Bloggers By Choice

Man, being a social animal, always tries to associate with different people on some common ground which gives rise to communities. We have communities on the basis of religion, occupation, caste, skin color, political ideologies, etc. The increase of the number of people writing anything and everything on the web has given rise to something called 'blogosphere' and a community of bloggers. Indiblogger organized a real meet of people who produce virtual content at Kyra. This was my first ever bloggers' meet. Though i don't take social lubricants (which was sponsored by Kingfisher), it wasn't difficult to 'network' with the bloggers.

As expected, a lot of issue concerning bloggers and blogging were discussed. I'll blabber on a couple of those topics which i think the readers of Mundane Journey would find interesting.

One of the issues discussed there was how to solve the problem plagiarism. With the content being online, it just takes a Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V to copy an original content from one blog to some other form of media. One of the attendee's blog post was copied by a media house without giving the due credits as required by the License. Given the effort involved in taking legal action and given the giant media house in this case, it would not be practical to take a legal action. One of the thoughts was to use twitter for spread awareness. i think (and as i expressed it in the meet) that one way to solve this would be to blog about such plagiarism. The author can show to his readers his original piece and the one copied by someone else. The blogging community in-turn can join hands to create awareness about the issue. Given the reach of the blogs (though it is minuscule compared to other form of media) substantial awareness can be created. Given the way free media work, its competitors may pick this up as well. In India, things do not necessarily work in top-down way. A lot of times, the push from the bottom creates stir in the top to make then take action. We have seen the power of media in the Jessica Lal case. The same tool can be used to reduce plagiarism. That's the beauty of blogosphere - it's self healing!

Another topic of discussion was whether or not bloggers should be concerned about monetizing their blogs. This gave rise to other sub-topics like marketing and whether a blogger should care about the number of readers, hits or comments. A few were of the opinion that blog is supposed to be a manifestation of the feelings and thoughts of a blogger. He shouldn’t be bothered with money. Another was of the opinion that one cannot do full time blogging as there is a lot of uncertainty in monetizing. He said that Paypal stopped catering to Indian clients and that impacted his revenue from the blog.

I agree that blogging is a way to express your thoughts. However, I take blog as a product whose aim is to carry the opinion of the blogger to the widest possible audience for that content. So, I think I wouldn’t compromise on the content part as it is the core of the product. However, I wouldn’t mind experimenting on the ‘style’ of writing to make it more interesting. Now, to reach out to the audience, marketing is very important. The reason why one has a public blog and not a personal diary is that he wants to ‘share’ his opinion and probably get feedback on the opinion to refine he own thoughts. As someone rightly mentioned in the meet, a post along with the comments make a complete piece. In this endeavor, if the blogger earns a few pennies, then there is nothing wrong with it. This was about ‘casual’ blogging. What’s wrong if a full time professional blogger wants to earn from it? The blogger is providing service to the readers who are getting benefited from it. I think, it’s only fair if an author earns money for the service he offered. A little unrelated example is that of Kyra and Kingfisher. As I mentioned in the TJY post, that is Kyra and Kingfisher is getting some publicity by sponsoring the event (like, I wrote this post!). It’s win-win for all.

Anyway, it was a good discussion session. But there is no constraint of time here. We can take this discussion further and to a wider audience. Do pour in your thoughts on what you feel about the above topics – plagiarism and monetization.

Lessons from TJY for NGOs

[Disclaimer: This article is based on my personal views on the Tata Jagriti Yatra 2009. Nothing mentioned in this post should be considered official. Also, this is not written in the usual Mundane Journey style. This post is, basically, collation of various emails i had written to the members of my NGO, Vriddhi. ]

It's been close to month since i wrote. Actually, i was on the Tata Jagrity Yatra 2009-10. In this 18 day's trip we traveled some 9300 km across the length and breadth of the country meeting some 13 entrepreneurs. More information about the trip can be found in the blogs of other 'yatris' and at http://www.jagritiyatra.com. During the trip we met some outstanding entrepreneurs and got to know about some outstanding social ventures - Mumbai Dabbawalas, Sabriye&Paul, Vijay Raghaavan, R. Elanago, Aravind Eye Care, Agastya, Industree, Naandi, Gram Vikas, Jagriti Seva Sansthan, Goonj, Bunker Roy and Okhai. While meeting these great 'institutions' was a great experience, experiencing the Tata Jagriti Yatra was a greater learning - perhaps because while we visited these great institutions for a few hours, we lived and worked with the TJY for 18 days. Below are the lessons i have learned from the TJY and how these can be adapted by a start-up NGO.

1. Marketing: If there is single most important thing to running a social enterprise (in addition to the cause) is MARKETING. After the Yatra, i think, i cannot overstate the importance of Marketing. A good marketing is like a positive feedback cycle. If one's marketing is good, it will attract more volunteers. More often than not, people want to volunteer with 'brands'. Given the number of NGOs mushrooming, the volunteers are spoiled for choices and for obvious reasons they want to associate themselves with 'brand'.  So, if the marketing is good, more volunteers would want to join the NGO and this would help in building a better brand . The same logic holds for funds as well. Funders/Donors/Corporates like to give funds to brands so that it gets publicity. So, the more fund an NGO gets the more good work (and branding) it can do and the more funds it can attract.

Theory being laid out, let's see how Tata Jagriti Yatra does it. This yatra, in its present avatar is just 2 years old. But look at the brand name it has created for itself! First they roped in Tata. This, I would say, was because of their own conviction, their idea is unique and a host of other factors.

Once that was done. They got a Jagriti Yatra song composed by Prasoon Joshi, Adesh Srivastav and Babul Supriyo! Then, they got in a professional choreographer (in this case the Chairman's wife) to choreograph the 'chair version' of the song. Check the last year's version out at http://www.youtube.com/user/jagritiyatra2008#p/u/1/fv21Q8biPJw. [This year's choreography is a little different, but this would give a basic idea of what i am talking about]. We performed this 'dance' after every role-model visit. To me, this was a great stretching exercise after listening to the rolemodel for a couple of hours.  This anthem was also used as wake-up call! The point i am trying to make is that this anthem was not only a binding material but also a branding tool. The dance looked very weird to me in the first instance. I had never seen something like it before. And given a choice, i would have never done it. BUT, when you see ALL the organizers doing it 'sincerely' with grace, happiness and love - the steps didn't matter and it became a representation of our feelings. The lesson learned, here, is that we need to believe in and enjoy what we are doing. Only then would others enjoy.

Apart from the song, branding was done everywhere. TJY T-shirts. TJY bags. These really helped. First, when 400 odd people go out wearing the merchandise, TJY gets instant publicity. Second, it helps in connecting - Like, i was sitting in the airport and saw a lady with TJY bag. Immediately we could connect. Marketing and brand building  was there in every little thing they did. They organized a blogging competition for the Yatris. This way they got a lot of content, publicity, etc. Giving the yatris an opportunity to blog was a good way for the yatris to not only share there experiences but also to 'fix' them in their memories.

It's basically, a win-win game for all the stakeholders. Everyone gains from the marketing techniques TJY employed.

A lot of small NGOs can take some lessons from here. At least, we at Vriddhi, are really inspired. It's doesn't take a lot of investments to make a facebook group or an Orkut community. Also, since we all anyways wear T-Shirts, caps, it makes sense to market your NGO through it. And give these merchandise as gifts should you need to give one. Creating an NGO anthem would also go a long way. One doesn't necessarily have to get big names do the anthem. A lot of yatris, created a song for the role-models we visited. Just ask your otherwise unruly neighbor who disturbs you with his guitar. He would be more than happy to create a song for you.

2. Scale: Another lesson learned from the TJY was that SCALE is very important. Let me start with a few examples.

Naandi Foundation is serving mid day meal to thousands of school in various parts of India. The 'function' of Naandi in the mid-day meal is similar to TCS or Infosys. Mid-day meal is a central government scheme and govt has outsourced the work to Naandi. So, the govt pays Naandi and does the work. Fair enough. But, if you try to think how could Naandi get such a contract from the govt, it would appear impossible. Manoj Kumar, CEO of Naandi foundation said that the government outsourced them the work because of 'scale'. Had they gone to govt. saying that we'll do the mid-day meal for 50 schools, govt would have turned them down. Another advantage of scale is efficiency. As per Kumar, out of Rs 100, Rs 97 reaches the beneficiary. Food for a lot of schools is prepared in a centralized kitchen from where it is distributed to different schools. such centralized approach which is highly efficient wouldn't have been feasible without scale.

Let me go back to my favorite role model - The TJY itself. Taking 400 youngsters is a huge responsibility in itself and very difficult from management perspective. However, the effectiveness of the trip wouldn't have been there had the train not been chartered. And to charter a whole train you need volume. 400 is an optimal number in that respect. The point I am trying to make is that in today's business or social sector, one cannot remain small. Scaling up and expanding is nothing but survival. You need to attain a critical mass.

3. Fun: Another thing which i saw in TJY was fun. Fun was part and parcel of the life for the 18 days. We had 3 explicit dance parties! When we started from Mumbai Central, the train was delayed by some 5 hours. The Yatris and the admin, instead of cribbing took this opportunity to network and socialize by having fun.We had a group of yatris singing to a guitar when Swapnil, from the admin, came and joined and entertained the yatris with his strums. Then, there was this other group who was busy learning rubik's cube while there we others busy chatting away. Whether it's train delays, bus rides, new year or Mithapur. The people didn't leave a single opportunity to have fun. Here, I should emphasize on the platform that the admin had given to the yatris for having fun. And while partying - everyone was alike - the yatris and the admin.

Apart from the all-work-and-no-play, 'Fun' has manifold implications. First, since the trip was for 18 day and with almost 400 unknown people, a fun-less trip would have made it impossible for the yatris to go on especially when the climates and amenities are so uncertain. Second, this made the 400 yatris enthusiastic - the enthusiasm which lasts even after  the trip. This enthusiasm would cause the yatris to speak about it, tweet it and blog it. The reason i am blogging about the yatra, perhaps, is the fun i had there! Third, and probably the most important, implication is that a lot of yatris would go back as volunteers for the next yatra!

Small NGOs face a problem of retaining their volunteer base. Perhaps large NGOs also face it. One way to solving this is to add a lot of 'fun' activities for the volunteers. Please key in any low-cost-high-impact fun activities you could think of for the volunteers in the comments section.

 There are many other big-small things i have learned form the Yatra. I may post my personal learnings in case i find that the readers would find it interesting.

[Note: There are a lot of other, perhaps, more important things for start-up NGOs such as - product design, devising a good model, multiple sources of funds, etc. But. from my personal experience, there is a consensus about the importance of these. However, there is negative or neutral inclination towards the things i talked about above.] 

Cheers!
Yaaron Chalon...

50 Not Out

A few questions for you.

1. How many stars does the US flag have?
2. How many chapters are there in Genesis in the Old Testament?
3. Which is the smallest number that can be sum of 2 square numbers in 2 ways
4. How many names were listed in the first telephone book, (a 1-page list of subscribers), published by the New Haven District Telephone Company, New Haven, Connecticut, in February 21, 1878 ?
5. How many points do you earn if you hit the bull's eye in a game of darts?
6. Leaving this post that you are reading, how many posts have i written on this blog?

The answer to the above questions is 50.

With the last post, i turn 50 posts old. It has been a little less than 2 years since i started blogging on this blog. Before i used to blog on conflicting-anonymity which i deleted because i didn't like the name and because only 7 people knew i blogged on it! It really feels good to have completed 50 posts - something i never thought i would.

It all started as a curiosity to explore what then was a buzzword - 'blog'. I didn't, personally, know anyone who blogged. I found the media flooded with articles on 'blogs'. So, i thought of exploring blogs. It was in the winter of 2007 that i started the blog conflicting-anonymity. I don't really know why i named it 'conflicting-anonymity'. Perhaps, i thought i would write about conflicts. Perhaps, i thought people wanted to be anonymous on the web. Perhaps, i couldn't think of a better name. Perhaps, i didn't take it seriously.

But once i found how blogs work, i stopped writing. Then, this very interesting incident happened with me. And i thought i should write on it. This is when i started Mundane Journey - my second blog. When i started, i didn't know what i would write on. So, i thought of having a name which would be generic enough to cover all future posts. I decided on 'life' - as anything and everything is related to life - even movies like Ghajini are. But i couldn't get 'life' and those 'common' names. It was then i released that i am very late into it. Anyway, the name Mundane Journey struck me and was available. As you must have realized - i wasn't aware of the 'random-thoughts' series of blog-names.

A lot of people have asked me that thought your posts are pretty interesting and lively why do you have such a dull/depressing name. I tell them that the answer is precisely what you said. We keep complaining that life is pretty mundane and there is nothing much interesting. On the other hand, we have these amazing things happening around us - TV's being distributed, Rakhi getting engaged, the whole nation taking CAT, political turmoils, Slumdog winning Oscar, Delhi-6 not doing well despite being an amazing movie, etc. There are tons of happenings happening around us. And, still, we call life - mundane. So, the title was basically to say that what we call Mundane Journey is not necessarily Mundane.

So, there i am. 50 posts. A lot of comments - flattering and candid. But it hasn't been a rosy journey. Google doesn't seem to like me. My Adsense requests keep getting rejected. On the official forum no one has any clue why it got rejected. It went to such an extent the one of the coordinators said that Google's Adsense policy are random! Again, Google didn't bother to give me a page rank. My page rank just recently became 0 [It was N/A till then!]. Bing is worse. It has not even indexed me! [The above is true as of 10/27/09 21:00 pm IST]. I'll keep tweaking to make sure Google is satisfied.

It's been long since i wrote on my personal experiences. I had a lot of things to write about - mine moving to Bangalore, mine starting Vriddhi - our social initiative, some thefts, etc. But i thought there are too many 'i-had-Kopi-Luak-coffee-today' blogs. And i don't particularly find them interesting. So, i have stuck to general topics which a larger section of readers would be interested in - not just my mother. However, i thought on my completion of 50 posts, i should write my experience with Mundane Journey.

And hence the torturous article :)

Cheers

Hindi Hai Hum?

Kapil Sibal with his basket of reforms, whether good or not, has done one great thing. It has brought education back into the public debate. Though his proposed educational reforms were released a few months back, the discussion on We the People yesterday brought to forth different perspectives on the 'three language formula' proposed by Kapil Sibal. He has urged the state boards to follow the three language formula with the vernacular-Hindi-English subjects at the school level.

This has instigated the age old debate - the one that was started in the 1930s. The two viewpoints are - the Hindi speaking states in India think that Hindi should be the langua franca. While the non-Hindi speaking states (especially Tamil Nadu) do not agree to that point. The first such conflict was seen in 1937-38 when the Congress Government of Madras Presidency under Rajagopalachari tried to make Hindi a compulsory subject in schools. Anit-Hindi imposition protests, finally, led to withdrawal of compulsory teaching of Hindi in 1940

Take two. After the independence, in 1950, Hindi was chosen as the national language of India by constituent Assembly. But, again, because of the protests of the non-Hindi speaking states, the resolution was deferred for 15 years.

Take three. In 1965, protests from the DMK and other regional parties, led Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Prime Minister, to give up the agenda of making Hindi as THE national language. [source]

Take four. It's Kapil Sibal now - who is, in a way, trying to reiterate 1938, 1959 and 1965. So, essentially, what Sibal is proposing is nothing new. We have seen this many times in the history. One of the arguments against Sibal's proposal is that why should only the South learn Hindi? Why shouldn't the North learn a South Indian language? Hindi is just another regional language just as Tamil, Telugu, or Bengali is. The 'hindiwalas' argue that since the majority of the population in India speak Hindi, the others should also learn the language.

While being jingoistic about the language, we are forgetting the purpose of having a language: to communicate our thoughts and ideas. Sure, there are very strong cultural connotations to it, but the basic function remains the same - to communicate.

Our school followed three language formula - even before Kapil sabil proposed it. So, I studied English and Hindi till class XII and Bengali for two years - VII and VIII. Despite two years of formal education in Bengali, i was not very fluent in it. This is because, apart from the 45 mins class, i never felt the necessity to communicate in Bengali. In Kolkata, one doesn't need to know Bengali. But, when i joined the university, there was suddenly a need to learn Bengali as most people around, especially the 'babus' spoke Bengali. And that was it. I picked up the language in the first few months itself. The point i am trying to make is that what i couldn't learn in two years, i learned in a few months because there was a necessity. Of course, my two years of formal education made it easy.

When I was in Hyderabad, where again, one doesn't need to know Telugu, I picked up a few words of Telugu. This was because of my social initiative, Vriddhi. We go to schools of the under-privileged and conduct various workshops. Now, these children do not know Hindi or English well. They know only Telugu. So, i learned a few frequently used words to get by. Again, the point i am trying to make is that i learned Telugu (though just to get by) to help me in my social initiative (Vriddhi).

The resident 'Hindiwalas' don't feel the need for learning a South Indian language and south Indians don't feel the need to learning Hindi. However, both feel the need of learning English. This is strange because, English was brought to us by the Britishers who made India their colony and were not particularly liked by the Indians. Nevertheless, we still learn English. This is because of the immense opportunity it brings in. We forget about our past experiences with the British and learn English. So, clearly, it's more about demand and supply than about culture. If there is a demand for a particular language, one would definitely learn it.

For the non-Hindi speaking states, it make sense to adopt the three language formula. There is no harm to learn one more language. And, if given a choice to select the third language, Hindi would have been the obvious answer as Hindi would empower a person from a non-Hindi speaking state to connect to more people than any other language would. Pranab Mukherjee said that he cannot become the Prime Minister because he cannot speak Hindi. Also, his broken Hindi, perhaps caused a rift between him and Laloo.

Having said that, which language should a 'hindiwala' learn? If i were in a position to influence, i would propose the following:

Map a Hindi speaking state to a non-Hindi speaking state. The mapping, of course, would not to one-to-one. Now, these states should help each other in various aspects - like in trade, education, governance, etc. It's like the 'buddy program' in various universities. The Hindi speaking state, then learns the language of the buddy non-Hindi speaking state. This will boost cultural exchange, trade and travel between the states - which in turn would aid in development of India.

Indian are comfortable with plurality. And this plurality, if not replaced by narrow jingoism, can help in making India not only a more developed country but also a model of others to learn from.

Think...

The Lost Phone

1/26/08:

I got a call from a friend, Samudra at about 10:30 pm asking me to join for a cup of tea at Gurdwara. For people who don't know, there is a very famous tea joint near the Elgin Road Gurdwara. People from far off places come here for a "bhand" of tea. People generally come after having dinner and it's normal to find crowd here till mid-night.

Getting back to the story, I said that i won't be able to join because i was home after months and wanted to spend some time with my family. But giving in to his persuasion, i put on a jacket and stepped out. The whether was chilly ( by Kolkata standards). I walked my way through the mildly foggy night to Gurdwara. I found Samudra and Anu, common friend of ours, both holding a phone close to their ears. I jutted in and greeted them with the customary, "Hi Guys". Samudra said that he had lost his phone - Motorola L9. I got a bit serious. Anu was casual though. He told me that the phone might have slipped out of his jacket in the cab, by which they came to Gurdwara. I asked some stupid questions, like, do u know the name of the driver/car number? Of course, he didnt know. And i bet most people dont remember the number of the cab in which they travel. That is the last thing one would like to remember ( think again).

I asked him to call up the service provider's (Smart) helpdesk to see if they can track the phone. But it wasn't easy. Neither I nor Anu had used Smart phone and didn't know the number through which one can contact the helpdesk from other service providers' connection. So i suggested him to call up any friend of his who was using Smart and ask him to call up the helpdesk and ask for the number. Anu, during all this, was trying to call up Samudra's phone, expecting (?) that the taxi driver would pick up the phone. Samudra, could not recollect number of any friends having Smart connection. Hasn't the technology made us worse? I used to remember at least 10 numbers before i got my first mobile. But after getting a mobile, i don't remember even the number of the person whom i call 10 times a day. Samudra called up one of his classmates, asking him to give him the number of their classmate having Smart connection. I forgot the names of both his friends (whom he called up and the other "Smart" guy). Samudra called up the other Smart guy and asked him to enquire about the helpdesk number.

Anu was still listening to the irritating "not reachable" message. Samudra, got his senses back and asked, out of formality, whether we wanted to have tea. I denied. Anu wanted to have one. He wasn't tensed. Finally, we got the call from the "Smart" guy who gave us the helpdesk number. Just forgot to add - Samudra, had gone to a nearby PCO to check if they knew the number but in vain (No wonder i forgot to mention it before ;-)). Samudra called up the helpdesk and after the usual long time, the customer care executive picked up and told that they cant help in anyway apart from barring the number. Period.

Samudra, then, called up his home. Well, a little flashback here. Before coming to Gurdwara, Samudra was near Purna Cinema. His parents had asked him to come home early for no specific reason. Samudra, in a holiday mood, thought of going for a tea-chat before going home. Back to current story. His dad, having faith is police, suggested that we file an FIR.

So, we took a taxi and headed towards the "nearest" police station. In the taxi, i narrated the incident to the Taxi driver (don't worry, i am not going to repeat it). We requested him to inform us if he found any co-taxi driver finding a phone ( of course, we exchanged numbers).

We, then, entered the police station. It was something like 11:15 pm. We again narrated the entire incident. The policeman asked if we remembered the car number. We said, we didnt. So, he said that how do we expect them to find the phone ( how true!!). He, nevertheless, asked us to write all the details and submit it to Kalighat Thana because the area where the phone got lost was under Kalighat thana's jurisdiction. This was heights. Anyway, we came out and decided to go to Kalighat Thana the next morning.

Meanwhile, we kept trying Samudra's lost phone. Suddenly, when were leaving the police station, the phone rang. Somebody picked up. Samudra said that it is his phone and had dropped it in the taxi. The person asked us to collect it at Forum, where he currently was. We asked him, about his car no, to which he didn't reply. However, he said that his name was Prem Chand.

We caught a taxi and headed towards Forum. We enquired each taxi there to check if it were "Prem Chand's". We kept asking taxiwalas which stopped there. We were there till 1 pm asking all the drivers if they were Prem Chand. One taxiwala, said he was!! We requested him to give back the phone. He was shocked. He seemed to get a bit nervous. He confessed that he thought that we are potential passengers looking for this Prem Chand driver. Finally, we thought of going to Kalighat Thana the next morning.

Next morning we reached Kalighat thana at about 10 o'clock. The moment i entered the thana i was overwhelmed with the vision I saw there. We were asked to be seated on a chair and wait till our turn comes. I observed, how different was a police station from the corporate offices.

First, the "babu" culture struck me. People spend too much of energy in useless (?) sycophancy. When an officer came, everybody, including the civilians sitting there, stood up leaving all the work aside. And saluted him. This might be showing respect to him, but i wonder whether it serves any practical purpose. I am a software engineer. In our office or for that matter in any of the IT offices, we don't see this culture. Work takes the priority. If I am in between something and my boss comes to my cube, i can, without any hesitation, ask him to wait till i finish the work. Even he would appreciate this. After all, our common goal is to get the work done. But here, the person (probably a senior officer) took more priority than the work!!

Second, i was simply amazed by the way the shelves there we hosting "files". I wondered whether they had ever heard of a device called computer? how would they find out a particular file from the "lot". Haven't they heard of anything called database? The truth seemed to be very different from what is projected. India is considered IT HUB. We, supposedly, seem to have an edge over other companies in the field of IT. But, here, in the police station, they still stayed in primitive way. We always crib about the police not doing it's work properly, blah blah... But have we ever thought of upgrading the infrastructure? ITising the police stations/system would certainly speed up the processes.

Third. In a time when we are talking of world as a global village with virtual cyber-continents, we have to run from place to place so that the information goes to the right blackhole. If we had an online FIR filing system, we would have filed the FIR that night itself. This wasn't a critical case. But had a critical case being delayed by hours because one had to go to the right police station, we can only imagine what could have happened.

Anyway, it was, i would say, a different experience for me!!