Archive for June, 2011
Invite For Amitav Gosh’s ‘River Of Smoke’: The Facebook Way
I was going through the news feed on Facebook and suddenly come across Landmark store’s feed
The questions will be asked on the Facebook page of Landmark and first person to answer it correctly would get the invite. I decided to give it a try and kept refreshing the Facebook page.
The first question
By the time I could search for the answer and comment it, 5 people had already answered. I missed the second question completely and could not even answer. Now comes the third question,
This time I was really fast but one Mr Swagat Roy came first, myself second. Swagat was announced as the winner, then comes the anticlimax! He is not in Chennai so can’t attend the event and requested to give the invite to me, as I answered correctly and came second. Rest is History (read the comments to get the complete version )
Now, with the invite in hand, am waiting for the event!
Painful experience of Customer Service
I am now standing at the outlet of one of India’s leading mobile service providers. They claim that they are India’s No. 1 Network. Now my problem is I have a data card, I don’t know the number but I want to recharge the data card, the ever smiling Customer service representative says she can’t say the mobile number as the card is blocked. I ask ”but you will have some way to identify the mobile number right?” , she blinks and check with the guy standing next and after 5 mins of discussion she says she can find but will take ONE full day and before I could come out of the shock and react she is already talking to another so called ” valuable customer”.
I am sure you all have similar experiences of ” Customer delight”. Now enough of barking, throwing the handset or abusing the customer care representative.
Here is another way to vent out your frustration. my friend SenthilNayagam has started a site named @customerpain (very aptly named). This site integrates with Twitter. You tweet about your frustration and the site will pick it up
It is a wonderful tool to resolve the complaints. Now start tweeting your bad customer service experience, you don’t know they may try to resolve it! I am still waiting at the outlet,sipping a cold coffee from the adjacent coffee shop of the same group and wondering how to tweet, I don’t have a data card you know!
TechSparks 2011 Chennai Regional RoundTable
My Tweets related to TechSparks 2011, Chennai edition. Live tweeting was, as always, fun!
Kiruba Shankar’s Farm: A Social Media Case Study!
I remember seeing my good friend Kiruba Shankar’s name tag he used while attending the TED conference. In the tag you see a message ” talk to me about” and mentioned below Social Media (of course you can talk to him endlessly about that topic), Rowing (he is a rowing champion and has captained the Sify Rowing Team to four championship titles ) and the third topic being “Trees”.
Now Kiruba is very passionate about greenery in general and Trees in particular and his latest project “The Farm”- ’Growing an edible forest in 7 acres for food, fodder, fertilizer & fun’ and the tag line clearly says his passion “ FULFILLING A LIFE-LONG DREAM”.
As he is equally passionate about ” Social Media”, check the name tag if you have doubt, he is documenting each and every moment of his journey for fulfilling his dream.
There is a website called Farm where you can read the progress of the project. The site is quite exhaustive, it gives the location of the farm. Details of the the team members involved, A wiki page for tree list (his goal is to have 100 varieties of fruit and flowering trees), how to get involved in the project. The entire process of setting up the farm will be captured and released as a book and As the farm is being set up, he is doing the best to capture it in video as well. Kiruba would be publishing short video podcasts of various activities. In the end, will compile them together and launch the entire project as a CD.
Now people have already started giving him suggestions on where to procure saplings and whom to meet for guidence
So now we have come up with ( oh yeah I am the Social Media partner for the project) a facebook page where you can comment, give suggestion and participate in the project. The idea is to get maximum participation as Kiruba means crowd sourcing.
The journey has just begun and as they say ‘the journey is more important than the destination’. And when we reach the destination, we hope it would be a beautiful one.
TechSparks 2011: The Chennai Edition
Touted as “the product tech event of 2010″ by leading media houses, TechSparks promises to bring more value to an entrepreneur (established, budding & aspiring) this year. The tech startups identified through this program would be provided national recognition, genuine support and meaningful networking opportunities.
The TechSparks™ Chennai Regional Round Table will be characterized by three focused activities – Keynote Speech where a successful product tech entrepreneur will speak about the company’s journey to the market and how they dealt with challenges along their way, a Panel Discussion featuring key stakeholders in the startup ecosystem and an Open House where entrepreneurs, for the first time, will be given the opportunity to ask any question to any panelist and engage in meaningful discussions and not just be a spectator.
The idea is to have an absolutely open interaction over the topic of discussion, which will be – ‘Out of the Garage, Into the Market’. Most product technology companies face a lot of teething problems with respect to their go-to-market strategies. There are no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solutions and hence, it’s an area where entrepreneurs need all the help that they can get and much more.
Through the collective might of a panel of ‘rockstars’, the TechSparks™ Regional Round Table intends to support startups by helping them kick-start their product’s journey. In short, the Round Table intends to help startups get their products out of the garage and into the market.
Day & Date: Saturday, 25th June 2011, 2 PM to 6:30 PM
Venue: IC&SR Auditorium, IIT Madras
Agenda:
2 PM to 2 50 PM – Registrations over Coffee, Networking
3 PM to 3:10 PM – Inaugural Address by Prof.MS Ananth, Director, IIT Madras
3:15 PM to 3:45 PM – Keynote Address
The “Tying the knots with BharatMatrimony” Story by Founder, Murugavel Janakiram
3.50 PM to 4:00 PM – Address by Prof.Nagarajan, Head, Centre for Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CSIE) & Prof.LS Ganesh, Head, C-TIDES
4:05 PM TO 5:05 PM – Panel Discussion – Go to Market for Startups
Suresh Sambandham, Founder, OrangeScape
Badri Seshadri, Founder, New Horizon Media & CricInfo.com
Vimalraj Abrahman, Strategy and Marketing, ISV and Developers Relations, IBM India
Aakash Goel, Sequoia Capital
Shradha Sharma, Founder, YourStory
5:10 PM to 5.50 PM – Open House (Q&A)
6.00 PM – Networking Over Snacks
If you want to register for the event, write to sriram@yourstory.in
Nextwave Multimedia’s Cricket Games in 3D: Fun Unlimited!
Growing number of online cricket games is the proof that Cricket is considered as religion, at least in Indian sub continent. Latest entrant in this wonderful world of online cricket games is Nextwave Multimedia’s three cricket games in 3D, ‘World Cricket Championship’, ‘Street Cricket’ and ‘Beach Cricket’. The games have rich visuals, realistic animation and crisp camera movements and the games guarantees all the thrill, fun, and high voltage drama of limited over cricket.
All the three cricket games are developed for multiple platforms - Window OS, Apple Mac; iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch), and Android OS.
World Cricket Championship can be played in 2 modes, ‘Quick Play’ for short play and ‘Tournament’ format for unlimited hours. The game involves choosing ones’ own side and opponent and as in real cricket, gamers have the option to bat or to field.
If you have played beach cricket at least once, you know how thrilling it is. The beach version of game tries to bring that fun.
How can someone forget the best part of childhood?, the gully cricket! you can enjoy the very same fun here in The street cricket version.
For more details on the games, please visit the detailed blog of Nextwave Multimedia
The Baba Ramdev Vs UPA saga in cartoons
My friend sent me this interesting set of cartoons based on the recent “Baba Ramdev- Anna Hazare- UPA” incidents!!!
The sad state of UPA!!!
Ram- Ravan war, but who is Ram? and who is Ravan?
Baba Ramdev and Tiananmen square massacre
If tiananmen square protest was for political liberalization in China, Baba Ramdev wanted the black money (deposited by politicians and businessmen abroad) to be brought back to India and wanted capital punishment for people convicted for corruption. But both the protests (based on non violence) were met with force by the respective governments. June 5th police action against Baba proves that “History repeats itself”, June 4 was 20th anniversary of tiananmen square massacre!
A Day With Vetri Maran and Film Making
When Vetrimaran first met Baalu Mahendra way back in 1997, he said that he would work with him for 1000 days and will start working his own but Vetrimaran took a decade and in 2007 his first film was released
We wanted to become something and end up something else, Cheran and bharathiraja wanted to become actors but ended up as great directors but Academics help in setting up the goals and have a clear vision
Cinema is science, only artform that need a scientific mind. In cinema science comes first, then commerce and last creativity.
Eventhough the name was “Vetrimaran”, he faced several failures, and often he felt that the name was a burden. He insisted not to use ‘Vetri along with his name and just mention Maran.
What’s imporant is have a passion for cinema, read a lot from very diverse subjects, watch lots of films and most important be a great listener
Have patience, Film making is the process of waiting and about making compromises, you make the right compromises and you become a successful film maker
Know-how and film making tools are easily available but the toughest part is to make the actors act
Everybody say that people who can dance and fight well can become a good actor, but the first criteria is that he should know how to act
Script should be both good and sell-able
Watch at least 1500 films and read 200 books on films
Vetri Maran’s advice to students “Don’t write a script now, live your lives, observe things, gain experience, keep yourself receptive to everything, later all these will help.”
Comparing “Polladavan” to Bicycle thieves” is a disgrace to Bicycles thieves
A chapter on film appreciation at school level will make a huge difference in the films that are made
