Arnie's 6 rules of success

I was part of a leadership course at work and the introduction was done by our CEO. He showed us an old graduation ceremony in which Arnold Schwarzenegger was the key note speaker. Besides the fact that he simplified and made the concept of leadership really easy to comprehend, he was very articulate and actually inspiring. Without knowing too much about his background and his struggle, the way he told his story was entertaining. He did come across as an authentic person too.

So, what are the 6 rules of leadership?

Rule #1: Trust yourself. Figure out what makes you happy and pursue it

Rule #2: Break the rules. Following the well tread path can do you nothing in terms of leadership

Rule #3: Don't be afraid to fail. If you don't push yourself to try new things, you can't succeed

Rule #4: Don't listen to Naysayers. Most importantly, the little voice in your own head as well

Rule #5: Work your butt off. There's no substitute to hard work.

Rule #6: Giving back.

For a full video of the speech, here's the link.

https://youtu.be/uvYXMnnO2jg

Email: The most important channel for B2B marketing

As a data driven marketer, I get really excited when I see the comparison of how different channels perform. For me email is by far the most important channel. Rather than talk too many words on the topic, I found this infographic from Visually which says why it is important.

Tax: Expense or liability?

I filed my tax returns for the previous financial year yesterday. Finally! It's one of those tasks that is boring, manually tedious (even with a Mac compatible software this time) and low value creation in terms of intellect and wealth.
This pie chart from IBISworld (www.ibisworld.com) got me thinking on the fact that a tax is an expense. If each one of us, was a business, I would've viewed it as an expense. But, as an employee, I have always treated it as a liability. By liability, I mean, what is left after tax is where I start from as a revenue to the household! I now work in the salary packaging industry - and as a marketing guy. And still I realised this fact only when prompted by the chart. Food for thought - to be smarter about taxes. Not avoidance, just being smart about reducing expenses. $500 saved is as good as $500 earned!

Social media checklist for brands

This was a really good guideline for social media managers of brands that was posted on my Google+ feed by Fatemeh Fakhraie. Simple yet very useful!

Re-building trust one step at a time

The last few weeks have been good for me and trust. I am generally a naive kind of guy anyway - very trusting in the good of the world.Let me straight get into.

Last month, I lost my wallet in the train in Sydney. I didn't know I'd lost it either. I thought I'd left my wallet at home. Then I got a call from Pooja saying that she'd received a call from my insurance company saying they'd got a call from Wynyard station in Sydney CBD - they had found my wallet. Not knowing my wallet was lost was a relief, but having found it and picking it up from the train station manager - a nice lady - who had accounted for every cent in the wallet - was uplifting!

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. A guy's car was in front of our house a for while and he looked like he was trying to do something to the tyres. He knocked on our doors and said he wanted to borrow $50 - he had lost his credit card and he needed NRMA to come fix his tyre. Again, with a lot of trust, I gave 50 bucks - giving him the benefit of the doubt. What if he was saying the trust - would be rude - someday I'll need help or someone I love and care about will need help. More than anything else, he looked like he was telling the truth. He gave me his driver's license to take a photo of. Again, on the very next day, he had dropped the $50 note in a little envelope and saying thanks for helping him out.

These 2 incidents have reinforced that trust is alive and well. We all need more such incidents to bolster our trust in trust!

There's never a right time

It's too hot, it's too windy! Or my boss is not in right mood. These are all common excuses I come up with for not doing something. I wish to change but translating to action is a bit weak. I'm sure I have company from many people.
Yesterday was Mahatma Gandhi's birthday. One of key message of his was "Be the change you wish the world would have!".
Got me thinking about the multiple excuses I have for not making that last effort.
Change is not easy. The older we get the more ingrained our assumptions are. Our assumptions are based on our reality. Being an agent of change is hard work. Gandhi saw non violence as a means to win a battle of minds and wits. He was successful in so many ways!
How can we implement some basic philosophies of change? A small commercial phrase "Just do it!".

Communicating the benefits of reliability for a utility

Utilities are the hardest services to differentiate from a marketing and branding point of view. When was the last time you thought of switching a payroll provider, or an electricity provider?
In the world of IT and technology infrastructure, change is a pretty common theme. What are some themes that are common to all utilities?

• They are talked about only when something goes wrong
• There's not a lot of excitement about the service provider

But in the world of marketing, everything can be differentiated and worked on. You just need to find the unique messaging or pain point. This LinkedIn inmail message from Macquarie Telecom was a stand out for me. I was so impressed that I took a screenshot of the message. The Inmail says it all for me.

Left, right or center?

It's election time in Australia. The politicians are trying to get everyone's attention on who had a better policy.
Watching Q and A (#qanda) last night listening to the 3 sides of politics (Liberal, Labor and Green) and 2 sides of media (News Corp and non news corp), I figured that no one really has a vision. This election is important for my job - clearly Labor policy has been on the go and is a threat to my job and an entire industry built around FBT on cars. But what does it mean for my kids' future?
My own standing in the political landscape is really mixed. I'm a social and economic liberal. The Liberal party comes close on my opinions of economy,  but social policies don't cut it. I don't think war mongering on boat arrivals is a good idea. That's where Labor has really conformed to the right by playing a populist tactic that sounds like this "Stop the boats". The Greens have a different ideology - but I have seen far too many idealists get corrupted by power. 

In effect, the choices are pretty bleak from a futuristic point of view - however, on economic credentials, I do have a problem with Labor. They are stuck in an era of industrial action and labour unions - where there are no industrial jobs left anymore. We are in a knowledge economy now! Therefore, the grand action plans that are built in an industrial era, a school system that creates more industry workers is not a solution. It's time for "real change" ;).

Regularity is more important than frequency

It's a strange reality that consistency is rewarded and regarded much more than sparks of occasional brilliance.
In every sphere of life and examples I have seen - blogging, eating, sleeping,  exercise ... regularity and predictability are more important than anything else. Why is this so?
Well mankind or even life in general is built around patterns of space and time. A routine builds patterns in our mind and reading a pattern becomes easy if there is predictability. We teach our kids about the Hare and the Tortoise. Yet the message can be taken to every domain.

The boat ride

Every Friday I try to take the ferry home. The walk from Town Hall to circular quay gives extra steps on my pedometer. The view of the opera House and just tgd relaxation of the motion of a boat is such a beautiful experience. I used to do this every day both ways of commute to the office. Sydney is home.

Trying a different mode of public transport

Gamification of walking and fitness is the best thing to happen to my fitness. Ever since the jawbone up band has come into my life, a small switch in perspective has occurred.
What I used to consider commute time is now exercise time. Walking 10000 steps a day is not easy. I have met tge target only 3 out of 15 days so far.
Data has become such an integral part of our every day lives. As a marketer, many times, data is an end goal in itself. How many times do we get thrilled about the number of site visits, page views, bounce rates. Like in marketing, wearable devices are going to explode - there are going to be tracking devices for every activity we perform. And as a marketer, I can relate these statistics to control the way my body reacts. Exactly, like how we know what data points are important for our website.

Being positive

I wasted an entire weekend being a sulky idiot! I wish to make a resolution that I will never again be negative. The power of negative thought is too great. 
Worrying about worst case scenarios is that they always happen!
Here's to positive thought and smile!

The underground river

This blog entry as a draft is more than 2 years old. Did I face a writer's block or a blogger's block?

This story is about the underground river in Tagore Nagar in Pondicherry. Many many years ago, when Kanna mama's borewell was being dug, at a certain depth (about 30 ft), there was white sand. And then within a couple of feet more there was water :).

Amma told me that she'd heard of an underground river used to flow in then Rose Nagar( old name for Tagore Nagar).

This incident fascinated me and in the absence of the Internet, my main source of search was the book of knowledge. I got interested in the Saraswathi river. There is evidence that the Rig Veda was written in the banks in the Saraswathi.

There's so much history in every piece of land. It is just so amazing that Pondicherry has so much of it. Agastya's ashram, the Vedapuri temple and then more recently the Aurobindo ashram. I wish we Indians had the ability to document things. Even now,we are such lazy creatures. I hope the underground river inside me to write starts flowing again. So much has happened since that time when I was a kid. I am a middle aged man now!

I hope we haven't bored out all the water from the underground river in Tagore Nagar.

The audacity of hope

So, finally he has been sworn in. Barack Obama has taken over as President of America. It must be a special feeling for the African American community – after all that they have had to go through. His speech was a fluff talk in my opinion. But, we have to watch him cautiously as his team works its way through some issues.

In India, the equivalent of the blacks might be the Dailts, in Australia it’s the aborigines, in New Zealand the Maoris. All these countries have done their bit for the integration of the down trodden to main society. I guess India has actually done much better than a lot of the developed countries.

So – coming back to the concept of hope – it’s an important fuel for the world. If tomorrow is perceived to be better than today, it’s a great feeling. Change is the buzzword currently – it’s here to stay. In corporate life, will that mean a new twist towards socio-capitalism?

Sea of Poppies

Amitav Ghosh's book by this title was my latest escapade into the imaginary world of books. This was an awesome page-turner set in the 1830s in a colonial India.
Deeti, kabuthri-ki-ma is a regular peasant woman, growing poppies on her field - primarily out of compulsion by the East India company. The company wants to make money by selling opium in China, exported from the fields and factories in India. It describes a time when the 'weed' was taking over the vast agricultural expanses of eastern India fed by the Ganga - to satisfy the greed of the company. Her husband, an afeemkhor or an opium addict dies after an accident in the opium factory. Kalua is the ox-cart driver of lower caste, whose destiny is, to rescue Deeti from a sati she was going to jump into to escape life in the protection of a perverted brother-in-law.
Zachary Reid, is a mulatto, freeman, who becomes second mate on ship from a carpenter, due to a twist of fate in which all the seniors on the ship have died due to disease. He has shown a lot of promise and the Raj has rewarded him by making him the second mate of the Ibis. The Ibis is a central character in the story - it's a former slave ship from America that is now being put to use to transport Girmitiyas or indentured labourers.
Paulette Lambert(or Putli), a french girl living in Calcutta, daughter of a botanist that worked in the Botanical gardens in Calcutta, and having been brought up by a local maid, feels more Bengali than European. As a consequence of living with her benefactor, Mr Burnham or Burra Sahib, must get on the ship to escape the torments of the lady like mannerisms being imposed on her; and more because she wants to escape from her new life in Calcutta. She wants to go to Mauritius too, where the Ibis was going to be heading.
The story has some other interesting characters - Jodu, Putli's brother by virtue of being brought up the same mother, Neel Rattan Halder, the zemindar of Raskhali, Ah-Fatt the half Chinese, half Parsi afeemkhor, and the most interesting one being Baboo Nob Kissin :)).
The novel gives a good insight into the personal lives of several Girmitiyas - giving us a peak into the migration of Indian labourers into Mauritius, Fiji, Suriname, Malaysia and scores of other countries with an Indian diaspora. It also tells a tale of colonialism, on the business acumen of the English, and their justification of the opium wars, which in a satirical manner is portrayed as being the protection of free trade, even if it meant death, destruction and addiction of the Chinese populations!
The language used in the book is an eclectic mix of English, Hindusthani and Bengali. Sentences like "Do a dekho of me" are common. Also, several nuances of Indian English are exploited to give it a humorous quote as well. The sailor speak of Serang Ali, is cute and funny. The Malay-English-Hindi mix comes out very funny and kudos to the author for getting such humour into a well researched, semi-historical account of several lives thrown in together by destiny.
Overall, an enjoyable page-turner and entertainment to the core. It transports the reader to a bygone era very effectively.

Mood of an Indian

I feel injured, hurt and angry. I didn't personally lose anybody or any body's anything - but lost a few brave soldiers. Mumbai is hurt - this great city has been attacked. The whole country has been hurt ...
Will it be different this time? I have reason to believe, yes it will be different! I think the middle class and the upper classes will finally wake up. I hope I am awake too. I want to make a difference ... I will contemplate how, over the next few days ...
Enough has been written on how pathetic our politicians are. There are enough people in developed countries who laugh and make a joke of how Mumbai is burning ... I feel angry .. but I don't react to these jokers. I also realized how insensitive I might have been to others, when I might have spoken of the situation in Afghanistan or Iraq (though I should admit I haven't met anyone from these countries and spoken to them in my living memory).
As I feel sombre and my mood is grey - I hope I will be awake. I hope I don't go back to sleep. I hope our middle classes don't go back to sleep ... And deep inside, I have a dream! I dream of an India that is advanced - may not be in monetary terms, advanced in culture, in peace and above all - that one thing that is the greatest of our resources - love! India is about love .. We will share it with the world and the world will fall in love with us again.

Nostalgia

I am reading Vikram Seth's book - From Heaven Lake. It's an interesting travelogue of Vikram through the western parts of China and then into Tibet. Anyway - an interesting quote in the book is - "My present is all about collecting experiences for future nostalgia".

Do we always feel that the past was glorious? Does memory have automatic filter by which it removes the bad parts and stores only the good ones? When I look back at my childhood, at first sight, it always seems like a perfect one. I was doing well in my studies, I played basketball 4 hours every day, I had the most loving of parents, I loved reading books and my parents always bought me whatever books I wanted. Fast forward to college days - days of fun, of being in a remote village cut off from civilization, of those late night lachaas ... and of aloo bhujia, girls on campus and travels through parts of Rajasthan!

Is there selective memory? In comparison, the present is a it dull, slow! Well it actually might be because of the environment/conditions in which we live. Professionally, we are going through a merger - lots of uncertainty, horrible market conditions outside! Personally, it's been a shitty year. I don't have many friends in office; struggle to get a decent conversation about anything outside of work with my colleagues. The most beautiful thing is my wife still loves me and is a pillar of strength for me during these tumultuous times. I feel lonely, I miss my father and I cry every other night. But, may be I will wake up at a later date and think this was a good time in my life?

Music can make one feel nostalgic; books transport you into another world that kind of equates to nostalgia. When I was reading Vikram Seth's book on travel through the Uighir regions of China, I myself starting floating into a nostalgia of visiting the Babu budan giri dagah near Chikmagalur. I relived that memory with a pleasant smile. When Pooja and I talk to Bangalore, both of us break into an involuntary smile - recollecting the memories of Jakarandas, Silk cottons and of the travels into Karnataka and the walks in Indira nagar park. Of the dreams that we lived in those walks and what the future would present to us.

Now, the future is here! Well, it seems like this is not what those dreams looked like. But, we have some money now - which we didn't at that time!

The big nostalgia I had when I sat by my father's bed in the hospital was one of the two of us on a scooter. We were going nowhere like we did so many times. He would kick start the scooter, and two of us would ride to everywhere and nowhere. Those were the days when the seeds of exploration, of loving suspense, and being part of the journey without necessarily knowing what the destination was, were sown. And here, I continue on that journey that my father started .. I hope he is continuing on that one as a soul - and I love him!

Life, death and everything else ...

I miss him a lot. Every night I dream of having a conversation with him. Every morning, I wake up thinking; if only he was here … It was on the dawn of 31 August – this year. The living world changed on me. The amount of pure, unconditional love I got from the living world less than halved in a moment. I wake up in the middle of the night – screaming, sweating, shouting the question, “why?” Why did this need to happen. It was a happy world – full of love – full of unconditional and pure love.

A lot has happened this year. People who loved me – four of them departed, one by one in a span of 3 months. The year was horrible. When you are going through this shit, you pinch yourself and ask, “Is this real?” Sadly the answer is always, yes – this is life.

Never has my pursuit of the answer for what happens after life, or after death, been of greater significance. I had a theory long back – a result of probably a collection of some shallow thought on my part, and a set of stories from I gathered this theory.

Am I in a dream, or am I the dream? The concept of illusion or Maya might sound fatalistic – but I don’t have an alternative to that theory to explain why such things happen. Dream is the reality and reality is the dream. What is real, in my humble opinion, in this dream, is the love. Love is real and this is something I have learnt over the years.

Love stretches beyond dreams, nights and days. In the year of sadness, I also experienced love of some great people. I can still feel the intensity of the love of my father. I can see him smile at me, walk with me and speak to me. I can hear his voice, I can hear him sing and I can feel his hug. That’s what comes from pure unconditional love. But, the amount of pure, unconditional love I received from the living world, dwindled, folded and dwarfed into a tiny fraction of its original measure before that fateful day.

These incidents of the year have opened a can of questions. The questions come hurling at me at amazing pace every day and night. Some are tough questions I have not thought about … some are the same old questions that have suddenly become important again. Some are plain thoughts hurling past me … And I want to be aware - aware of the thoughts, questions and the love.

Blog therapy

My wife loves me! I love her! One aspect of life that's not changed. She gives me love therapy - I feel alright when the balm is love is given. I feel happy ... but then, like a blood sucking snake takes me deep down again ... I am depressed .. nothing matters .. everything matters ...
That's not what it should sound like. We have both almost paid off the debt from the last big adventure - the MBA. That's a good time record within which we have done it. We both have permanent jobs now.
But ..... I am depressed! Nothing matters .. I don't feel like going to office ... I'm not excited by anything ... In my previous group, I thought I had done a good job - but, guess what - nobody cares! Not a sparrow's fart's worth of rememberance by people! It's as if nothing happened for the last one year. Some people who matter seem to convey otherwise, but in effect nothing!
I'm reaching stage of mental sickness. At work, I sit in a corner and read. Discovering a whole new world. That whole new world does not matter. IPL is going great on TV - but the idiots in this country telecast it recorded at 1 AM every day!
I need an oil dipping, sole searching ... it's not right! I shouldn't be feeling so worthless!!

Hello BlogWorld!

I am showing signs that I want to write again. How will it manifest itself, I don't know yet! It's been such a long time since I wrote in this public scrap book of mine.

2007 is more than half over! The last time I blogged, I wished happy new year. Life has changed so much since then. To begin with, I am in a different part of the World to where I had been so far. Work is looking interesting - I am beginning to make some impact at least.

Australia is a different continent - different world, in fact! People are totally different. We have started watching a lot of movies. Some movies have been really good - I would strongly recommend "Crash" and "Dances with the wolves". Very deeply involving movies - both. Crash is shows you the essence of racial prejudice. You face or show it in different ways every day - depending on whether you are in the minority or majority. It's a very interesting - we talk extensively about it all the time.

Hopefully, will update this space more often!