"Hey do you know Ria's goin out with Rob?" "His status says so!"
"Glad you could make it to the party. I saw you were a maybe!"
"Do not tag me in that pic. pleaaase"
Before 2008 the above would not make sense. But the past year was filled with conversations revolving around social networking. If someone said the World is Flat some years ago. Well guess what? Sites like Facebook were the tipping point taking it to a whole new level.
Back in the days, everyone started a web presence opening yahoo and aim accounts called shoppergirl and NY152. The intention was to have an online presence different from the offline one. So if you were an 22 yr old bespectacled timid introvert. Wallah! stud101 is a 22 yr old hunk who can do 25 sit-ups per minute. Second life took it beyond a facade and gave people the license to create an online version. All this while the undercurrent was to meet new people and possibly make a romantic connection. With it came the evil side of 50 yr old pot bellied guys trying to pass off as teenagers. Online relationships though far and between were mostly viewed with suspicion. One could not for sure say if the other person was being himself or herself.
One fine day myspace emerged and it gave people an avenue to create their homepages. It was as if we just bought a room and we decorated it as per our whims and fancies. The background was dark pink. The prince of darkness played his songs every time someone came. It became a way of expressing our creative side. On the side, it also brought us closer to our online selves. We started putting out what we believed in sans some weird Bot profiles. In addition, there was a new way of connecting with friends and making new ones. Orkut changed things in a way no one had earlier. Everyday after creating a profile, was an anticipated exhilaration of meeting an old friend. Every search was aimed at finding an old crush and suddenly the six degrees of separation became so practical. Facebook started as a way to connect college students but took off where orkut stopped. It started connecting people all over. It changed the game enormously. Having a facebook account was a judgment on your coolness quotient. Gradually, it became an extension of peoples lives.
Now what? Well after being just a frivolous way of connecting people, social networking started approaching real world problems. In 2008, facebook was used like never before imagined. Barrack Obama was running for President. And it was a genius move on his part to use facebook as a means to reach out. And reach out he did. This grassroots effort culminated into Obama winning the presidency. The Events functionality gave users a way of extending invitations to friends for parties and organized events. The old way of RSVP by phone, email or letter was replaced by a click. Photos being uploaded always had a flaw that you could not find yours when you needed em. Well Photo Tag meant that you were at the other end of the spectrum where you did not want friends to tag embarrassing pics. The earlier minuscule feature of having a status is now being used to publicize what is happening in your life right now. This is kind of a blessing for facebook addicts as they can now have everyone know when they hit a home run for the first time....oops did I give myself away?
Whatever future holds for social networking, one thing is certain. Any progress made solves a problem someone faces in the world. First it was people coming out of their introvert ways. Then it was being friends with people all over the world. It moved on to other human problems. Possibly the future holds a solution for more serious problems as finding a solution to world hunger, preventing genocides and averting wars. Here's to wishing the social networking phenomenon reaches this level of sophistication as soon as possible.
Showing posts with label Current Topics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Current Topics. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Reporting From Mumbai on 26/11/2008
As I peer outside my window in Chembur, Mumbai, I can see children play cricket in their school uniforms. The school-break due to the terror attacks has only made their day happier. In a different part of the world children of the same age are being taught that anyone other than their faith are infidels. They are told, "They hate you! And you should hate them back! It is God's will that you join this Jihad. Killing some more innocent people will avenge the atrocities committed on brothers and sisters of your faith".
In the western part of the world, this skirmish is seen as us v/s them. Plans are made to make sure every suspected terrorist is chased. As the whereabouts of such a person is known, there will be air strikes, which will kill one terrorist and possibly create 10 more in the form of kids losing their innocent parents and close ones. In the Indian political establishment, the attack will be followed by condemnation. The Indian opposition will be rightly appalled by the lack of security provided by the present govt. But it will react with demands for resignations from the establishment. They will hardly notice the fact that their actions in the past decade may have been used as fodder for young orphans, who were brainwashed into taking up the road to terror.
While the attacks were taking place, the govt. on the other hand had been busy trying to pin down the opposition leaders in a different violent blast. This would be an attempt to be seen more secular in the coming elections. It will issue a list of all things being done for the security of the common man, when in fact the police are struggling to fight this attack with insufficient training and inadequate equipment. The Railway police were left with ‘lathis’ (sticks) to fight terrorists equipped with Ak-47s. The bulletproof jackets are not bullet proof and the helmets permit an incoming bullet to pass through. In such a scenario, the ruling class is as much to blame for not providing enough to the cops.
A couple of days will go by. Everyone will return to his or her job. The spirit of Mumbai will receive kudos for the back to normalcy in record time. People will say, "They cannot break our spirits". And a large part of us will hope that the next one does not strike our loved ones or us. The Insiders v/s Outsiders battle raging in Mumbai would re-emerge as the most telling issue of our times. The soldiers from both sides of this argument, who have saved each other`s lives after being shot, will go back to throwing stones at each other.
Have we read this script before? Well 10 yrs ago, 5 yrs ago, 2 yrs ago and maybe an yr or 2 from now as well? Something somewhere is amiss. 9/11 was followed by some correct and some incorrect decisions and actions from the US. But the fact that they did not let another attack happen speaks volumes about the kind of measures taken. The actions of Giuliani and Bush post the attacks did project a sense of resolve and calm. The Maharashtra CM, the Maharashtra Home Minister and later the Prime Minister hardly gave anyone a sense of security. Rather than divulging details about how the operation is being carried out, there needed to be more discretion and reassurance. I haven’t seen a single person from the govt. who exudes an inner strength and resolve to be seen as the one leading an effort.
What we need to do after this attack is to learn the right lessons. Who attacked and why are questions best left to the investigating teams. What needs to be done is re-evaluate our readiness to deal with a crisis. Be it a terror attack or Heavy Rains or Earthquakes. Every city needs to have a Crisis management team, which I am sure Mumbai has. But how effective is it? A single person needs to be appointed to deal with a crisis. He/She needs to be the one calling the shots. The govt. spokesperson needs to be given the role of fielding questions from the media and providing censored details about the operation underway. Scared-shit politicians are better left in their toilets. Every news agency needs to have a govt. conduit so that an experienced negotiator rather than a mainstream TV journalist handles an occurrence like a call from the terrorists. The budget allocated to the police force needs to be re-evaluated. A 50,000 strong police force cannot serve a big city like Mumbai. We need more police recruits and possibly a better volunteer force, which comes into action in each neighborhood. The police vans need to be fitted with GPS devices to track down rogue vehicles. Also each vehicle needs to have a bulletproof windscreen. The arms and ammunition used by the police needs to be upgraded big time and there needs to be a review on its condition from time to time.
Hopefully all or some of this gets implemented. As of now all we can do is pray for the safety of hostages, mourn the loss of victims and salute the bravery of our fallen heroes.
In the western part of the world, this skirmish is seen as us v/s them. Plans are made to make sure every suspected terrorist is chased. As the whereabouts of such a person is known, there will be air strikes, which will kill one terrorist and possibly create 10 more in the form of kids losing their innocent parents and close ones. In the Indian political establishment, the attack will be followed by condemnation. The Indian opposition will be rightly appalled by the lack of security provided by the present govt. But it will react with demands for resignations from the establishment. They will hardly notice the fact that their actions in the past decade may have been used as fodder for young orphans, who were brainwashed into taking up the road to terror.
While the attacks were taking place, the govt. on the other hand had been busy trying to pin down the opposition leaders in a different violent blast. This would be an attempt to be seen more secular in the coming elections. It will issue a list of all things being done for the security of the common man, when in fact the police are struggling to fight this attack with insufficient training and inadequate equipment. The Railway police were left with ‘lathis’ (sticks) to fight terrorists equipped with Ak-47s. The bulletproof jackets are not bullet proof and the helmets permit an incoming bullet to pass through. In such a scenario, the ruling class is as much to blame for not providing enough to the cops.
A couple of days will go by. Everyone will return to his or her job. The spirit of Mumbai will receive kudos for the back to normalcy in record time. People will say, "They cannot break our spirits". And a large part of us will hope that the next one does not strike our loved ones or us. The Insiders v/s Outsiders battle raging in Mumbai would re-emerge as the most telling issue of our times. The soldiers from both sides of this argument, who have saved each other`s lives after being shot, will go back to throwing stones at each other.
Have we read this script before? Well 10 yrs ago, 5 yrs ago, 2 yrs ago and maybe an yr or 2 from now as well? Something somewhere is amiss. 9/11 was followed by some correct and some incorrect decisions and actions from the US. But the fact that they did not let another attack happen speaks volumes about the kind of measures taken. The actions of Giuliani and Bush post the attacks did project a sense of resolve and calm. The Maharashtra CM, the Maharashtra Home Minister and later the Prime Minister hardly gave anyone a sense of security. Rather than divulging details about how the operation is being carried out, there needed to be more discretion and reassurance. I haven’t seen a single person from the govt. who exudes an inner strength and resolve to be seen as the one leading an effort.
What we need to do after this attack is to learn the right lessons. Who attacked and why are questions best left to the investigating teams. What needs to be done is re-evaluate our readiness to deal with a crisis. Be it a terror attack or Heavy Rains or Earthquakes. Every city needs to have a Crisis management team, which I am sure Mumbai has. But how effective is it? A single person needs to be appointed to deal with a crisis. He/She needs to be the one calling the shots. The govt. spokesperson needs to be given the role of fielding questions from the media and providing censored details about the operation underway. Scared-shit politicians are better left in their toilets. Every news agency needs to have a govt. conduit so that an experienced negotiator rather than a mainstream TV journalist handles an occurrence like a call from the terrorists. The budget allocated to the police force needs to be re-evaluated. A 50,000 strong police force cannot serve a big city like Mumbai. We need more police recruits and possibly a better volunteer force, which comes into action in each neighborhood. The police vans need to be fitted with GPS devices to track down rogue vehicles. Also each vehicle needs to have a bulletproof windscreen. The arms and ammunition used by the police needs to be upgraded big time and there needs to be a review on its condition from time to time.
Hopefully all or some of this gets implemented. As of now all we can do is pray for the safety of hostages, mourn the loss of victims and salute the bravery of our fallen heroes.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Utopian Investments
All over the world, the stock markets go up and down every day. Every day millions of investors make decisions based on the last quarter numbers of companies. The company stock is rewarded for posting great numbers for a quarter and punished for a single misstep during the quarter. In such a scenario, the company executives more often than not are always in reactionary mode. The "You are as Good as the last Quarter" attitude has permeated down the management chain right from the CEO to the middle management. Somewhere down the line, the companies have moved away from their core value. What has gotten lost on people is the fact that a good company remains that regardless of a bad quarter. It is like treating a crumbled dollar note as waste, due to a belief that it has lost its worth.
The problem is not just limited to the higher echelon of the company. The culture of making a quick buck trickles down to every facet of an organization. Every department is conditioned to spitting out the numbers every single quarter. Decisions are made to salvage the company numbers during a single quarter. Every quarter the employees in sales are under pressure to perform or perish. Every year Department Heads face a decision to grow profits or cut costs, which in real world terms means laying off people. This is probably a necessity in a recessionary economy for the survival of the company or when someone is given a pink slip because of incompetence. But in the long run, it is a foolhardy move to let go of a competent employee.
As a practice, every one in the workforce needs to look beyond short-term goals and look to build a business which is not taken hostage every time it fails in moderation. Traders on the other hand need to grow up and understand that the most money is made in long term holds and not short term Bearish moves. It is during a crisis that good companies need their investors to back them. People or their brokers need to invest in companies which have a good prospect over a period of time rather than run up the price of a company beyond its worth and sell it all at the same time when bad times fall on it. While this may seem Utopian, it still is the only way to prevent such Carthage on Wall Street.
The problem is not just limited to the higher echelon of the company. The culture of making a quick buck trickles down to every facet of an organization. Every department is conditioned to spitting out the numbers every single quarter. Decisions are made to salvage the company numbers during a single quarter. Every quarter the employees in sales are under pressure to perform or perish. Every year Department Heads face a decision to grow profits or cut costs, which in real world terms means laying off people. This is probably a necessity in a recessionary economy for the survival of the company or when someone is given a pink slip because of incompetence. But in the long run, it is a foolhardy move to let go of a competent employee.
As a practice, every one in the workforce needs to look beyond short-term goals and look to build a business which is not taken hostage every time it fails in moderation. Traders on the other hand need to grow up and understand that the most money is made in long term holds and not short term Bearish moves. It is during a crisis that good companies need their investors to back them. People or their brokers need to invest in companies which have a good prospect over a period of time rather than run up the price of a company beyond its worth and sell it all at the same time when bad times fall on it. While this may seem Utopian, it still is the only way to prevent such Carthage on Wall Street.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Politics!!! Phew!!!
Currently looking at the presidential battle in the US makes me compare it to the situation back home. How different is India from the US politically? Is the politics played out better or worse? Is anything different at all?
Politicians, no matter which place they are from, have an innate ability to convince people that trivial inconsequential matters drive their day to day business. In any place with moderates and extremists in equal number, promises made about controversial issues during the elections are more often than not put on the back-burner post-elections. BJP cannot go against the law and build a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya without consensus. Neither can the GOP overturn Roe vs Wade without getting buy-in from people across the table. And even if they do so, well we are not gonna see the basic problems plaguing the respective countries go away.
The one thing I think will help India, is to have a Presidential system. The current parliamentary system acts as a good deterrent to unpopular or partisan policies. But the multi-party system is stifling democracy and giving horse-traders the opportunity to be king-makers. Every election the number of parties in the fray seems to have doubled. As a result, there is no clear path that a ruling party can take to mitigate a coup of sorts midway through its term. Every now and then, there are people like Deve Gowda propped up to the hot seat due to coalition politics rather than their capability. This not only cripples the country's image but also is a big impediment to a stable leadership.
Having said that, its a wonder that a country can exist with so many diverse languages, cultures, mentalities and classes of people. Even so, every political party in India is set-up to celebrate or counter a single thread of these diversities. None of them have embraced a multi-ethnicity mission to celebrate India's diversity. You have Telugu Desam for Andhra Pradesh, Bahujan Samaj Party for Dalits, Shiv Sena for Maharashtrians, J&K National Conference for Jammu Kashmir and the Commmunist Parties for the insane. This has made it very difficult for any new leader to make it to the national scene before he\she is a septuagenarian. Decades go by before the person is popular in the district, state and country. The only way that has changed over time is when there is a generational passing of the Baton from the popular old leader to his/her kin. Initially, I thought its pretty plain and simple in the US: Republicans and Democrats. Well guess not, there is pro-life, pro-choice, liberal, right, center, left, right centrist, libertarian and what not. The only divergence is that the lack of linguistic differences helps politicians transcend geographical boundaries. But, it is still rare for someone non-mainstream to get elected. The one thing that gives India an edge over the US in some way is the lack or weakness of the glass ceiling for women in the political space. India has had women governing various levels of the government, including the highest office.
What I have realized is human beings tend to connect with someone from their clan instantly. Every citizen wants someone with a common thread connecting him or her with the leader he or she elects. For Indians, the leader being Indian is last on the list of commonalities. Ideology has little to do with this decision. People just want someone who looks and acts like they do. Laloo Yadav has made a living out of acting like a village bumpkin all his political life so as to be accepted by his base. In the US as well, people want someone just like them. Its a sin being elite. Why would one want someone with a higher intellectual capability in the most important office in the country? Wouldn't it be better to support someone who knows how to tend to cows or ride horses? Well, people everywhere work the same way I guess.
Politicians, no matter which place they are from, have an innate ability to convince people that trivial inconsequential matters drive their day to day business. In any place with moderates and extremists in equal number, promises made about controversial issues during the elections are more often than not put on the back-burner post-elections. BJP cannot go against the law and build a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya without consensus. Neither can the GOP overturn Roe vs Wade without getting buy-in from people across the table. And even if they do so, well we are not gonna see the basic problems plaguing the respective countries go away.
The one thing I think will help India, is to have a Presidential system. The current parliamentary system acts as a good deterrent to unpopular or partisan policies. But the multi-party system is stifling democracy and giving horse-traders the opportunity to be king-makers. Every election the number of parties in the fray seems to have doubled. As a result, there is no clear path that a ruling party can take to mitigate a coup of sorts midway through its term. Every now and then, there are people like Deve Gowda propped up to the hot seat due to coalition politics rather than their capability. This not only cripples the country's image but also is a big impediment to a stable leadership.
Having said that, its a wonder that a country can exist with so many diverse languages, cultures, mentalities and classes of people. Even so, every political party in India is set-up to celebrate or counter a single thread of these diversities. None of them have embraced a multi-ethnicity mission to celebrate India's diversity. You have Telugu Desam for Andhra Pradesh, Bahujan Samaj Party for Dalits, Shiv Sena for Maharashtrians, J&K National Conference for Jammu Kashmir and the Commmunist Parties for the insane. This has made it very difficult for any new leader to make it to the national scene before he\she is a septuagenarian. Decades go by before the person is popular in the district, state and country. The only way that has changed over time is when there is a generational passing of the Baton from the popular old leader to his/her kin. Initially, I thought its pretty plain and simple in the US: Republicans and Democrats. Well guess not, there is pro-life, pro-choice, liberal, right, center, left, right centrist, libertarian and what not. The only divergence is that the lack of linguistic differences helps politicians transcend geographical boundaries. But, it is still rare for someone non-mainstream to get elected. The one thing that gives India an edge over the US in some way is the lack or weakness of the glass ceiling for women in the political space. India has had women governing various levels of the government, including the highest office.
What I have realized is human beings tend to connect with someone from their clan instantly. Every citizen wants someone with a common thread connecting him or her with the leader he or she elects. For Indians, the leader being Indian is last on the list of commonalities. Ideology has little to do with this decision. People just want someone who looks and acts like they do. Laloo Yadav has made a living out of acting like a village bumpkin all his political life so as to be accepted by his base. In the US as well, people want someone just like them. Its a sin being elite. Why would one want someone with a higher intellectual capability in the most important office in the country? Wouldn't it be better to support someone who knows how to tend to cows or ride horses? Well, people everywhere work the same way I guess.
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