When these times get rough I was lost Now I’m found
Ever since you’ve been around
You’re the women that I want
So yo, I’m putting it down.

I don’t deserve you unless it’s some kind of hidden message
to show me life is precious
Then I guess it’s true
But to tell truth, I really never knew
T’ll I met you… See I was lost and confused
Twisted and used up
Knew a better life existed but thought that I missed it

I see the sun breaking down into dark clouds
and a vision of you standing out in a crowd.

I used to think happy endings were only in the books I read but
you made me feel alive when I was almost dead

You filled that empty space with the love I used to chase
and as far as I can see it don’t get better than this
So butterfly, here is a song and it’s sealed with a kiss
and a thank you miss.

These lyrics have been a re-discovery of a crazy kind.