I am not going into SEO and other games. This is about the new-age social media games companies are playing now.


Facebook Games

I used to drop my jaw in awe when I see some businesses having thousands of “likes”. I still remember the early days when there was a bet in our team when ApartmentADDA will reach 50 likes. We are yet to reach the 1000 like mark. We let it grow organically and don’t game on the likes.

However recently one of our “neighbours” in this domain, “just” jumped from 900 or so likes to – hold your breath – 9000+ likes overnight. I could not believe my eyes when I saw it.  They must have  bought these likes from some company which sells “likes” –  these are the ‘work from home and earn money’ shops.  If you look at Timeline then you will find where this abnormal jump happened – in May alone there were 5k likes – and may is not over yet. They had a similar jump in April. This is for a fan page which had tanked at 900 for almost a year.

Why will they do such a thing? What do they gain by doing it? Beats me.

The real “likes” on the other hand talk to you, answer your polls, get upset with you, pat you on the back – Facebook is a great platform to interact with your customers and also put a face to their names.


Twitter Games

Recently I went to change my residential address in ICICI Bank. The clerk/asst manager whoever introduced me to a lady sitting in a cabin – must be the branch manager. She pulls out a paper and details on a new investment plan called GSIP. After 20 minutes of explaining how it works she summarizes 5 benefits and the last one being oh – you also get insurance for this. It did not register in me that time but I got back and did a google search on GSIP.

First hit – it says Prudential Life Insurance. Damn – she was all along selling a life insurance product morphed as an investment plan. We had decided to keep insurance and investment separate – that way you get maximum returns on both. This was not my idea – it was Sangeeta’s philosophy and a good one.

I tweet my frustration and @ICICIBank Cares picks it up. Asks me what your issue is and send me your contact information. I instead explain why I am not amused at the “mismarketing” of a product. I did not provide my contact details. Thought will do so after I see a sensible reply tweet and also wanted to know I am interacting with a bot or not. They go quiet and after a couple of days I see this tweet.

@venkat2 We have noted your contact details, we’ll assist you soon.

If you go and looks at the ‏ @ICICIBank_Care tweets they seem to be interacting with their customers and solving their issues. Someone reading this would have thought – good they took care of @venkat2’s issues.

Actually they have pulled a fast one on me – twice. First the manager who sold me an Insurance Product as an Investment Product and now this handle – probably run by a “social media expert”.

Probably the customer support handle exists because in the new age you are supposed to have this one too – along with the traditional call support lines.

I hope these support handles are used effectively as this is a great way to cause customer delight. 

For a self proclaimed geek – most of the things in life are under control. There are manuals and APIs for almost everything  around me.

4 years back a toy, which we named Prithvi, got delivered that did not have a manual nor an API. Has a mind of its own and it controls me – somehow the toy has read my APIs very well. It can make me buy ice-cream, chocolate, juice or take him to a mall – he has more wins in the constant mind control battle that is going on between us.

Sometime back I stumbled on this interesting book – Nurtureshock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.  It was an eye opener of sorts. This book is a good summary of the research that is happening on Child Psychology – written in a Malcolm Gladwellish style.

Good Job, WoW, You are so Smart!

I do it all the time – thinking it builds his self-confidence. Apparently this works the opposite way. The kid does get the confidence to believe in himself and attempt tougher things. After a while he stops attempting to learn new things – as the fear of failure sets in. He does not want to disappoint himself or people around him – because they think highly of him. As kids grow things get tough and they stop trying.

I have toned down my Good Job exclamations – I reserve it only for a job well done now onwards. Also when he writes I try to show him what is good and what is not.

Should we Argue in front of kids?

Answer is yes. Kids need to know and understand conflicts and how they are resolved.

Arguments will typically start and we will notice Prithvi in the room doing his thing but listening to our heated argument and we will immediately stop.  We will later continue our arguments, and will resolve them later when Prithvi is not there. Later when he sees us smiling he might be confused – like in a poorly edited movie – how did this happen? He misses out on the best part.

Role Plays

There is a new teaching methodology called Tools method. If the kids are learning about Firemen, they re-enact the whole story. Some are firemen, some are 911 operators, some are family in distress and a whole episode is enacted. This apparently is quite effective in kids involving and learning. Nowadays when Prithvi wants to play a game of role play I actively involve. I am not sure if our schools have picked up this methodology.

Ability to Focus


This is the secret to higher scores and good grades. The kids who can sit still and concentrate more – were able to do well in the aptitude tests and also understand the difficult concepts better. The Tools method apparently makes the kids focus more and this in turn helps them learn better.

This is a challenge for us and I am not sure how to tell our man it takes 10,000 hours to become better at something and not give up after a few tries.

Sleep


Kids need lot of un-interrupted sleep. When they sleep – during one of the cycles things that they learnt that day gets transferred from conscious memory to the inner deeper layers. Also routine is highly beneficial for them.

We have been pretty random with Prithvi – and still are. We work till late and when we get back home we play with him for sometime – and this upsets his sleep routine. Thankfully his new school starts early and he has to go to bed early – this will get us disciplined.

Teenage Drivers

They did an interesting study. They gave a set of questions to both adults and teenagers and measured the response time. Questions like – eating a cockroach, eating a broken glass bulb – all had immediate response from adults. Teenagers did say no – but they took more time to respond to these questions.

Teenagers are still evaluating things using their conscious brain cycles to most of the life situations. However as adults we do it unconsciously. In the school districts where they pushed the age limit of driving up to 21 had a significant drop in accidents.

[ Dear social media expert Kriba – who made his kid sit in his lap and drive the car on NH4 Highway from Chennai to Bangalore – don’t do it again. ]

There are more chapters on Racial awareness, Sibling fights, The Baby einstein videos effectiveness etc. – all backed up by research.

Now for the manual and API – its like writing one on the fly and the toy keeps changing them randomly – something that worked this week will certainly not work next week.

It is tiring – really 🙂

Instagram was acquired by Facebook for $1 Billion – roughly Rs.5000 Crores – we usually hear these numbers only from Scams. This set me thinking about money – and is it what we should all be running after?

Before I get into money I want to share an important lesson I learnt on Running.Whenever I start with an end goal saying today I will run 8Kms, or will run 5 Kms within 30 minutes – I have a very bad run.

I will get exhausted fast, I will get angry with myself as midway when I check I will realize that I am not going to reach my goal and I will start running harder. My mood and run will be on a downward spiral at that point onwards and I will end my run frustrated and depressed. Every single time I had set this kind of a goal – the end result is the same.

However, the days when I am in a great mood and I run freely and simply enjoy the run – I run really really well. I do not get exhausted, I do not tire, my timing is great, and I can keep running longer distances.

A goal is important – but I should not let it become my boss and start dictating me.

Likewise I have to come to realize the same thing in running our Startup.

We do have a sales target,  but our team does not get stressed out if we do not achieve this number. We had a guess-the-number-of-wins-by-Diwali contest last year ! ( ahemm I lost to our Accounts Champion who guessed accurately.  Sangeeta refused to participate calling this Juvenile but she did monitor closely through out!  )

We have started focusing entirely on solving our customer’s problems and not go by the traditional sales goals. Early in the cycle we try to understand the problem and if we realize that our product was not the right fit – we directed them to other sites and solutions.

We connected our customers with Auditors, Lawyers, Rain Water Harvesting Experts, STP Experts, Facility Management Experts, Accountants and introduced them to other Management Committees who had walked their path. When they needed an Estate Manager, even though they did not use our portal, we sent them leads.

Guess what? We have customers increasingly returning to us. We not only met our goal, we exceeded it.

Now when I tie these 2 string of thoughts together – running and running a startup – the similarities are not surprising : When I enjoy my run the goal is achieved automatically.

This brings out another important angle to a Bootstrapped startup. We do not have a ticking bomb tied to our back – the equivalent of a 8km / 5kms in 30 minutes goal. We have the luxury of concentrating on solving our customer’s problems and building the ecosystem – training managers and accountants – and doing what brings maximum fun to the team.

And this run is what I call the Startup Run – and I am enjoying the run thoroughly.

Closing the loop on Instagram – if they had their primary goal as $1Billion – they would not have achieved it for sure – in the process the team would have got stressed and burnt out. They were so obsessed creating a kickass photo sharing + social network app that FB got threatened –  and finally bought them out.

So what are you running after?

I keep looking for flow / zone while working. Any interruption in my workflow will break my “flow state” and will drain my energy quickly.

However when I am in the zone, things will flow smoothly, I can look ahead and  spot potential bugs, I will get new ideas, better optimizations, I can write better blog posts or difficult emails – it is like being in a meditative state – I am the happiest at this point – it is a beautiful and calming feeling – a zen like state and it leaves me refreshed and I can keep working at this state the entire day.

Ever since I moved to OS X Lion I was always looking for ways to make my workflow smooth – so it fits in my flow and does not disturb it. I kept trying various options till I hit on the best combination to keep me moving without any slow downs or distractions.

Here is how I started :

Different Spaces / Virtual Desktop 

I kept creating a few spaces like the Virtual Desktops I used to have in Ubuntu – a primary development area, communication, music and others. But to switch from one application in a space to another space – I had to do 3 clicks – one to invoke Mission Control and then to click on the space and again invoke Mission Control to find that application in that space. Something was not right – an Alt Tab would have been faster and easier.

But why not Alt-Tab

However Alt Tab has a few problems – once I do Alt-Tab I have to keep tabbing and stop at the right application – energy is being wasted. If I have multiple windows open I cannot go directly to the one I am looking for. If I have to see if a job is completed, or a page has loaded – have to do too many unnecessary switches and every time keep coordinating my eye and hand to stop at the right Application Icon when tabbing. Tiring.

Here is the simple elegant solution I stumbled upon.


Enter Full Screen

Whenever an application runs in Full Screen it occupies a Space by itself. It solved my switching problem beautifully.

This is how my desktop looks in Mission Control / Expose.

The first space is my primary work area where most of the Applications live. The rest of the spaces to the right are all full screen apps. It is lovely to have a full screen of terminal – with tabs.  Having mail full screen is also wonderful – when I write an email my entire attention is on that mail.

When I have to switch an App, I invoke Mission Control and I can go to any app with two clicks – one to invoke Mission Control and one to select the Application Window. When I am in the Terminal app I start a job ( hehe.. ex Mainframer ) I switch to Mail to type my email and now and then invoke mission control again to see if the job is complete.

Other things that help me in my flow :

Quick Look

I am so used to quick look that now I find it very hard to use Windows. Any attachments in email, or when I want to quickly look up an excel or a PPT – I can look at it instantly without waiting for a big application to load and show its fancy splash screen. Also these Apps do not stay in memory hogging precious RAM ( even though OS X’s philosophy says it doesn’t matter in my experience it does matter – having too many open unused Apps does slow down the machine )

Magic Mouse with Better Touch Tool

I actually bought this Apple Mouse on a whim. Felt guilty initially for having sunk so much money on a mouse. However my guilt is all gone now – it so well fits in with the OS and my flow. Two taps – it invokes Mission Control, swipe down fast – I go to the end of the page, swipe left I switch spaces to the left. I have become so fluent in switching between Applications or navigating within an Application I do not notice any more.

Less Distractions in Full Screen

When I am in full screen Mail – an Instant Message comes – it pops up once and then goes away.  No Application can pull me away from what I am doing. The tool bars, icons all go away leaving just my content.

Yep – as the old adage says : Mac for Productivity.

Thank you Apple Engineers – OS X Lion is lovely. Please do not spoil it in the next release.

Why did this not occur to me earlier?

Last week I went to Staples to pick a pen. I only write on cheques nowadays and I want to keep my dying handwriting alive as much as possible and for that I want to pick a good pen.

There were rows and rows of Pens – all endorsed by Shah Rukh Khan or Katrina Kaif or Amitabh Bachan. If there was a Javed Akhtar or a Vairamathu or an Arundhati Roy ( I don’t subscribe to her views but I respect her as a writer ), a Chetan Bhagat ( I am yet to read any of his novels – till then he is eligible to promote pens ) it made sense.

Mentally I worked out this equation :

(Cost of Ad money to SRK,AB,KK) – ( Manufacturing Cost of a Pen + Reasonable Profit for a pen ) = The after tax-money that is being swindled from my pocket to pay SRK,AB and KK.

That did it. I decided not to pick any pen endorsed by any of these celebrities. It made my choice quite easy.

When I looked around there was this Sachin 100 Tendulkar – promoting Kaspersky anti virus. All the Cricket heroes were promoting chips and colas – peddling things which are either not needed or are truly harmful.

This brought me to this conclusion : If a cricket celebrity or a bollywood celebrity is endorsing a product then

a) The product is junk
b) The product is not an essential thing for our survival.
c) The marketing head is a clueless bozo

I have decided to support the underdog who is not engaging a celebrity to peddle their products and outright reject the ones promoted by celebrities.

Now a new game begins in my life – to prevent my after-tax money from reaching the pockets of a SRK or an AB or a KK.

It is a running thing – less fat on the body, can run better. And animal fat is bad for running. So I decided to kick the meat out of my diet. Nothing ecological, nothing religious – just a plain selfish reason to run better.

I don’t like fish and whenever I eat, I eat very less – so I decided to leave it in my diet. Also it helps me “fit in” with the other carnivores around.

My real test was a couple of days back when my sister gave a treat for her clearing a big exam after 2 tries in her path towards becoming a CA. The treat was in a typical Chettinad style hotel in Coimbatore which I love. Whenever I enter these places – the whiff of aroma from biryani and kurmas will make me salivate like a pavlo’s dog.

The time for ordering came and I ordered an Egg Biryani and a prawn dish. I am surprised this was not reported by any breaking news channel. The first ever in my history. Mutton Biryani, Chicken Biryani, Fish Curry, Thalai curry and Chicken Lollipop were ordered and were sitting real close to my plate.

Yet I did not feel tempted to try them out. The egg biryani had the same taste as a mutton or chicken biryani. I did try a few prawns and sent it around and they disappeared immediately.

I was not being a spoil sport or a holier than thou because I am a herbivore – I think 🙂 Enjoyed the lunch, they pulled my legs on turning veggie and I was quite happy that I did not get an urge to sink my teeth into any of the dishes.

Since I am giving meat the boot, and also running regularly nowadays ( 13 runs, 57 Km in March ) –  when I order Veggie dishes I let go off all restrictions – I don’t feel guilty eating those delicious Panner or Butter laden dishes.

Turning a herbivore amongst a family full of carnivores is not easy – but it is certainly doable.

Finished reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.

First let me share my disappointment – no it is not the book – it is well written. My disappointment is that of Steve Jobs as a human being.

Wish he was less ruthless with the people around him. As I am typing this post on a Mac Laptop my heart goes out to the folks who got fired and the poor employees who had nervous breakdowns trying to match Steve Job’s specifications.

There could be an argument for Steve Jobs – if he was not this ruthless with his employees and demanded perfection – we would not have seen Apple as it is now. I beg to differ – he was quite kind with Pixar employees and see what Pixar has accomplished.

Before I started the book I had a few questions – who is Steve Jobs and how did he pull off such amazing things? : well I got the answers.

1. Focus : Our man can focus on the issue at hand like a laser. Not only that – he can get people around him to focus. His mercurial and brash personality could have helped in this regard – but I am pretty much sure there could be more gentler ways to bring focus.

2. Attention to detail : We all knew he was a perfectionist and that he practiced his keynote speeches for hours. Well this ran throughout his life, every waking minute.

3. Money : He was never after money. When he cameback to Apple after being thrown out unceremoniously – he said he was not here for the money and paid himself a token salary of 1$ a year. He got paid 2.5$ in the first 2 and a half years before the board decided to give him shares. He wanted to build the best product ever – and money kept finding him.

4. Simple life : I thought Steve Jobs being Steve Jobs would live a life of lavishness. But this man had a very simple life. Did not have security guards and entourages. However he did get a personal jet after he turned around the company – as he found flying on commercial airliners tedious.

5. Spirituality : Steve Jobs was deeply spiritual and explored life and death even before death stared at him. The exposure to Eastern Religions and meditations instilled a sense of beauty, perfection and simplicity in him.

6. A Players : He surrounded himself with A players and fired ones who he thought were not A players. He liked to be challenged and proven wrong. He provoked people and incited people to do things beyond their own capabilities.

All said and done – this man’s life was very interesting. He revolutionized entire industries – might not be an “original” inventor like Ford or Edison – but he perfected the existing ones – and the world is a better place because of him.

My only concern is the kids reading Steve Jobs book should not take the garish attitude of Steve Jobs ( somewhere in the book they mention a mental condition ) as the “feature” to replicate – and miss out the other important things we can get inspired from him – beauty, taste, simplicity, perfection..

Hate him or love him  – he has affected all of us in great way.

Quantum leaps are not done by trying incrementally – but by taking quantum leaps. – Myself 🙂

I kept running 5 Kms and suddenly one day I just decided to run 10 Kms and I could do it – of course it did hurt – but  it changed me forever.

My 4 year old was on training wheels for more than 2 years and one fine day the wife removes the training wheels and after a few days he was able to ride by himself.

When you are going to dive into a cold swimming pool there is no use touching the water – just dive in.

And last week I read a story about this guy who is on a 25 year fitness streak. That did it – the very next day I started my own fitness streak.

Today is Day #6 – going good and I am telling myself – I will not break it – ever.

Day #1 – Ran 4.2 Kms
Day #2 – Ran 4.4 Kms
Day #3 – Cycled 4.2 Kms
Day #4 – Ran 5.0 Kms
Day #5 – Meditated
Day #6 – Ran 5.2 Kms

It will take some 21 days to become a habit. I hope after 21 days my fitness streak will be like brushing, shaving and I need not talk to myself anymore to get out of the bed and get out and run.

Some questions do linger – what if I fall sick ( I will atleast meditate ), what if I go on a business trip and cannot run ( I will do atleast 50 push-ups).

Boiling it down to the fundamentals – I want to give at least 30 minutes every day only for myself – can still do it without all the Fitness Streak Drama – but calling this “Fitness Streak” – makes it very interesting. ( Like how Steve Jobs sold random functionality as iShuffle )

And btw – you know the goal of the guy who is running for 25 years – he wants to beat the guy who is on a running streak for 40 years.

Don’t join a Gym. Instead Run.

1. Gym will get boring soon. 

You discover new ways to workout, new machines. Then you set targets – 10 Reps, 15 Reps, 30 Reps and reach them. Then you start getting used to the machines, the reps, the music, the people who come there, the smell. Then you start dragging yourself to Gym. It is like going to office – not fun.

Instead Run – you can create so many variations – Run around a lake, Run inside a Park, Run on a long stretch of road, Run on a treadmill,  Run on a beach, Run on a nice slope, Run on new trials. Run a marathon and get a certificate. Run backwards. Run barefoot. Run in a midnight marathon. Run on Mumbai Sea-link ( my next goal ). You can keep changing the place, pace, time – no two runs are the same.

Running never gets boring. After every run you get a “Runners High” – you have to experience it to understand it. Its addictive too – a good addiction.

2. You need to wait for your favorite treadmill / machine


When you run you need not wait for anyone – the road is always open.

3. You can enjoy nature.


A hot sun beating on you, your tshirt is wet from your sweat and a cool breeze touches you – and you can feel the heat and coolness penetrating your skin – its a wonderful feeling.

4. You are truly green.


You are burning only your own calories when you run. You are not wasting fossil fuels unnecessarily.

5. No Guilt.


You are not paying for a year’s Gym membership and spend the days in guilt when you do not go to the gym. If you don’t feel like running – don’t run. And when you feel like running – you just take off – wherever in earth you are – on a vacation, on a business trip.

You have a free membership to this gym that is available everywhere – 24×7.

Don’t give in to the Gym’s pitches – all you need is a cheap shoe and a good headphone – and just run.

—
A Runner for the rest of my life.

Books Books Books.. what will I do without you!

Here is the list of books that I crunched last year. If you are curious – here is my list for 2010.

Conversations with God 1,2 and 3 by Neale Donald Walsh

During one of the demos I met this interesting 70 year old Gentleman who suggested these books. The author reaches the bottom pit of his life and cries out in anger to God – Why are you not talking to me – and God responds.

It has got a good mixture of eastern and western philosophy and can help you form your own theory on Religion and God.

For me I did not get any answers, but have more questions in my mind now.

Fifth Mountain by Paulo Coelho

Now I don’t remember what was there in this book. But it was a good timepass and helped killed time on a day train from Coimbatore to Bangalore. You can give this a pass.

The Pixar Touch, Making of a Company


If you love Pixar movies you would like this book.  The Pixar Touch

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson


Total Geek Novel. Enjoyed it thoroughly.  Cryptonomicon

Enn Inniya Iyanthira by Sujatha


The only Tamil novel I read. I was always curious what this highly regarded novel was all about. This was written in 1980s and I read this one after almost 3 decades. The story happens in the future and is about a robot dog ( the hero of this novel ). This was a weekly running story published in Ananda Vikatan – so is a little jerky and there is not much of a flow. Wish the editors or Sujatha himself had re-written this masterpiece before he logged-out.

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Good Time pass, interesting writing style. I recommend this one if you are looking for something light to munch on.  Eat Pray Love

On writing well by William Zinsser

The author is a regular columnist in New Yorker, and also teaches how to write good non-fiction. I am not sure if my writing has improved, but it opened up my eyes to recognize what is good writing.

What I talk about when I talk about Running – Haruki Murrakami


Loved this one. I read this when I had decided to break the 5 km mental barrier I had developed – and wanted to run more. A little disjointed and boring at some places – but if you are a runner you will love the way he talks about his running!  What I talk about when I talk about Running

Born to Run – Christopher McDougall


The 2nd must read book for runners. This one is a good eye-opener to running. Loved this one thoroughly and inspired me to kick off my nike and run on a Bata Canvas shoe. Three Running Myths Busted

Snow by Orhan Pamuk


A heavy one by my favorite author. Middle East fascinates me and this one is about a poet who returns to Turkey. The clash between conservatives and liberals.

Aleph by Paulo Coelho


Brilliant book. Recommend this one –  Aleph by Paulo Coelho

Currently reading the Tibetan book of living and dying. Finding it hard to finish it…but I will finish it nevertheless – I do not give up on books that I start!