• Taxed

    And for the next three months, I’d be punished additionally for earning a living. This was after I’d spent the preceding nine months investing money so that this wouldn’t happen. But there’d always be a  criterion that they’d use to ensure my efforts were wasted. To this merciless system is dedicated my version of taxonomy.

    (def #2, #1 is the actual meaning of the word)

    until next time, defined a taxee too 😉

  • LinkedIn…a bit more

    A few weeks back, RWW had an interesting piece on why LinkedIn shouldn’t have Facebook envy, and should not attempt to make itself a destination site like the social networking service.

    We thought the Valley intelligentsia long ago proclaimed the end of destination sites. The desire to “get people to spend more time on LinkedIn” is linked to a failed business model around advertising.

    I agree that just because people spend time at a site doesnt necessarily mean that advertising makes a great business model there. In the early days of Facebook, apps like Scrabulous made me spend a lot of time there. I’ve noticed that (at least among my friends) the usage of apps has lessened, and there’s much more sharing – notes, photos, comments on status messages etc. If advertising is the revenue model, brands and FB would have to do a lot more than just contextual banner advertising.

    I’m not quite sure whether the same would apply for LinkedIn. Not in terms of the advertising bit, but in terms of the time spent. Again, while I agree with RWW on the accessibility via API tools, I’m a bit ambivalent on the need for spending time on the site first. Perhaps it might make sense to offer services that are first utilised on the site, and then made convenient. Once the users are more familiar with the tools and services, they’d be more comfortable with connecting to it via mail or say, a browser plugin etc. Ambivalent, because my usage of Twitter via twitterfox screams an opposing view (but not every service is as simple as Twitter)

    While I use at least one LinkedIn app, and utilise the status message quite frequently, I believe that a lot more can be done with the ‘News’ and ‘Groups’. Yes, it does have features like ‘share articles’, ‘start discussion’ etc, but I think there’s definitely more potential. The best reference I could find is Social Median (recently acquired by Xing). Now, I admit that my usage of that site was pretty limited, but I still think it was only a matter of time before i utilised it much more. Somehow it appealed more than say a Friendfeed room.

    I also think that the limited usage was because I was connected with a similar set of people on twitter who used to share links on the topics I was interested in. This, and the paucity of time, made a visit to Social Median a postponed task. Now considering that LinkedIn is best placed to offer tangible benefits (business networking, as opposed to social networking), what if the Social Median kind of tools (like the browser add on to share sites) and services (like adding feeds to groups) were introduced on LinkedIn.

    Now, you might say that we do roughly the same on say, Friendfeed. The difference is that in the case of LinkedIn, the adoption would be much more, because professionals interested in say, Social Media would find it easier to join a group, and have discussions on LinkedIn than joining a relatively geekier service like Friendfeed. Also, the different kind of groups that could happen on LinkedIn is much more since it already has professionals from a variety of streams, and each of them could create their own networks. The tangible gains from such a network even in daily office work is easy to imagine. This would also be immensely useful for those who’d like to gather information about career streams different from their own. In fact, this wonderful post also shows how brands can utilise content aggregation to their benefit. The thing to note here is that LinkedIn would need to provide enough tools so that the groups don’t become stagnant like that on Facebook. But I’m guessing it won’t, since most people would like to offer insightful comments, and share the best links, because its a business network, one that’d help their careers.

    until next time, a link book 🙂

  • Copper Chimney

    Judging by our liking for the place, Copper Chimney should’ve been written about quite a while back. Copper Chimney is a restaurant on the 5th floor of Bangalore Central, serves Frontier/North Indian fare. Keeping in mind the lunar surface that is MG Road, and the abundance of one ways in the area, we usually park at Garuda Mall and walk up.

    We usually reserve in advance, especially since we like to sit outside. That’s only possible if you’re 2-3, but the seating inside is quite comfy. The fifth floor setting ensures that its nippy outside especially in the winter months. Once it was so windy that they closed the section outside. That’s the only time we sat inside.

    So, we started with a Chicken Kali Mirch – “boneless chicken marinated in yoghurt, spiked with freshly pound black pepper, and gently grilled. Awesome stuff, especially if you are the kind who likes the pepper flavour. The mint chutney they gave was superb, went great with the chicken, and we ended up finishing the entire bowl. Lots of pieces so you wouldn’t complain about the quantity either.

    For the main course, we asked for a Murg Patiala – “chicken breast simmered in a rich cream sauce topped with sieved eggs”, and deviating from tradition (fish), a Kadhai Paneer – “batons of cottage cheese stir fried with onions and peppers and spiced with freshly pounded coriander seeds and red chillies”, and to go with it a naan, and a tandoori roti. The chicken dish was a tad blander than it usually is, or the starter’s flavours were messing with my taste buds. But the paneer dish was spicy enough.Its only once that we’ve had dessert at Copper Chimney, the rest of the time we were stuffed, and this time was no exception. And so the meal ended there. The service was a bit tardy this time, but nothing to raise a furore over. Yes, I realise I’m quite biased. 🙂

    They’ve quite a few choices in mutton and serve alcohol as well. There are a few ‘hatke’ options of breads too – like Taftan and Kabuli Naan. In essence, a place you must try. Meanwhile, all of the above cost us just below Rs.900. No mineral water this time 😉

    The thing that brings us back to Copper Chimney (other than the great food) is the wonderful view (when you take the two seaters outside) of Bangalore’s skyline. It makes you reflect. Food for thought. 🙂

    Copper Chimney, 5th Floor, Bangalore Central, Residency Road. Ph: 080 66111800

    Menu and photos at Zomato

  • Lost Universes

    Sometime back, I got an email forward – A Violinist in the Metro, about the world famous musician Joshua Bell, who, in 45 minutes, played 6 Bach pieces, with a violin worth $3.5 million, at a metro station in Washington, and collected $32 for the effort. A couple of days back, he had sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats had averaged $100. The incident was a social experiment by Washington Post to check out whether we perceive beauty in a commonplace environment and whether we stop to appreciate it. The findings are a testament of the fast paced life we live, and the things we miss out on.

    But a few other facts in this incident interested me. For one, the crowd segment that paid the most attention to the musician were children. Their parents had to forcibly tug them away. Even if we are cynical and claim that its just curiosity, and not an appreciation of music, I still wonder about our life graph, and the part where we lose our innate curiosity. And its not just curiosity, its innocence, its a lot of other things that we lose on the way.

    When I meet friends from school or college, I sense they’ve changed, and so have I. Attitudes,mindsets, behaviour, all transforming themselves according to the experiences that life throws at us. And because of this, I am not able to relate to them the way I used to at an earlier point in time. A part of me that is perhaps lost forever. Even if I tried to re create it, it would be resisted by the current me.

    The other portion in the incident that interested me was that after the performance, there was no applause or recognition. People just moved on, oblivious to the phenomenon they didn’t perceive. I wonder if Joshua Bell was disappointed. Perhaps, if you’re a musician of that caliber, you would have passed the stage where you needed a stamp of approval. Or is he just like me? An unconfident performer of life, who looks around apologetically if he has upset any balance. Perhaps if i could perform like a carefree child, I could get back the curiosity and the other things that I’ve lost.

    This stream of consciousness reminded me of something I’d read about in the novel Space – a space shuttle’s flight. As it ascends into space, at different levels it discards different parts, parts that were useful to get it to that point, but useless after they’ve served this utility. And after completing the mission that it was sent for, it blazes a path back through the atmosphere, burning all except its core. It lands in a place far away from the place of its origin, and time has passed while all this is happening. In a strange way, it reminded me of the way lives are lived – at massive speeds, too fast to notice the beauty of the vast expanses of space around, to achieve something which is relevant only in a very small context, burning up with the hope that all that is being done is worthwhile, and perhaps in a lost, melancholic way, deciding that since anyway the life is to be lived, might as well live it with a mission, however inadequate it seems.

    until next time, touchdown

  • Crowd Control by the crowd

    Its rightly said that however thinly you slice the bread, there will always be two sides. Sometimes the very features that makes me love the social web – sharing and transparency, are not treated with the respect they deserve. Or, to be more specific, the crowd is not able to react maturely when someone is being transparent, or sharing something innocuous, or just doing his job. I remembering touching upon mob justice in the case of the Hasbro vs Scrabulous issue too.

    Since then there have been several instances of what Jason Calacanis might describe as the ‘madness of the mobs‘. From Hotmail users fighting against the new design, virtual protests and self immolations on Second Life against a steep purchase and maintenance fee increase, to relatively harmless breast beating on Twitter and Facebook, there has been a lot of action happening all around.

    A few recent incidents have made me look at the otherwise wonderful features of the social web in a negative light again. Rex Hammock recently wrote about a Dilbert strip in which its creator Scott Adams did a bit of ‘in house’ product placing – for DilbertFiles.com, an online sharing and file storage service that was the result of a deal between Adams and Sendyourfiles.com, which Adams had explained on his blog. In fact he also points out that

    As the number of traditional newspapers continues to shrink, this is the sort of thing that will help keep Dilbert free online.

    But several readers took exception calling it a ‘shameless plug’ and ‘unethical’. Thankfully there were many in the crowd who were objective enough to see it as ‘lame but not ethical’, and several others who found it interesting, and a great way of promoting the service. I, for one, thought it was some neat ‘brand integration’. The debate is now over, i guess, and Scott Adams made some candid, cool closing remarks on the issue. You can read them here.

    The other incident that caught my attention was the case of James Andrews (@keyinfluencer on Twitter). Here are the details. In short, this is what happened. James Andrews, from a company called Ketchum, in Atlanta flew to Memphis to visit FedEx, one of his agency’s biggest clients, to talk to their corporate communication team about social media. Being a regular Twitter user, he tweeted on landing

    “True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, ‘I would die if I had to live here.’”

    Instead of the lil argument that would’ve happened on Twitter over this, it became a classic ‘tempest in a tea cup’, when a person from the Fedex Corporate Communication Group took this up and sent a mail to Andrews. And thus it became a story of the agency guy (Andrews) talking ill of his client’s city. (the entire mail can be read in the link I shared earlier) All the poor man did was give a personal opinion about the place he landed in. That is a crime in social media, according to a few social media storm troopers. Suddenly, there are statements to be made, the agency has to apologise on behalf of Andrews. I say, FedEx, thats #FAIL. Kudos to Funkidivagirl for defending her husband so eloquently, and putting things in perspective.

    Both the situations made me think of expectations. Scott Adams is perhaps thinking of greater good (keeping the online strip free) when he makes a deal like this. He even explains the reasons on his blog. He doesn’t have to. And the crowd, or at least a part of it, loses it. James Andrews tweets personal views about a nameless place  (Fed Ex’ reaction ensures everyone knows about Memphis now) and his agency and work are judged based on that!! We’re supposed to be careful of what we tweet.

    The last and most recent incident is the worst, because unlike the other two, this one’s effect was real and physical!! And at the receiving end was none other than Tech Crunch’s Michael Arrington. As he was leaving a conference, someone walked up to him and spat on his face. The pain in his words are unmistakable as he relates the incident. It doesn’t matter whether you agree, disagree, love or despise TechCrunch or Arrington, but their contribution to the web and startups transcends that, and cannot be denied. If this has to do with what he writes about as part of his job, this is a despicable reaction. I, for one, would really want to know what provoked such an act.

    We expect transparency, honesty and sharing in the social web.  But are we always ready to handle it maturely when its given to us? Yes, brands and people have a responsibility towards us, but shouldn’t that be reciprocated by us too? By having unreasonable expectations from brands and people, especially in a scenario where the rules of engagement are only beginning to be formed, are we forcing these entities to stop sharing and stop being transparent? As RWW correctly notes,

    Whether you believe in monitoring yourself online or not, don’t forget the point of the social Web: to get to know other like minded people, share resources, have fun, and leave the place a little nicer than you found it.

    Let’s have some of this spirit back, and show some maturity not only when we share or tweet or try to engage an audience as a brand/PR person, but also as a reader, when we consume this content. After all we are human, and I like to think that with web 2.0, we’re on our way to making this cold machine driven entity called internet , human. Lets not make the reverse happen.

    until next time, you have the right to remain silent, sometimes the duty too..

    PS. but you should comment 😉