Year: 2008

  • The Best Goodbye Ever

    And once in a while a movie comes along that makes you want to write a note on it. No, Drona, Karzzz, LS2050 don’t exactly fall into the category that I meant. 🙂

    A lot of discussion happened before I saw Dasvidaniya, mostly on twitter, and many thanks to one person who put the idea of a review in my head. I might have let laziness overcome me if not for that. And so, while i will not go about doing a long drawn review, I shall try to pen down the thoughts that came to me as I watched the movie.

    The film worked for me, and the major portion of the credit would go to Vinay Pathak, who has carved a niche for himself, that no other actor can occupy now. It started with Bheja Fry and a few shades of that character can be found in this too. While the basic story idea has been used several times, it is the actor and the situations that makes it endearing and believable.

    It’s the story of a relatively uncomplicated human being, but thanks to a single situation that arises, his life is forced on to a much faster pace than he’s used.  My heart went out to him, when he asks ‘Why me?’ . That one sentence captures the angst of a man who has lived all his life doing the right things, but is yet treated unfairly even by the cosmos. Meanwhile, he lives his life based on a day to day ‘Things to do’ list that he religiously maintains. A meek person who is pushed around by everyone and life, the list is what gives meaning to his life, right from buying vegetables to repairing his momma’s hearing aid to several mundane things that we would regard as well, mundane. But like he himself says, he is not ambitious. Even when pushed, his dreams (in the beginning) are only a car, saying No to his boss, a foreign trip etc; yes, nothing great, but it’s typical of the man’s character, and you end up liking him all the more for it.

    Through the journey of one man, the story shows how simple human existence can be, if only we let it be, how it is possible to love unconditionally, if only we let it happen, and how there is an innate bond between human beings, if only we care to show it. But like a couple of characters in the movie show, at some point, the selfishness that we see around us, and perhaps within us, has created in us, a cynical outlook, and we force on ourselves, a complicated existence. So much so, that (like in the movie) we’d not believe that when, after a dozen years, someone wants to visit us, its only for the pleasure of seeing us.

    Yes, it is possible to live, without strings attached to everything we do or say; and by living so, it is possible to create great joy not just in us, but those around us too.. someday, hopefully, we can live this lesson.

    until next time, time is running out

    PS : So, some might turn around and say “Oh, The Bucket List”, and to those I’d say, for the majority of Bollywood lovers who understand Gunmaster G9, this works way better. 🙂

  • Micro Ambassadors

    The recent twitterguru polls conducted by itwote was a neat social experiment. The idea was to choose the person on twitter (in India) most loved by all. In that sense, the number of followers a person had or the number of tweets did not, though i did feel that the person with more followers did have a distinct advantage. Incidentally, the person with the maximum followers did win, though I’m still debating my point, with myself.

    However, the social experiment for me was completely different. It had to do with what I think would be the long tail of twitter popularity. While the final nominations were only 5 people, the amount of nominations were much larger. It made me realise that in the vast set of twitter users, many of us look up to others, pay attention to what they have to say, follow the links they share, in essence, extend to microblogging, the milieu of blogging.

    But there is a crucial difference – the twitterstream. Which means that in some ways it is also a broadcast medium. So, while I may not follow a blog because it predominantly covers stuff I’m not interested in, and therefore end up missing an interesting conversation that happens there, such a scenario is less common on twitter. So, my reach on twitter would most likely be more than my blogs.

    So, I was wondering about the concept of micro ambassadors. Let me show you through an example. The movie Dasvidaniya. We had a lot of discussions around it – the origin of the word, the website, and thanks to chupchap, I realised that the dasvidaniya website had, in addition to the Facebook and Orkut groups a very cool application, that tied in with very well with the movie – a Thing To do list, and by connecting friends, it could’ve made a very good social viral. Yes, there are many such apps, but this one has a context. I know at least 4-5 more people who were equally interested in the movie. And we were playing out the role of micro ambassadors. Now this might be a small number to begin with, but with an interesting app, and the long tail of twitter popularity, we sould’ve convinced at least a few to watch the movie.

    The value add here is that as a regular twitterer, I know other twitterers who’d be interested in a particular subject. What does it take – a few free tickets, in other words, product sampling. The duration of the micro ambassadorship should be decided by the kind of product, and the experience time it requires. In the case of the movie, it would be say, a couple of weeks.  A group of people passionate about a product./service, convinced about the value, spreading the news to others who’d be interested. While there are many stories of blogs being used for a viral spread, I haven’t come across many on twitter. It perhaps is a lack of awareness.

    But it raises a question for me. While I believe that both blogging and microblogging have their unique place on the web, does twitter, because of the way it is used, lend itself more to brand usage than blogs? Micro ambassadors, because they may not have the ‘star value’ of bloggers, and are relying on the long tail of popularity on twitter. Is it even better than social networks, where there perhaps might be constraints like viewership being limited to real life friends? I’m also wondering about new networks like Afinito (via Startup Meme), a service that connects you to other people with similar interests, or Orbius, a ‘safe and controlled environment for brands and companies to connect with their customers’.

    What do you think?

    until next time, now for a revenue model 😉

  • Heera Panna

    And after quite a few weeks of Continental stuff, we decided to break the rhythm, and reserved ourselves a table at Heera Panna, on Church Street. This is on the same building as the Nokia Experience store, UCB etc, soon as you enter Church Street from Brigade Road. No, I cannot advise you on parking on Church Street/Brigade Road. Each time is an adventure, which you have to experience for yourselves. But I think Heera Panna has some parking facilities. Maybe you could ask them when you call for the reservations.

    Heera Panna serves a Mughal , Awadhi experience. Yes, its not just the food. Right from the staff at the door, who are all decked up in Mughal style, complete with turbans, to the very well done interiors, and the lighting, its not just about the food, its about the experience. The hostess said we could choose from the seating on either of the floors, but suggested the top floor. The cushions did turn out to be comfortable, and the seating spaces have glass bead curtains. The music that they were playing was Hindustani and ghazals. That, along with the way they dim/brighten the lights with red, white and green tinges really have a way of transporting you to a different realm. And if you really want to go one step more, they give you Mughal turbans and a sort of waistcoat. Some very interesting photos these make. 😀

    The staff is extremely helpful and courteous. As soon as you’re seated, they ask you whether you’re comfortable. I haven’t heard that in recent times. The menu card says that the restaurant theme is a tribute to Salim and his love for Anarkali. The guy who served our table practically insisted that we tell him what we liked (chicken/mutton/seafood) and how many dishes we’d like to have, and he’d take care of the rest. So, as per his suggestions, we ordered a Tawa Bhuna Ghosht as a starter, that’s ‘pan fried lamb cooked with potli masala sauteed till brown’. We’d told him that we didn’t prefer mutton much, but he said that we’d still like this. And he was right, though very strangely, it reminded me of our Kerala version of beef roast. 🙂

    For the main course, we ordered the day’s special, Murgh Awadhi, and to go with it a Lachha Paratha, and a hari mirch ka paratha – ‘crispy bread made from wheat flour and mixed with green chillies and ajwan.’ The Murgh Awadhi is a thich brown gravy, and we’d asked for it to be made spicy. (you can tell them to adjust the spiciness based on your preference) We ended up ordering one more Hari Mirch ka Paratha, which meant I consumed one and a half Hari Mirch ka Parathas, and both the spicy dishes (starter and main course) My stomach, of course, didn’t take kindly to it, and I can still feel the burn, but I enjoyed the food so much it really doesn’t matter 🙂

    The quantities were just sufficient, but we ended up not having sufficient space for dessert. Meanwhile, they also serve liquor, and some nice sounding mocktails.  A 330 ml KF costs you Rs.100, hope that helps. The desserts are in range of Rs.95-135, gulab jamun, rasgulla, jalebi, ras malai, moong daal ka halwa and so on.

    Once again the ambience is simply awesome, the food is excellent, and the service is splendid. I have only a couple of suggestions – the cutlery (fork, knife etc)  doesn’t quite fit the ambience, and the space between the table and the sofa is a bit too much. And inspite of the green inkstains from the quill they gave with the feedback form, (yes, a quill, that you dip in ink, and write your feedback with) the experience left us delighted, and we’ll certainly be back. The bill came to just over Rs.850, and we paid it gladly. You should drop in there too, for an absolutely unique experience.

    Heera Panna, The Pavillion, Church Street, Bangalore -01. Ph.9886461108, 9845175777, 41152727, 41143737

    PS. I don’t know if its a mistake, but I just realised they haven’t billed me for the mineral water 😐

  • You are here

    Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan

    I picked it up because it was written by a fellow Indian blogger. And yes, I prefer Indian fiction. But I’m guessing I am not exactly the target audience 🙂
    Considering the author’s profile, I’d say the book is at least faintly autobiographical.
    Arshi, the protagonist, is a twenty something, 21st century Indian woman, who lives (or at least tries to) live life on her own terms, only she doesnt seem to be sure what they are. A potentially interesting premise of self discovery in an urban Indian milieu.
    But in that sense it disappoints. Here are a couple of things that put me off. While it could be an attempt at stark portrayal, i felt that a lot of things had a force-fit twang, added to get a “yup, am with it” effect. Also, the title was very ironical in the sense that the story seemed to be going all over the place. A very lifestream flow which didnt work for me because of its predictability.
    However if Indian chick lit is your scene, you cannot afford to give this one a miss. And having said all that, I’m still happy that a blogger has become an author. 🙂

  • Figuring Social Media?

    Recently, Jeremiah Owyang wrote about Intel’s community efforts, which also throws light on the join vs create debate that has intrigued me too, for quite sometime. Intel’s marketing manager is of the view that companies should join active communities, rather than trying to create them at corporate websites. The two examples used for Intel’s efforts are those it did at Digg and Slashdot. There’s also the middle path, start the conversation on social networks and then take them outside to you own site, but I’m not a big fan of that either.

    I have a feeling that the reluctance for brands to join (as opposed to create) is because of the lack of control it entails. On their own website, it’d be easy. Besides, a neutral venue (like a social network) means that a brand cannot restrict its conversations to spokespersons it chooses, like British Airways and Virgin Atlantic found out to their dismay. There’s probably another reason why companies prefer their own websites – with company websites, it’d be easy to define and track ROI, based on the clicks, time spend etc, but how can ROI on activities on other sites be defined and calculated? Of course, there are ways to track online reputation, like Trackur, for example, but I wonder what metrics should be applied to figure out the effectiveness of an activity. After all, its no longer just a linear (banner – click, though that seems to be working well on social networks too) set of activities that happen on social networks now. But again, ROI entails that its an investment. From some of the activities I see on social media, I doubt whether many brands see it that way. Also, I agree with what’s discussed in this post – that ” The problem with trying to determine ROI for social media is you are trying to put numeric quantities around human interactions and conversations, which are not quantifiable”. While the ‘how’ is indeed a debate, we also need to be clear about what we measure. Here’s a great post by Dina on the subject on ROI, in which she also explores the things that should be measured.

    I think its too early for brands to take examples of others’ activities and use them as a template for their own activities. After all, according to this article, a majority of marketing guys are still learning the media,  and apparently, close to 90% of them who are involved in programs are not measuring the ROI of theor efforts. Or maybe ‘too early’ is a wrong phrase, with the dynamic nature of social media, perhaps the time for fixed templates is over. Perhaps, there are only broad indications and inferences that can be derived, but brands would have to evolve their own set of activities, and their own methods of defining and tracking ‘ROI’ on social media, basis their strategic intent. (Nike seems to have done a smart job in that respect) ‘ROI’, because, I can’t think of any other term that would mean ‘results for the efforts made’. In this context, I’d also recommend this post very highly – the 5 critical responsibilities of a social media expert.

    But perhaps, as this article notes, it needs to start way earlier, like companies allowing employees, access to YouTube, facebook etc in office, and understanding that the media consumption habits that digital natives have created are also creating changes in business environments and communication methodologies. Maybe that’s a good place to start a reworking of business strategy.

    until next time, the medium is the message

    PS. A great read on how remarkable companies are creating consumer evangelists (download pdf) (via Himanshu’s blog)