Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Mumbai Terror

This was a reply to a mail I wrote



You know what! something that I have been thinking for quite sometime now...i was about 500-800 mtrs away when the mehrauli blasts happened. Years back I was outside the railway station when there was a blast there (was too young to comprhend the complexities) What happend after that...lives were lost..then??/..............nothing..Delhi saw a series of blasts recently....all of of it lost in the archives of the mind, internet(do a google search all will come back)...... How come noone went around showing so much of anguish at those times...candles, this that etc. This time we chappies..who are among the "haves" have seen terror in places where we go to..the taj, oberoi, JW mariot in pak etc and sudeenly we guys are i think shocked to our senses and wake up saying "%^%*&& this can happen to us" Why did we not show this agression towards media politicians etc etc..when the first terror attack happend in India. If we had done that maybe the mumbai blasts wouldnt have happened, maybe innocent lives of the poor and the rich may have been saved..maybe....... I guess it takes the educated classes of India to wake up when it actually happens to us. Guess the Time and The Place really matters ;-) Oh yes another thing...In delhi alone there are some many monuments which are over 200 years old which are lying in a complete shabby state. People shit and piss there, homeless stay there, birds and bats live there...they are all supposed to be Heritage buildings.....but we all are mourning that the Taj is violated..jesus...when will we guys grow up...when will media become more .......... Sorry I did a reply all to Anshula's mail, but had this going on for some time now in my head so thought let me ramble a little bit :-)Apologies if I hurt anyones sentiments..

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

सेक्स manuals - बून और Bane



This is a story of a man, a woman, a book and a being called GOD and of course who can forget the act that rose to fame and did not even spare the cigar smoking president।

In India Hinduism accepted an open attitude towards sex as an art, science and spiritual practice। Well॥yes, the gods did it the kings did it, even the commoners did it...way back in the third century. Every sexual technique possible went down in the history books of Hinduism, practised and venerated to perfection. Fellatio, cunnilingus, prostitution, masturbation (with an impressive array of aids), anal sex, bestiality and even necrophilia were discussed, tolerated or encouraged. Against this historic backdrop, it is not surprising that Tantrism, a sect that utilized sex as a means to spiritual evolvement, would flourish.

Cut to the present day where neither gods nor kings seem to be leading the way. All we humans have on our hands are our own instincts, the holy book of sex and revelations put down by modern day sex pundits. So which is better, the books or the on-the-bed learning scenario.
All human behavioral drives are instinctive। Individual human behavior is in response to these basic instincts as modified by the human intellect. The intellectual (moral, ethical) human controls its behavior by augmenting those social drives which correspond with its culture and diminishing those drives which are contrary. The drive for sex is one of the strongest of the human instincts, often over-riding even the instinct for survival.

Evolutionary theories say that all animals have four things in common, fear, hunger, sleep and sex... instincts that come naturally। Man, being the most evolved animal has used his intellect to study sexual pleasure in depth. It would be safe to say that each person has different perceptions of his needs for sexual pleasure, unique only to him. Often, instinct shows him the way to self discovery.

Manuals have been around from time imemorial। Lord Shiva and his consort Goddess Parvati explored the various pleasurable positions of the sexual act during their honeymoon at mount kailash purely by instinct. This was when "Kama Sutra" (Aphorisms on Love), was written by Nandi in one thousand chapters and later reproduced by Shvetaketu, the son of Uddvalaka, in an abbreviated form in five hundred chapters. This work was again similarly reproduced in an abridged form, in one hundred and fifty chapters, by Babhravya, an inheritant of the Punchala (South of Delhi) country.

Whichever way you look at it, instincts have always preceded manuals। Adam and Eve were led purely by instinct, an apple and a snake. Even the holy Bible has chapters mentioning the sexual act.

For all those who came in late and swear to do everything by the book॥ which thought appeals more in bed.. a man / woman and instinct or h..heheheh a बुक।

By the way, if you happen to be convinced about the instinct part, make sure you play it safe!

Monday, August 4, 2008

Job Hopping

Found this article that was scanned and forwarded t me :-) so decided to give a link to the same.

Talks about how guys nowadays job hop. Talks about the learning curve that people get when they stay put in a comapny etc etc. Talks about how successful people are when they stay in a company and how the employers treat these guys who stay put.

But like always there are two sides of the coin

One Side of the coin

Some exerpts are below from the two year itch:

Seventy-three per cent of the respondents interviewed stated that spending more time with the same organisation provides better exposure to various functions within the company and, therefore, provides better overall learning and career momentum. This percentage was remarkably high (83 per cent) among the business unit leaders reporting directly to the CEO.

Likewise, 74 per cent of respondents said that in-depth knowledge is more important than working in different industries. It, however, is important to have experience in a variety of functional areas across the company in order to reach senior management positions.

Interestingly, it was noticed that 49 per cent of respondents were successful managers who had worked with a single company during the first five years of their careers, though at various positions and another 43 per cent had worked with only two companies.

The results of this study are consistent and highlight the fact that job-hopping every 6-24 months can severely damage long-term career momentum and even wealth creation.

Most of these choices are made for the wrong reasons, such as prioritising money over learning, succumbing to peer pressure or naively believing everything they are promised regarding the new position.


Other side of the coin

Some speech given by Mr Premji talks about why employees quit

WHY EMPLOYEES LEAVE ORGANISATIONS ? - Azim Premji, CEO- Wipro
Every company faces the problem of people leaving the company for better pay or profile.

Early this year, Mark, a senior software designer, got an offer from a prestigious international firm to work in its India operations developing specialized software. He was thrilled by the offer.

He had heard a lot about the CEO. The salary was great. The company had all the right systems in place employee-friendly human resources (HR) policies, a

spanking new office,and the very best technology,even a canteen that served superb food. Twice Mark was sent abroad for training. "My learning curve is the sharpest it's ever been," he said soon after he joined.

Last week, less than eight months after he joined, Mark walked out of the job.

Why did this talented employee leave ?

Arun quit for the same reason that drives many good people away.

The answer lies in one of the largest studies undertaken by the Gallup Organization. The study surveyed over a million employees and 80,000 managers and was published in a book called "First Break All The Rules". It came up with this surprising finding:

If you're losing good people, look to their immediate boss .Immediate boss is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he 's the reason why people leave. When people leave they take knowledge,experience and contacts with them, straight to the competition.

"People leave managers not companies," write the authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. Mostly manager drives people away? HR experts say that of all the abuses, employees find humiliation the most intolerable. The first time, an employee may not leave,but a thought has been planted. The second time, that thought gets strengthened. The third time, he looks for another job.

When people cannot retort openly in anger, they do so by passive aggression. By digging their heels in and slowing down. By doing only what they are told to do and no more. By omitting to give the boss crucial information. Dev says: "If you work for a jerk, you basically want to get him into trouble. You don 't have your heart and soul in the job."

Different managers can stress out employees in different ways - by being too controlling, too suspicious,too pushy, too critical, but they forget

that workers are not fixed assets, they are free agents. When this goes on too long, an employee will quit - often over a trivial issue.

Talented men leave. Dead wood doesn't.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

थोट्स २ थिंक about

S.D.T.A.G.W
404 ERROR. NOT FOUND. LIFE UNDER CONSTRUCTION!
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH
Well thats the way I get rid of the stress..sometimes its good to scream your blues away
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.....do that scream to the tune of "Doe a Deer a female deer...'well that should certainly get rid of your stressssss
Some thing to think about in this crazy mad & "Networked" world :-)
When you tell others that "Get a life" make sure you also tell them to go right ahead and LIVE it :-)
Another food for thought: - flicked it from some book
The irony of the rat race is that the winner is always a RAT ;-)....It is going to take some time for me to become King Rat..now that was a good book..anyone read it...Now the rat is bcom the wireless MOUSE ;-)
YET Another food for thought: - Famous saying from a close friend of mine
The only thing constant in life is Change!
Just when I became used to today, along came tomorow!<
I am Srinath Iyer
A fun loving guy with a positive "Microsoft" outlook in life. Been with Media Advertising and the Internet for sometime now (12 years) which makes me prehistoric considering we live in an Internet world

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Guess this is what free time does to a person!

Nice insight. and thought let me write some of my random views and not necessarily related to what Sandeep says here..guess being almost the weekend and waiting for a vendor to come to the office gives me a lot of free time :-)

Talking from a publishers point of view where when we go out to the marketers / advertisers / brand custodians / ad agencies the challenge for us is to make the above people understand all this. We have been talking this within our industry for quite some time now, and have been patting ourselves on our backs on the insights. I think its high time we go out to these brands and tell them the actual beauty of the online world which includes social marketing, mails, communications, content on demand when you want it where you want it.

Till date brands have been shouting and shouting and like sandeep says..do they really anytime stop shouting and start listening??!!. being and observer and partcipator in a social media networking platform is very good...but what is of social media we see is to be really looked at...do we see it as a platform where views are exchanged or is it just an impersonal mail platform.

The discussions here are a kind of social networking platform which revolves around content...question is how many brands do you think would like to target us guys here :-). Is this the right content for a brand like a shampoo??

Saw an example of seeding questions into a yahoo answers..something that was done on askjeeves about long time back..a very good innovation in the Indian internet scenario. but question is is the brand just observing there or even learning from their mistakes or listening to the people there. Is the brand talking back to the users of that forum or ARE They just looking at the ROIs..how many people registered...I guess the brands and us need to decide first how to use what to use...whether they want quantity or quality..and then what would they want to do about it.

There is no specific point which I am trying to make here. Except that we as an gency publsher brand and consumer are looking at quality and would spend time and money to get the same. whether it would be from a social networking platform - online or offline or from any other medium.

and yes the 30 sec spot, the 100 or 60 cc ad, or that 20 sec or 60 sec on radio, or the billboard that whizzes past you at 15 kmph or 60 kmph(depends on the traffic you know), or that word of mouth from a friend or wife, or that pesterpower from your kid...I guess all these are a part and parcel of social media which reinforces everything..and yes they are more expensive :-)

The Net is Dead!! Long Live WEB2.0 3.0 4.0...

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Miracles of Blogging

Finally decided to blog :-)
It does seem real stupid to me where we sit on our asses and type out a story on a blog like this.

Well here I am doing the same thing! Will miracles never cease