Constant Beta

MOVED!!!

Enormous thanks to dear Arun Kale for helping me set up www.constantbeta.com (also, www.jinalshah.com)
on his fantastic wordpress theme :the morning after.
Please bookmark this page, www.constantbeta.com
My musings, writings and other fun stuff will be continued there from now on!

25 gifts for myself

Tomorrow is my 25th birthday, (28th june)

This whole week was a little weird. I haven't been feeling too talkative and was just a teensy bit disenchanted with life. Existential crisis of sorts, I guess. I was also very depressed because I couldn't find the right sort of gift for myself. There's something about turning 25 - I feel like it should be commemorated or celebrated or something like that. My better-half wants to buy me something special but he is as frustrated with me as I am with myself because I just don't know what I want.

So, I'm trying to be a little creative here. And from this June until next, I am going to give myself 25 beautiful gifts. I don't know what all of them are yet - sometimes you just have to live in the moment.

But here's are two gifts that I know I will give myself:
1. Nikon D40. - My first Digital SLR.
2. A week in Tokyo.

The weird thing about growing old (for me) is that my fascination with material things has waned and I'm more interested in fulfilling my creative needs and pursuits - like traveling on my own, learning new things and seeking my spiritual journey. Ahh - happy birthday to me :D

Murakami Exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum

I FINALLY visited the Murakami Exhibit at the Brooklyn Musuem this weekend. My long-time readers will know about my obsession with Japan - and everything Japanese (except perhaps sushi - I'm not a big fan of sushi, probably because I don't eat fish) But we digress!
The exibit was fascinating - and I think an incredible blend of culture, commerce and design. From his one-off pieces for Louis Vuitton to disturbingly funny sculptures a woman skipping rope of her breast milk an)  Murakami's work can best be described as contemporary interpretation of the current psyche with often a dark subtext.

MOCA's youtube channel has uploaded a series of videos about the exhibit.

It was my first time to MOCA - but I was very impressed with the space. I also really enjoyed the mixed media installation of Inochi - a robot who begins to feel like a young boy. The commercials are hilarious! Watch them yourself.

Tim Walker Inspiration

Imagine my delight when I saw Tim Walker's 3 Limited Edition prints are for sale at the Design Musuem UK! It was really hard for me to not go beserk and buy all three, instead I picked this one.

This photo-essay with Lilly Allen was shot in India. I remember because I have still saved that September 2006 issue of Vogue magazine where this photograph appeared. For a while, this picture - torn from my Vogue, graced my walls until my friends convinced me that I was too old to have ripped-off photos from magazines on my walls.

There are a few other photos from that photo essay that left a lasting impression on my mind. 

But I'm just giddy that my print will arrive soon. Yay!

(PS - The print wasn't expensive, infact, it's a really good deal at about $25. But the shipping from UK added another $20. argh)

Eat. Pray. Love (and have sex)

I'm sorry - I usually dress up, polish my stilettos, straighten my hair and iron my shirt before I write here.  So excuse the unlike-me title of this post.

I picked up Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat. Pray. Love. on Sunday at BJs. Yes BJs- it was $9.39 - it even beats the Barnes & Noble member discount. (I tried to convince my boy to buy swim-trunks at BJs but my idea was dismissed even before it fully materialized)
Anyways.

I bought the book because I was SICK of watching Wall Street banker-type women crushed against cold steel of the 8am PATH trains - precarioulsy balancing their fat pocketbooks and Eat.Pray.Love. I got sick of seeing the hipster-y, creative, my-kind-of-girls reading that book at rando cafes on the LES. I got sick of watching college girls on the summer break sprawled on their sheets on Rittenhouse Square park reading this book. So when I went to BJ's to stock up on my supply of Mac'n'cheese and Scooby Doo Fruit Snacks -- the book, was just glaring at me from the vast sea of other cheaply priced books, almost guilting me into buying the book. It's almost like I couldn't continue to be the all-knowing culture=vulture until I had immersed myself in this eating/praying/loving movement. I absolutely stop myself from reading books that have suddenly swept have the nation because its just my stupid rebellion against conformity :P

Anyways.
I succumbed. Yes! I gave into the societal, cultural and whatever other pressures there are that make you feel dumb if you haven't succumbed to.

I haven't read the whole damn thing yet - but whatever I read (some 100 pages?) - I think the author didn't fully think through the name of the book. The sex part is important because even if she's denying it to herself, she wants it! And also, if you think about it on a philosophical level - eating, praying, loving and having sex go hand in hand, phrase in phrase.

Excuse my little diatribe, but I just you know.. wanted to point out that the title is sort of incomplete. Atleast i thought so. Maybe I won't once I finish the book - but even after, I'll think that had the title included my little phrase, it would have been a much more interesting book and less new agey.

Just thought I'd let you know incase anyone's listening :P

PS - The writing of the book is fantastic though. Really.

PSFK Evening with Rob Walker

Last Friday I attended a PSFK hosted book-reading and Q/A with journalist Rob Walker -and now author of a new book titled, "Buying In." He also writes the popular Consumed column for The New York Times, Murketing for Fast Company magazine and his own blog at murketing.com

It was a fun event - and I got the opportunity to meet several planners/ strategist with whom I had previously only communicated via email, AIM or facebook. The Q/A was hosted by Danielle Sacks,a Fast Company journalist who covers the advertising and marketing industries for the magazine. It was a chill evening spent in the company of inspiring peers and idols! Kudos to PSFK for continuing to act as our curator! 

Here are some photos picked from Dave Pinter's flickr group. Enjoy! (The girl in blue/black is your's truly btw. And no I don't like the taste of fizzy drinks (soda, beer, fizzy water..) so I finished several bottles of water instead.)

Storytelling in 6-words

Of late, I've been enamored with the concept of storytelling.....What follows is just a stream of consciouness that might not make much sense!

As a writer and a wordsmith .... I think words speak most powerfully to me. I think the best in words and I relay the best in words. Today I was surfing the net and remembered to check out my friend's online magazine SMITH mag (which I check periodically) SMITH mag has taken the idea of 6-word memoirs to an entirely new level that is so heart-breaking and powerful to me.

See these 6-word stories yourself... made me think that a great story that can be told in 60,000 words can be told as effectively in 6. This is one of the most powerful new mediums I've encountered.... (ofcourse there is twittories - stories in 140 words...etc) But how awesome is this?

Summertime in new york

This has been one busy summer - a few weeks back, three of my friends who I haven't seen in almost 3 years landed up in New York. It was Serendipity! I made a cute little pdf of fun things to do during their 4 day visit here. Now bear in mind, the little pdf I made was meant for my friends who had never been to NYC before. If you are from NY, you will probably laugh at it but nonetheless, I want to make it available for everyone who might want to use it!

We had a terrific time - now mind you some of the places recommend/suggested in my little pdf weren't spectacular but they were an amazing experience for sure. The thing is, I thought social tecnologies and the internet was putting everything into a constant state of beta but I think I'm going to have to re-visit my definitions because, I'm realizing.. as someone who works in and almost lives in new york, my life has become a constant state of beta!

I was at the Adour bar at St. Regis last week with a client. Apart from the fact that it was St. Regis, Adour is known for it's interactive wine-bar. There, I fell into conversation with two very interesting men who have lived like 5 lifetimes in their one life!  One of them, a furniture designer, has been commissioend by the Ambani's for their 27-storey residential building project.
"Do you know of the 27 storey residence building in Bombay?" he asked,
"The Ambani's residence?" I said.
"You know about it?"
"Every Indian knows about it." I exclaimed.

We got into a lengthy discussion about entitlement, legacy and access - the three advantages born and bred New Yorkers have over others and how immigrants like me will always have to strive harder for access in this country/ city. It was by far one of the most interesting conversations I've had at a bar with a stranger :D

After bidding goodbye and promising to stay in touch with my new friend, we tropped off to The Modern for dinner. I personally, wasn't very impressed with the food there but the service, decor and ambience is well worth a mention. (The Modern is the restaurant owned and operated by MOMA)  I was at dinner with two executives from a luxury-car company and two others from the agency. I won't bore you with our dinner-table conversations but what always surprises me when I meet new people is how I end up changing my opinion of them in the span of 2 hours. Towards the end of our dinner, I learned that one executive from the client was also a personal trainer and tried to manage a small health/ personal training business on the side. Now that insight completely changed the way I percieved him -- it's just, I didn't expect someone at such a high post at a luxury goods company to feel so passionately and pursue a parellel profession.

Of late, I've also been missing writing. I'm going to start seeking freelance writing gigs again and perhaps start writing more about my life here than about my opinions about the internet. Because for now, my life is more interesting to me than the internet :D

Ahh - can't say I'm not having a good time in NYC.

ahh and here you go - the promised guide!
Download nyc_for_vistors.pdf

Leave me a comment if you like it :D and if you'd like me to share more such tips.

Late night thoughts

The beauty of the web2.0 is that it encourages us and forces us to redefine the words: friend, strangers and acquaintances. You agree?

Being 'carried' away

I watched 'Sex and the City' last night with my close friends. The movie was bitter-sweet with a tight story-line and killer one-liners. But what took the toast was the experience of watching the movie... The audience, mostly women but a large number of men - oohing and aahing at the beginning, groaning at the bitter parts and clapping enthusiastically towards the very end.. was simply amazing to witness and be a part of. SATC is part of a New York women's collective memory - every girl imagines her and her friends having the kind of friendships portrayed in the sitcom with ofcourse, NYC as the backdrop. I highly recommend watching the movie, if not in New York with NY women, then most certainly with your closest friends : )

Social Networks: diaryland.com

I've been thinking a lot about what really constitutes a social network. I found this amazing historical and pictorial representation of the launch dates of major social network sites in a paper authored by danah boyd and Nicole Ellison. While this is fairly accurate, I think has missed out a couple key movements in this space, namely ICQ and diaryland.com.

According to Whois.com listing, the domain diaryland.com was registered March 9, 1999 and expires March 9, 2010. I am actually very surprised that most academic and scholarly texts on social networking make no mention of diaryland. Diaryland was founded in September 1999 by Andrew Smales, a Toronton native. Without any advertising, Diaryland soon amassed over 350,000 users. (a pity number compares to now:)

I was a part of the diaryland community in 1999-2002 and even though you couldn't network or "chat", you could add URLs of diaries you liked on your blog and become parts of groups and have little labels and stickers on your diaries. I would love to interview the founder someday -- the site is still active but I think most of the old-timers have moved on to blogspot or wordpress. Anyways, the reason I bring diaryland.com up again is because the new definition of 'social networks' is too narrow and does not allow the early pioneers to be categorized the same way. Both ICQ and diaryland - allowed you to search for people, leave comments in their guest books or leave them personal notes AND add their URL's on your blog in support of your new friendship. You see, making new friends and finding old friends on the internet happened back then too - even before we had blogs. According to Whois.com listing, the domain diaryland.com was registered March 9, 1999 and expires March 9, 2010. So perhaps the idea of diaryland.com was conceived even before Livejournal.

 

(Oh and look, smartypants.diaryland.com wrote a book too, The World according to Mimi Smartypants!)

 

Allow me to indulge one more fragment of the early internet memories - the chat rooms! How fascinated I was! My dad had just bought an old black and white computer and I'd enter these chat rooms on excite.com and rediff.com (INDIA) and think not twice about making real friends and giving out my real phone number and real name! Today my ex-boss's children (8,9 years old?? - not sure) friend-ed me on facebook. I think it is cool and perhaps something young parents should expect as their children grow. (More on this later!)

Irrespective, I am unfamiliar with a lot of these sites mentioned in this diagram. But I love it - maybe I will create one of my own personal journey of the internet. It's amazing though because around 2003 is when the social network phenomena took off and every kind of network mushroomed upon- even a network that allows you to create other networks! (ning.com)

I'm loving Facebook Chat. Facebook is one place for me where I have all my friends from India, Philadelphia and other corners of the world online. I don't need to have MSN, Gmail and AIM on at the same time. I'm loving it! Some people say that is the next generation of social networks, to me, that is returning full-circle. After all, AIM, MSN chat and other such chats were the early rudimentary social networks!

:D

I have received some emails expressing interest in wanting to learn more about my passion project. I am not ignoring your emails - I'm merely trying to figure out and define my project before I communicate with you again. Thank you for your patience :)

Here are some old articles I found about diaryland.com founder, Andrew Smales
Salon.com

Life journey

One of my favorite pass-times (apart from stalking people on facebook) is going through random people's profiles on linkedin.com - to see where they started and what they are doing now. I do that constantly because it bolsters faith in myself and the path I am creating for myself in my life. (well, atleast attempting to)

Some people have a calling, they know they were meant to be a doctor or a designer or a scientist. I don't know, have never known what I wanted to be. I am turning 25 in two months and I have ideas about what I'd like to do for the next 5 years but beyond that - if you ask me, I'll draw a blank. And unfortunately, I haven't met many people like me. Sometimes it is scary to be different in that regard. Because it makes you question whether you are on the wrong path.

But linkedin.com provides me respite - I like knowing and seeing how people's career paths have traveled and where their careers have taken them. Life is too short to spend it not learning new skills, not discovering new interests and putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. And life also has a way of working itself out.Atleast, it has for all those folks on linkedin :)

So perhaps it will, for me too.

Combining commerce with social goodness

My previous employer Advanta launched a new credit card in partnership with Kiva. To refresh your memory, I was a part of the kickass team that launched Ideablob last year at Advanta. The newest project that Advanta has unleashed and my dear ex-colleagues worked on is the KivaB2B business credit card.

Kiva.org is the world's first peer-to-peer microfinance platform that allows US-based folks to lend money to entrepreneurs and small business owners in developing countries. Advanta, is one of American's largest credit card issuer in the small businesses market. A marriage between the two was inevitable!

For every loan an Advanta card-holder makes to Kiva, Advanta will match the loan amount dollar-for-dollar. American small businesses will in effect, help out small businesses in developing countries without spending any money at all!

Hats off to the visionary Innovation Group at Advanta  :) It is little efforts like these that makes a company special. I will be following their success closely.

PS - I love the credit card design too! My friend, the brilliant Israeli film-maker and designer, Michal Levy designed it.

Reality Show on Twitter

Ofcourse, I hit follow. :D

How I wasted time on the internet today

My friend apparently purchased me on Facebook today. So I ignored his request and took a screengrab of it before ignoring it.

And I created a glog of myself today on Glogster.

My passion project

So yesterday I was doing some research on how women and men behave online and stumbled upon scribd.com
I've known of that website for a long time but I never really used it because the interface didn't please me and there are too many ads cluttering the home page. But when I landed on scribd.com yesterday, I end up spending over 45 minutes hunting through its archives and database and downloading interesting reports. I also found pdfs of Haruki Murakami's Norweigan Wood and Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. What really amazed me was the amount of information people are making available for others online. Scribd and Slideshare.net are both fantastic examples of a milder version of an online university.

There are basically two types of information people are sharing online: 1) Organized 2) Chaotic. Here's how I breakdown both: The kind of information offered on sites like scribd.com and slideshare.net represents an individual's organized thinking: perhaps about an idea, or a topic of interest to them. Their thoughts are usually clear and they articulate it in the form of a presentation or a document. I classify this kind of free information share as organized information -- in which, you may not learn a lot about people, but you learn a lot about what they know.

The other type of information share that is happening online is chaotic - this information share is anecdotal, visual, literal and often metaphorical. It may even border on offensive to unnecessary. This type of information can be found on free photo and video sharing websites, blogs, microblog platforms and other avenues like 43things.com, post-secret and ihate.com. This type of chaotic information share can and is usually done behind a mask of anonymity.

As a strategist, I'm most interested in understanding how this information share can be turned to our advantage and how we can actually make sense and benefit from this share. How can we analyze and derive  conclusive learnings from this information share? I hear that several agencies and companies are already employing and using spiders and other web programs to gather the free information floating out on the web ether - but I'm more interested in discovering patterns and processes that surround this scenario and figuring out, if there is one, a universal and singular method that can successfully make sense of this massive database of information.

This is my passion project and has been on my mind for the last couple of months. I have some ideas around how to realize this and I'm using the help of some smart, enlightened strategists to help me take this to the next level - but I'm asking you as well -- can you help me?

My idea hasn't matured to the next level and a lot of critical thinking that hasn't happened yet needs to happen before any of this can make sense to you but I'm excited and I return home from work every night to work on this...

And to add one point of clarification - I'm not looking to develop a system that trolls blogs and other media sites and spews out a reports. There are plenty of those out there already. I know what I am proposing does not have a one-size-fit-all solution -- I'm not looking to create another aggregator. What I'm looking to do is simply provide a better means to make sense of the free-floating chaotic information to people like me, who want to better understand people/ consumers.

This idea stemmed out of my very recent experience in the agency-life - any new project undergoes (and rightfully so) massive amounts of primary and secondary research. What I'm trying to prove is, because people are already sharing intimate details of their lives on the web, there has got to be a better way to include those insights in our work.

Anyways...

Spring in New York is beautiful - and it feels like it might have finally arrived. This morning when I was getting ready to leave for work, my area was shrouded in mist. I live by the river in Jersey City/ Exchange Place. It's only 4 minutes from NYC in the PATH trains but it's an island of it's own. Very slow -almost fairy tale like with subdued yellow lights and light-rails right out of an Enid Blyton book making up for the city-scape. (Atleast until you reach the umpteen construction sites...) Anyways, it's a beautiful day today and I wish more days like today :D

Happy, almost, summer.

Q/A with Rohit Bhargava

Since May-June of last year, I have been assisting Rohit Bhargava with research and marketing for his very first book, Personality Not Included. The process was intense, fun and an amazing learning experience. Rohit is not just a fantastic writer and a brilliant visionary, but also an compassionate and generous mentor. Sometimes though, I cannot help but think that he lives multiple lives! I don't know how he wrote the book in less than 10 months, managed his blog and grew it to be one of the top read marketing blogs and continues to succeed at his full time job as SVP of Digital Marketing at Ogilvy PR!


As part of the marketing promotion for the book, Rohit issued an open call on his blog where he offered to answer 5 questions from any blogger about the book. Here are the few questions I asked but click on the graphic alongside to read all the other interviews. Enjoy!


1) How long has the 'Personality Matters' idea been brewing in your head?

Since I realized I couldn't use the title of the book for the marketing! Actually, the reason I called the marketing campaign for the book "personality matters" and will be using it as the title for the book blog is because if I use "personality not included" then I need to also have the subtitle, otherwise it doesn't make sense.  Why is personality not included?  Where is it?  Etc.  So "personality matters" became the tagline ...


2) And what/ which incident first inspired that idea?

It was essentially driven by my desire to have a strong "elevator pitch" for the book.  Personality matters pretty much summed it up, and if I can convince readers and others that it does matter, then getting the book is the natural next step to find out why and how to have one.

3) How are you using this big idea in your professional life?

 

The most interesting thing about writing a book on personality is the pressure that it puts on you to always have a personality!  Seriously, it has actually encouraged me to think more about how I portray myself and how I write online.  I used to think that using "I" was a big no-no because it was egotistical, and then I realized that writing in the first person was the most personal way that I could portray my ideas online

4) How can I apply this idea to make my own personality stronger/ better?

 

Great question - there is a definite relationship between creating a personality for an organization and using it as part of your own personal brand.  Sorry that I have to be cryptic to answer this one, but check my blog next week and you'll find a pretty comprehensive answer to this question ... :-

5) Lastly, what is going to be the extension (the idea of your next book!!) of this book?
I was thinking about writing a dating book about how to use marketing principles if you are single to attract the perfect mate.   Everything from writing a great profile on an online dating site to making sure you "give good google" so when they look you up you will have positive stuff out there.  Basically I want my next book to be something that could actually get me on Oprah!

 

Web apathy

I haven't written here in so long and I think now, I am okay with that. I don't feel the need to put my voice, thoughts and opinions out on the public forum so frequently anymore. I never was quite able to figure out how people maintained such active lives on twitter, blogs and numerous other smaller groups with a full-time job, family and life. Maybe I'm an introvert ? Or maybe the other's don't have a life apart from their online lives and jobs? I don't mean to sound condescending - but I am truly was curious.

People's nonsense (or their personal PR) on twitter just annoys me now. I'm also being a hypocrite on many levels because I go through phases of total immersion and then total isolation from twitter. But now that I've been hearing many top bloggers bullshit so much on twitter, I find myself boycotting their blogs and not being interested in their writings anymore.

The web has become a cacophony of voices - and I don't want mine to be lost underneath them. I still want what I write to provide value and be meaningful. And my god - it feels so good to make that peace with myself!

Life in New York is fast. I'm working on some fun projects at work and some fun side-projects too. My parents are also visiting from India so the past month has been great. I'm always amazed at how much I learn at work from just observing how other people work and think. But I want to move it a step further now and take my thinking capabilities to the next level.

There's an idea I've been toying around in my head.... but I have to formulate it and think through it. Stay tuned though - I will share soon!

Drawing from history

Last weekend, I watched a new Bollywood movie based on the life of the Mughal Emperor Akbar. King Akbar  often dressed as a regular layman to see and his listen if his subjects were happy. He believed that he could only understand true sufferings of his subjects if he was amongst them and not isolated in his castle. Akbar would then return to court and act upon his observations to make his kingdom happy and satisfied.

I re-tell this story because it is a great metaphor for what brands should be doing right now. The Web has made connections and communications fluid, abundant and easy. So if you are a brand - chances are, your customers are talking about you online. And the only way you can keep them happy is if you are listening and more importantly acting upon what you listen.

:D Happy tuesday!

Something pretty

Working at a design studio has given me a new appreciation for all things beautiful. I found this photograph while browsing on flickr.com. I loved the composition of colors, light and textures here - it brings me a smile :) It's like happiness that you can taste. Just wanted to share it with you : D 

Original Work

Was my response right?

A couple months ago, I approached a Web2.0 company to interview their founders. They put me in touch with one of their investors and although the interview never quite happened, our conversation took a different turn and I ended up sending in my resume for a potential job opportunity that the investor mentioned to me. When he didn't get back to me for a few weeks, I sent him a note of inquiry to which he responded by asking me to re-send my resume. I dutifully did - and then nothing happened.
We spoke briefly once or twice and again, there was no communication from their end and often, prolonged pauses with no responses to my emails. After I received a third request for my resume, I lost interest in the possibility of this ever working out and went about my business.

Last week I received an email from this gentleman informing me that the company had shut down and asking me for a favor - to offer advice to his daughter who was looking to move to NYC. I was, in all honesty, a little startled by this random piece of communication. But I am a nice girl and I try to make nice and because I am older now, I am also more mature. So I responded asking more questions about his daughters interest and how I could help.

Today I received an email with him giving me his phone number and asking me to call him to catch up. And yet another email - a one-liner about his daughter's career aspirations ending with, 'I will tell you more later.'

This really. really. really. irked me. Because the etiquette I was taught and work by is that when you need someone, you play per their convenience. I don't have qualms about them not offering me a job - believe me, as smart as I'd like to think I am, there have been plenty of employers who have rejected me in worse fashion. But the point is - usually when you are giving someone a bad experience, you kinda know it. And you don't return to them for personal favors. And if you do - you are courteous and just.. nice.

This guy's email really annoyed me and I felt like he needed to know it. I do want to help his daughter - It is a competitive world and an even more competitive industry so if I can offer some insights. I am happy to but I just don't want to deal with the guy again. So here's the response I sent him and I need a sanity check - was this response right? 

I'm sorry but I have to mention that your correspondence with me has been very erratic. I remember you asked for my resume 3 times and never really got back to me or answered my emails. I didn't even know about [redacted] closing down - not that it matters to me but your communication seems off and preemptive. I am happy to help but I felt that I had to address this and I hope that in the future your communication with me is lucid and not one-way.

Please have your daughter email me directly or schedule some time to talk with me.

My intention was not to come off bitchy but the guy had to realize that his behavior was plain insolent.
I understand that we are ambling through these new communication modes and learning to take pleasure in the joys it offers, but why do we forget that even though we are building these relationships online - we are building them with real human beings.

Building online relationships is no different than building offline relationships. Well, unless ofcourse you are the kind of guy who would call up a rudely rejected freelancer to advice your child. In that case, you missed the boat way too soon.

Update 2/21: The gentleman in question here replied to my email and apologized. He mentioned that he was very stressed as an investor in the company and that it was not indicative of his character in general. I believe him but don't really expect any major interaction. My offer to help his daughter stands.

Manly women

I just watched the season premiere of Candace Bushnell's new TV Series, LipStick Jungle. This show revolves around the lives of a hollywood executive, a magazine publisher and a fashion designer. LipStick Jungle's storyline is eerily similar to Darren Star's Cashmere Mafia, which is about four friends - a magazine publisher, a senior executive at a cosmetics company, a banker and a chief operating officer of a hotel chain. (And if you read the above paragraph once again like I just did, I promise you won't be able tell which is which.)

Sex & The City earned it's place in contemporary culture for its bold exploration of sexuality and relationships in women's lives. So it is with far more interest that I watch the forementioned shows because one of them is created by the original writer for SATC and the other one, by its director.

Even in the nascent stages both Cashmere Mafia and LipStick Jungle have made it crystal clear that they are not just an urban, more relevant version of Carrie and her friends. The characters in this series are definitely have texture and are perhaps slightly closer to real life and deal with real life issues: managing kids, anniversaries, cheating husbands, joint finances and veritably, expensive closets. Sure enough, every now and then there's that dose of exuberance and  lavish show of wealth and plots that inextricably weave in and out of impossible, glamorous worlds. But that aside, I'm very interested in the socio-cultural examination shows like this will invite.

On two main perspectives:
1) Is there a cultural shift happening around us with the status-quo between the genders balancing itself out? I am not making a statement, merely asking. I read in Fast Company last month that Sci-Fi channel has more female viewers than men and now that a woman is at the helm of the channel, she is trying hard to shift the perception of Sci-Fi channel from it's current, star-trekky/manly image to a fantasy/softer image so that it caters to the fairer gender. To me, that is a clear single that contexts that were previously used to separate and differentiate cultural properties based on gender are blurring.

2) The other perspective - (which is a rather unrelated one) is does social media deserve all the credit it is getting? I just returned from a fashion show and there was this buzz  around me by the bloggers in attendance about how their channels were the conduit of opening up fashion and making it more transparent. I see all the coverage on the various fashion blog networks and the more traditional digital media properties and I cannot help but ask myself: what exactly is different? and where exactly are the bloggers providing more value? The more enterprising bloggers enter the fashion shows with photographers and videographers in tow and at the end of the day what you have is: a 100 similar looking videos, a 100 similar sounding interviews and a 100 exact same photographs - all from different sources.

Yes - there are those giddy show reviews and 'behind-the-scene' snippets that presumably are enough to 'open the world' and make it more transparent. I beg to differ- where is the value?

Ever since SATC aired, without a doubt it also began a slow but certain fashion awakening.
When the show ended, culture mavens and smart story-tellers realized the void the show's end had created The void was not just an empty slot on HBO, but also the window via which women could regularly breathe in the fashionable air for one hour every week. In the last two years alone, TV shows like 'American's Next Top Model," "Top Designer," Top Hairstylist,", & 'Ugly Betty," have emerged quietly out of the woodwork to become a force to reckon with.
In my humble opinion, these shows do a far better job of making the world of fashion more transparent than bloggers do. Perhaps not accessible - but I'm not sure how blogs do that either.
Yes- most of the TV shows above are reality shows, but aren't blogs reality in writing anyways?

Something to think about.

Dear Reader

I'm a little stressed. I'm stressed about this responsibility that comes with being a blogger.
Being a blogger was hot once. Now, it is a chore. It started as something I did for myself and my friends, then it morphed into a more serious, professional persona and now everytime I log into type in here, I'm afraid it's just another voice in the cacophony out there.

Bloggers I meet have 'strategies' for their blogs, particular reasons why they start blogs and massive, drawn out plans for their blogs.
Clients I meet are wondering about these blogs - they want to wine and dine the bloggers and get them to create, "positive conversations" about blogs.
In another universe, one-time bloggers who are now quasi-famous, are taking potshots at each other, judging and criticizing the very outlets that supposedly started out 'just out of interest," and were meant to be subjective, not objective.
The web, the news, the conversations are rife with bitterness and a constantly shifting status-quo.

I come from the world of magazines - it was my first home and I get it. I understand the power of a voice, the power of influence. And I see it coming a full circle, when blogs aren't just 'blogs' but blown-out, magazines that are edited and curated with a singular voice at the helm, becoming full-on media properties. They now have to have a facelift, better features, fancy photography and whatnot. Er, excuse me - are you still a blog? Oh wait a minute, you've even got contributing writers. Woah.

Excuse my rant, dear reader.
It's just 1am on a Thursday morning and I've just realized that being a blogger holds no merit for me any longer. Yes, it got me my jobs but it's not relevant to me in the context that it was before.

Social Thresholds

Returning back to the idea of privacy online, my friend Amit, has a very different point of view that I think is worth adding to this discourse. Our debate rose from teh idea of separating your worlds and contexts that you exist in. Here are his thoughts,

Ultimately, being completely open with all worlds, allowing them to mix, and letting your friends see you in your business contexts, and your boss see you in your personal life, is equivalent to putting faith in humanity and in yourself. It's understanding that help and opportunity can come from anywhere at anytime, and there's no way to predict it. And that people are at their deepest level good, that you are deserving of their attention, interesting enough, and worthy of their help, so letting them see more of you can only help you (and them) more than it hurts.

While I don't agree with this, it is a very valid argument that deserves to be heard and discussed. I don't agree with this thinking because to me each individual in my life exists in a different context. Your close friends cross over into different contexts of your life but for the rest, there should be no free pass. Friendships should be earned - and special benefits come with that, namely access to my full profile.

This does not mean every moment must be broadcast. There are exceptions to every rule, and times when discretion makes sense. You wouldn't broadcast a job search while still employed, any more than I'd share minor squabbles with a significant other in a public forum.
But what a loss would it be if you didn't share your victories and joys -- the good times, if not the insignificant ones. It's weird, this fifth relationship. There's plenty of precedent to fall back on for relationships with your family, your friends, your coworkers, and your significant others, but most historically haven't had to think much about their relationship with strangers. That was a problem left for celebrities. Until the Internet gave everyone a chance for microcelebrity.

I have been having this conversation in varying degrees and colors with other friends and each present a distinct, well-pontificated argument that I'd like to share with you. Every voice adds another layer to this debate and while there is no right answer, there is perhaps some weight in the idea that every individual has a social threshold (for strangers) they won't cross. Whatever that threshold is for them - and it is different for everyone. You may be comfortable sharing your flickr gallery with everyone but not your age and your personal blog while I may be ok with having you observe me here in this space but perhaps not on facebook unless you are my friend. Does this make sense?

What's your social threshold? What do you allow and not?

Managing online identities

I have been visiting and re-visiting the issue of online identities for a while now. I want to de-construct my view and see if I could make a coherent argument for my position.
There has been a flurry of conversations and debates online on Design Observer and NYT about anonymity and pseudo-online personalities. I'm still exploring what it all means and trying to make some sense of it, but here's where I stand for now.

Here's what I reason
- People like me who are so careful about their online identities are driven by fear. Although I should point out that while fear maybe the underlying factor, it is not fueled by the fear to 'hide something," but instead 'to protect."

I strongly believe that at the very core, our online behavior mimicks our offline behavior (bar some of the advantages afforded on the net, mainly - anonymity) So like we do in our offline lives, our online lives exist in various contexts and circles. Professional, Family, Friends, Other -- sometimes those worlds overlap, sometimes they do not. To cite from personal example, my boss at the bank added me on facebook while I was in the midst of a job search. POKE found me on facebook in response to a post I had on a facebook group which was easily searchable if anyone were to follow my mini-feed or simply browsing through the groups I am a member of. I was in a dilemma because I very well couldn't refuse my boss but how was I to accept his request with my private moves out open in the public? My wall-posts that referred to my move to NYC had to be deleted - I had to inform my friends in the know to communicate using alternate means.

Another example - when facebook opened it's doors to the public, my cousins, family members and other folks from India surged on facebook and eagerly added me as a friend. Now this was a real problem - because contextually, my cultural upbringing questioned whether my relatives and family members should be privy to conversations (on my wall) between me and my friends. With my background, there was no way these two worlds could co-exist mutually on a singular online platform. Photos, relationship status-es, Wall posts, the innocent and honest banter on the walls -- everything would be subject to scrutiny. And again, denying these members was out of question.

And lastly - when everyone started adding each other on facebook, I was in a daze. The change was abrupt and fast. I could remember thinking how two months back, facebook being about me and my close friends. And now suddenly, I had lost the context for facebook and what it meant for me.

*I think opinions of those who are relatively new to facebook may differ here since their knowledge about facebook's environments is limited to the time they have been a member of the network.

But people like me struggled - wondering if it was rude to deny requests? who is a friend? what constitutes a friend? Also, in a professional world, how do you strictly keep your relationships such but still strong enough to allow them to grow? Again, in a field where most jobs happen via networking, I was less inclined to deny those connections.

The answer was plain and simple - private profiles for 'friends." and the real profile for friends. Until I can trust the 'friends,' - there's no reason why they should be privy to what my friends deserve and get out of me. It is a pain to manage that yes - but that is facebook's fault, not mine. I am an ordinary individual and I'm sure there are plenty of folks like me who feel this way. So facebook should make it easier for people like us to use the facebook platform and satisfy the various contexts we exist in. It's really a simple UI issue I think. And I can guarantee you, in the future facebook will make this possible. It's a fine balance.

Like I said, I don't have answers but I think I know what motivates the desire to maintain and actively manage your online identity. It's an oxymoron - because ofcourse, you want to be found when someone googles you. And professionally for me, I should be found on the various sites (twitter, iminlikewithyou, 43things, flickr, orkut, friendster.....etc. etc) if someone searches for me there, simply because how can I claim to understand social media without deep-diving into it myself? So yes, I want to be found - but I want to be careful about what's found about me. Atleast to the level where it can be controlled by me.

Books binge

I know I need to stop - and I know I need to finish the books currently on my shelf. But today I bought two more books that I simply have to read. Of late, I've been gravitating towards books with a more academic flavor. So in case these interest you,

Fans, Bloggers and Gamers - Understanding participatory culture by Henry Jenkins

The Hidden Sense - Synthesia in art and science by Cretien Van Campen

I've resolved to finish reading these books before the year's end. I'd love to discuss if any of you have read them before or are interested in reading with me.

Recap

Attributing my silence on my blog to work and life is becoming a common excuse, I notice :) Without making much fuss, here are some things I've been doing or are on my mind today!

• Exploring NYC stores and restaurants. Spending way too much time at the MOMA Design store. The place where I work gave us (thank you!) gift-cards to the store and I have yet to decide what to spend my monnies on!
• Spent a few hours yesterday at Kinokuniya at the Rockefellar Center. Kinokuniya is an all-Japanese bookstore - they also have cool stationary and a few English books. If you are a Japanphile like me, you will LOVE this store. It's a pity I can't read or write Japanese yet but the store is a absolute sensory delight.
• Browsed through Librairie De France, collection of classic French children's books
• Watched the entire Season 2 of Heroes  back-to-back on hulu.com.
• Reading (previously unread) books my my favorite author Haruki Murakami - Currently reading, UnderGround.
• Shuttling between Philly and NY, hanging out with friends, cooking meals and simply relishing this break.
• Tweeting is yet to come naturally to me.
• Bhutto's murder shook me - pushed me to wonder, am I doing something important enough with my life. Such a bubble we live in sometimes.
• When I was younger, I'd want to hold on to one day of the ending year -- just one day for me to live whenever I chose to. Now, 1st Jan is just another day :) Doesn't mean we don't bring it in with a bang though

So that' it for today!

Short history of micro-blogging

Facebook got rid of the "is" from their status update today, aligning itself to it's audiences demands and conforming to be more twitter-like. The facbeook 'status' messages today are abuzz with news about the disappearance of "is." 

This fascination with our own lives and the desire to share it with strangers amuses me sometimes. Everyday I am reminded of the 'celebrity' I could morph into if I wanted to.
These social tools have helped us manifest our illusory popularity within our niche groups, subjecting those in our circles to continuous broadcasts about the trite and sometimes, intimate details of our lives. We call it micro-blogging.

Wikipedia defines micro-blogging as,

"Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user."

It bothers me that we think of it as a revolution when it simply is just an innovation, an iteration at the most. Lets revisit the IRC chat days. ICQ identified users with a unique number and allowed them change their handle and keep the screename dynamic. In the first month alone when I started using ICQ (1998/ 99 was it?) my screen-name changed every few hours depending on my colorful teenage moods and emotional beat.

MSN  Messenger too, allowed for the same and in addition to giving users the flexibility to keep dynamic screen-names, it also allowed them to customize their status messages which in my case, (and those of my friends) varied from laments about life, homework & college to song lyrics and my whereabouts. But the information was being broadcast to 80 some friends with whom I shared real, tangible, offline relationships.

AIM messenger gave users a static user name with the ability to customize messages, updates and even icons- little widgets and tools that allowed users to express themselves and share bits and pieces of their lives.

Cellphone ringers in India allowed me to choose my current favorite songs so when my friends called me, instead of hearing the phone ring, they would hear the 'song of the moment' which in most cases was a direct reflection of my life.

 

I outline these instances because in each and every one - users like me and you have with precision been broadcasting our lives to our friends. And we've probably been doing this before the term blog was coined.
These options have simply enabled the frequency with which we now share these details --- evolving into a more robust, almost pollutant iteration of what we grew up with.

This evolution of micro blogging offers users the ability to become active participants instead of being passive observers. So now, we aren't only sharing, but also conversing and commenting via micro-tools with an intensity that wasn't as palpable in the earlier versions. Also and perhaps the most intriguing facet of our current version is our ability and our open-ness to broadcast our life events to an extended and expansive social circle.

My opinion on micro-blogging fluctuates - I know we are fascinated with ourselves but my life (and the other 98% of people's lives) are barely interesting. They are simple, ordinary lives and I don't know how if that begets incessant broadcasts. That's just my two cents. (All the same, I have been guilty of doing the same)

It bothers me sometimes. I see a lot of micro-blogging happening on facebook that is merely by professionals who instead of using facebook as a social utility tool which is what it is meant to be, use it to toot their professional horns. To me, this dilutes the essence of facebook and I almost wish I could take my friends and shift elsewhere. But who would follow me?! And where would I do?

I suppose, the next evolution.....

Online Identities & Social networks

My friend sent me an invitation to join Social Chat on facebook. Out of curiosity, I installed the application to check it out. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect but meeting strangers on facebook is not a functionality that fits within my framework of facebook.

I was confounded when a private message popped on my screen (deja vu --1998/1999--  rediff chat anyone? excite.com chat?! ) and asked,

A/S/L?

I haven't heard that term in over 8 years. (For those not familiar with the term, A/S/L stands for Age/ Sex/ Location - a phrase that was used in the heyday of online chat when people were just discovering alternate ways to meet other people online)

But we are in 2007 now. There are social hierarchies in place. We have various identities online for specific reasons. An individual's identity on J-Date is going to be different from their persona on linkedin or even facebook. My identities on certain networks are built to meet people (ning, linkedin, cyworld)  but on other networks, namely facebook, I want to connect with people I *already* know.
Applications like Social Chat dilute the meaning of facebook for me. Thankfully, it is only an application and I have opted out already. But this leads to an interesting question - should content, in this case, applications, be curated on facebook? Should there be an editorial team that decides what makes the cut and what doesn't?

Or is it best left for the public to decide?

Life on Flickr

                                                                                                                         Scott and I were brainstorming yesterday evening and looking at this MOST POPULAR Tags list on Flickr. Funny how we never thought about it like this before...

Like the Google Zeitgiest, Flickr's most popular tags are a great representation of what matters to us, humans, on a macroscopic level. Of the 2 billion photographs on Flickr, this tag cloud is a fantastic portrayal of our lives and what we value most.

Family, friends, kids, festivals and vacations, the summer months, clouds, sunsets, beaches and the water,  concerts and music, food,  birthdays, weddings and honeymoons, our pets, traveling and exploring the world, outdoor activities and games.....

Life is so simple, no?
:)

Connecting the dots

I'm reading a book called, "Pathfinders - A global history of exploration."  It attempts to trace the history of mankind. In it's own words,

"This book is about encounters - encounters between cultures- and the outreach of ambition, imagination, efforts and innovations that made them possible."

So last night, as I was reading about the divergence and convergence of cultures traced through DNA in this book-- Nightline, incidentally played a short feature on how genes can help you discover your ancestry.

The feature is heavily based on the philosophy and efforts on one particular USA based company called Sorenson Genomics. Sorenson has collected about 100,000 samples of DNA from 172 countries over the world and is building an extensive database that will help people trace their genetic lineage.

"I think the hypothesis was that if he could get any two people in a room, and through this database show them how they were related and where they came from and how they belonged … that this would change the way they would feel about each other. That instead of animosity perhaps they would feel a connection and that would lead to a more peaceful environment," David said.

I am obviously very interested. My grandparents are from Karachi, Pakistan - what then used to be India. They fled to Bombay, India around 1947 and have since dug their roots there. With the death of my grandparents, it felt like a part of my family history was stubbed right there. Oral history tends to get lost over generations and all that is left is curiosity.

Sorenson Genomics have created DNA kits available for $150 -- they use their existing (and ever increasing) database to help you connect your dots. Yesterday on Nightline, Martin Bashir of Indian descent learned that his ancestors were Africans, Rajputs from Rajasthan and Brahmins from Uttar Pradesh.
Another DNA-tester who was adopted and had no idea about his background was able to trace his ancestry to Turkey.

Digital advances are moving us in an entirely uncharted territory. I just rekindled old connections today on Facebook using Friend Finder and I joined an Indian youth social network on ning to connect with other young Indians -- is the next evolution finding people with the exact same DNA as me who could be my long-lost, distant cousins ? It is a real possibility.

Organizing web identities

I had a bad habit of going through email addresses when I was younger. The fascination of choosing any persona and whimsical name was too addictive and I made sure I exploited it to the full. I've had after the rains, in the rains, little rain cloud, tuscan lights and a countless other  email handles that after a point were too boring to continue with. Thankfully, I didn't lose any of my friends to changing emails but I'm realizing a bigger problem now. The need for one organized identity throughout the internet. I've left digial turds on plenty of social media sites/ social media tools and various other sites that I might have just wanted to "try" out. (FYI - no. you won't find me on match.com or shaadi.com)

But in doing so - I'm a different handle everywhere. My college years are marked by one handle and then my post-college years by another handle and now yet another one for professional reasons. The lines are so blurred now -- and I have on fragmented identity on the internet.

Also, changing the blog name didn't help because now I've gotta figure out how to change the URL...

Any suggestions people?

As a start, I changed my twitter to miyume01 because my AIM is miyume01. (And I recently started using AIM because the rest of the world may be on MSN, but America is still on AIM)

Learning everyday

A profession like marketing, advertising and even writing are just a tad bit more challenging for foreigners like me who severely lack the cultural literacy required to stay on top of the trends, motifs and metaphors that come in everyday conversations with colleagues, clients and other marketers.
New things to learn everyday....

CaseStudy of a misguided brand - American Apparel

Last week, a bunch of us here at POKE, had a very interesting experience. We routinely hold chat sessions to just talk to regular folks and understand their tech habits. On Friday, we had a bunch of guys come in for one such routine session. One of them was the Crazy James.

His story paraphrased,  -- He is trying to spread peace and love in the world that is consumed by materialistic desires and he will bike around the world for just $100. We checked out the above video on his myspace site. And we totally admit that this kid's got balls. But once you get over that - it's a load of bullshit that irresponsible brands contribute to and perpetuate. Let's examine this a little more closely.

Crazy James, harped on about living how brands and advertisers were messing around with people, offering them too many messages, compelling them to buy stuff they didn't need and in the end, contributing to this materialistic economy we live in.

Further in the conversation, when we asked him how did he decide on his idea, we learned that one night he was out drinking with American Apparel folks on the West Coast and the next morning, they bought him a bike and  offered to sponsor all his clothes. He also mentioned that everytime he is ready to leave a city and bike to a new one, American Apparel issues a press release for him. He supposedly got his airflights sponsored by Virgin Air and when he met with us, he was living with an editor at Elle Magazine.

When he pointed out the glaring contradictions in what his is preaching and what he practices, he didn't have a suitable response for us. We pointed out that for his rants against materialism, he was the ultimate poster child hawking a clothing brand, a bike brand, an airline and probably other brands we didn't know about.
Again, no convincing argument on his end.

Finally, he did mention that he worked for his food. Why, we asked. Why not get that for free as well? No, he persisted because that's a story for me and then I share it with my readers on my blog.
His website has no blog. And his myspace blog has a few entries and was last updated on Nov 5. Maybe he hasn't eaten since and has no stories?

Our craigslist ad that he responded to had asked for 18 - 21 year olds. It was only after he left and we checked out his myspace page that we realized he was 23. Not that it matters. He did say that he picked up odd jobs to make some cash on the side and our little chat was gonna earn him $20.

Also as he was leaving he invited us to go visit him and his biker buddies in Central Park the next Sunday where they will all be parading around half-naked and clothed only in American Apparel underwear. Is American Apparel paying you to do that for them, we asked. And again, he fumbled really not knowing how to be his own PR agent.

Crazy crazy...James, the poor poster child for misguided brands. If you see as his video ends, he has several other sponsors and from the looks of it, it is a part of some virtual reality show. But if you ask me, it is a virtual show that's already gone very wrong. And I pity the brands associated with it.

Especially American Apparel. I did think AA was one of the leading brands who had a vision and stuck to it. But after this experience, I get it -- I get that AA is just another brand trying just too hard to be cool.

Homeless Man Brand

WSJ has a great article yesterday about the fashionable re-branding of the 'Homeless' brand. A bunch of Beverly Hills kids created a fashion label inspired by a West L.A homeless dude who has been nicknamed "The Crazy Robertson."

The clothing brand is sold in high-end boutiques like Kitson with the Crazy Robertson hoodies selling for as much as $98. John Jermyn aka Crazy Robertson gets 5% of net profits although he  refused to accept cash and instead asked to be paid in food, liquer and paper for his art projects.

I'm not sure where I stand on this particular brand building endeavor. The entrepreneurial kids also set up a MySpace page complete with videos of Jermyn saying, "My name is John Jermyn. Welcome to my myspace.com website."

The whole venture strikes me as funny. But it is fantastic microscopic vignette of the various forms boredom takes and the various solutions we come up with to continue to keep ourselves fascinated.

Amazing, funny ad!

This ad is just too cool to not share!
Go on, have a laugh!

Wilkinson Swords.

Responsible Marketing Case Study

One of the conversations that has been plaguing my mind since a few days is that of responsible marketing.
In this day and age, what is responsible marketing and what actions deem you a responsible marketer?
As a consumer, the answer is easy to point out: Don't pollute my space and if you absolutely have to, keep me entertained while you do that.

A great example is watching TV shows on abc.com. Each 40 minute episode is interspersed  with 30 second commercials, usually all sponsored by the same brand/ company. Each episode packs about 2.5 to 3 minutes worth of opportunities to entertain me and lure me away from the episode into wanting to learn more about your product, or buy it. And the funny thing is, because abc.com has been so nice to make their shows available online, I actually don't really mind the commercial interruptions at all. It's every marketers dream to have their consumer in a state-of-mind where they will not object to advertising, right?

But sadly, I've only seen a few brands do it right. Some companies try to get all funky and cram interactive games within the 30 seconds which frankly, by the time they load, the 30 seconds are done and I'm continuing with my episode. Some marketers have teh same ad play again and again every 30 second. My point - if you have my attention for 3 minutes, atleast don't insult my intelligence by showing me teh same ad. Be innovative, create a story. Entertain me.

Lucky for those brands because I cannot remember the names of those that do it wrong. But I do remember the names of those that did it right. Great example: Sprint.
In 30 seconds, I learn how to sooth a baby, peel an egg, turbo park, make an instant sorbet etc etc
And by lord, I also remember the URL www.waitless.org

The waitless campaign, is subtly branded and superbly executed. They make my 30 seconds of interruption worthwhile, enjoyable and memorable. That's not just great advertising, that's a great example of understanding the consumer's medium and creating an experience that is rich and meaningful for that medium.

That to me is responsible marketing.
PS - It would be better if Sprint made this videos available for sharing. Free the content!

Cultural megalomania

Facebook has become a hot topic of discussion and scholarly study. Since facebook applications platform opened up, there are about 5000+ applications only with no real monetization channels. I have expressed my views before about the facebook applications -- but there's an interesting social awareness that is surfacing in this sphere: almost a sort of cultural megalomania.

People are taking pride in sharing their 'bookshevles," movie interests, virtual gifts, traveled cities and causes. Essentially, all applications that allow them to display their 'cultural worth' or 'cultural currency." I have been guilty of this as well -- having toyed around with each of these applications and then removed them because I got lazy of updating my 'cultural hall of fame' or simply realized that others had more fuller maps and more gifts and more drinks from their friends and that I would just look lame with such a meagre supply of all of the above. It's interesting to me that there is a visual metaphor on facebook for all kinds of cultural behavior people engage in -- and that people are taking pride in & engaging in that sort of cultural bragging where they think of those graphics as trophies and reflections of who they are and what their online worth is.

It is also, a very strong tool for people to control and sometimes manipulate exactly what their online identity will be. I am hard-pressed to say this is new to facebook. It probably started when we first spent hours trying to pick the right email handle, the right icq name, the right AIM name, the right msn name....The handle reflects our personality and it a strong representation of our physical self into a virtual world. Online diaries, livejournals and blogs allowed to portray our virtual handle in the real world -- and supplement it with constant data and feed to promote it, build it further and even, live up to it.

Facebook applications and facebook itself -- by allowing visual and graphical representations of more than one aspect of our intelligent/ the culturally assimilated self, as taken this cultural megalomania to a whole new level.

And that's the extend of thought I've given this right now --
what about you?

Bollywood marketing uses twitter

I had a weird notification on twitter today.

"Saawariya" is following you.

Saawariya is a movie. :-|

As a marketer, twitter marketing is one of the recommendations we often use for clients but I didn't expect bollywood movie markters to be so savvy.

Only, I quit twitter because of such marketing campaigns destroying the network's social stock.

Sigh.

Random musings and Spapps

Part of my frustration with this blog was because it had become a chore to maintain. Let me count, I've got a a facebook life, a dimisnishing orkut life, an email life, a work email life and a real life. It boggles my mind how we can keep a singular identity across all these contexts.

My boss added me on facebook a few weeks ago and I did not accept his invite until very recently -- and I only did so because I was moving to NYC. My friends mother is on facebook and she added me -- now that is a line I just don't want to cross. I politely declined hoping she'd understand that I value my privacy.
These are worlds, I just am not ready to mesh.
***

Now that Google launched Open Social - there's even more talk about applications in general. Developers are having a field-day imagining how they can monetize and retire as happy silicon valley millionnaires. First came the email, the diaries, then the blogs, then the social networks -- apps seem the natural evolution. And they are great, but

--- they make profile cluttered. and ugly.
they are annoying after a while and it gets even more difficult to search for people's walls. I've never used the private messaging (INBOX) function on facebook as vividly as I do now - it's just easier for me to msg them instead of spending time looking through all the crappy apps trying to find where their wall is. And I find grace in the fact that I am not alone.

Danah Boyd made an interesting obeservation over an email thread. She said, I think that the main issue with Apps is that it's clutter clutter clutter and it starts to feel like a new form of spam. Only spam that your friends invite you to."

That's an interesting obeservation, right? I think like splogs - there should be a new word of application spams - spapps maybe? But makes you wonder, exactly the kind of spapps will be unleased once Google's Open Social is unveiled.

I both love and hate the tech industry. For all the innovations, sometimes I think they just make our life more difficult. I hate them for following like a stupid herd, the newest trend in town. And what's really sad is they do it with so much passion and that they really beleive that their silly widget might be the next big thing. Sigh.

Hello NewYork!

Almost overnight, I packed up my bags and moved to New York. (Technically, Jersey City until I find a kickass place in NYC) but yes, I'm in back on this side. Also, I am bored with my blog. Atleast with the way it looks, feels and just comes across. I also don't like that it's still called StyleStation -- when that name, is in all honesty, a little crappy. So tell me, what do you think of this new name that I'm thinking of: Constant Beta.
(It was inspired from a quote by Bruce Nussbuam, Innovation Editor at Business Week)

I'm doing a bunch of fun branding/ advertising/ digital media related things in NYC. Mostly, my time is now spent on a lovely couch at POKE. (www.pokenewyork.com) I've joined this digital think-tank as a Strategist and am working with some very smart people on some very fun projects. You should check out our website and if you keep checking it often, you may see me on the couch. ;) (Go to the site to see what I mean)

I was listing things that I want to do and I havent done yet and I figured that moving to NY was a step in the right direction. For your benefit, here are the other things that I want to do in the coming years:
1) Work in Asia. (In particular, India and Japan)
2) Go to grad school to study economics and social media.

That a good goal for now, what say!?

Using traditional media to advertise an online brand

At the recent Temple Ad-Club speech, one of the students asked us about using traditional media to advertise online/ digital brands. I think it's a brilliant and ironic question by itself. Because you see, you have a whole host of digital media practionners who still write and publish books and then you have a host of online brands that advertise on TV. Even though audiences that consume traditional media are fragmented and perhaps traditional advertising doesn't have as many eye-balls anymore -- it is certainly not dead. And here are two brands that I think are doing it right. chemistry.com and ask.com

I'm not a fan of comemercials that take potshots at their competitors on-air. I think its highly unoriginal and barely creative to do so. But the recent chemistry.com commercials perhaps may change my opinion. Have you seen them?

I've never used dating websites so I don't know if eharmony really rejects people on those grounds. I thought there was a match for everyone... But then, take a look here. Apparently eharmony.com does reject people on unclear grounds. Their reasoning might be very valid - maybe they just don't have the match for them. But chemistry.com -- a new player in the online dating industry, used this criticism of eharmony.com to their advantage. By the way, chemistry.com is owned by match.com -- the industry leader in online dating.

I don't know if it is brilliant or sad - but these ads worked for me. I remembered the new brand, I remembered the commercials (because they are so damn good) and I correctly relayed this to the students 2 weeks after I had seen this ad. This, I think, is a great example of how to use traditional advertising to market to market an online entity.

The goal of sych advertising should be tri-fold:

• Good enough that people remember the brand name/ the dot.com URL
• They remember what the ad was about/ what the brand is about.
• Correctly able to recall the brand and talk to friends about it.

I doubt there is magic formula or the right recipie to achieve all the goals above, BUT --

I think a few elements to doing this teh right way are:

• Establish the sole distinguishing factor from competitor -(without really ridiculing the competitor please- that's just something I am not cool with and would have no respect for a brand that did that.)
• Give audiences the "OMG!" moment. (OMG - taht's funny, OMG - that's cool.. whatever your OMG is) Have you seen the ask.com commericals? My reaction was "OMG - those features are so cool" And I did log on the site to check them out.
• Can you add to this? What other elements worked for you that you think will work for online brands taht want to use traditional media for advertising?

PS - I'm referring to the new ask.com commericals - where all you see are the website features. No annyong man singing and no references to alogorithins or complicated concepts. Just the website - and what it can do for you. I'll post them here when I find them - right now, youtube.com has the old ones.

Social media and college kids

Life has been kind to me. I've met some amazing people who have taken a chance in me and given me the kind of opportunities someone my age can only dream of. And I strongly believe in passing it on . So something I am very passionately involved in is trying to mentor college students. It is a two-way street really -- I pass on what I know and they always end up surprising me.

This past spring, I voluneteered my Sunday evenings and weekday lunches to mentor a few super smart college students that were interested in advertising/ marketing. Rohit Bhargava, VP of Interactive Marketing at Ogilvy PR and his entire team were kind enough to extend us some real juicy assignments to work on. And that's when I really began to pay attention to how college students use the internet. Simply based on my observations, I was a little surprised to learn that most college students are not as social-media savvy as we digital media practioners think them to be.  The most startling discovery was that college kids do not blog. (This is an observation, so if you have a different experience, please share) In hindsight, this doesn't surprise me because when I was in college, I was pretty much the only one blogging among the people I knew. (And it was not so long ago)

Last night, Annie (Social Media Director at GPTMC) and I spoke to bunch of curious college students at Temple Unversity's Student Ad Club. And we both thought it was very interesting out of 20 some students present at the meet, not one blogged. And only a couple read blogs. I have questions about this -- and I'm returning to this group next week to sit with them to really understand how they are using the internet and all it's social application.

Some other observations:

• They didn't use or know of twitter but used the facebook status update very often
• Almost all of them were familiar with perezhilton.com -- or his show.
• They were curious and a common question was, "what do you blog about?"

What do you guys think? Any insights you can share? I'm putting together a survey to learn more about how college students use the internet -- any ideas on what should be in the survey?

Funny ad on facebook

This marketplace listing ad on facebook cracked me up!! You gotta love the panache of college kids.

Ideablob DEMO Video

Ideablob -- and a win at at DEMO!

So I have some very exciting news to share! (www.advanta.com) Advanta Bank Corp - where I work in their Innovation Group, just launched www.ideablob.com at the prestigious DEMO (www.demo.com) conference in San Diego last week.

Advanta is one of the largest issuers of Mastercard credit cards for small business owners. We have been in financial services for over 50 years. For the last four months, our team was frantically pushing through to bring ideablob to life. And in case you didn't know -- it's a huge feat for a bank to have managed this in such a short time. (I've become a quasi-expert on legalese involving the launch of a social network!) It was a not only a fantastic learning experience, but also incredibly gratifying to see how brillaintly our legal, Project management, customer service and innovation teams worked together. Truly a roller-coaster ride!

We had every intention of launching this year, but getting into DEMO motivated us and pushed us further to launch sooner. DEMO only invites about 70 companies from hundreds of applications it receives. And our fantastic team (all members are not pictured above) went and conquered !

I will soon share with you our flickr photo stream, but to give you an idea of how carefully and beautifully the whole launch was orchestrated -- 10 of us from Advanta were at DEMO, each of us had different T-shirts that represented a particular small business industry and we had matching business cards with it. On the first day -- I was the DRAMA QUEEN, representing actors (yepp -- they are a small business) and my business card stated facts about actors. The T-shirts were a delight and we were asked several times if they were for sale! haha...

Anyhow, I'd urge you to check out www.ideablob.com

It's a humble effort from a bank to try to be different and to try to make a difference. We want to build this online community for the give and take of business ideas. We are also awarding $10,000 to the business idea that gains the most votes at the end of each month. Yep - we are talking the talk and walking the walk. As we should be. I'm very proud of my team and the guys at Red Tettermer (www.redtettemer.com) and Seso Media (www.seso.net) who helped us make this possible.

(BTW -- we also won the People's Choice award at Demo. woohooo. Any Demo peeps that chance upon this, do say hello!)

Wired with Geekipedia

I have started enjoying Wired magazine again -- I go through phases with this magazine for some reason. Anyways, this months issue comes with a delicious booklet titled, Geekipedia -- 149 people, places, ideas and trends you need to know NOW.

Sorry for the picture- -taken using the MAC camera. (much easier than using a digital camera!) but, make sure you pick up the booklet!

Also, check out the Humping Dog USB from Courtney's blog -- I love what imagination can do!

my bookshelf - part 1

i buy books - i read magazines :)
i wanted to share my bookshelf with you - i've read *some* books, most are half-read and yes, a few are untouched. my plan is to aim on finishing atleast 2 unread books every month - anyone want to start a virtual bookclub with me? or at the least share their book shelves with me?

How FMCG brands are thinking about the web-experience

I'm always fascinated when everyday brands that you wouldn't usually think twice about (cereal, soap, toothbrush, toothpaste...) especially the Fast-moving-consumer-goods (FMCG) brands make the effort to ensure that they are providing their customers a uniform and unique experience acrosss all channels.

Most FMCG brands don't get it that they have passionate customers too. If they did, would'nt they be doing the same thing that Kashi just did with it's website ?

I associate Kashi with Whole Foods because that's where I buy the cereal. I wouldn't care a lot about my cereal brand having a website, but I would sure google it to just check it out. I would perhaps spend a couple minutes on teh site and then never return. But Kashi's new website works for me on several accounts: 1) I spent more than a couple minutes on it. 2) I returned back to the site and will probably continue to do for as long as Kashi remains one of my favorite cereals.

In addition to becoming an extension of the brand themselves, useful websites like this one, also promise a very unique experience to each individual user. Customers get passionate about their brands - and this passion needs a platform too. Even if it's just for a box of cereals.

I chatted with Rick Webb of the Barbarian Group and he mentioned how he has pitched useful sites like this one to 30 or so clients and had just one taker: Kashi. Kudos to Kashi for being bold enough to break the mold. Webb also mentioned that the site has seen an 80% repeat visitor rate and about 300 people signing up on the site every day. Not bad for a cereal brand, huh?

Planning a trip in the web2.0 generation

I'm taking a short holiday in Puerto Rico in 3 weeks from now and was browsing through the web to learn more about the island. There was no question about not looking for opinions, feedback and suggestions from past travelers and the cardinal rule to any search is - you start at Google.

And lo behold, I stumbled upon this fantastic mini-guide (a downloadable pdf) on TripAdvisor site aptly titled  "Puerto Rico highlights to go."   

It's a gem of a collection of quotes, suggestions and ideas from past travelers - and a great primer for a place I'm only beginning to explore. As I explored the site in further detail, I was pleasantly surprised to find more interesting little tools --all compiled by travelers.

I was able to browse through quick lists prepared by travelers, look through their un-prettified, unvarnished and very real photographs of the island and get a great feel for the hotels and restaurants that have received good reviews.

By providing users with bite-sized information, downloadable guides and real time visuals, TripAdvisor totally warmed me up to the place. Next, was checking out for any available videos on Turnhere.  No luck there, just a  little short film sponsored by Intercontinental Hotels. So we moved on to Travelistic and woah! I got more than my fill of Puerto Rico videos here!

I also spent a good 30 minutes browsing through photographs tagged Puerto Rico on Flickr. 

And then finally, spending some time downloading the right music thanks to tablettunes.com - to get into the mood on the flight to the islands. woah

Finally, I logged on to the AmEx  members website, used my travel miles and booked my flight and the rental car. I suppose the hotel can wait for a bit.

I wonder, I wonder -- how the role of a travel agent will evolve in 5 years? Will they be putting together such multi-media guides from over the web? Not a bad idea, eh?