Why It Is Important For Any Indian CEO To Blog

An hour from watching the most inspiring and thought provoking movie of recent times namely the ‘Social Network’, that one catch phrase “I am the CEO, Bitch” got me writing on this one. The recent statistics reveal that irrespective of their individual field of education, most of the graduating lads these days are hatching the visions of an Entrepreneur and not the typical 9-5 working types. With the mushrooming of start-ups and Project Financing in almost every sector in India today, the designation of CEO is not only that of status and power but also coupled with the responsibility of building an entrusted brand which would not only be a value addition to the revenue but may even be that spark which launches the product in the first place.

Connecting your Business to Social Media

If you thought that starting or running a successful business requires only Capital, then let me burst your bubble. Obviously it is a nascent fact that any venture requires a principle amount to be invested into it, but that’s just the start. The key to survive the rat-race and leaving an impression is ‘Publicity’ and ‘Marketing’. It does not matter how qualitative or functional your product is, until and unless the same reaches its target audience i.e. the consumers or the end-users and it is this projection that needs to leave an impact. Obviously the B-school Guru’s would suggest you Viral Videos or Catchy Jingles to grab that attention, as they say “Jo Dikhta Hai, Wahi Bikta Hai”, and this is what the Social Media promises to do for you minus the cost incurred for hiring these ad agencies.

It’s not me, It’s Statistics

Nowadays, every major brand has a Facebook Page, a RSS Feed, a Twitter Page and associations with several other social media tools and there are reasons attached to it. The BRAND Fog 2012 CEO Survey states that more than 82% consumers are expected to trust a Company whose CEO is involved in the social media one way or the other and 72% would like to be involved with a company whose values and goals are projected by identified figures of the Company in the Media. Consequently a research by IBM in 2013 witnessed a sharp increase in CEO participation in the Social Media by a raging 16% over-all.

Blog Scores over Tweets

Although a variety of social tools may be available for the CEO’s to create a market for their business, the one that tops my list would be blogging. This concept has more perks that can be listed. For one blogging coupled with social media is the most beneficial combination to generate both customer feedback and ideas as a consequence thereof. For instance if today a CEO writes a blog on a new service or product that they are going to launch or is already in the market, the consumer feedback can help them either better the product or even generate new product suiting the needs of the market- hence it can be classified as a general brainstorming process.

Secondly, blogging is extremely well associated with ‘Branding’ a product, since where the someone as authoritative as the CEO of a Company is out in the public to divulge classified information, it not only shares the vision of the Company but also generates a buzz around the product and services with a name or figure attached to it. But then again do not forget the contacts and the publicity such branding generates which would attract potential investors like bees to honey.

Thirdly, blogging creates a more sensitive connection between a Company and its Consumers as well as attract the best of Employees. It always works for the benefit when people see a face that they can trust, and an ear that is listening to them. Not only does blogging personalize the concept of trading with a human touch but also builds a thread of trust, transparency and faith.

When it’s Wrong?

Though the social tool of blogging holistically achieves everything that is needed to keep your product within the limelight, it needs to be exercised with extreme caution, since one wrong move and the Company can face serious consequences. For instance a CEO once starts blogging cannot be irregular or boring in his approach- he needs to be understanding, patient and most importantly diplomatic. Further a novice CEO can be a complete PR Nightmare if he does not tastes his words before jotting them down.

And although monitoring a CEO’s communication in the social media is extremely crucial, no one likes a rehearsed speech on a diplomatic podium. Let the inner entrepreneur in you communicate with the world at large, humor those money-bags into generating the revenue for you- go ahead and score!

Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai Who’s Next?

It was another regular day in Kolkata, when I was sitting and scrolling through my news-feed when this update popped up “May be they would look for a more TRP sensitive name this time, Damini was just not enough”, as I continued scrolling, I could not find the context as to why the Delhi rape case would suddenly hit the headlines again. The optimistic Indian in me thought may be the judgments are out, the beasts must have been punished – so I Googled, and there it was, staring back at me, another one of us has been raped and this time in the city of Mumbai.

The Connecting Lines

If Rape did not already characterize itself as one of the most heinous crimes that the world has seen, what has recently been “trending” is a series of Gang-Rapes. I use the word “trending” since that is all that makes sense today- every time this offense makes the headlines, we see thousands of tweets, updates, blog posts, discussions, debates, news-hours, candle marches, political stances followed by nothing, absolute nothingness. A month or two later, it is only the family of the victim (the survivor) who makes those uncountable visits to the hospitals, police stations and courts while everybody gets back to “What’s new”, till that sometime in the nooks and corners of the city, our ignorance and in-sensitiveness gets raped again.

Everything that begins need not necessarily ends

2012, early February, the City of Joy saw the shocking revelations of an Anglo-Indian woman- a mother of two being raped at gun-point, more popularly known as the Park-Street Rape. If the system failure was not shameful enough, what followed was a political mud-slinging where the Chief Minister of the State went to the extent of tagging this case as a fake gimmick poised by the opposition and the consequent transfer of Damayanti Sen, the IPS Officer who was diligently solving the case- withered the faith of the common people. So what initially was a rape case, went to the back drop and the political bubble made it to news. Something very similar yet in a far degraded and aggravated form hit the Dilliwaalon ki Dillii on December, 2012.

This one not only crumbled the faith of every women in the country over the administration but promoted a very strong message, “If you are a women, you are not safe anywhere- neither in the mother’s womb nor on this Earth”. The horrors of the Delhi Rape Case did not only restrict itself to the monstrosity of the crime- where a girl interning in Delhi and in the company of a male friend, was repeatedly gang raped in a bus by 6 males- 2 of them being minors plying into the city during the continuance of this Act with the most objectionable items inserted into the private parts of the victim that caused the intestines to burst-but also to the outburst at the India Gate that was to follow.

There was the blame-game- who was to take the brunt- the administration, the laws, the victim, the gender or the society? But what identifies this case was the appointment of the J.S Verma Committee to recommend a far more rigid and stringent legislation related to rape laws by either amending the existing laws or bringing in an entire set of new laws. And just when things looked a bit brighter, there it was- the mockery of the decade- another case of Gang Rape and this time in the City that never sleeps- Mumbai!

The news story involves a journalist (intern) who was gang-raped in Central Mumbai in the compounds of the Shiv-Sakti Milla, and was later admitted in the Jaslok Hospital by the male friend who was accompanying the former for a research piece. Latest news screams the potency of the Mumbai Police that 2 of the 5 criminals has been arrested, while I wonder is the number only 5 or there are more of them out there?

What Causes Rape?

Now, this might sound extremely absurd. How can something possibly act as a cause or a signal that it is okay to rape somebody? Well, there are certain intellectually challenged and sick people out there who believes that not all is the fault of the rapists, may be the victim deserved it? And when and why would she deserve it? Well, it is when a women is dressed provocatively, when she is out on the streets at anytime after 6 p.m., when she is alone and not accompanied by a male friend, when she is drinking, when she is at a discotheque or night-club. And no, the list does not end there, according to the unworthy son of Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, it is when a women is “painted and dented”, According to Asharam Bapu, “it is when the victim does not begs for mercy from her perpetrators by not calling them brother”, According to Sheila Dixit “it is when a girl is out there late at night”.

If these are not enough to amuse you, Mamata Bannerjee has also come up with some solutions, according to her “There is no need to hype certain crimes such as rape, we need to take it more sportingly”, and may be inspired by such line of thought Sunny Leone was not far behind to tweet “Rape, is not an offense, it is surprise sex”– which obviously ended the latter in much more controversy than the former.

So here you go girls, the next time you step out of the house, remember all the above points, and may be, just may be, you could come back home not violated, molested, harassed or worse raped. Because this country even after 67 years of Independence and in spite of numerous laws out there, can do nothing to protect your dignity, they can neither catch your perpetrators nor punish them, they can only give you a “To Do or Not To do List”, but remember exceptions to them always exist.

The Solution

In the last one and half years, I have witnessed several solutions to these atrocious crimes against women, the most common being bringing about more effective laws and smoother functioning structures, it is only the fear of being punished that can act as a major deterrent, another line of thought advocates capital punishment and castration with public hanging, yet another line of thought advocates legalizing prostitution and a more rigid one advocates to follow the to-do list as mentioned above – off-course all of these have their own pro’s and cons.

I am not sure, if any of this is going to change the situation, since over the decades we have just debated but never implemented any of these, and the results are staring at us today right in the eye- it is never going to stop- even rape is going to become a trend. I know this sounds harsh, but after a few weeks, the news articles would suddenly start covering the propaganda of Narendra Modi and the Dip in Dollar, the display pictures in Facebook would change from black dots to smiling faces, even the blogs would start featuring what’s hot, till the point of time- the lightning will strike somewhere again and claim a life- in fact more than that- claim the consciousness and humanity of an entire generation.

So if you ask me, we all commit rapes. Everyday, by sitting and watching and debating and politicizing but never ever implementing and putting into actions any of those. So if you want to change something, change yourself, change your thoughts, change your surroundings- every single effort counts. Remember today its them, tomorrow it can be someone you know and worst it could be you.

Perfect Revenge By The Onions

No the title is not a tagline of any new Hollywood or Bollywood movie but I am talking about onions as a vegetable taking revenge from the Indian market. Onion is one of the basic seasoning that is used in most Indian dishes. Excepting about 1% of the pure vegan Indians, the rest of the nation swears by onions day and night. However, last week the price of this favorite Indian condiment has hit 80 INR per Kg causing mayhem in the ordinary Indian household. In a country where the earning members of a common family get about 100 INR per day, eating onion (from now on) would be counted as a luxury from now onwards.

Price Hike

The wholesale onion market of India which is located at Lasalgaon, Maharashtra has witnessed the highest bid for onion per Kg last week i.e. 24 INR per Kg. This incident has sparked off protests in many parts of the nation and followed by many strange occurrences like looting of a truck that was carrying about 9000 Kgs of onions near Delhi. Such incident of plunder reminds us of the famous Kakori robbery case, where the revolutionary Indian freedom fighters were trying to plunder the British government for buying arms so that they can put up a strong fight against the foreign ruling power.

However, now a slight difference can be noticed. The common people are actually taking recourse of the traditional means of protesting to show their grievances against the exiting government of a democratic republic. The worst part is that, rumor has it that the price is going to increase further in the near future and may touch 100 INR per Kg. Though there is hardly any place left to absorb further shock, but still the general people must prepare themselves for further worsening of the situation. India is one of the largest exporters of onions. But the current scenario has forced the government to take measure to curtail onion export.

The Proposed Reason

Decline in supply of onion from the major onion producing region like Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and other states of the nation has been attributed to unfavorable climatic condition and drought by the Director and other key official of NHRDF. They are of the opinion that by next season when the kharif crops will be harvested, the price of onion will be again slashed. They have also negotiated with the farmers for increasing the area of onion cultivation but still a lot depends on the weather conditions.

The Government’s  Opinion

However, the central government of India has a totally different explanation for the skyrocketing price of onions. They are of the opinion that the explanations given by the wholesalers in Azad Mandi, which is Asia’s largest wholesale market, is absolutely baseless. On the contrary, the crisis in supply is created by them. They are hoarding onions so that the price shoots up and they earn a lot of profit within a short span of time. To stop such illicit activity the government has announced that it would buy onions directly from the wholesale markets of the most thriving onion producing states so that the prices can be brought back to normal.

Politicization of Issue

The general elections being round the corner, the opposing parties are leaving no opportunity to denounce the ruling party and bringing forth its incompetence to the people. The BJP and Congress are campaigning aggressively for the next general election and onion, being an indispensable part of every Indian kitchen, striking this chord has certainly helped in flaring up negative public opinion against the ruling party. The ‘aam janta of India’ whose believe in the existing ruling party is already dwindling, occurrence such as price rise of onion by nearly three times is definitely acting as a last nail in the coffin.

Even if there is no truth in such claims, there is no denying the fact that both the parties are trying their best to utilize the existing situation in their favor and win over the masses. The ruling party has opened up some special shops where onions are sold at a much lesser price, BJP leaders have also adapted the same move to make the most of the situation. Moreover, one BJP leaders have deposited onion for distribution among the common people and another leader of the aforesaid party gifted onions to women who have tied rakhi to their brothers.

This is definitely an archaic strategy adopted by the politicians to win over mass support. But if we turn back the hands of time, we can see that no matter how thoughtless this gimmick might appear, it has played an important role in determining the fate of BJP in the year 1998. However, in between such tussles the hardest hit is the ‘aam janta of India’, with whose emotion the so called ‘educated intellects’, on whom we have entrusted the duty and responsibility of running our country, play to realize their selfish motive. They minds are being continuously manipulated by the ‘Mogambos’ of the nation by hitting them in the worst possible ways and in the worst areas.

All the promises made by them will go in vain once their purpose has been solved. However, human beings cannot survive without trusting and believing in someone. It is the basic nourishment that our mind needs to remain stable and function normally. Therefore, all we can honestly hope for is a better and brighter tomorrow.

Facebook Promotion Is Not Only About Increasing Likes

Only a decade ago the social networking portal of Facebook was launched with the view to make the virtual world come a bit closer, a modern peek-a-boo into someone’s life- a friend, a foe, your boss or even that heart-throb. However since everything in this era of globalization, after a certain point of time is evaluated in terms of their monetary vitality, Facebook sooner or later had to give into it. So it slowly began with that right side of your profile filling up with deals from the e-commerce sites and gradually people tried getting it for free. So, what we had, was a Flipkart version of a Facebook page, where every tom, dick and harry who could not handle a little bit of appreciation over a creative bone in their body a bit sensibly, opened up their own Facebook page!

So from ABC’s profile, we know had ABC’S XYZ Endeavors profile. No, and it did not just stop at that, sometimes sooner I saw someone put up some advertising on the space for their cover picture and hell! someone else wanted to rent out that space. And just when I thought it could not get madder, Facebook just proposed to deliver a message from me to someone completely unknown with whom I did not even have one mutual friend by charging me Rs 21.92! So, just like that within a span of 4 years there was absolutely no basic difference between any e-commerce sites and a social networking site.

That basically got me thinking, what is the whole purpose of using a networking portal as a tool to sell of your products? Why not get it on any normal e-commerce sites? And then it struck me. “Likes”! It is all about likes. Now anybody and everybody who has a Facebook page, would know what a ‘like’ is and no it is not just a smiley. In the present dynamics of the virtual era, this is the tool which has become the ultimate form of external validation. Be it a status, a link, a note or a photograph, until and unless it gets the needful amount of likes ranging on the premises set out by the person updating it, the communication does not make the cut. And if you thought, I was joking, wait for those times when people added on your profile who has never even spoken to you, would just randomly ping you and ask you to favor them by just ‘liking’ their stuffs. For people like me, that might just seem stupid and lame, I mean it’s just a like, but for many out there it is a score board to rate how popular, pretty or socially accepted they are.

Getting back to the promoting read “publicizing stuffs” through Facebook, the pages have taken up this concept of ‘likes’ to work in their favor. Try and search out the pages of any major brands, say Shopper’s Stop or even Maybelline, the first thing that the cover picture is bound to state is “Like Us” or something very similar. Scroll a bit more, and you would actually amazed how the timeline would consist of several offbeat competitions that would require the interested participants to put up one of their pictures wearing an apparel or using a product from the brand, and the one picture with the maximum likes would win some amazing goodie. And not just that, recently during the promotion of Samsung S2, something appeared on my news feed which got the better of me. It actually said that interested participants in order to win a free S2 had to just like the Samsung S2 Page and then share a picture of that phone on their timeline. What?! Yes, that was my reaction, and I was more amazed to see the number of educated people in my profile who actually had followed the exercise.

Well, I don’t know much about what kind of people actually got a S2 free of cost by just liking a page and sharing it, but well Samsung did manage its publicity very smartly, since the phone obviously made it to the news feed of several people within minutes, thanks to the ‘liking’ efforts of hundreds of greedy fans. This made me think, whatever happened to authentic ratings of a product or marketing strategies? Would people in the upcoming years buy a pair of glares or boots, because they actually read up what it can do for them, or based on the number of likes the picture has on Facebook? Is external validation, so important for people that some may just compromise on their personal taste of brands and follow the trend ‘like’ a herd of sheep?

I got extremely close to my answer, when I witnessed a fight in one of such pages, where a winner was announced and someone pointed out that the picture which actually had the maximum likes, was not likes made by real or random people, but by paid people or auto-likes. That is when it dawned on to me, the severity of such a web-tool, where people or brands are actually paying others to just like and consequently promote their page. I was about to conclude that for promotion now, you need not spend those hours at the couches of the advertising agencies or offices of the marketing gurus, open up a god damn page, start off by inviting everybody on your friend list to like that page and bamm!

Customers would just start pouring in. And that is when this amazing thing happened, a friend of mine, pinged me with a review link of a product, I so badly wanted to buy- the facebook page had some 2500+ likes and comments ranging from “I have this” to “This is soo saxxy”, and the review in the link was made by some original certified buyer who labeled it as sophisticated trash. I made my pick, and did something more, posted the same link from the review site as one of the comments in the product page.

Obviously, the administrator of the page blocked me, but I hear I have saved a lot of customers from being fooled, which restored back my faith on humanity. So here it is a nutshell for you- if you want to buy a product or services, please do yourself a favor and do some researches on other sites, rather than blindly deciding on the number of likes/ shares of comments that item has to itself, an if you are selling or promoting a product on Facebook, well use the ‘likes’ to project your product, but do not ignore on the quality- some people still trust referrals, you know?