A WEB-Lander..

add some sugar...

2011-02-13T23:33:00.000-08:00

“Here you go Mrs. Banerjee” said the airlines girl giving her the boarding pass. The lady grabbed it and then tried to stuff some papers back into her side bag. Then hastily in a rather sorry note to the person standing next, left the queue. She was still trying to cram her belongings, while silently cursing the bag when she heard someone say a “Hi” to her. Her hands suddenly stopped, as she looked up at the person who had just greeted her. ”Rohan!!” she exclaimed. A grin back and then it was all silent again for some time. “How are you, where are you and what are you doing here?” she volleyed him with her questions. “Hey!! Cool it” Rohan replied “This time you certainly did remember me”. They laughed on that and went up to a row of empty seats and started to leer. Both were still carrying the amazed look on their faces’ and were rather silent.

Rohan finally broke the ice. “So Mrs. Banerjee” he paused to add a smirk, “how are you and what have you been doing all these years?” Sneha still was a bit rapt. Actually, their story goes back long. Rohan and Sneha had stayed in the same locality in Kolkata and had always met weirdly. Rohan’s friend Pradip was honey-eyed about Sneha’s best friend Shreya. So, they had once met in the grand old romancing period of Kolkata, the durga pujas. It was those 4 days of the year when the teenagers in Kolkata not only had new and bright clothes to flaunt their looks but also had the liberty to be out on their own and try and make their unfulfilled wishes of the year come true. Most young guys in Kolkata must have had their first puff of the cigarette or a first sip of beer during one of these puja days while most girls would have discussed their crushes with their girlfriends during those long hushed up adda sessions. There was no reason for them to have remembered each other after about 10 years, when they had met again in an office in Rajarhat, New Kolkata where somehow both of them were led by fate. Rohan though did retain Sneha in his memory. They started to travel together and soon had a good camaraderie blossoming. The 10 years in between had both good and bad experiences for them. Rohan had a flunked year and a 5 year broken relationship in his pool whereas Sneha had accounted for a traumatic 3 years breakup and an unfortunate cut-off failure for her tech Masters.

Sneha was preparing for her CAT which would get her a ticket to be out of the city that haunted her in all respects. She never realized but her relationship had actually made her do things differently. She chose to be less confident and less responsible towards herself and she quite liked it. It was an easy choice for her as the guy she chose to be with, was more than perfect for her parent’s wishes. To see her parents’ content, her elation was doubled and for the same reason she felt doubly hurt when her parents too were duped. Now she wanted to join a reputed B-School and be out of the hullabaloo of an impending arranged marriage and also wanted to make herself affluent. Now she again wanted a top floor studio apartment in a high-rise just for herself with a hanging swing to laze on. Now she wanted freedom from relationships and tried to possess her own wishes, her own dreams. Life was leading her all these years maybe now she wanted to lead a life. And Rohan wanted her to dream on; he wanted her to smile on. His memories and anguish were washed away to have come across Sneha. Her belief, her resilience, her aura and authority to live life made him sit up and take notice of his past. He knew that his mistake was to allow himself face the forthcoming storm. He was aware of the danger and he chose to endure that twinge, making him more vulnerable to the one he had once committed his being. He now knew that he was never wrong and somehow now had all the time in the world to talk to himself and reconcile with his existence. And it was all because of that soul who had shared her experience and dreams with him. But he was not being very loyal to his thoughts. Having met and befriended Sneha he started longing for her presence. Knowing her was not enough for him anymore. Her plans which would take her away from him started to bother him for no good of his. He suddenly started to posses a dual personality of a comical and chirpy guy when with others and a rather mute and absorbed one when with Sneha. This did bother her and she tried to comfort him in all possible way but he just wasn’t receptive to it. They still were good friends and the weirdness in his behavior though had somewhat implications to their confrontations, they both hung in. Then came January, after 10 months of attachment it was S. P. Jain Institute of Management Studies next for Sneha for a PGDBM. She was very happy to have secured a berth there. Her strenuous efforts had paid a rich dividend and life for her was about to change soon. Rohan too was very happy not only for her but for himself as well, for in her dreams and their fulfillment he realized the moral fiber and vitality to pull himself through. Looking for the rainbow in every coming storm he let her fly like an angel heaven had sent to him.

Sneha completed her MBA in 2yrs time and joined a reputed financial organization. While in SPJ she had met and befriended Nikhil Bannerjee. They were good friends in college and man and wife after it. Rohan in the meanwhile stayed back in Kolkata working for the same company and harboring his plans to launch his web product. Both knew that they couldn’t keep in touch with the distance so they didn’t even try much. They were friends because they met every day. They were friends because they were with each other 12 hrs every day. They were friends because they didn’t want to trade the time that they shared together for anything; they were friends because they both had allowed themselves to be important to each other for no reason whatsoever. And once they were parted their friendship was like the small chapter of a novel read with a lot of interest and forgotten soon after. Though Sneha always spoke of no one being indispensable in life she too knew that she wouldn’t have met another Rohan again. For Rohan, Sneha always remained indispensable. Today after 10 years from then Sneha and Rohan met again at the Kolkata domestic airport where Rohan was flying to Boston via Delhi for a meet to co-brand his web-product and Sneha was flying back to Delhi after paying her parents a visit. “Can we have some coffee?” he asked. “Yes sure. There’s time for the flight”. While in the café they discussed about their families and work. Sneha had just left her job and was giving herself a break to attend to her 6 yr old daughter. She had worked her way up the ladder with her efficiency and hard slog all these years. Rohan was very pleased and fulfilled to know about her. Sneha suddenly asked “Did you not marry?”; “No” he said and grinned back. “Why?” she promptly added. Rohan was suddenly reminded of the days when these firm “Why”s of Snehas’ would really put him in a spot of bother. He never was equipped enough to answer them and yet he kept bugging her to the point where she would have to ask “Why”. “Didn’t get the time to get married” he replied. “What rubbish!” she was dissatisfied with his answer. “Well, don’t worry, Ill marry soon, there still is time” he smiled back. She brought her wrinkling brows together and nodded her head forcibly trying to encourage his poor joke. They kept on chatting about their lives’ and finally as they rose to walk towards the terminal Sneha suddenly beamed back at him and said “Do I pull out my purse or do you still have a habit of winning over the waiters and cabbies?” They both had a good laugh over it and headed towards their plane.

It was winter in Kolkata, but the attire that the city people took to would definitely have put any native Scandinavian to shame. But both Sneha and Rohan were never troubled much by the cold except when it was time to get out of the bed in the morning, the usual thing with sluggish bongs. Once in the plane Rohan managed to convince the person sitting next to Sneha’s seat to exchange with his. As they plane took off Sneha had her fingers plugged into her ears and eyelids tightly shut in an unsuccessful attempt to brush off the noise. Rohan smirked to himself as he was again reminded of a rather annoyed Sneha who used to curse the flashes of lightning which used to bring with itself the bothering thunder sounds.

They started to talk again and as always Sneha was the one who kept on blabbing with an occasional complain of Rohan being rather absurdly quiet. Little did she know that it was these moments of boisterous peace that gave him the spirit of life some 10 years ago. He was bathing in the same essence of subsistence that got in him the belief to survive after the battering of emotions. He never had a stronger need or desire in his life than to have been with her and see her speak, smile, walk and even keep silent at times. The flight was over and the same old fear and anguish of losing her gripped him all over again. Sneha could sense that same old Rohan whom she couldn’t have helped 10 years ago, come back to life. She felt guilty and for a moment thought that they shouldn’t have met this day. Refurbishing memories and reliving some moments it was so strange for her. 10 years ago maybe it was her memories and thoughts for a certain someone that withheld her from taking that extra step towards Rohan and relieving him of an apprehension. And today it’s the memories and moments shared with Rohan which were never more than instantaneous delight and inconsequential future that was asking her a question, the same question she had quizzed Rohan with, so many times before, “Why?” This time though there was a difference. Every time before she had known answers to her ever-enquiring questions but now she was clueless and seemed blank up there. Soon, they were emplaced to say goodbye once again. “So” started Rohan, “You I guess will have to go this way” he said pointing towards the exit. “And I’ll go this way towards the international terminal.” “Yes” said Sneha and wished him luck for his meeting. He too wished her the best with her family and life. “Dream on to do in pursuit of your dream” he said as they walked their different ways after silently bidding farewell with a smile. They didn’t care to exchange numbers or email ids for they knew it was the non existence of distance that had made them bond and it was the same distance that gave them the assurance of well being of one another and made them lose touch.

They say, it takes a minute to find a special person, a day to appreciate them, a month to like them; but then an entire life to forget them. But, sometimes god is unkind to start this process all over again. The dunes are changed by the wind but the desert never changes and that’s the way it will be for these friends. As Rohan walked away quietly he whispered to himself “If I am a part of your dream any night, you'll again come back one day to give me one more moment.” Smiling back to himself he again whispered, “Oh! But you don’t remember dreams.”

Social Media for Non-Profits : A Lesson

2009-11-10T22:07:00.000-08:00

After some hectic weeks and hard-laboured efforts to pull my organization out of some financial mess that they were venturing into, I am now back blogging. So I thought its best to talk about my experiences in the last few months with my work, The Social Media!

Few months back, we started a service for Non-Profits in the US to sign up with our SMM program and get to develop their Donor Database considerably. SMM is Social Media Marketing. The idea was to promote the Non-Profit’s ‘Message’ with the help of the easy access to the world population that we have on the Social Media portals. The approach had to be personal and the goal was planned to be donations. 5 months down the line we failed miserably in getting donations galore for our Non-Profit clients as we had promised earlier. Our Business model also suffered majorly since our costs were to be recovered from the share of these donations. Now, about the lessons learnt:

Twitter is an extinguished tool now. It has not got the ability to attract attention towards a message being prompted there. More importantly it’s way too fast to catch another person’s attention. If you tweet about your non-profit then your followers would read it and at the best ‘help’ you by retweeting it. But as the statistics often showed us, a link tweeted was opened lesser times than been retweeted. But, having said that, it still remains the best tool to make an online conversation and gather individual attention if used in a personalized manner.

The variety of Facebook is not properly used in most Social Media promotions. And we did the same mistake. Facebook is powerful and that’s not because of its huge reach which has propelled it to become the world’s second ranked website after Google. Their power is from the diverse ways of reach that they have envisaged for their users. The Apps like games and Causes, their Fan Pages and their Wall are all tools to reach out to more and more of the Facebook crowd.

An Online campaign is never fruitful without an offline stimulus. There has to be some worthy good for the people who are promoting your cause or donating for you. The campaigns should be planned in such a way that they bring out a Viral motive to promote the cause. What that ‘motive’ is, would be the challenge.

And finally, the most important aspect where we did miss out was to Phase the entire service program. Whatever campaign SMM or SEO that you run for a Non-Profit, the Non-Profit’s would not cease to send Email Messages or Appeals for donation. So, it was important for a SMM Campaigner of Non-Profits to store the contact details of all relevant donor prospects in one Database and reorganize a plan to utilize that data to convert them as donors.

It’s important for us to know that Social Media is just a buzzword and whatever way of campaigning works in gaining mass attention is to be treated in a dedicated yet unique manner because that is a SOLUTION. Every detailed aspect of such a campaign should be attaining a database of probable donors. That’s a step one should look at first and then move to the challenging part of conversions. I’ll write more in the nature and ideas in Social Media. Thanks for reading.

God takes the King !!

2009-06-25T23:54:00.000-07:00

4 decades of magic and a sudden silence. It's so unbelievable that there wont be a moonwalk ever again. The absolute mayhem for pop star on stage would be silenced. The one gloved wonder will not dance to his tunes and flick his hat to show his fans his face and make them go wild. It's all so unbelievable.

I caught up with Monimalika Sengupta, an absolute MJ addict from Melbourne, Australia. We had a quick chat about MJ and I thought of posting it here.

aweblander: So what's the feeling like ? has the news sunk in as of yet ?
Monimalika: Came as a shock, still not sunk in yet.
aweblander: Ok.. from when were you following MJ's work ?
Monimalika: Since I was in standard V
aweblander: So that would be since you were 10 ??
Monimalika: Yes
aweblander: Ok.. what made you or rather why do you think millions like you worldwide were enthralled by MJ ? What was his USP so to say? and trust me I feel bad to say "was".
Monimalika: He was an enigma. His moves, his styles... he was always steps ahead of his time. I can think of him as the only contemporary performing pop artists who has been in the limelight for more than 4 decades... influencing the various genres not only of music but also videos. Somehow his being ahead of times never made him hard to understand his lyrics or songs. He somehow did mange to become the last legend of the contemporary times. And as for USP the answer is ... He himself was the USP. Got the answer?
aweblander: Yes very much. So which of his albums was your favorite ? and which singles song ?
Monimalika: Can't really pin point one. Sorry. Too many favs. I grew up with his music. Too many memories r assocoated with his songs, albums.
aweblander: So good. and finally you think his private life and consistent experiments that he did with his body was a reason for his sudden demise ?
Monimalika: I am not eligible enough to comment on that
aweblander: Fair enough...
aweblander: Thank you Monimalika. Appreciate your making the time out for this. Even if the world is poorer today, MJ's legacy surely grows richer with people like you who loves him unconditionally and will immortalize him in the history of music, worldwide and forever.
Monimalika: Thank you

Michael, we all love you and you live in the millions of souls that you touched with your gift! Rest in peace !

Beautiful Mind : Graeme Cowan

2009-05-22T04:31:00.000-07:00

I came across Graeme in a bizarre manner. It’s another example of what the internet has made us; I love to call it “the neighbour effect”. I’ll not get into that story because here I intend to talk about another Beautiful Mind who became an online acquaintance of mine a few days back, Graeme Cowan.

He is a survivor, an author and a life mentor. I found his story very interesting and inspiring and immediately wanted to interview him for the blog. He obliged and I am really thankful to him for that. Graeme had a history of depression bouts and the last one which lasted from 2000 – 2005 was the worst one which even his psychiatrist acknowledges as one of the most difficult cases he had ever treated. But, he came back from the brink and since then he has tried to make an impact on all the depression ridden people in Australia with the help of his books, BACK FROM THE BRINK and BACK FROM THE BRINK TOO. In the interview I learnt from him about his plans to take the book and his endeavours outside Australia and reach out to millions of depression sufferers around the world. His long struggle against the world’s 2nd most fatally consequential disease prompted him to write these books which comprises of more than 250 interviews with people from different strata’s of life who have all gone through the anguish of depression and how they overcame it. These stories are possibly the best medicines to recover from depression. As Graeme puts it, stories of such people who overcame depression made him get better with every such interview.

His plans to take the books outside of Australia are what keeps him busy these days. I discussed with him, his plans which includes a trip to the US later this month. He hopes to find a publisher in the US so that the books are available in the US, by the end of this year. He would be visiting New York for the Book Expo America and signing copies of his books. Catch up with him there if you want to. He would also be meeting my friends in Chicago who would try to help him with his fine efforts. Interestingly, he has tried a lot of ways to promote himself and the books he wrote via his website www.iambackfromthebrink.com and visual media interactions in Australia, but he is yet to start-up a whole hearted social media attempt for promotion. I was particularly interested to know what kept him away and he reaffirmed the issues like lack of time and staff to manage a social media campaign as the primary concerns. It was a very interesting chat with him where he could foresee the effects of social media and I too was thrilled to help him. You can get in touch with Graeme by mailing him at graeme@graemecowan.com.au and on Twitter @DepressionCure.

This is a very precise interview that Graeme gave to the show, Wake Up ! WA

Beautiful Minds - Social Media : Wayne Mansfiled

2009-05-05T11:56:00.000-07:00

Today, I got a chance to speak with Wayne Mansfield from Perth, Western Australia and it was great to know more about his ideas on internet marketing and social media in particular. He is a pioneer in email marketing since 1997 and has tried all the tricks to capture the attention of a regular netizen and convert them into business prospects. The concepts he shared were valuable and can be used by most non-profits around the world to gather a larger reach; and use their own smart ideas to convert that reach into donations.

Here are the excerpts from the 26 minute long interview.

aweblander: Thanks, for agreeing for this interview Wayne. Let me begin with your definition of social media.

waynemansfield: Well, social media constitutes of what we know as twitter, facebook, linkedin, youtube, myspace, blogs and all that. It is quicker and easier to build a personal one on one relationship with these tools than with the traditional internet marketing tool – the email. Social media works well for people interested in conversations and can be used in a very smart way to market a brand or product.

aweblander: Since you mentioned email marketing and you have such vast experience in that field, how do you see the impact of social media when compared to email marketing?

waynemansfield: I have been a involved with internet marketing for the last 15 years and with my experiences I can say that email is and will be the most strong tool for marketing on the internet. So, social media with all its good virtues will have to inflate the email databases of a prospective marketer. Social media’s impact has been huge and in the last few years. twitter, linkedin and youtube has helped me to reach out to about 25 million users online. I have 56,000 followers on twitter which helps me to reach out to 7 million users and my 6,500 level - 1 contacts on linkedin fetched me visibility to more than 18 million users. Also, our videos uploaded on youtube have an average of 30,000 views on a 24 hour basis. So, as you can see the numbers are incredible and social media with its wings of viral marketing can really make it big for an internet marketer.

aweblander: Where do you see social media 5 years from now?

waynemansfield: Ow!! it certainly has a long way to go. It can be really valuable if used smartly and restrictively. If you have followed my work on facebook or twitter, you can probably understand what I mean. Friendships are one thing and business another. Social media with its personal touch could help one to create an online influence which could also help to grow opportunities from a business perspective. So , yes depending upon how it is used I do believe that social media will flourish in the coming 5 years.

aweblander: Coming back to non-profits, if you had an opportunity to raise funds for a non-profit via social media, how would you be doing that?

waynemansfield: I do donate to http://www.kiva.org/ and help other entrepreneurs to revive themselves. Incidentally, I got to know Kiva from a Canadian friend of mine called Mike whom I had met online as well. Also, we have a charity of our own that funds the education of children from sick households who could not complete their education due to various issues .And we had major success with social media in raising funds for them. What we do basically, is have different identities on social media websites and share stories about these students. A recent graduation party that we attended for Corridors College was mentioned on twitter and facebook and it brought in a lot of attention from the online folks.

aweblander: This would be my penultimate question. Is it difficult to manage a social media campaign given the amount of activities involved and its interactive nature? I mean email marketing is one way traffic where one would not be flooded with instant replies, whereas social media thrives on immediate response. How do you think this can be tackled without a huge support staff?

waynemansfield: Its true that managing social media is tough and that’s why objectives have to be very clear. I limit my twitter usage for half an hour before the start of work everyday and half an hour before I end and that’s usually is enough for me to keep the network buzzing. But for a campaign where one has to write a blog and post videos on youtube and microblog all of them via twitter and facebook, it becomes really difficult to manage all that. I use tools like tweetdeck and friendfeed which helps to manage these social media activities from one dashboard. Infact, I would recommend tweetdeck highly because with the upgrades they did last week, now one can also update their facebook accounts from there as well as follow their facebook friends. Our developers have been working on a dashboard to pull in data from the social media websites and help manage the activities. So, to answer your question, it is indeed difficult to manage social media but certainly some tools are there online to help you do that.

aweblander: And finally Wayne, would you like to share your social media contact ids with us.

waynemansfield: Yes of course. I am not personally involved on facebook, its more of a corporate account. However on twitter and linkedin I am waynemansfield. And our newsletter portal – The Maverick Spirit, which is very popular all over this part of the world is http://www.au1865.com/. This is my way of remembering the registration number of my first car. You can also get access to my active blog @ Confessions from a Boy from Margaret River.

aweblander: Wayne, thanks so much for your time and thoughts. It was wonderful to know so much from you.

waynemansfield: no problem. Let me know when you get this posted. Bye.

My lesson from this interview was that skypecap records video sans the sound for skype 3.8.0. So, I ended up recording a mute interview of Wayne from skype. And you all are missing all the good words he spoke about my questions ;-). But, it was good that I was noting down his views as well. Sorry about it Wayne. But, thanks a lot again for taking out the time.

Beautiful Minds...Coming Soon !!

2009-04-28T22:17:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. I am sorry for not having blogged for so long. But I do have an excuse, and a very good one at that. I was busy knowing people who are absolute inspirations to the field of work I have made myself belong to. And, I am so enamoured with the concept of helping non-profits with social media and any online web 2.0 medium that I have hunted out my role models here. Tony Hsieh, David J Neff, Beth Kanter, Wayne Mansfield, Jamie Inman, Jordan Viator and so many more such beautiful and awesome minds are all my role models. I wish and I hope to get them to talk more and more about their unique ideas and how those can be linked to non profit causes with the internet as the medium. I am loving this. The sea of knowledge that these wonderful minds have, can be translated into technically strong web-apps and get help for all the creatures of god!! Isn’t that amazing! Guys...I am not being spiritual here...just being human. Anyways...keep reading my blog where I promise to bring you at least one interview every week and I would live all the conversations tagged with them. Follow me @sumitory001 and mail me sumitroy001@gmail.com if you want to know more. Thanks. Keep helping !

In pic (clockwise from L to R): Jordan Viator, Tony Hsieh, Beth Kanter, David J Neff, Jamie Inman and Wayne Mansfield.

Twitter Lifespan.. What next ??

2009-04-08T04:12:00.000-07:00

Twitter is over crowded and the strategies involving it is becoming increasingly difficult. But then, it’s all the more challenging, isn’t it? Social Media to most pundits is a conversation and that is powered by various user content based tools. Twitter is one of them and has been the hottest one in the last few months. Its rise has been meteoric much like its social networking predecessor, facebook. It receives over 3 million UMVs (Unique Monthly Visitors), and has seen a daily growth of approximately 420% over the past 12 months.

Though they are different from one another in terms of features and usability both twitter and facebook serve the purpose of the social media theory, communication. However, as with facebook, twitter too will soon start to suffer from the ‘data splurge’ syndrome. It’s fast loosing the personal touch and being used more as a marketing medium. This not only detracts the users from such profiles but also causes irreplaceable damage to the domain. It’s difficult to find the required data and too much of information makes the user’s experience rather grim. The bounce rates start falling and it becomes a tool which only attracts new users and not new interactions from existing users. Facebook users who had registered 12 months prior have accepted of having gone down on their visits to the site. Most use it as repository for their snaps and videos while others use it for people search.

But then every social media site seeks popularity to make it a more powerful tool. So how does it survive the ‘plateau effect’ (the user traffic stats remains static while the bounce rates fall)? What can a Twitter or Facebook possibly do to diversify? What can they do to stop their popularity from ultimately paving the way to their collapse? Somehow they have to show a new way to their extensive user-database with another interesting and interactive tool. That should help them keep their massive list of followers/ users intact and then subsequently, grow.. Much like what google did with gmail.

Free Calls to US and Canada

2009-03-30T02:49:00.000-07:00

I found an awesome tool to call anywhere in the US and Canada. Thought of sharing it.. Try it, it lets you speak for 3 (long) minutes :). Just click on "Allow" and start dialing.

Zappos ideas for Non Profits

2009-03-25T12:53:00.000-07:00

While working on my portal for non profits [I wont spill the beans yet!! :) ], I was figuring out ways to popularize non profit causes and as Tony Hsieh rightly points out in http://is.gd/oS3v it actually is the science of happiness that needs to be studied very well before anything else.

What I mean is…I have certain goals for which the portal will be my tool. Let’s mention them:
- Helping Non Profits unconditionally.
- Using and enhancing my knowledge of the web is doing so.
- Using social media tools to popularize a cause.
- Publicizing the idea and power of e-marketing via social media.
- And… bringing more and more non profit minded people closer online.

Now the uncanny question is how the zappos concept fits in here. Simply put, it fits for every entrepreneurial aspiration and so non profits aren’t quite definitely an exception. The slideshow mentioned above will explain almost everything. But the most interesting part is in here.

and here..

The idea of using the money allotted for publicity to enhance customer satisfaction features which in turn encourages repeat customers is very brilliant. It teaches us the values of being not greedy but humble. This concept holds true especially for all fundraising non profits who should look forward to build relationships and make their followers help them.

I have to again and I guess now I have made it a habit of thanking David J Neff for mentioning this on his blog post @ fispace.org. Good work again mate.

Support Team Corbin @ Charity Smack Down

2009-03-19T14:14:00.000-07:00

Paypal's Charity Smack Down is a great concept. Again got this from Dave.. his blog post @ FISpace. The pledge to help and make your charity win is a great concept and Paypal should be commended for putting this up. Competition excites adrenile always, and cashing in on that for a noble cause is a good way to go.

I would support Team Corbin and urge all my readers to donate to Team Corbin and support their cause of getting new therapies to cancer patients quickly and saving their lives. We all have known, heard or seen a cancer patient die. Lets do a little something to help.

Understanding Non Profits

2009-03-17T23:02:00.000-07:00

I spent most of last week gathering an impression of the Non Profit philosophy in the US. We’ll be soon working upon a Fundraising Product which would include multiple machineries to popularize the cause for an NPO and subsequently encourage donations. Frankly, the study left me amazed with the innovative methodologies that the NPOs are following for publicity and fundraising. Also, there still are lots of unheralded opportunities that can be utilized to propagate a cause.
I was much interested in the web aspect of these Non Profits which is governed by using the Web 2.0 methods like social media, social bookmarking, SEO etc. This interview clip from the David J Neff (great work mate) made me sit up and take notice of this Non Profit - WEB 2.0 model.

It’s absolutely amazing to find role models on the web and learn from the good work they have put up. For a beginner like me who knows social media but isn’t much aware about the Non Profit concepts, David is brilliant. He keeps things simple and effective. It has been a real education following his work on the web. So here’s what I learnt:
1. Establishing a Web presence.
- To begin with, the tools from Facebook, MySpace or Youtube can help to establish a web presence. This helps to organize a future collaborative reach for any cause. If the person (brand) is active and popular then the chances of the any petition reaching out to a wider audience increases.

2. Promoting specific actions or petitions.
- People check their email when they want to read and write. They log in to Facebook or MySpace when they want to take action. For many, an email petition is an annoyance to be deleted, while Facebook applications are fun, social, and available when you're ready to click a button, add your name to a petition, volunteer a little something about yourself, and compare your responses with friends. If you know and respect their culture, social networking sites can be an effective way to encourage people to take action or spread the word about your cause.

3. Consolidating existing, unofficial social networks related to your cause.
- Joining is more effective than Creating. That’s the mantra for social networking. Wasting time to popularize an ideal petition community may just end up killing your time. There are communities and networks which echo a similar cause and have a sizeable list of followers. It’s wiser to use it instead of creating a new community.

4. Informal outreach that blends the personal and professional.
- Befriending your professional rivals (on the web) and ideating together with them increases the possibilities to network online. This can always be used to help promote a professional cause.

5. Researching VIPs, potential associates, and others.
- Just the way I found David. Tons of information is available on these social networking sites. This is the best way to learn and upgrade knowledge (best practices).

6. Encourage and respond to constituent feedback quickly.
- Social networks are a great way to test your commitment to open communication if you want to get quick and honest feedback. Make it as easy as possible for people to find you and make requests (either within the site, or privately), and make sure you respond quickly, personally, and where appropriate, publicly. This creates a viral effect of dependency for any fellow networker to rely on you for most future assignments.

It’ll be great to know more about Social Media ideas in Non Profits. Ill be writing more on this soon.
Thanks again David for all your online materials.

First Draft: Business Analysis

2009-02-27T04:40:00.000-08:00

Finally, I got the 2 hours I needed to get myself write this post. But, you all will agree surely, that keeping busy these days should be a pleasurable affair.

Now about Business Analysis for the web based jobs. We all know that programming languages and testing tools have evolved with time to maximize automation in project processes. But either they have not been enough or have been deterrent in the project progress often causing a blockade. An unharmed progress will be based on the extent to which business requirements evolve in tandem with the application; the degree to which requirements are clearly communicated to developers; and the clarity with which business analysts -- those liaisons between the development and business sides of the house -- explain each side's needs to the other. This clearly explains the criticality of the Business Analyst’s role.

In the days of Web 2.0, an advantageous Business Analysis is far and few in between.
To enlist the few reasons which become a challenge are:

Treating client’s project as own product.

Features making navigation more complex.

More focus on using new technologies compared to best practices.

Lack of proper communication between the BA and the client.

Insufficient market study and user case developments.

I’ll be trying to elaborate each of these points in my next posts. However, please do post comments to make this thread interesting. Thanks. Keep reading.

Sorry for the delay on the BA posts

2009-02-23T20:50:00.000-08:00

Hi folks, I am sorry for not being able to follow up on the BA topic that I had promised in my earlier post. Have been held up with work badly but I hope in a days time the post should surely be done.

Thanks,
Sumit

Is our Earth dieing?

2009-02-20T01:47:00.000-08:00

Haven’t we seen it all? Surely our generation should be remembered as one of the most dynamic and happening one in the history of this planet. It’s mighty preposterous to feel what we have seen in the few years that have gone by and will see in the ones that are coming. We have been witness to a renaissance in technology affecting every aspect of life…gadgets, constructions, automobiles, communication mediums and many more. Yet, at the doorstep of this immortal era for human comfort, mankind is again facing the ire of destiny.

The demons of a surmounting economic meltdown, unrelenting barbaric terrorism and terrifyingly consequential global warming have grown to proportions that are challenging the existence of humanity on this planet. Does this mean our earth is slowly losing subsistence? There is no assurance of life, whoever you are and wherever you are. We need to acknowledge and answer these issues collectively if the earth has to remain our abode. Else lets spend most of our money into the space programs to frantically search for life in some other planet so that we can shift there to leave behind our beloved planet as what we have made it, a diseased dustbin.

Analyzing BA

2009-02-18T23:25:00.001-08:00

Business Analysis as the world knows it, is based solely on requirement gathering from a client and transferring them as information to the service providers. But, what most don’t realise is that the BA is also required to identify potential business threats and provide solutions to eliminate them.

Working as a Business Analyst with an undying aim to implement Web 2.0 principles in most project scopes, I found some challenges which were way beyond the extent of my functional spectrum. The failures that we had in reaching successful Project Closures give us a chance to understand the complicacies surrounding the deliverables of a project.

In my following posts I will be trying to analyze the challenges of Business Analysis (BA) and its impacts primarily on a Web 2.0 product.

Meanwhile, you can see this comic but meaningful representation of a ‘Project Failing Life Cycle’.

Mission: Silence Tweets

2009-02-05T04:05:00.000-08:00

I maybe wrong but this certainly seems like Google’s answer to Twitter. Latitude, the latest offering from Google is out and is already catching on. It lets you track locations of your family and friends on the run without relying on calls or anything. Latitude is BIG!! And more so because it’s a real time social networking tool. I used it and felt great initially. Cashing in on its existing contact building applications like Gmail and Gtalk, this is the new networking tool that Google could have offered effectively. And so it did.

It still is a bit clumsy in some aspects though. The OS and Browser dependency shall not really popularize it wholesomely and spread the fire as soon as they would have wanted it to. For Mobile phone users, it again is restrained to some few models. But, Google promises to expand the application’s mobile usability reach soon. It’ll be interesting to see how Google propagates it and makes this its primary social networking tool.

What’s most interesting about this application is the ownership rights that a user exercises over publishing their location details. They can opt out of this feature whenever they want. Also, interestingly, the Gtalk status message will now be competing directly with the tweets and I bet Twitter will be hurt if Google gets rid of the compatibility issues.

So now the CEOs will have a perquisite for their managers. Give them a phone with Latitude enabled. And with answer already known, here comes the call from the CEO, “Where are you?”

Social Media Search.. Way to go !!

2009-02-03T21:53:00.001-08:00

A great thing about the enormity of the web is that, it never ceases to amaze you. Every fortnight there is a website with a fresh and attractive new concept to churn the minds of the avid netizens. I am no exception. What these sites also do is that they reassure Tim O’Reillys concept of Web 2.0 which keeps the user want to come back to a website with more than one requirement.

Recently, I came across this social media search engine which is presently tracking millions of conversations, taking place across in more than tens of thousands blogs and social media sites. User-generated discussions are not indexed by major search engines, such as Google, Yahoo etc. The reason is because; user updated data does not reside on static pages. This site converts these discussions into web pages, or permalinks, and organizes them within a tag cloud. These Tag clouds become a point where all discussions on a specific topic are accumulated.

This is a great idea and more so because Web 2.0 emphasizes on user’s ownership of their data and most users of social media portals want their data to be popularized via any online medium. A major source of online information would be coming out of the knowledge sharing exercise that all the major social networking portals provide for their users. Now with this site, it will be easier for users to specify their searches based on these online conversations. I like the idea wholesomely and hope that this site has a strong and robust enough algorithm to build up on the wonderful idea that they want to propagate. Try... www.samepoint.com

UI 2.0 : Guide to be a Site Owner

2009-01-15T04:53:00.000-08:00

You might have been startled and amazed by the new sites that are releasing almost everyday and grabbing your attention big time. You just might think “Gosh!!! How did these guys visualize such a cool site…?” Here’s the little secret.

UI 2.0 as the design parameters are called these days, is based just and just on ease of usability. While visualizing and planning for the designs you need to ask ourselves these 3 simple questions:

Where the user is? – This is because the users should be happy with their present location in the site. The navigational pattern as well as the page content should be such that the users’ need can be presumed and portrayed accordingly on every of their landing pages. Also, some real good developers make their users do things as they want to. Like, giving a flashy interactive application or a tag cloud with admin specified large tags; you can pull in the attention of a user and then lead them to their designated flow of activities.

The next question would be; where the user is coming from? – This is because by no means the users should be allowed to leave shores... read that as website. The user might not be satisfied with their current location due to lack of content or any other factors and in that scenario they should have an option to go back to the previous page(s). Not only this but to envisage the users’ imminent movement within the site, it’s always important to keep track of their path in the website. To hunt a Tiger you need to keep track of its pug marks…right.

Finally the most important question; where the user can go? – This is the million dollar question. Everybody wants to know this and trust me even the users wants to know the same, more badly than you do. This is where the real challenge and competition is. The business logic, stickiness factors, viral marketing attributes and all such other development aspects are directed to tap the users need from the website. As I mentioned earlier, smart people make their users follow the trail which they have prepared the best and thus increase their business prospects and that’s the best way to solve this question. Create an USP and sell it with maximum visualization. Wherever the user tries to go you should tend to make them arrive at the page(s) which are meant for more visits. There is a simple rule. Kill the users’ initial interest and help them grow the one which you intend to.

Battle won… You have your profit making website ready for the coders to integrate their flashy stuffs.

Blog Remoulded

2009-01-12T04:37:00.000-08:00

Hello friends, here comes some serious stuff now. I have decided to give this blog a meaningful remould. So far all the issues that affected me personally and on which I had an opinion, was presented here. Here on, some professional stuff shall also be a part of this blog. Ill share with you all whatever issues relate to my professional experiences and I hope that your valuable comments help me and this blog to grow. Thanks, keep reading.

A Nation's Ordeal

2008-12-08T05:10:00.000-08:00

Recently as I saw our Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh being felicitated at the Vishwabharti University, a thought crossed my mind. Isn’t this the same place from where Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s Nobel medal was stolen? So much security for a chancellor with political importance and so less for a prized possession of the nation. And what did we do about it, nothing. Neither the precious artefact has been restored nor have the miscreants been brought to law. The point I want to raise with this as an example is that we as a nation are of the forgiving kind and that is sad.

There was a huge hue and cry all over the national media, print/electronic, over issues such as Gujrat riots, Arushi murder probe or even this Nobel medal theft. But what happened henceforth? Our ever-competitive media goes about its habit of bringing into focus any one issue which more than attracting attention of the citizens attracts the other media agencies. Then there is a scramble for one exclusive news bite for the same and subsequently with that, drawing more viewers. It all comes down to that and not the importance and sensitivity of the news. once there is another piece of interesting news the older one is suddenly orphaned and we the news hoggers get engrossed in the recent updates losing memory of what was keeping us occupied in the last few weeks. Shameful indeed. We the people of this nation encourage this kind of numbed and insensate journalism which does no good for the nation. Public memory and their consequent anguish, anger or even joy is made to live short by the media and none of us care a damn about it.

I am not criticizing the media. It merely serves us in a plate what we love to eat. No nation can survive and prosper without maintaining a balance between tolerance and unacceptance of social, political and democratical undoings. And just merely showing dissent with a Bandh or a walk to the nearby city grounds doesn’t make a difference. We are a nation that showed non-cooperation to the world. we need to show that again. We make governments that rule over us, so we should also show our power and help make this nation a better place to survive and flourish. All of us must realise that India is so near yet so far from calling itself a world power. It has to evoke the fire from within and get rid of all its diseases once and for all.

Precisely, we have to be unforgiving and relentless to issues that affect our nation and affect us. Lets do it. Lets do it NOW!!!!

Bienvenido Maradona in the City of Joy

2008-12-06T13:41:00.000-08:00

The people of Kolkata are suffering from an epidemic. Alarmingly it has gripped the city in no time whatsoever. From young to old, from rich to poor, from Hindu to Muslim everybody is bugged by the virus, the virus called Maradona-mania. Yes, the prince of football, the greatest in the game, the FIFA footballer of the century is in town and the city of joy has reasons to be joyful once again.

Diego Armando Maradona reached Kolkata early on Saturday morning only to be received by thousands of fans enchanting his name all through the journey from the Airport to his hotel, The ITC Sonar Bangla. The city seemed painted in blue and white and resembled more like Buenos Aires than the usual red/green flower clad city that we are accustomed to. Why not? This man and his art on the football field has enthralled one and all. He has inspired and mesmerised everyone who has ever seen him play. He led his nation to consecutive World Cup finals in 1986 and 1990, winning it in 1986. Arguably the greatest player ever gracing the game and the term arguable is only coined by the fools who dare to argue.

Traditionally the people of Kolkata are loyal fans of the Latin American nations Brazil and Argentina. On every occasion where there is a confrontation between these arch rivals, the loyalties are shared in this far off city. Though the Brazilian fans are fans of the style of football that they offer, the fans of Argentina are only Maradonians. They were inspired to watch and follow international football because of that one man. And now to see their god right in front of their eyes, they are simply awestruck.

Truly if Diego Maradona is god, Kolkata for one day today was heaven.

Need Answers From The Democracy

2008-11-30T22:35:00.000-08:00

Sad, very sad. I am a very very disappointed citizen of this nation. The world’s largest democracy is facing a great setback and that’s its democracy itself. Resignation of the Union Home Minister, reshuffling of the central and state cabinets, opposition parties criticizing the government and mud slinging for vote bank politics; that’s the most this nation and its so called people’s government can react to 3 days of unprecedented terror in its heart of its financial hub? Hopeless and utterly disgusting.

I and a billion other unsafe and terrified Indians ask questions and as a part of this democracy we deserve answers, immediately.
1. The central/state government now accepts that there was information about the terrorists taking a possible sea route to Mumbai. Why did it not act immediately? It’s now being said that they warned the hotels and important establishments of the city. What, are you joking!!! Is warning the establishments their job or controlling the infiltration? Protect, don’t warn.

2. If the home ministry had prior information about possibilities of a terror strike and they didn’t take stringent measures to neutralize it then is a mere resignation of the home minister the solution to it? Isn’t he a criminal of the democracy? He didn’t abide by the oath that he had taken when he had sworn in as the minister. He should be taken captive and grilled in the court of law as to why he wasn’t responsible? How can they go scot-free?

3. Where is our president? You can lobby for votes from MPs to hold the highest position of this democratic state and then at the toughest hour of the nation not one step. Why can’t she show cause the Government? Why can’t she at the least issue a public statement. Why can’t she motivate the countrymen to unite and fight terror?

4. Where is the saviour of Mumbai and Maharashtra Mr. Raj Thackrey? Not one public appearance after the terror strikes is Mumbai. I guess he is not much interested as these horrific incidents were not carried out by his beloved North Indian Bhaiyyas or anyone from his honey-eyed Bachhan family.

There will be more questions and do let me know where I can find answers. Unite India, before these baby faced terrorists (read politicians) slow poison this nation to wholesome insecurity and terrified citizen life. Make these politicians answerable and credible and lets do that with all possible mediums.

We need a cure

2008-11-28T10:22:00.000-08:00

As the voice of a reported terrorist engaged in Nariman House Mumbai echoed on a news channel I suddenly recollected memories of the Lord Dalhousie coined term “Divide and Rule”. The Indian political fraternity has taken the leaf from the British imperialists and used it as a tool to maximize vote bank politics in the nation. And what has that resulted in? The answers are pretty clear after the incidents in Mumbai. India is at the mercy of incompetent politicians who have sadly used bureaucratic authorities to cripple the internal security system. That has given rise to these militant religious outfits causing mayhem at their own will. We cant blame others when we ourselves give rise to these situations.

We need to rise above caste, religion, race and all other discriminating factors that have disunited the countrymen. Why do we need to have the so called ‘Minorities’? Why would a declared secular nation need to officially classify a group of people as under-privileged? The seeds of discrimination should be uprooted from this nation if we need to survive. The world is facing a difficult time. We don’t need to make it more difficult, do we?

Save the Nation

2008-11-26T21:46:00.000-08:00

What the hell!! Where are we staying? Indians should be proud of what? Baby feeding the guerrilla terrorists with money and arms, ammunition, is that what we should be proud of? Man! Every god damn month, there is a new group of these freaking ‘mujahideens’ running havoc at their own will in any part of this nation. Unity in diversity is what we all foolishly brag about. If there was unity in this country then these idiotic uncivilized creatures couldn’t have been so reckless and fearless in carrying out these barbaric incidents. This is a horrific time for the nation, and we must all realise that.

Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Surat, Jaipur, Agartala, Delhi and now again Mumbai; folks our nation isn’t secure and no politically inclined selfish politician shows the least bit of interest in improving the situation. Our highly equipped and well paid intelligence bureau never has any clue about an incident of such magnitude before it occurs. Even if they get hold of any miscreants, years of trial render them with minimal punishment or they are acquitted scot free. This needs serious attention, why should a prospectively developing economy like ours be unnecessarily threatened by such activities of anarchism. We need to boycott votes and paying taxes, all of us. Bring on the presidents' rule and get rid of these hooligans once and for all. We might risk a lot of the so called human rights due to such an operation, but living, surviving and ensuring security for our near and dear ones is a more important human right than anything else I must say.

Its time to act not react. No country has been so laid back in curbing terrorism like us. It’s a shame on our democracy. We have been fighting over issues like regional bias and disoriented industrialization. Why the uproar we see in such occasions can’t be directed towards eradicating the roots of terrorism from this country. If a political party pays Rs.100 to a person to attend its rally then why cant the Government issue sumptuous rewards to people who can nab or inform authorities about a terrorist in his/her locality. If money is the language that people of this nation understands then let’s do that. Somehow and in someway, we the people of this nation have to show resilience against these odious ideologies of destroying civilian peace in this country. The terrorist outfits should be scared that every single citizen in this country is out hunting for their heads. They should be scared that any civilian could be a possible informer to the IB. The ones who are not affected should be more responsible to take up the duty of protecting the remaining folks. If we turn a blind eye now, we can be next.

How about a Desi Bond...

2008-11-18T23:57:00.000-08:00

Well, since the Bond mania is running wild with the latest release Quantum of Solace, I thought it would be a nice time to envisage our own Bond. Yes, a desi bond. Sadly, to reach the masses our Bond though will have to compromise on a lot of aspects that keeps a Bond movie in a league of its own. Lets try and compare some familiar Bond scenes with a possible desi version of the same.

Scene 1: Bond is remanded and deserted by the MI6 but his passion for pursuit against crime makes him revolt against the orders and take help of an old friend.

Desi Bond: For our Bond to meet his friend there has to be a life saving sequence where Bond would save the life of his old pal. And after getting rid of the bad guys he will have an emotional reunion with his friend. Instantly the story will go back and have a flashback as to how Bond had met this friend of his and how they lost touch. Might as well be a song much like a “yeh dosti”. Finally after meeting up with everyone in his family and briefly romancing his friend’s sister Bond approaches his friend for the help that he needs.

Original Bond: He would just walk in to his friend and ignore all others in his family. Meet the guy, tell him his position and ask for exactly what he needs from him. If he agrees then he plans the next move with him else leaves hastily. Wishing a goodbye is a luxury that he cant afford.

Scene 2: While on his mission Bond meets a girl and quite likes her.

Desi Bond: A dream sequence where our very own Bond is having a tricky time having to handle the long dupatta of the heroine. There’s a song and dance, nice designer clothes for Bond and a rather skimpily clad woman somewhere in the middle of Antarctica. Then Bond hunts for an occasion when he can express his feelings to the lady. She plays hard to get and teases him. Finally when they both evoked their passions and try to get cosy our director fades the lenses and the view goes frosted. Another song follows where the lady seems apparently overjoyed having shed her virginity to the popularly unreliable British agent.

Original Bond: Upon meeting the girl he has a smirk in the corner of his lips and goes about his business. He plays hard to get and flaunts his attitude until the girl gives in, more with the intention of taming a wild creature on the run than herself having fun.

Scene 3: Bond faces a deceit from one of his acquaintances’ and is in the lookout to nail him down.

Desi Bond: Our desi Bond leaves his mission goals aside and goes hunting for his old friend turned foe. While on with his chase, there’s a flashback that haunts him and he tries to figure out solemnly what went wrong in their friendship. And finally after eliminating his friend Bond goes into a depressed mood and prays to the almighty seeking forgiveness for slaying his old friend.

Original Bond: Goes about his mission and if he comes across the person who had betrayed him, he has just two things to do. Shoot and smile. So long.

That’s what I think of our desi bond. Please add on more scenes contemplating a possible comparison between the original firang bond and a desi bond. The only two names that I find suitable if a serious effort of making a bond movie here is taken up, would be Amir Khan and Arjun Rampal.

By no means am I trying to degrade our movies. They are thorough entertainers and the guys from Hollywood would never be able to make such masala flicks. So if Bond has to come here he has to certainly bond with the best.

Dada The Indian Hero

2008-11-11T05:54:00.000-08:00

When Indian cricket was maligned by the shadow of the match-fixing scandal at the wake of the millennium, Sourav Ganguly was appointed the Captain of the Indian team. The team had nothing more to lose. They were defamed by all the controversy surrounding the team, the team was losing almost all their matches and the rankings soared down, every player was treated with an eye of suspicion. Ganguly taught the guys to stand up tall and face any challenge on the field and he knew that with victories all this would be left behind. He taught the team that though cricket was a gentleman’s game, one can be gentle only when the other person is. Here was a captain who not only led the side with conviction but built a new breed of fighters who were willing to win at any cost. Eventually he ended up winning 21 of his 49 tests as captain and drawing 13 of them, a record not matched by any, in Indian cricket’s history. Why still the best Left Hander India has ever produced has always been criticized and made to stand near the guillotine all along his career?
Let’s put them in points: - and being a follower of cricket I would give this day for this conversation. I invite one and all to debate and prove me wrong.
1. Sourav Ganguly has scored more than 18000 international runs, and is amongst the seven top batsmen in One Day internationals to have scored more than 10,000 runs with 38 career hundreds.
2. He is supposed to be a choker and the one who shows his back to the opposition. His 144 at the Gabba in 2003 was a knock which laid the foundation for India’s success (Drawn Test Series) in the Tour Down Under.
3. His pulling out of Nagpur test in 2004 was highly criticized and why so? Coz Mr. Niranjan Shah the then President of the Vidharba Cricket Association and a staunch critic of Sourav for some political interests in the board, had laid off a green pitch helping the visiting side to fulfil his selfish desire and not national interest. If protesting that for the sake of the country is wrong then, he was.
4. When he was ousted from the team due to undemocratic practices and not cricketing reasons, he showed his grit and determination to come back strong and hard. At the age of 33 he went back to the grass root levels of domestic cricket and came back into the team only with his performance in the domestic leagues. Once back, the talisman in him showed what mettle he is made up of. He scored freely and handsomely and had an average of 54 after coming back in 2005.

Let me know your views. Why criticize this legend of Indian cricket unnecessarily.

2008-03-23T22:42:00.000-07:00

...We all know...

Do we know what exactly is dawn

the first rays of the sun

or the night that is gone

Do we know what exactly is a smile

an effort to hide agony

or an exercise to keep the teeth agile

Do we know what exactly is a dream

the thought that keeps u asleep

or the memories that make you scream

Do we know what exactly is the moon

the star that brightens the night

or the one which makes the day come so soon

Do we know what exactly is life

a moment to cherish

or a string of happiness alike

Do we know what exactly we want to do

live like it’s a habit

or make life happier for few

and you...

# this one is for one such person who knows all the answers...but don't know why exactly wants to be unaware....