Egypt - The rise of Social Media Revolution

The latest developments in Egypt can become the new face of Social Revolution in the ear of Social Media. Surprisingly with several instances of people and society coming together to raise their voice against oppression, corruption and government wrong doings signifies an emerging trend - Social Media influenced Revolution.

Examples like:

• The Red Brigade taking over central business district of Bangkok, Thailand last year.
• Uprising in Tunisia against Ben Ali and people using social media to spread the word.
• The civil unrest in Kyrgyzstan and the spreading the news through social media.
• Suu Kyi's supporters using Social Media to raise awareness of the oppression and her house arrest.
• Thousands of people gathering near The Gateway of India after the 26/11 Mumbai attack coming together after spreading the message on Social Media
• Thousands of people sending Pink Chaddi's (Pink underwear) to RSS & VHP supporters against their inhuman action on Valentine's Day in Bangalore.
• Finally Wikileaks taking on Govt. of the world by releasing tapes and classified documents.

What is the new role of Social Media? Can Social Media become the most important channel when it comes to raising voice against wrong doings? Can Social Media become the platform for Social Revolutions? How will Social Media affect Govt. branding? How will it impact government functioning? Will Social Media finally bring in transparency at every level?

Well, these developments are serious issues with greater impact on the way we live our lifes, the code of conduct for govts., the economic state of affairs, etc. Think over. And please do share your views with me.

Evolution of self

In my previous post I mentioned my dissatisfaction on an article written by a noted trend spotter in India. As I kept thinking about individualism, independence and liberation that young India is looking for, I tried to delve deeper and find out the reason "How the Self Expression is Evolving."I feel what's happening in India at the moment is a gradual shift from traditional roles defined by the culture to a self defined role defined by the world and it's mother. As we keep growing as a nation with more experience (our past downturns which is the basic building blocks of traditional ethos and values), better education (rate of literacy increasing every year), economic development, young Indian are seeking to be different. From Inconspicuous Consumption to Expressive Consumption. These expressive consumption can be in any form of technology, fashion, luxury goods, cars or anything that allows young Indians to stand up. Young India is getting ready to reclaim the future.

It is this 'evolution of self' which most others are confusing as Extreme Individualism.

Indian ishtyle individualism, wot crap?

I was reading an article by Hamsini Shivakumar in today's ET . She raises an issue on how increasing globalization and consumerism is helping Individualism grow in India. She uses cultural difference in parental upbringing as a basis of her hypothesis. Parents force kids in America to do it themselves whereas in India parents teach how others do it for you.

Somewhere I found a huge disconnect while I was reading the article. Is young India really looking for individualism? India will be celebrating its 60th year of independence not liberation. Mind you not liberation. Young India is looking for liberation. Liberation of mindset. Liberation of social stigmas. Liberation of traditional values which has no meaning. And technology is the biggest weapon that they have found - they are using gadget as tool and fashion as the image of that liberation they are seeking.

The secret lies in understanding why young Indians are operating the way they are rather than drawing a stupid hypothesis on individualism from growing consumerism, growing affluence, high disposable income, media dominance, expansion of fashion and glamour industry, media driven activities and hectic work life.

She failed to explain the reasons why young Indians are trying so hard to control their destiny...oops...exhibit their individuality. No offense, this is my personal point of view on a topic which I've working hard for sometime now. It is important to understand the origin of a trend first and then rationalise what would be the implication of that trend in the market place.

Cheers.

Innovative changes in our lives

IBM recently unveiled its new study called "IBM Next Five in Five" - Five innovations that have the potential of changing the way people work, live and play over the next five years. So what are they:

• Remote healthcare access system from anywhere in the world: Now this is a big innovation. Imagine a Doctor keeping an eye on you 24/7/365 from somewhere in the world. WOW.
  
• Mobile Phones will start reading your mind: Intelligent phones which will adapt to the user. Termed as "presence" technology. Which means it will do things as per your preference. Well, do remember that features will vary based on price.
  
• Real-time speech translation: This is already happening in Japan and Korea. For example when you travel from Delhi to Rameshwaram and you don't know how to speak Tamil, don't worry. Your hand-held device will translate real time Tamil into English as you speak to the person for direction.
• There will be 3D internet: Hmmm, that means from now on I can walk the retail aisles in Ebay or Amazon. An assistant or an expert will be ready to help me out. Makes sense in a techno-ambivalent nation like India.
  
• Nano-technology will address environmental issues: Nano-technology has the ability to manipulate which I always knew. But now it will be able to manipulate the environment. Get you fresh drinking water, help grow more trees, etc. etc.
  

Out of the 'Big Five' I like only one - Remote Healthcare. I'd love to have a doctor attending me all the time. Though it might be pain in arse after sometime, but doctors are good people. In this case, I guess it will be a 'supercomdoc' monitoring me. I also think real time speech translation and mobile mind readers will become standard features like we have 2.0 megapixel cam, FM radio. Go ahead read the entire article here.

Start thinking digital, baby, but do remember not to become a humanoid.

Keep Talking

Indians are talking. Talking very loud indeed. I'm writing a white paper called "Keep Talking - The social impact of mobile telephone in Rural India." Any contribution is most welcome.

Pink she is

Well, I did have the opportunity to meet this wonderful young woman, who also is a planner. And true she is all pink. She took me to this small yet wonderfully decorated place called Chokola in Vasanth Vihar.

At the corner beside a huge glass window I set to pick her mind because she is born to catch the dragon in its den. She's jolly, she's bubbly and she's touchy. She is very intelligent and she gave me few quick ideas on how to make a restaurant look interesting. But somehow I annoyed her by pointing my finger at her on some thing (without any intention ofcourse, as I always do) while I was talking to Khalid (damn you). Are women planner's touchy creatures?

Lady, it was my pleasure meeting you. Wish you all the success and please, please don't get me wrong, I never intended to be rude. Hope you don't linger over trivial issues for long and do pardon people. Keep rocking the Capital. Cheers.

Making life easy

Commute Easy is making news for all the good reasons. It's a collective effort to ease commuting to office. Started by a young entrepreneur, Commute Easy is redefining the old concept of Car Pooling. Started at Bangalore and slowly moving to cities like Pune and Mumbai.

Why Commute Easy is a great business concept:
1. Builds a community
2. Forces (though willingly) people to share and care
3. Helps in easing traffic congestion in cities like Bangalore which suffers from basic road infrastructure
4. Creating the right buzz among fellow office-goers

I previously wrote about this and Wassif is on his way to create a niche for himself. I'm looking for other good examples of innovative business/business ideas/entrepreneur doing the right things in India. Share one if you have any.

Talent crunch no more

Today, I surfed Youtube the entire day. Was worth spending time with few thought provoking videos. The video below is a commercial for Monster.com and I must say it's a great piece of work.



Strategically speaking are job sites and consultants only about finding the right job to the right candidate or vice versa? Shouldn't they also partner with schools, colleges, corporates in creating and grooming more talents to meet the demand?

I feel its we, the people within the industry are to be blamed. Anyway, that's a different story all together. Can we try and make advertising a better place to be? Comments anyone?

Enlighten your mood

Yesterday I went to Harima (Japanese Restaurant/Sushi Bar) for lunch with my parents. Dad is going back to Kolkata, so I decided to take my parents out. My dad's a fish freak like most other bongs. But then I had a motive to choose this particular place for lunch. I wanted to observe his sushi eating experience and reaction. His first reaction,"With Wasabi anything can go." Lol.

In the table next to ours was this woman in veil. I was quiet surprised to see a Muslim lady in a Japanese joint. She was doing something with small light bulbs and explaining it to a gentleman. I became curious when she started arranging those small light bulbs into an abstract shape. I went to her and asking what's it all about. In a sweet tone of voice she said, "I enlighten things." Wow. Indeed you do Lady.

Meet the beautiful, Miss Zareena. She's from Dubai. Come to India to exhibit her work "Light Arts." She is an artist cum entrepreneur who works with glass and light. All kinds of glass. All kind of lights. All hue of lights. The room is her canvas and she can transform it within hours through her work of art. She went on to explain me her work. How light plays an important role at workplace, at home, at social gatherings etc. etc. Interesting and insightful conversation. She showed me photographs of her exhibition on her laptop and allowed me to take her picture (which I have put up with her permission.) One of her work is truly fascinating. Called 'Neonile,' it is an arrangement of many medium size neon tube on a huge wall. River Nile was painted beautifully on the tubes where the wave gently ripples when the tubes are 'switched-on' in certain order. Another work that is liked was a cluster of 60W bulbs, painted red, stuck together which looks like a bud. She calls it, 'Blud'. The best part, when the bulbs are switched on, the bud blooms into a flower.

I left my parents to their table and spend almost an hour chatting with her. Amazingly gutsy woman who had to break-away from her in-laws and make a career on her own. And now she is looking forward to expand her light boutique to different places. She plans to get her website done and start writing about her work and her life. I said I might come handy in getting her website done, she invited me to visit her exhibition to see her work of arts.

I'm going to spend my entire day today at her exhibition and see how she does these amazing things. Btw, the latest issue of Economist has a great article on how colour builds language and language builds colour.(You need an id to logging. If not, I can mail you the text.)

Happy Republic Day.

Freeze kiya jaye, Compaqda

SRK’s first KBC episode is over and am sure entire India (okay few million atleast) must have been glued to their TV screen watching the Badshah doing his comical stuff. I understand SRK has is under tremendous pressure to excel Big B. But in the bargain he ended up taking the tone of voice and posture of Senior AB. Originality zilch. Few occasional cheap jokes and cool sounding phrases, SRK got nothing more to offer. And I guess other episodes won’t be any different, though it’s too premature for me to comment.

‘Lock kiya jaye’ has become ‘Freeze kiya jaye.’ Hug is the new body language for saying alvida (goodbye). Lenovo is changed to Compaq. Videocon and Santro are the main sponsors. Therefore more SRK during ad breaks.

But did you guys notice one thing which I did?

The winning amount cheque that he is signing belongs to Union Bank of India. Now isn’t that a little mismatch given the fact that SRK is the new brand ambassador of ICICI bank.

Freeze kiya jaye Compaqda?

Tagged in blogosphere

I've been tagged by Blaiq in his last post. The basic rule of this tagging game says that I need to tell my readers 5 things about myself which they don't know yet. Five things which were a closely guarded secret until now.

1. I'm good at clay modeling and painting (both water colour and oil in canvas)
2. I've written two full length feature film script but unfortunately I couldn't sell it to any producer.
3. I used to play saxophone and harmonica in my school band, I run out of breath pretty fast now. I am part of a underground folk-rock band in Bangalore called 'U2pia' and write lyrics at times.
4. I became the second runner-up, twice, in The Telegraph Chess Championship held at Kolkata in the under 17 category.
5. I'm a biker, I get out of the city whenever I've the time with my dog Choco, who is trained to sit on my bike.

The later part of the game is much more tricky. I've to tag five more bloggers. Hmmm...okay I tag Avinash (aka Ubermaniam), Raghu of Why Disbelieve, Kapil and his korner, Gururanganathan and how he rulz rock, and Dhivya S.