What brings a community together? What really binds the members of the community?
Two things: Pride and Fear.
Perhaps, a third – a shared purpose.
United WE stand
Month: February 2010
Self-Esteem v/s Employability
While at work today, an interesting discussion cropped up. Whether there is any correlation between Employability and Self-Esteem. Although a lot of work has been done on these two topics independently, I could hardly come up with anything which tied these two together. Interestingly, many firms have tried to come up with Employability Index and Self-Esteem Index, so why not see the behavior of these two?
Before we laugh off Wally, I want to say at the highest point of Employability, the Self-Esteem is the true identity of the individual’s skill sets. It is very difficult to find people like these, whose estimate of their self-worth is equal to the actual difference they make. I remember a study that I had participated, in a sample size of 40 individuals, only 2 of them were close to their self-worth, the rest either thought very highly of themselves or undersold themselves.
Where would you choose to be?
Marathi Manus v/s Multiplexes
*** Disclaimer: I am not a Shiv Sainik, or a Congress fan. I just do not like the end outcome. ***
In the recent news, we saw how multiplexes refused to air MNIK, and how central government arm-twisted them into airing the shows, much to the chagrin of MNS. With threats of violence, people of the city still braved to see a hindi movie.
All in all, it’s interesting to see not the event, but the actual outcome … who has “won” and who has “lost”
Shiv Sena: Once again written off by everyone as a wannabe. Once again people thinking that the party is unnecessarily resorting to violence. Fighting for the right cause, but for the wrong issue and in the wrong fashion.
MNS: A missed opportunity to come together with the original party. Raj Thackeray could have shown to the people of Mumbai that he stands for the marathi manus and supports the cause. He is clearly fighting for the wrong cause.
Central Government: Having over-ridden the local parties in local matters, now Congress has higher say over MNS and Shiv Sena combined. What should not have been their jurisdiction has been given over to them on a silver platter.
SRK & Karan Johar: They were but a tool for grabbing this opportunity of who really controls the city. I hope they realize that they are not adding any value to the city of Mumbai, and that is what Shiv Sena is against. If you are living in this city, if you are feeding off this city, then please invest in it. Obviously, all this publicity is always good for their ilk.
Multiplexes: With ticket prices touching Rs. 250 onwards, profits soon rise. This almost seems like a win-win situation.
But what about us, the people, the marathi manus?
Marathi Manus: By far the clear loser in this entire muck-up. The one party who stood a chance to represent them has now been effectively silenced – silenced by the people who can afford those tickets. What about the people living in Mumbai who do not have that much expendable income? What about the people who see their homes being taken away from them simply because all the commodities are becoming expensive day by day? The backbone of these people has been broken. Broken by a trivial issue.
Futurebazaar
In December 2006, we were working on an e-commerce portal aimed for the B2C segment. It was supposed to rival Amazon in terms of features, experience, technology … a very ambitious project. When doing market research for that project, we tried out many Indian e-commerce sites, actually shopped on some of them, and literally choose from the best of them the features we want to build. That was the first time I came across Futurebazaar. I bought a book, (Shantaram) from the site, the book was delivered in a week or so. I soon forgot about the site, little did I know that I was one of the first customers on the portal. Within a month or so, I got a mail from them saying so and also an invitation to their public media launch. Wow! My first media launch invitation!! Wheee!!
I look at the site now, almost 40 months later, and I can see how well they have evolved. No more the tacky-looking nested menus, distinct spaces which map onto their physical presences, interesting sales promotions (Lucky Wheel thingy), only products which they stock in their physical stores, support offered through their physical stores, etc. The way they have evolved their business from being a pure play online shop to a click and brick model is to be applauded.
Kudos to you Futurebazaar!!
Independent thought
This post by Seth Godin made me think.
People are just begging to be told what to do. There are a lot of reasons for this, but I think the biggest one is: “If you tell me what to do, the responsibility for the outcome is yours, not mine. I’m safe.”
Whenever you are working with people, how many times have you had to think for everyone else? Everything looks hunky-dory and people seem to be listening to you. But do you know why they are listening? Because that way, they do not have to think, because then they are not responsible. When sh!t hits the ceiling, it will be most likely you who would be doing the clean up.
Try what Seth says, the guru is right. Refrain from telling them what needs to be done. Let your team struggle, let the people take up the mantle. Some of them will start liking being independent. Foster and nurture these pieces of independent thought, and you have a sustainable knowledge practice up and running.
A lamp in pure darkness is bright, but its not as bright as a lamp and 3-4 flickering sparks.
Twitter Analytics
Was listening through a podcast by Duct Tape Marketing on Web Analytics 2.0 by Avinash Kaushik. It started of as an interview promoting his new book on analytics powered through crowdsourcing. Towards the fag end of the interview, something that Avinash said really got my attention.
Most people treat Twitter as a shout channel. Please do not treat it as one.
Then he rattled off two important parameters for measuring one’s tweeting success. They made more sense because I agree with him on Twitter being an engagement space with your customers. His parameters are –
- No. of RTs/1000 followers
- No. of replies per day
The first one measures how many of your followers are listening to you and see value in your ideas. The second one measures how many of those listeners are engaging with you.
Simple.
Sion Police Station: Wake up!!
The photo is taken during one of our sojourns at lunch. A derelict police chowki in such a shambles. Are my taxes being properly utilized? Or are they being used to maintain public property like so??