Reflections

The title of this article just about says it all… The Facebook Issue . This article is coming after a long self-examination and Facebook feed examination, with the explicit purpose of putting Facebook and its contemporary utility in Social Media with relevance to me as an individual. This deep introspective examination has lead to startling revelations to myself, which is what I am attempting place here, with an intent to support my decision to move my Social Media content away from Facebook due to issues arising out of the feed and the interaction that happens on it. MY HISTORY WITH FACEBOOK But first, the background. I came onto Facebook as a means to get in daily touch with family, find old friends, and keep connected with them. It then grew into a method of chronicling important events in my life through Photographs & Posts, that I could visit later. Both the above have given excellent results, and shall continue as important aspects of my digital profile with added sec...

I closed the previous article {found here : Understanding The Internet : Reaching Into The Gut Of Existing Systems } with a statement that few organizations truly understand how to use the 5-21” space of the screen;  this article looks at this aspect in a little more detail. A great many companies use the customer-facing aspects of the internet as merely another tool to communicate and connect, completely ignoring the full power of the internet ecosystem. The Screen, first of all, is mistakenly defined as just a mere device that displays, or acts as a window, disseminating information to your prospects and customers, and the general audience. The screen is more of a doorway, a portal that transports – or has the ability to – transport your customer into a world of constantly interacting stakeholders in your product, your company and your addressable market segment. If that doesn’t scare you as a Brand Manager, as a Marketer, and as a Sales Professional, high time it did. ...

Online and Digital Media are the flavour of the day, with everyone waxing eloquent about the prospects and opportunities of the said medium. In the Information Technology age that we are living in, it is only to be expected that there would be an exuberance and a dream of high growth and deep penetration of this medium. And, truth be told, the initial figures that are now coming in - and these are initial days, make no mistake - have only underlined the tremendous potential of this nascent industry.  However, every coin has 2 sides; every situation has multiple perspectives. And remember that the full nature of the industry is not revealed till it enters its fast growth or even mature phase. These are early days for the online medium, and it is going to be an interesting growth phase for it, as it grows and tries to meet the challenges and hurdles that are thrown its way.And, insofar as it has not had to meet any challenges till date, it should be interesting to see how it de...

Some people state that India requires inclusive growth, that we require to support the people through interventionist and populist policies, that we need to shepherd the people with a supporting and guiding hand. Others state with equal vehemence that we require easier competition, that we require to unlock the industry, that we require to give market forces an opportunity... and so the debate goes on; and so the great Indian circus of development efforts continues; and so the great and misdirected Governmental efforts to direct - or misdirect, in reality - India continues. And the fun (or sadness, depending on your point of view) continues, unabated and unstoppable, regardless of who is in power... A cursory perusal of the newspapers will readily bring out the above as simple fact. It is there in just about every daily; in just about every magazine that you would care to pick up and read. Some articles glibly suggest an even more diabolical and dangerous viewpoint, that the correc...

Tell Me Why is the name of a rare gem of a magazine from the house of Manorama... it is indeed unfortunate that it is not more popular... but more about that later First, the magazine itself. It is a monthly issue which gives 100+ facts about one single chosen topic every month. Sounds very drab and boring, doesn't it? It is, in fact, anything but drab. The beauty is in the presentation as well as the content. The presentation is very slick, upmarket, printed on quality paper, the layout very brisk and to the point with full colour features on every single page. That alone makes it sound interesting. If you add to it the content, it becomes a superb magazine. So much so, that while we throw away the other magazines - this is one that is carefully stored away as a future reference material, fun reading and most importantly reading material for our son when he is old enough to understand. The real beauty is in the content: it is simpe in its wording, the facts mentio...

My earliest memories of The Reader's Digest date to Chennai, where my Dad was posted in 1976-1980. We used to get The Digest every month - and 1 copy among 3.5 readers was simply not enough. (3.5 readers? You dont expect me at age 7 -9 to be counted as a full reader by my family, do you? Come On! I gave you the date... ). I do not remember the articles, but I do remember that the arrival of the Digest was somewhat of an occasion, with Dad and Mom reading the book with full concentration. Afterwards, to my utter chagrin, my brother would also disappear behind it, only to emerge for dinner!  My memories have nothing to with articles of the magazine - I remember the stacks of Digests which I would love to count and stack one on top of the other in 1976. Later on, I started reading the tail-pieces and some simple jokes etc, but most of the other stuff would still be beyond my comprehension. These would remain beyond my comprehension for a good many years, but I still remember ...