Why you should be a Clever Thief while Stealing Inspirations

Introduction

It is easy to stand tall by perching on the shoulders of giants. Or being inspired by them, if put politely. A classic can be safely plagiarized since the concept of that classic has been known to all for a long period of time. In such cases, imitation is the greatest form of flattery, and it usually adds to the fame of the author. Shakespeare for example is still being interpreted in both his original and fit-to-suit-modern audience forms, and such a creation is critically and legally blameless. Copying from a recent work that is of some note however is a different proposition altogether.

Success generates followers. A popular idea however recent is emulated, lauded and parodied in original and translation, and is usually received with favor. Artists are requested by the audience to sing that particular song, play that precise shot, write that specific line or dance that particular dance and generally not frowned up on. A work of creation belongs to the creator. His is the concept, the process, the toil and the love that forms an original work. If made for commercial purposes, the idea is bought or leased by a broadcasting company or manufacturing agency and mass produced. The aim is to earn profit, and a section of the gain is due to the creator in the form of royalty or price. An imitation of that work brings the profit to the imitator and thus is a loss of the creator.

What is designing inspirations?

Design is an idea prior to being made flesh. It is a structure of word figure and paper that awaits its making in the real world with cloth, concrete, metal by technicians or engineers or tailors. In case of architecture clever stealing is recognized and acknowledged. The architecture of the Kolkata High Court is a transplantation of the Hall of the Cloth guild in the Belgia town of Ypres. The Taj Mahal is an updated and more sublime version of humayun’s tomb, Rushmore Mountain is a gigantic version of the Baniyan Buddha and the Chicago Sears Tower was successfully copied in the erstwhile World Trade Centre.

Stealing music designing inspirations

In the music industry clever stealing is an open unethical but rarely take action against practice. Commercial Bollywood Movies, for example are famous for their adaptation of foreign music into desi words and faster rhythms. Such songs are generally hits, such as Disco Dancer, Jawani Jaaneman, Pal Pal Har Pal and Jaane Koi. The inspiration is commonly acknowledged if not broadcast by the composer and the entire business is successful to the benefit of all except the original composer.

A band playing at a high school prom will not be castigated for playing Iron Maidens “Dance of Death” but encouraged. But if the band decides to alter the lyrics of the song, keep the tune and market the result commercially, plagiarism will occur. The intellectual right of Iron Maiden would be infringed, protested against, taken to court and penalized. If on the other hand the band decided to amalgamate the aria of “The End” by The doors, the rhythm of “Jesus of Suburbia” and the sentiment of “Fear of the Dark” and manage ot put a credible lyric version of it, it becomes a case of clever stealing.

In the case of apparel manufacture the original design cannot be successfully copied in mass quantity and marketed globally without copies being made by retail boutiques, using less expensive material and charging lower prices. Therefore the original designer or manufacturer creates the aura of exclusivity and uniqueness and relies on the brand consciousness and brand loyalty of the customer.

In the case of weapon design the practice is highly popular, as also in the manufacture of heavy machinery and construction of factories. The INSAS is an updated version of the Belgian FN FAL, the AK 47 has been copied in and out of license by Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and other erstwhile USSR countries. The original design of the bull dozer is now common property, the construction of an escalator public knowledge and the design of the crucible in steel factories a universal common. The layout of a petrochemical plant is according the laws of Physics and Commerce, the structure of a coal mine dependent on geology of terrain and the construction of a hydroelectric power project an engineering initiative where accurate reproduction is not frowned upon.

So we see that you need to be intelligent while stealing designing inspirations so that your design is unique and better than the rest.

How Re-generation Women Are Shaping Their Feminist Future!

Feminism is the radical notion that “Women” are People. An exclusive write up for all the women in this world.

In a world that has so far been dominated by the “stronger” sex, the “weaker” sex has always been looked down upon. Since time immemorial, women’s rights and interests have been suppressed by the male-dominated society. Where on one hand, women are worshipped as Goddesses; on the other hand, they are objectified, sexually exploited, discriminated against and stereotyped.

Gender inequality has been a major issue of concern for all women alike. Why is it that women are only supposed to typically remain in the four walls of the house, while only the ‘men’ of the house shall step out to earn for the family? Why can’t a woman help her man earn for the family, while he help her out in the daily chores of the house? Why is it that women can’t take a stand of their own and speak for themselves?

Feminism is something which seeks to answer these questions and define and establish equal rights for women in all segments- be it political, social or economic. It examines the roles that women play in the society and the importance of upholding the respect and dignity they deserve for it. It also aims to respond to issues such as the social construction of gender among the people at large.

With the passage of time, more and more women are becoming aware of their rights. Feminism supporters’ efforts to help women get what it rightfully theirs- in matters such as law, property, safety, voting- have changed the way women live. Such campaigns have had a huge impact in the West, as women have successfully achieved gender neutrality, equal pay for their work, reproductive rights (such as abortion and contraception) as also the right to own property.

Times have changed, and so have the way women live their lives. They are ready to challenge the male-dominated society and prove to them that they are capable of being independent and can achieve greater success than men can.

Re-generation women are getting actively involved in securing their future with the help of feminist activists. They are taking measures to help women and girl children from domestic violence and child abuse, female infanticide, sexual harassment and torture, child marriage, etc. There has also been a sea of change in the workplace rights of women, with the inclusion of maternity leave and fixed hours of work for women.

Such feminist activists do not belong to only the upper class of people, but also include women from all walks of life, who have been victims of such inequality and would like to help other fellow beings overcome their problems.

Re-generation women are now breaking the traditional barriers of stereotyping that a woman should not work, and should not question her status in the household or society. Today, there are more women who are stepping beyond their threshold and working independently. They are ably managing both work and household, at the same time, protecting themselves from any kind of exploitation in any area. They are emerging as the “stronger sex” of the future, with their feminist views and efforts.

Google Bangs On With Three Most Vital Changes In SEO Landscape

SEO is no longer easy and simpler. New SEO trends have entered the market massively and your responsibilities towards your website has increased. So how is it possible to keep up the pace with such increasing trends?

I can with my experience in SEO have discussed 10 most important changes that you ll witness and which you cannot ignore at any cost, obviously if you want higher rankings.

Panda, Scraper and Farmer Updates

Often Google makes changes in its algorithm but most of the people don’t notice these changes. You probably notice the change only when Google rolled out its Panda or Farmer update.

Google guaranteed that these changes would impact 12-15% of search results, at least in United States. The sites that provided high quality content were awarded because of this and those who were link farm content sites got penalized massively.

The best example here is mahalo.com. This website ranked for more than 30K keywords before the update and only 9K keywords after the Panda update i.e. more than 70%. Before the update mahalo.com ranked with Zealand Air, digg, etc in top 10 and after the update they fell out of top 200 results also.

Also, the Scraper update that entered the market a year later, targeted only the scraper sites. Matt Cutts has always tried to eliminate those sites who copy original content from others or have a poor quality articles written in their sites.

This change was brought in the lime light only to show searchers the fresh and original content rather than the scraped and duplicate content.

Caffeine, Google’s new search index

Google offered the largest number of web content than anyone else can think of with the help of Caffeine which is an SEO change. It allowed more than 45% of fresher results for web searches.

Google confirmed that this was not an algorithm change but a revamped version on the way they index. With the image below you might get a clear cut idea.

We can clearly see that the older index was in the form of layers. So the upper layers were indexed very quickly, but the layers at the bottom took significant time in showing the results. With the help of caffeine, Google can now analyze the web in small batches and it is updated on a regular basis. So basically every new page can be easily added directly to the index. Searchers can now find fresher information much faster and easily.

Unexpected changes in SERP

Caffeine really brought significant changes in the search results. It started offering wider range of content to the searchers. Before caffeine was introduced in the lime light, Google used the standard version of showing results, something like this:

After caffeine was introduced, we get to see something like this:

The best part about this version is that you can change your search focus in whatever way you want depending upon your needs. With so many changes it is really becoming difficult to challenge the game played by Google. Your content needs to be highly optimized in order to get better rankings.

Mayday Update

I don’t know how many of you noticed about this change earlier in 2010. It was not at all a ranking change, but an indexing change. With this update we came to know that sites which are getting less or no traffic, they were also getting indexed. E-commerce websites were effected badly because of this change. These sites have loads of item pages that don’t have enough links going to them and are several clicks away from the home page. Also there was no guarantee of quality content on these pages.

It has been checked that these item pages do not get loads of external links and the content for them are generally taken from the database. The Mayday change helping these pages rank better with at least long tail queries.

Merge Between Yahoo and Bing

The merge between the two happened a while ago, but I believe that the SEO is still the same for each one of them. You create original content with targeted keywords and I can guarantee you, both the search engines will love it equally.

Like Google, Bing also puts higher priority on external links though. Always remember that if there is a crawl error in your code errors, it will prevent Bing from indexing your site.

Advice: If you are targeting Bing, then please make sure that your domain name have keywords in it. Good title tags with appropriate keywords are equally important.

It is important to pay attention on these three vital changes that was done by Google in the year 2010-2011.  Just because Google has the authority of more than 60% of all the searches, it doesn’t mean we should ignore Bing.

It is vital for you to work your way with these changes to get an idea of where your site is heading to?

With the results, obviously, you can determine your higher priorities.

 

Things Advertising Should Learn From PR When It Comes To Social Media

Advertising Vs. Public Relations. I guess since the time I have come into Journalism, I have always learned that both of these terms are considered as Paid Media and Earned Media respectively. Advertising means huge budgets whereas PR means the tiny ones. Its been like a love and hate relationship between the two for decades. Now the question is what is more effective? Among two which of these offers better ROI? How can we work with both of them together? Should they work together?

I believe, Advertising has been the big brother in the league of this tenuous relationship. No matter its a massive budget or any other super bowl Ad campaign or maybe thousands of You-tube views, advertising always seems to receive better attention from an organization’s  point of view. Public Relations, often works better in the back ground. If you have a certain budget cuts, use PR. Want to hire an intern? Easily shift him or her in the PR team.

But now the things seems to be changing. Google being the dominant player in the search engine industry never aired a single  TV ad until last year’s super bowl. Companies now use strategic leaks for their product launches. For the 1st time in 20 years I have seen Pepsi took a back step for the $4M super bowl ad and instead used their $20M into the Pepsi refresh projects all over the world. I mean what was the use of this? Do we call this a beginning or the end of an advertising era?

Of course not. No doubt, Social Media has brought a lot of changes in the advertising industry, no matter old schools likes it or not. Now days advertisers in order to succeed in the competitive world, taking lessons from their PR brethren. I personally believe that a PR person is a better option for using social media instead of any advertising company because its in their ability to maintain and built relationships.

I would like to share some areas where advertising industry can do well if they follow the tracks of Public Relations:

1.) Advertising should be looked as a goal, like a means to an end and not an end itself.  It should focus more on views, friends and tweets rather focusing on sales, revenues and market values. An ad campaign is not successful because it had a millions of You-Tube views, it was successful because it led to larger sales and excessive customer loyalty.

2.) Honesty is the best policy in Advertising. I have always noticed that the trust of consumer  in advertising is low as compared to PR. When it comes to any company, I can trust anyone, other than you. Just create the boastful and deceptive message for the audience and be honest about your strength and ofcourse your weakness too. Suppose something is going wrong, you should tell me why it is going wrong and what are you doing to improve it. And please never gloss about it and put the blame on someone else.

3.) When you are into advertising, always remember that 50% of 10,000 > 1% of 50,000. In advertising there is no restriction for budgets unlike PR. If you just go and produce an ad and hoping to get 1 or 2% returns because of that ad, then I am sorry, I don’t think these things work anymore. In fact, spend more time in crafting messages that would have direct impact on the audience. .

4.) Being Human. No, I am not talking about Salmaan Khan’s charity house. Corporations will never work on the tunes of new networked conversations.

5.) Bring solutions and not problems. Spending millions and showing to your customer that how fantastic your product or customer service is really out of fashion. I ll give you an example here. Virgin America’s budget is far way less than American Airlines. Yet, Virgin America manages  to win in terms of customer service, customer experience and customer satisfaction.

As the years pass by, advertising and PR are bound to work together more and more. Each one of will learn from each other more and more. Without one, the other is incomplete.