Power of Social Media for Business

Social Media - is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers (Source - Wikipedia).

Social Media is a very exciting medium offering a lot of ways to you as business owner, to engage the masses in marketing efforts.

For me, the new Web 2.0 acts as a social amplifier. This allows anyone to become a author (blogs), or a journalist or a actor(video) as well. In fact, during the terror attack in Mumbai, one of my friends (very bold I must say) clicked photographs and uploaded them on web even prior to news channels. That is also journalism. With this, one as a business owner has a complete different way of marketing.

The most important step is to leverage the powerful social media sites to your advantage as you get unlimited real estate spaces for free to establish yourself. Create profiles on the major powerhouses like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Myspace and Youtube. All you have to do is participate. You can do this by having your own blog where you post quality content that is useful. Update your blog regularly and distribute them as feeds to your accounts on other major social media sites. My boss does that everyday (emergic.org)! Users can add these feeds and view them in their news reader of choice.

A big mistake that happens many a times is people create these web properties and do not update them or maintain them. (I feel rather ashamed to say but I did that for my blog too). The strongest aspect of social media is its virality, news spreads here with word of mouth. If your offering have value, the best way to market the same is via Social Media !

My Capstone project submission

It was last week... yes pretty much the last week where I submitted my final year capstone project on time. There was a lot to complete, slogging out till the last moment to complete it and just managed to meet the deadline. After all the hard work, was great to hear form my faculty guide "Good work". I hope I real really get something good with the project.

Thinking about excercising since ages...

I am seriously been thinking about exercising since ages but somehow never ever manage to get it into my routine. How does one really enforce this sort of discipline, I am ashamed that I cannot follow one. I do realize the fact that the more consistent the action is, the more likely for it to be a habit, but I am just not been able to get that consistency in place. Hopefully, once I am done with my studies, will get some time for myself and hence can start my work-outs again.

What changes for me after my MBA

I wonder about this many a times and since MBA is close to completion, I have begun to think the same all the more. For me this is not merely a degree that I have achieved but much more than that. I have done good justice in terms of marks every semester but I feel I could have done better justice in terms of knowledge. But of course when I look at myself there has been a significant improvement and a drastic change in me in terms of me handling work, in terms of my contribution to the current workplace, etc. One of the few decisions that I really proud off. Now coming back to what I can plan post my MBA. There are pretty much just two options I have:
1) Get into full time entrepreneurship which has been my passion
2) Continue with my current organization and have it grow and nourish at its best.
Now the question really is "How much risk am I willing to take?". There are pros and cons to both of these really. May be as a exercise, I need to just define all the parameters and put weight age for them, measure this two approaches against these parameters. As friends, please do suggest me too what you guys think?

What is "Forgive" and "Let Go" mean and How?

Yesterday for some reason, Siya was very angry with one of her friends and my suggestion to her was "Siya just let it go and forgive and forget about it". She precisely asked me what does "Forgive" mean? I really was lost and found it difficult to explain her. Decided to give a thought and write about the same today... (Seems like Siya is a big motivation for me to blog everyday :-) )

All of us, in some phase of life has been hurt by another person, we were treated badly, trust was broken, hearts were hurt. Many a times this pain is normal, sometimes that pain lingers for too long. We have a hard time letting go. This causes problems. It not only causes us to be unhappy, but can strain relationships, distract us from work and family and other important things, make us reluctant to open up to new things and people. We get trapped in a cycle of anger and hurt, and miss out on the beauty of life as it happens. Finally, whose loss is that?

We need to learn to let go. We need to be able to forgive, so we can move on and be happy. This is something I learned the hard way. I surely helped me to be happier. Trust me, forgiveness can change your life.

Forgiveness does not mean you erase the past, or forget what has happened. It doesn’t even mean the other person will change his behavior — you cannot control that. All it means is that you are letting go of the anger and pain, and moving on to a better place.

It’s not easy. But you can learn to do it.

If you’re holding onto pain, reliving it, and can’t let go and forgive, try the following:

• I would realize that I am hurt and I would wake up every morning and tell myself that "you need to forget it for your good". I would put in conscious efforts to let it go. I would think about the pros and cons. What problems does this pain cause me? Does it affect my relationship with this person? With others? Does it affect work or family? Does it stop you from pursuing my dreams, or becoming a better person? Does it cause you unhappiness? Think of all these problems, and realize you need to change. Then think of the benefits of forgiveness — how it will make you happier, free you from the past and the pain, improve things with your relationships and life in general.
• I would realize that I have no choice. You cannot control the actions of others, and shouldn’t try. But you can control not only your actions, but your thoughts. You can stop reliving the hurt, and can choose to move on. You have this power. You just need to learn how to exercise it.
• Try this: put yourself in that person’s shoes. Try to understand why the person did what he did. Start from the assumption that the person isn’t a bad person, but just did something wrong. What could he have been thinking, what could have happened to him in the past to make him do what he did? What could he have felt as he did it, and what did he feel afterward? How does he feel now? You aren’t saying what he did is right, but are instead trying to understand and empathize. Try to figure out how you could have been partially responsible for what happened. What could you have done to prevent it, and how can you prevent it from happening next time? This isn’t to say you’re taking all the blame, or taking responsibility away from the other person, but to realize that we are not victims but participants in life.

So, today is my day when I will be trying to explain Siya what is meant by forgiveness. Forgiveness is like buying Happiness for yourself !!!

Is there a better way of explaining her the same? Do let me know.

Doubting yourself ? This is what I do...

Self doubt has been something I’ve struggled with all my life, from debating whether I could be a good mom along with a great career!!! Self doubt also makes me feel alone. Sometimes I think that I am the only person in the universe who suffers from a crisis of confidence, and you wish that I could be more like my neighbor.

When I go through such a phase, this is what I do:

Remember the past: I make sure I first recognize that I am loosing on confidence. The moment I start doubting myself, rather start feeling insecure I start thinking about my achievement in past, how did I overcome all big problems, how did I handle my bosses, etc. That itself make me feel a lot lighter.

Constantly write: I have this bad habit of writing down a lot and all kinds of things from personal to professional to many. When I go through a phase like this, I pick up the oldest book and start reading the same. (Now since I will be blogging regularly, hopefully could read the same)

Spend time with Vipul and Siya: Often, our loved ones can see our lives much more objectively than we can. They act like cheerleader for me and feel much better to just be with them.

Celebrate your successes: For me, every small achievement is a success. I love to dream and dream big!!! That actually gets me going in life. I live my life as if each day is a celebration. You ought to believe that when you wake up in the morning, you are awake to contribute to the world. And hence it is really worth celebration. Many a times I do come across to people as if "I think no end of myself" but that is not true. It is just that if I would not have done this work, it would not have completed and hence I have filled in a gap. Is that not worth celebrating?

Upbringing of a child in today's generation

A few days back, I watched 3 idiots and was truly touched by that movie. It is just so true that life today is nothing but a race. Be it for a kids or be it for professionals. And it is really very sad to see myself being a part of this race. Siya got her report card last week where she managed "Above expectations" everywhere except "Dictation" where she got "Just met the expectation". My instant reaction to that was "I need to work on her dictation". That is just so unfair, how could even I think of the same. Apologies to Siya for the same.

India today needs "Thinkers". We need to get our kids to thinking more. Every child needs to be appreciated for the curiosity they are born with. Most of us will shut them off completely or be reluctant to answer their queries. We need to appreciate the fact that a they are THINKING. That itself will do a lot of wonders in the future.

Even in our professional lives, we have gone made to win a race. We just don't accept the fact that someone can be better than us, we have something to learn from them, we should be happy that we met them else who would have taught us the same. We need to kids all through out our lives where there is no ego, lots of questions and of course lots of thinking for themselves. What we are are thinking most of the times is "How do I beat her/him? How do I win the race?". This is just so wrong, every game has a winner or a looser, the question is how well you played the game and NOT who won....