Showing posts with label Social Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social Media. Show all posts

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Why is India so ungodly?


Cleanliness is (next only to) Godliness- believed Mahatma Gandhi.
Why is it then that cleanliness is such an ignored aspect in India?, particularly in the context of the civic infrastructure about which I wrote in my earlierarticle wherein I requested signing of an online petition demanding "right to quality civic infrastructure' to be made a fundamental right (...this petition incidentally is still struggling at a piddling 98 signatures after a week in existence)
Despite the usual refrain one hears that Indians are such by nature, I'd say that our attitude towards cleanliness has been shaped over past many years by the complete lack of administrative focus on this essential aspect of providing uniformly clean civic infrastructure & diligent upkeep of the same - yathaa rajah, tathaa prajah!
The first step to changing our situation is to open our eyes to dirty reality around us & importantly make a habit of questioning it - what better way to achieve this awareness than utilizing the power of social media as a platform to enable social change?
What motivated me is the immense success of the "Ice Bucket Challenge" that went viral on social networks and helped create widespread awareness about a disease called ALS - What gives me hope is the fact that if awareness & action can be triggered for a disease that effects not more than 200,000 people worldwide, it is perhaps possible to achieve similar results for highlighting the disease called 'rotten civic infrastructure & upkeep' that impacts a billion plus Indians.
This is also a extension of the approach called Gandhigiri, a bollywood invention that went on to become part of popular Indian lexicon now - Gandhigiri is nothing but shaming a person/ an institution into action through a peaceful, legal and mockingly respectful form of protest.
It is time for affirmative action that forces the government to tackle this malaise immediately rather than wasting time trying to take political mileage out of this unfortunate situation through symbolic schemes like Swachh Bharat Campaign that hasn't yet been able to make the lethargic civic administration(s) clean-up its act even while exhorting the citizens to clean-up their neighborhoods themselves.
It is time the citizens do something other than perennially cribbing about the state of affairs - Like the later-age mahatma Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam once said "If you want to leave your footprints in the sands of time do not drag your feet"
This is where the Clean India Challenge comes into picture;
CLEAN INDIA CHALLENGE





While this challenge already started its rounds in a small way on Facebook, it will take a lot more to make this go viral so as to make an impact and change the status quo for all of us. 
I call on all my fellow citizens to take up this online challenge in a big way and challenge the offline reality of the inadequate civic infrastructure & upkeep in India.
Let there be light!

Update: 25th August 2015
One of the comments below made it pertinent that I explain the Why, Who & How of this challenge - here goes;
WHO ARE WE SHAMING? ------> We are shaming "us' - which includes the people as well as the government
WHO DO WE WANT TO SHOW THESE PICTURES TO? ------> We want to show the pictures to 'us' and to world as such
The rationale behind this being that unless we face (& expose) the reality in all its glory we wouldn't be motivated nor compelled to act on it decisively. After all isn't acceptance of a 'need for change' key to changing?
HOW DO YOU ENVISION CHANGE HAPPENING THROUGH THIS? --------> I envision change happening through the following process;
However before I explain the process, I need to list the following assumptions I made;
  • Creating Quality Infrastructure is the primary responsibility of 'the state' - Maintenance of the same too the primary responsibility of 'the state'. The citizen’s contribution towards civic infrastructure is primarily by way of paying taxes as required.
  • Citizen volunteerism towards maintaining cleaner neighborhoods can only be justified/ demanded/ expected ONLY when 'the state' did its job well - which I seriously doubt Indian civic administration does.
 *'the state' as defined in the constitution of India - I request you to read my petition on making 'right to quality civic infrastructure' a fundamental right to understand these assumptions more.
Stage 1: PROVOCATION OF CITIZEN OUTRAGE
Sensitizing Indian residents to the quality of their neighborhoods. Provoking a sense of outrage among the citizens to this casual disregard to their right to quality civic infrastructure & hence create a sense of entitlement. Thereby vastly increasing their propensity to challenge the status-quo and create a citizen vanguard of cleanliness.
Stage 2: CREATION OF A HALL OF SHAME
As the challenge catches up and more and more people upload pictures and hashtag them, a visual story the state of affairs in in each city, each colony will created - which will be the base-line for demand of change/ rectification
Stage 3: CHANNELING AWARENESS TO TARGET PUBLIC POLICY
Utilizing the emerging sense of entitlement among citizens & encourage more and more people to sign the online petition for making "right to quality civic infrastructure' a fundamental right. Please note this demand aimed at amending the constitution is a symbolic act of saying the change of attitude required is at the very core, that in this current world, 'right to live' alone doesn't suffice a 'right to a right quality of life' is equally important AND that our dirty neighborhoods don't afford us that at this time.
Stage 4: CHANNELING AWARENESS TO ACT AT A LOCAL LEVEL
Utilizing the hall of shame repository, the local neighborhoods can step up and demand the local civic authorities to clean-up their act & the neighborhoods in the bargain.
Stage 5: TRIGGER A FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE OF ATTITUDE 
Through a sustained campaign bring about a social change that sustains than fizzle out after some fancy photo-ops
If one recalls/ searches up internet, the PM of India threw open a "Clean India Challenge" in October 2014 wherein he nominated a few CELEBRITIES?? (Sports, film et al) to pick up a broom clean their dirty neighborhoods and upload pictures (clean/ dirty) and tag other lesser celebrities to join - This was eventually supposed to have gone viral and in the bargain cleaned up India without a major burden on the government exchequer.
When did you last see this challenge in circulation: November 2014??? - This hasn't sustained since it played on cleaning up being a voluntary citizen act rather than the states responsibility & citizen entitlement - It failed since people realized this is more of a photo-op & a popularity contest (to be hand-picked by the PM to participate). Its unfortunate that none of the nominated celebrities bothered to asked the PM why they should also pay all the taxes and also wield the broom and why the local civic authorities never realized that their neighborhood needed some sprucing up?
This challenge is a relaunch of this misfired celebrity challenge. This Clean India Challenge 2.0 is our challenge, the peoples challenge and one based on facing reality before changing it & importantly one that puts the onus on the government first and then the citizen.
Finally, the worst thing that can be done to any voluntary social action is to let cynicism kill it. I exhort all to rest their doubts for this time and act instead - In a worst case scenario, this will be another aborted, ignored mission - but one that hopefully will leave a few more citizens with a higher sense of entitlement & responsibility.


Friday, February 28, 2014

Not wanting to sell-off is key to being bought!

19 billion dollars for a company with one app & 20 million in revenue is of course a frickin’ big deal - No wonder that everyone from entrepreneurs to VCs to analysts want to have a go at cracking the code called WhatsApp.

Suvir Sujan in his latest blog post broached this quintessential topic & attributes the success achieved by WhatsApp to its founders keeping disciplined focus on superior product offering with an eye towards building a profitable and sustainable business – True, but I wished to be more direct and say an enterprise that starts with the intention of selling-off will probably never get this kind of supreme pay-off, my comment on Suvir’s post is as follows;   


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WhatsApp indeed pulled-off a coup and got this eye-popping valuation. While I agree they keeping the product no-frills helped in making its adoption viral, I'm not sure it'd have helped the acquisition costs - after all a 19 billion pay-out would cover any quantum of unreasonable asset stock-pile (bells & whistles..)   

In my humble opinion where WhatsApp scored is on how it did not go after the formulaic 'Built to Sell' strategy and instead adhered to it’s probable original idea of 'Built to Solve/ Differentiate' - Let's not forget that most of us got attracted to WhatsApp primarily since it offered what FB mobile chat denied/ couldn’t assure viz., communication & data privacy.
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Afterthought:

Communication & data privacy, precisely what I’m edgy about right now as a WhatsApp user - Will this remain intact when FB eventually attempts to integrate the app with its own & monetize the user-base? If I were Zuckerberg, I’d be worried sick thinking how to prevent the edgy half-a-billion junta from waltzing towards Snapchat & likes - that would be a real bummer, wouldn't it be?

Sunday, February 10, 2013

USER TRUST, the dope that can't be ignored in the race to monetizing cyber-social engagement – A commentary in light of the recent revamps to LinkedIn user experience

Okay, here goes…

FEW STATS & STATEMENTS..

With a market cap of over US$16 billion & revenues forecast slated at US$1.4 billion and supposedly* out-pacing the original social media biggie Facebook in terms of revenue v/s user base, LinkedIn is surely fanning the flames of market expectation of an aggressive performance coming year (*the revenue per user as of last financial year is ~ US$5, coincidentally for both LinkedIn & FB)

As a part of this expectation frenzy, the analysts have been postulating various acquisition targets based on LinkedIn’s need to grow faster, hence inorganically through acquisitions, though not all necessarily as pricey as Slideshare buyout and generate more revenues & earnings that’d justify its two years into public listing - In a funny kind of way, I feel the financial markets almost want LI to compensate for the laggard performance of Facebook J

SOME RANT & RIFFS..

As a regular user, I’ve been wearily noticing the rapid dilution of what used to be the core value-add of LinkedIn platform (vis-à-vis’ other social media) – its high quality user-experience!

While a major portion of this dilution happened through the unceremonious withdrawal of various tools & applications, a lot of it is also owing to the subtle or probably not-so subtle attempt to move away from being an egalitarian professional platform to becoming an elite platform where a few celebrities & myriads of followers exist at different levels of social relevance effected through a methodically tempered and manipulated 'visibility engineering' by the overseers……. not sure about what I’m saying?... ponder this;

Unceremonious WITHDRAWAL of apps
  • Just like that, one fine day most used & adored apps such as MY TRAVEL (TRIPIT); EVENTS; READING LIST BY AMAZON (along with all my reviews), BLOG LINK et al are all gone!! - Ironically, the settings still point me to the applications page where all the above application icons still exist, but defunct.
The subtle social DISENGAGEMENT:
  • STATUS UPDATE - No more one can use Twitter to update the LI status, the other way is possible though. Also, the status update is now “just one more activity” on your profile & the moment you post a comment on anything else, your status update goes into hiding below. Furthermore, your comment on a LI article itself is never shown, but a grab of the article on which you commented is displayed on your profile
  • ENGAGEMENT - The LinkedIn Answers is gone…. taking with it the zillions of high quality & ‘free’ opinion and advice
And what features get strengthened? 1) JOBS - with the introduction of talent solutions; Premium job-seeker et al 2) NEWS - with LinkedIn Today, Signal et al 3) TALENT SOLUTIONS – introduction of Skills and Expertise endorsements moving away from the much cumbersome recommendation 4) COMPANIES – with enhanced options for engagement with potential business associates and job aspirants et al and finally 5) PREMIUM USER ACCOUNT and the paying account privileges that come with it.

PUTTING STATS & RANTS TOGETHER..

Reading the trend of vanishing apps & features together with the names of potential acquisitions floating about, it does appear LI could end up acquiring and integrating a few companies such as;
  • VIADEO & ChinaHR  - to ramp up the user-base and thus the revenues
  • QUORA – to compensate for Answers & recreate the lost cause of stimulating user engagement.. and finally,
  • DEMANDBASE – to optimize the momentum of COMPANY pages and create a B2B integrated transaction platform
I don’t believe acquisition of MONSTER is something LinkedIn would/ should bother about?, as LI already enjoys the benefit of a better user perception (real?) of candidate quality plus a greater brand equity, which any association with a hard-core job site like Monster would only dilute.

Essentially, when the analysts out there propose these acquisitions, it’s all about money, valuation, market capitalization & essentially monetizing all the user-base unabashedly quite like what FB is trying to do.

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH..

But of course, these are enterprises after all and they’d want to make money & people who invested in those want them to make money. But when the very basis of a business is its user base, their interest and trust in the platform and it’s ethos, I am not sure if the solely revenue-inspired changes LI is affecting make complete sense.

I want to believe when LI web-page redirect I landed on says “We'll be focusing our efforts on the development of new and more engaging ways to share and discuss professional topics across LinkedIn” – I very badly want to……. I love/ loved being on LinkedIn, I want it to sustain my interest, I do want to still confide all my professional details to the platform without having a niggling doubt that LI is only teasing-out information it could use commercially and blocking-out information it can’t monetize – only I don’t see many signs of it. I, an average but avid social media denizen am not surely alone in this feeling of the user getting left high and dry in this chase of valuation.

I hope LinkedIn is listening & FB eavesdropping..... Please don’t do the mistake of taking the user for granted 'cause on a social media user is the primal stakeholder.

Cheers!

AFTER THOUGHT..

Is LinkedIn itself a candidate for take-over? I’d think so - it’d be the right acquisition for any company out there trying to dominate the cloud scene with an integrated gadget to boot. Would one of you gentleman please raise your hand? Tim, Jeff, Larry… anyone….??