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Life as a Lane

Prasad Ajinkya2 Comments
Fast lane

I have taken naturally to car philosophy. As I sat behind the wheel one fine evening, this thought came into my mind. That life could be interpreted as a long driving lane with a series of traffic signals, twists and turns, short cuts, the entire works.

  • Some people rest at traffic signals, while others seem impatient to move on
  • Some people jump signals while morality in the form of a khaaki policeman blows a shrill whistle
  • Some people just want to get ahead
  • … those that do, do not know what to do when they are ahead, so they keep on cruising
  • Some people do not want to take risks, so they go with the flow
  • Yes, there are beggars!

I think I can go on and on with this analogy … what do you think?

LIONs are whores

Prasad Ajinkya2 Comments

Scratch that picture of a feline with cheap make-up and gaudy mane!!

I mean the new style of declaring yourself as a LION (Largest Internet Open Networker) on LinkedIn to say that you are open to connect with one and all. In other words, you are connecting promiscuously – a connection whore.

I am not taking a disparaging view of this, since I have on several occasions done this (for building a strong gaming network on Facebook, for checking the limit of friends you could add on Yahoo Messenger, for adding folks on Orkut left right and center, etc).

It’s just funny to note that when you say LION, it sounds like self-aggrandizing.

I am a LION!!

Instead of just saying (and people don’t do this btw) …

I am a connection whore!

Interesting to see that by a simple change in analogy (whore to LION), people are suddenly willing to declare it on their profiles. Well, for me they are still the same … LIONs are whores!

Social Entrepreneurship – How is it any different?

Prasad Ajinkya4 Comments

I really do not see how is it any different from any other enterprise? I looked up the wiki page for Social Entrepreneurship, here’s what it says –

Social entrepreneurship is the work of a social entrepreneur. A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change (a social venture). Whereas a business entrepreneur  typically measures performance in profit and return, a social entrepreneur focuses on creating social capital. Thus, the main aim of social entrepreneurship is to further social and environmental goals. However, whilst social entrepreneurs are most commonly associated with the voluntary and not-for-profit sectors, this need not necessarily be incompatible with making a profit.

How in the world is this any different from what a good business does? It recognizes a social problem (read loosely as a problem that the society in general faces), and it solves the problem. For any enterprise, over a period of time there will be performance metrics – profit and return merely build sustainability. These would be needed by the social entrepreneur as well. So what makes it any different? Social capital is also created by enterprises. If you go through any of the annual reports that a firm publishes, they have this term – Goodwill.

If good will is not social capital, then what is? I think social entrepreneurship is just a term invented by hacks to make themselves feel good. Or maybe its just a marketing gimmick for generating funds.

PS – Before you hit the comment button to rant, do not misread me. All I am saying is that any good business is as good as any “social entrepreneurship”, then why make the difference? Is social entrepreneurship the new green?

Targeting your blog’s content

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

It’s a thought experiment that I would want to share with you all –

  1. Divide the blog’s content into content which I want to share on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc
  2. Tag the posts accordingly
  3. Create separate feeds for each tag
  4. Sync the right feeds with the right media

That way, intended audiences could be targeted and on different spaces. All through a single blog :-)

Criticism

Prasad Ajinkya4 Comments

I often contribute to the team blog of the company where I work. It is fulfilling, where else can you blog at work :-)

In the past two days however, the team blog … specifically my posts have come in the spotlight. By a critic … the comments are coming from a different perspective, maybe by someone who has engaged with the philosophy and found it either too abstract or too disillusioned.

The outcome being that there is criticism about the ideology and some more criticism about the author. Personally speaking none of my blogs have ever attracted much traffic, so I never had to face much applause or critique other than my immediate circle of friends. Critique from an unidentified source, adds that element of mystery and even a little bit of surprise (Ohh!! Someone does read my stuff!).

What I have not picked up over the 4-5 years of passively active blogging I have done is … how to handle criticism. A post I recently found is pretty good and maybe it will help other bloggers as well, so sharing it here.

— Appended —

Pallavi commented that the critique might just be a different perspective or a different opinion. The final choice of taking that is always upto us. I looked back at the comments I was getting, and have decided to take the new perspective and try something new on the team blog. Will update once I get the results.